Agatha Raisin and The Murderous Marriage

SEVEN

SUDDENLY the house seemed to be full of people.

Fred Griggs, the policeman; Mrs. Bloxby, with a sweater and trousers pulled on over her pyjamas; John Fletcher, the publican; Mrs. Hardy; and various other villagers.

"You've got Mrs. Hardy here to thank for quick action," said Fred. "She phoned the fire brigade and then ran with buckets of earth to put on the fire. Water don't do much to stop a petrol fire."

"Are you all right, Mrs. Raisin?" Mrs. Hardy's normally bad-tempered face registered concern.

"Bit shaken," said Agatha.

"Who could have done such a thing?"

Agatha shuddered and wrapped her arms closely about herself. "I just don't know."

By the time the police arrived and then Bill Wong, and two other detectives Agatha did not know, the Carsely Ladies' Society had commandeered the kitchen and were making tea for all. Agatha was being fussed over and handed home-made cakes. John Fletcher had brought a case of beer along from the pub and was serving out drinks to the men. James was looking around the crowded cottage in a bemused way and wondering whether to put on some music and make a party of it.

But the police cleared everyone out after having heard a report from the fire chief, and the detectives settled down to interview Agatha and James.

"You've been putting that stick of yours in muddy waters and stirring things up," Bill accused Agatha. "Who did you go to see today?" He glanced at the clock. "Or rather, yesterday."

James flashed Agatha a warning glance, but Agatha said, "Helen Warwick."

"What! That secretary who was having an affair with Sir Desmond Derrington? I told you pair not to interfere!"

James said wearily, "I know you did. But until this murder, or murders, is cleared up, Agatha and I feel we will always be suspects."

"I'll talk to you about that later. Now, who else did you see?"

"No one else yesterday."

"The day before?"

James hesitated. Then he shrugged and said, "Mrs. Comfort had gone off to Spain with her lover, a Basil Morton who lives in Mircester. We went to see what we could find out about him. He's married and his wife hadn't a clue what he was up to, so we left. Then we went to see Mrs. Comfort's ex-husband in Ashton-Le-Walls. He threatened to set the dog on us. End of story."

"And how did you find out about Mr. Comfort? His address? Come to think of it, how did you get the addresses of those other people who were at the health farm?"

Agatha said, "Roy Silver employed a detective to find out about Jimmy. She dug up the addresses for us."

"Name?"

"Can't remember," mumbled Agatha.

"We'll ask Silