Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

Four

AGATHA Raisin listened to her conscience, which was currently telling her not to have anything further to do with Paul. The rest of her mind was just glad to see him. Not for a moment would she admit to herself that she dreaded loneliness. She prided herself on being a self-sufficient woman. She only knew that she was glad that he was back, glad his wife was in Spain, and glad that the investigation had started up again.

“The problem,” said Paul, “is where to begin.”

“There’s the daughter,” said Agatha. “She lives over at Ancombe. But it’s too soon after her mother’s death to go calling.”

“I wonder when the funeral is,” said Paul. “I’d like to see who turns up for it. Now the daughter didn’t like her mother, so a call from us wouldn’t shock her or upset her. We can just say we’re friends of her mother and that we would like to pay our respects at the funeral.”

“We could do that. I’ll get the phone book.”

“Better if we call in person.”

“I know, but I’ll get the phone book and find out her address.”

Agatha came back after a few minutes. “I’ve written it down. She lives at Four Henry Street. I know Henry Street. It’s in a council estate at the far end of the village.”

“No time like the present. Let’s go.”

“I’d better change.”

“Pity,” he murmured, eyeing her legs.

“Are you a flirt, Paul?”

“Just an appreciative comment.”

Agatha went upstairs and changed into a long summer skirt, remembered him looking at her legs and changed into a short one, thought that might look as if she was giving him a come-on, and changed back into the long skirt, worried that it looked frumpy, and put on a blue linen dress with a medium-length skirt, redid her make-up and finally went downstairs.

“You were ages,” complained Paul. “I nearly went up to look for you.”

“I’m here now,” saw Agatha, reddening slightly under his gaze.

“So let’s go.”

Most of the council houses on the estate had been bought by the residents from the government, and to advertise their new homeowning status, some had added “picture” windows and fake Georgian porticoes. Number Four, unlike its neighbours, had a neglected air. The garden was weedy and the front door and window frames were badly in need of fresh paint.

Paul pressed the bell and then knocked on the door. “I don’t think the bell works,” he said.

The door was opened by a large, bony woman with grey hair. A strong smell of whisky emanated from her and her faded blue eyes were red-rimmed and watery.

“What?” she demanded.

“We were friends of your late mother,” said Paul. “We wondered whether you could tell us the time of the funeral so we could pay our last respects.”

“I don’t know. Ask Harry. He’s in charge of arrangements.”

“Who’s Harry?”

“My brother.”

“Where can we find him?” asked Agatha.

“Oh, come in. I’ll write the address for you. He’s over in Mircester. I haven’t seen him in years.”

They followed her into a dingy living-room. Agatha’s sharp eyes noticed a half-empty whisky bottle and glass behind a chair. Carol went over to a table by the window and began to search among a pile of papers until she found a notebook. “Here it is,” she said, opening it. “ Number Eight-four Paxton Lane.” She scribbled the address on a piece of paper and handed it to Paul.

“When did you last see your mother?” asked Agatha.

“You mean before I found her dead?”

“Yes.”

“The Saturday before that. I always went over on Saturdays, God knows why. All I ever got was a mouthful of abuse. Did Harry go near her? You bet your life he didn’t. Didn’t give a monkey’s for her and yet she leaves it all to him.”

Carol began to cry, tears rolling down her face and cutting channels in the thick make-up she was wearing. They waited in awkward silence until she finally blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “Mother never forgave me for leaving,” she said. “Wanted me to stay there like a slave. Well, I showed her!”

“Were you ever bothered by the hauntings your mother was complaining about?” asked Agatha.

“No. I think she dreamed all that up to try to get me to go back and live there. I feel sick about the whole thing. I’ve got to go to the inquest.”

“When’s that?” asked Paul.

“Mircester Coroner’s Court tomorrow at ten in the morning. How come you’re friends of hers? She didn’t have any friends.”

“We called on her to help lay her ghosts,” said Paul.

“Then you’re fools. There weren’t any ghosts. She was my mother, God rest her soul, but she was a nasty old bitch.”

“So that’s where we’ll go tomorrow,” said Paul. “It’ll be interesting to see who turns up at the coroner’s court.”

“Aren’t we going to see this Harry?”

“He’ll be there tomorrow.”

“But we might not get a chance to speak to him,” said Agatha.

“Maybe he’ll be at work.”

“With his mother so recently dead? Oh, if you’ve got better things to do…”

“Don’t sulk. Let’s go.”

“He’s a lot better off than his sister to live here,” commented Paul when Agatha parked in Paxton Lane. “These little gems of houses are all seventeenth-century.”

“I wish we’d asked her what he worked at, just in case he isn’t at home,” said Agatha.

“Too late now. Come on.”

There were no gardens in front of the houses, only small paved areas, but all were decorated with bright tubs of flowers.

Paul rang the bell. A curtain twitched at the side of the door and then after a few moments, it was opened.

“Mr. Harry Witherspoon?” asked Paul.

“Yes, who are you?”

“We are friends of your mother’s. We would like to pay our respects at the funeral.”

He was surprisingly short in stature, compared to his tall mother and sister. He had thick grey hair and a round face crisscrossed with red veins. A small toothbrush moustache decorated his upper lip. His grey eyes were wary.

“The funeral’s on Friday,” he said. “Saint Edmund’s in Towdey. At eleven o’clock. No flowers.”

Agatha remembered that Towdey was a village near Hebberdon. The door began to close.

“Might we have a word with you?” asked Paul.

The door reluctantly opened. “Come in, but just for a minute. Have to get round to the shop.”

“And what shop’s that?” asked Agatha as they followed him in.

“Mircester Antiques in the Abbey Square.”

The parlour into which he led them was furnished with various pieces of antique furniture. Paul recognized a pretty George III table and a Sheraton cabinet.

Harry did not ask them to sit down. He took a position in front of a marble mantelpiece. “Who exactly are you?”

“I am Paul Chatterton,” said Paul, “and this is Agatha Raisin. We visited your mother to see if we could catch the ghost for her.”

“Oh, that nonsense. She was old, you know, and I think her mind was going. Her death was a mercy in a way.”

“When did you last see her?”

“I dunno. Might have been Christmas.”

“That long,” exclaimed Agatha.

His eyes narrowed.

“I don’t see what I do or when I last saw my mother is any business of yours. Now, if you don’t mind…”

“Not much there,” remarked Paul as they got into the car.

“You know, we’re both assuming it was murder,” said Agatha. “Maybe it was just an accident after all. Let’s go round to police headquarters and see if Bill is in.”

At police headquarters, they were put into an interview room and told to wait. To their surprise, after a long wait two detectives entered, neither of which was Bill.

“Isn’t Bill here?” asked Agatha.

“This is our investigation,” said one. “I am Detective Inspector Runcorn and this is Detective Sergeant Evans. We gather from DS Wong that the pair of you spent a night at Mrs. Witherspoon’s house at Hebberdon to see if you could lay the ghost for her. Is that true?”

“Yes,” said Paul.

Runcorn consulted notes in front of him. “You are Paul Chatterton and you are Mrs. Agatha Raisin?”

They both nodded.

“Okay,” said Runcorn. “I gather you didn’t find any ghosts.”

“That’s right,” said Agatha. “But there was this weird white mist, you know, like dry ice.”

“We’ll start with Mr. Chatterton,” said Runcorn. “Did you think the old woman was gaga?”

“On the contrary,” said Paul. “I thought she was very clear-minded and remarkably fit for her age.”

“Not infirm or tottering in any way?”

Agatha butted in. “Those stairs she’s supposed to have fallen down,” she said eagerly, “they were shallow and well-carpeted.”

“In a minute, Mrs. Raisin. Now, Mr. Chatterton. Were you both there all night?”

Agatha relapsed into a sulky silence.

“I was there longer than Mrs. Raisin,” said Paul.

“Why was that?”

Paul grinned. “Mrs. Raisin had a fright and ran away.”

“What frightened her?”

“I…” began Agatha.

Runcorn held up his hand. “Mr. Chatterton?”

“When the mist began to seep in from under the door, I told Mrs. Raisin to run up the stairs to see if Mrs. Witherspoon was all right. Mrs. Witherspoon appeared in a long night-gown and green face pack. Mrs. Raisin screamed, ran out of the house and into her car and drove home. I had to phone her later and ask her to come back and pick me up.”

The three men laughed heartily, bonding together in that moment in their shared amusement at the idiocy of women.

“And after Mrs. Raisin had left, did anything else happen?”

“No, Mrs. Witherspoon told me to let myself out, that she never wanted to see either of us again. I waited for a bit and then, as I said, I phoned Mrs. Raisin.”

“Interesting, that.”

“What I think…” began Agatha desperately.

Both detectives rose. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Chatterton. We’ll be in touch if we can think of anything else to ask you.”

“Just wait one sodding minute!” howled Agatha Raisin. “I am not the invisible woman. I have solved cases for you before. This is the twenty-first century. How dare you all go on as if I don’t exist and have nothing to contribute? Where is Bill Wong?”

“Lunch break,” said Runcorn. He held the door open for them and as Paul passed him, gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“You weren’t much help,” raged Agatha outside.

“Calm down. You couldn’t really have added anything, could you?”

“I could have asked a lot of useful questions.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, who apart from daughter Carol had a key? Is there any other way into the house? It’s very old. There could be a secret passage.”

“You’re romancing, Agatha.”

“No, I am not!” she howled, causing several passers-by to turn and stare.

“Remember the Roundheads and Cavaliers?” asked Agatha, lowering her voice. “All around us are old places with secret rooms and passages. I remember hearing there was one old place over near Stratford and they discovered when they were lining the chimney that there was a secret room half-way up the inside of the chimney. Also, how much is the house worth? It’s a thatched two-storied cottage, and very roomy inside. It’s got beams and an ingle-nook fireplace in the living-room, all those little features that so delight estate agents.”

“I went through to the kitchen when you went upstairs,” said Paul. “There’s a very large extension been built on to the back of the house.”

“Furthermore,” pursued Agatha, “it really gets my back up when I am ignored because I am a woman.”

“Never mind. Let’s try that awful pub. Bill might be there and you can fire all your questions at him.”

Bill was there, tucking into a plate of greasy egg and chips. Agatha sat down while Paul went to the bar to get them drinks and launched into a bitter tirade about her treatment.

Bill heard her out and then said mildly, “There’s nothing I can do about it, Agatha. It isn’t my case.”

“But you know something about it?”

“Maybe.”

“Who has keys to the house?”

“The daughter. No one else.”

“What about son Harry, who gets everything?”

“He says he doesn’t have a key. When the hauntings started, Mrs. Witherspoon got all the locks changed. She gave a key to Carol, not to Harry.”

“Why?”

“I gather Harry only called round infrequently and phoned before he did so.”

“What’s his financial situation like?”

“They’re looking into that.”

“Oh, are they?” Agatha’s bearlike eyes gleamed. “So they’re not sure about it being an accident?”

“I think they’re just checking out all the possibilities. It’s a quiet time at the moment, otherwise they might not have become so curious.”

“The stairs were shallow and carpeted.”

“I heard that. There’s something else.”

Agatha looked over at the bar. Paul was still busy trying to get the barman’s attention. She suddenly wanted to know a few facts he didn’t.

“What else?”

“She was evidently offered quite a large sum of money for the place, from Arkbuck Hotels.”

“Go on. For a cottage?”

“It’s not only quite a large cottage but there are several acres of ground at the back belonging to Mrs. Witherspoon. I gathered they planned a sort of expensive country retreat with a genuine Tudor cottage front and a new building, faked-up Tudor, at the back. But she turned down their offer.”

“Did she leave a lot of money?”

“She left close to a million pounds, plus stocks and shares.”

“The old bitch!” exclaimed Agatha. “Her poor daughter lives in a run-down council house.”

“Agatha, Agatha. I suppose it’s useless of me to tell you to stop poking your nose into police cases.”

Paul returned with the drinks in time to hear the last remark. “No use at all,” he said cheerfully. “Here’s your drink, Agatha. Bill tell you anything?”

“Not much we didn’t know,” said Agatha.

“I’ve got to get back,” said Bill. “See you.”

“So what did he say?” asked Paul.

Agatha fought a silent war with herself. Why shouldn’t she keep the information to herself and investigate herself, as she had done in previous cases? But he was wearing a sky-blue linen shirt open at the neck, and his silver hair and black eyes were such an alluring combination.

She caved in. “Buy me lunch and I’ll tell you.”

He looked up at the menu on the blackboard.

“No, you don’t,” said Agatha. “Not here!”

He grinned. “All right. There’s a French bistro on the other side of the square that’s supposed to be pretty good. Come on.”

Agatha was hungry but found to her disappointment that the bistro still favoured nouvelle cuisine, tiny amounts of food exquisitely arranged on beds of that vegetable that Agatha so loathed-rocket.

“Stop grumbling,” said Paul, “and tell me what you’ve got.”

Agatha relayed what Bill had told her. “Great!” exclaimed Paul when she had finished. “When we get home we’ll look up the headquarters of this hotel chain and go and see them.”

“Won’t take us long to finish,” said Agatha gloomily. “It’s about a mouthful per course.”

At the end of the meal, Paul blinked a little at the cost of the meal, only glad that they had not had any wine. “You and I are in the wrong jobs, Agatha,” he said as they left the restaurant. “We should open a restaurant and starve the customers at great expense.”

“Bloody French,” muttered Agatha, still hungry.

“You’re a racist, Agatha.”

“Not I. Anyway, the French are about the last race on earth you can insult because they don’t give a damn what anyone says about them.”

Back in Agatha’s cottage in Carsely, Agatha went through the London business directories without finding the headquarters of Arkbuck Hotels. “Try the Internet,” said Paul.

Agatha switched on her computer. After a few moments, she said, “I’ve got them. They’re in Bath.”

“Well, that’s not too far from here. Let’s go.”

When they reached Bath, the terraces of Georgian houses were gleaming white under a darkening sky. The head offices of Arkbuck Hotels were situated in an elegant house in the Royal Crescent.

“Posh,” murmured Paul. “I expected something a bit seedy.”

They walked into the reception area where an efficient grey-haired lady sat behind a Georgian desk, the sort of woman who, before the advent of computers, Agatha thought, could type eighty words a minute on an old Remington.

Paul introduced them and said they were interested in finding out about the bid for Mrs. Witherspoon’s cottage in Hebberdon.

Agatha expected to be told that everyone was busy, but to her surprise the receptionist said, “I think Mr. Perry is free.”

“Who is Mr. Perry?” asked Agatha.

“Our managing director. Wait here.”

She walked up an elegant staircase. Paul studied photographs of the firm’s hotels on the walls of the reception area. “Doesn’t look as if there’s anything sinister about this lot,” he said. “Converted manor-houses, that sort of thing.”

The receptionist came down the staircase again, followed by a leggy secretary, who said, “Come with me. Mr. Perry will see you now.”

The secretary was wearing a very short skirt. Agatha noticed Paul eyeing the long legs walking up the staircase in front of them and felt a stab of jealousy. It just wasn’t fair on middle-aged women. If she eyed up a young man she would be considered a harpy. But a man of the same age, provided he had kept his figure, would never be regarded with the same contempt.

The secretary led them through her office on the first landing and opened a door, ushered them in, and closed it behind them.

Mr. Perry was a man in his fifties with a smooth, glazed face, small grey eyes, and large bushy eyebrows. He was impeccably tailored and he rested his manicured hands on the desk as he rose to meet them. “What can I do to help you?” he asked in an Old Etonian accent, and Agatha’s inferiority complex gave a lurch somewhere in the region of her stomach. She sometimes wondered if it was the inferiority complexes of people like herself that kept the British class system alive and well, rather than any behaviour of the upper classes. I mean, why should she feel inferior?

She realized with a start that Paul had said something and both men were now looking curiously at her. She shut her mouth, which had a distressing tendency to droop open when she was worried about something.

“Agatha?” prompted Paul.

“What?”

“I was just explaining to Mr. Perry the reason for our interest in Mrs. Witherspoon’s cottage. And why don’t you sit down?”

Agatha sat down in a chair facing Mr. Perry.

“What you are really saying,” said Mr. Perry, “is that you believe there’s something fishy about the old woman’s death. You learned we had been trying to buy the house from her and thought, aha, sinister hotel chain will go to any lengths.”

“Something like that,” said Agatha, too taken aback to be anything other than honest. “But that was before we came here. It all seems very respectable.”

He looked amused. “The reason we wanted the place was because of the acreage at the back, and that, combined with the age of the house, made it seem ideal for our purposes.”

“But how did you even know about the place?” asked Agatha. “I mean, you wouldn’t know about that land at the back unless someone had told you.”

“Exactly.”

“So who told you?”

“I don’t remember all the details. I did not approach Mrs. Witherspoon myself. But we’ll have the file somewhere. He pressed a button on the intercom. “Susie, get me the file on…” He looked at Paul. “Name?”

“Ivy Cottage, Bag End, Hebberdon.”

“That’s Ivy Cottage, Bag End, Hebberdon,” said Mr. Perry into the intercom.

Agatha eyed a large glass ashtray on Mr. Perry’s desk. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Not in the slightest. Would you like coffee?”

“Please.”

He pressed the intercom again. “After you’ve found the file, Susie, bring us some coffee.”

“Does she mind that?” asked Agatha curiously.

“Mind what?”

“Being asked to make coffee?”

“Oh, no, we’re a very old-fashioned firm.”

Susie came in and handed her boss a file.

Mr. Perry opened it. “Now, let me see. Ah, yes, we have a letter here. From the son, Harry Witherspoon.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Agatha, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

“We were misled. We were under the impression that it was his to sell. He sent us photographs of the house and grounds.”

“It’s his to sell now,” said Paul.

“I don’t think we would want it. Ah, Susie. Coffee. Excellent. Just put the tray on the table.”

Agatha looked curiously at Mr. Perry’s face. Had he had plastic surgery? He looked up and caught her staring. “I was in a car crash,” he said. “They did quite a good job of my face, but not quite natural, don’t you think?”

Agatha turned red with embarrassment. “Looks fine to me,” she said gruffly. “Why wouldn’t you want the cottage?”

“It would take a great deal of restoration, and a cottage like that is a listed building. I could not see us getting planning permission. It has quite a history. Our man found out about it when he was doing his research. During the Civil War, that is Roundheads and Cavaliers, a certain Cavalier, Sir Geoffrey Lamont, fled the Battle of Worcester and took refuge there. It was rumoured he was carrying a fortune in jewels and gold with him. He did not know that his host, Simon Lovesey, had become a Cromwell sympathizer, and Lovesey betrayed him. Sir Geoffrey was hanged on Tower Hill.”

“And what happened to his fortune?” asked Agatha.

“Nobody seems to know. Shortly after betraying him, Lovesey died of consumption, which was what they called tuberculosis in those days.”

They helped themselves to coffee and talked about the price of houses until Mr. Perry said he had an appointment in a few minutes and so they took their leave.

“Do you think there is buried treasure?” asked Agatha excitedly as they drove back.

“Not for a moment.”

“Oh, you! No romance in your soul. I’d like to search.”

“Well, you can’t. I am not breaking into Ivy Cottage.”

“We might not need to break in. Look, when we go to the funeral, Harry’s bound to have laid on some sort of reception at the house.”

“So?”

“So we join the other mourners and I get the key out of the front door and take it to a locksmiths, nip back and replace the original.”

“I think there’s an easier way,” said Paul. “I’m sure Harry will put the house up for sale as soon as the funeral is over. All we need to do is to wait a few days, find out which estate agent, and say we want to look the house over. In the meantime, it might be an idea to find out more about the history of the house. But don’t go dreaming of buried treasure. If there had been anything, it would have been found ages ago. There might be a secret way into the house.”

“Let’s go and see Mrs. Bloxby and find out if there’s a historical society which might have details about Ivy Cottage,” said Agatha.

“There’s a historical society in Towdey,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Do you know Towdey?”

“I know it’s quite near Hebberdon,” said Agatha, “but I’ve never actually been there.”

“It’s quite big, a bit like Blockley. Used to be a mill town in the eighteenth century. I don’t know who runs the society, but you could drive over there and ask.”

“We’ll do that,” said Agatha. “I suppose we’d best go to the inquest tomorrow. Bound to be a verdict of accidental death.”

But Agatha and Paul were in for a surprise.

The following morning found them both sitting at the back of the coroner’s court in Mircester.

“There’s a jury,” exclaimed Paul.

“Don’t they always have one?” asked Agatha.

“Not always. The coroner summoned a jury, and the very inquest means the police aren’t satisfied about the cause of death.”

“But I thought they always had an inquest when there’s a sudden death and the deceased hadn’t visited their doctor recently.”

“Shhh! Here’s the coroner.”

Agatha stifled a giggle. The coroner looked as if he were dead. He was a tall thin man with a cadaverous face and stooped shoulders. His skin was yellowish and he gave a brief smile to the jury that looked more like a rictus.

The first witness was the policeman who had arrived on the scene at the same time as the ambulance. He said he found the deceased lying at the bottom of the staircase with her head at an awkward angle. She was in her night-clothes. The ambulance arrived at the same time. The body was examined for signs of life. None were found. Mrs. Witherspoon’s daughter had found her mother lying at the foot of the stairs and had summoned the emergency services.

Had the policeman suspected foul play? No, he said. The daughter, Miss Witherspoon, had said her mother suffered from high blood pressure and had probably had a seizure. Mrs. Witherspoon’s doctor, Dr. Firb, had been summoned, but had refused to sign the death certificate.

The next on the witness stand was Dr. Firb. He said that he had refused to sign a death certificate, preferring to wait for the police pathologist’s report. “Did you think the death suspicious?” asked the coroner.

“Not really,” said Dr. Firb. “But the circumstances seemed odd. She was admittedly an elderly lady suffering from high blood pressure, but she was very good about monitoring her blood pressure and taking her pills, and remarkably fit. I could see no signs of a stroke. Her neck appeared to have been broken. I assumed that was because of the fall but I wanted to be sure.”

There were various other questions regarding the late Mrs. Witherspoon’s mental and physical health which the doctor answered at great length while Agatha stifled a yawn. The coroner’s court was hot and dusty. The long Palladian windows looked as if they had not been washed since the eighteenth century and only weak shafts of sunlight penetrated the grime.

Agatha’s eyes began to droop. Soon she was asleep and only woke when Paul nudged her in the ribs an hour later and muttered, “You’re snoring.”

“Eh, what?” said Agatha loudly.

All eyes turned on her and she blushed. Carol Witherspoon was weeping on the stand.

“I do not want to prolong your ordeal,” said the coroner gently. “I understand you went over to see your mother as usual?”

Carol scrubbed her eyes fiercely with a damp handkerchief.

“Yes, I did,” she said loudly. She glared around the courtroom until her red-rimmed eyes focused on her brother, Harry. “And it’s more than he ever did!”

“To whom are you referring?”

“My brother. Harry. Never bothered about her, hardly ever went to see her and she leaves the lot to him! Well, I tell you this. He probably killed her!”

“I understand you are overwrought, Miss Witherspoon, but I would advise you to be careful with what you say.”

A lone reporter from a local paper, who had been yawning on the press bench, straightened up eagerly and began to scribble furiously.

“I’m saying it all looks odd to me,” howled Carol, now beside herself with rage. “His business is on the rocks. Have you found out about that?”

“Remove the witness,” said the coroner.

A policewoman led the enraged Carol away from the witness stand.

“You’ve missed the best bits,” hissed Paul.

The coroner addressed the jury. “You will disregard the accusations of the last witness. You have heard the various reports. It appears that Mrs. Witherspoon, despite her age, was fit and well up until the time of her death. Before that, she had felt herself threatened by mysterious hauntings. The pathologist has stated that the deceased died of a broken neck. This might appear that Mrs. Witherspoon died of a fatal fall down the stairs of her home, Ivy Cottage, in Hebberdon. Nonetheless, there was a black bruise on the front of her neck, commensurate with a sharp blow to that region of the body. The forensic report states that there were no fingerprints on the banister. The steps were thickly carpeted. Had Mrs. Witherspoon fallen, she would surely have clutched at the banisters at some point to try to break her fall. Neither could the forensic team find any marks anywhere on the staircase which might match the fatal wound on her neck. You may retire to consider your verdict.”

The jury took only fifteen minutes to come to their decision. “Murder by person or persons unknown.”

Agatha looked around the court for Harry Witherspoon, but he had disappeared.

“He can’t sell the house now,” whispered Paul. “Not until they find out who did it.”

Back in Carsely, Agatha said, “It’s all so obvious.”

“What is?” asked Paul. “It’s begun to rain and your cats are out in the garden. Will I let them in?”

“Open the door and they’ll come in if they want. They’re odd cats. They like rain. Obvious? I mean, it’s obviously Harry who did it. He must have known he was due to inherit everything. His business is in trouble, Mother is old but looks likely to go on for a good few years.”

“Don’t let it stop us from looking for other suspects.”

“Like who?”

“Percy Fleming.”

“What! The fantasy writer? Why him?”

“Just a thought. Maybe he got carried away with dislike of her and thought he was one of the characters in his books, Thor the Avenger, or something.”

“Wait a bit,” said Agatha. “We’re forgetting the hauntings. I can’t see Harry messing about with dry ice and bumps in the night. Why would he want to drive her out of a valuable property he knew he stood to inherit?”

“Could be he wanted to frighten her to death,” said Paul.

“He knew her. She was his mother. He must have known it wouldn’t be easy to frighten her. I feel restless,” said Agatha. “Let’s have something to eat and drive over to Towdey.” She opened the lid of a large freezer chest and pulled out several frosted packets and tried to scrape the ice of them to see what they were.

“Never mind,” said Paul quickly. He was sure the stuff Agatha was looking at had been in that freezer chest for years. We’ll go now. There’s bound to be someplace in Towdey where we can get a meal. I’ve got a car.”

“I know. The MG.”

“No, I got one for running around.”

The cats came in and wound their wet bodies around Agatha’s legs. “Shut the door before they get out again,” said Agatha. She picked up her handbag. “Let’s go.”

The village of Towdey was buried down in a fold of the Cotswold hills. The sun had come out again and mellow terraces of Georgian houses gleamed in the watery yellow light. Paul’s car, an old Ford Escort, crunched over a mat of straw at the entrance to the village, left there from the days when it had been soaked in disinfectant at the height of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

Paul followed the sign directing them to the centre of the village. “Oh, look,” he said. “There’s a pub and it’s got a menu on a blackboard outside.”

He parked in front of the pub and they both got out and studied the menu. “Whatever happened to cheap village meals?” moaned Agatha. “It’s got things like sea bass and fillet steak at awful prices. I don’t feel like eating a grand meal.”

“Let’s try it anyway,” said Paul. “Maybe they’ve got a bar menu inside with simpler things.”

The pub was Tudor, older than the surrounding eighteenth-century buildings. It was low-beamed and dark inside. A barman with an accent like Inspector Clouseau asked them what they wanted. Paul explained that they wanted a light snack and they were told to go through to the public bar, all with that hard-eyed look and slightly curled lip that the French do so well.

The public bar was across a stone-flagged passage from the lounge bar where the “posh” meals were served.

The lounge bar had been empty but there were a good few people in the public bar. It was a long low room with a bare wooden floor and several tables and chairs. There was no one behind the bar but there was a bell on it with a little sign saying RING FOR SERVICE. Paul rang. Inspector Clouseau appeared.

“Ye-e-es?” he drawled.

“The cheap menu, please,” said Paul, becoming irritated.

A plastic laminated card was handed to him. Paul read out the brief menu: “Cod and chips, lasagne and chips, egg and chips or chicken curry.”

“Prices?” asked Agatha.

“Extraordinary.”

“High?”

“Very high for the junk listed here.”

Paul handed the menu back. “Forget it,” he said.

Clouseau flounced off.

“We’ll get somewhere else later,” said Paul.

“How on earth can they survive?” demanded Agatha angrily as they walked outside. “I mean, the pub isn’t even on the tourist route.” She half turned back. “Maybe it’s a front for something.”

“One case at a time,” said Paul, drawing her away. “Let’s walk along a bit. There might be a shop and we can ask about the historical society.”

They walked along past rows of cottages. There were no gardens at the front but there were climbing roses hanging in front of the doors of some, growing out of tubs.

“There’s a shop,” said Paul. “Towdey Grocery and Post Office.”

But the shop was closed. “Must be half-day.” Paul peered in the window. “Aren’t some British shopkeepers amazing. They seem to have learned nothing from the Asians.”

“Look!” Agatha pointed to one of the cards in the window.

Among cards offering gardening services, baby-sitting, second-hand lawn-mowers, washing machines and bicycles was a neat card headed TOWDEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Underneath was typed: “Roundheads and Cavaliers. Historical discussion on the royalist connections of Towdey in the Seventeenth Century. Meeting: Wednesday evenings at 7:30P.M. in the Church Room.”

“And that’s this evening,” said Paul with satisfaction. “May as well go to our respective homes and get something to eat.”

“He might at least have offered to whip me up an omelette,” grumbled Agatha to her cats as she defrosted a microwave meal and hoped it was something she felt like eating. The frost had been so thick that she could not read the label.

She felt uneasily that they were wasting time going to this historical society. Ten to one, Harry Witherspoon had murdered his mother.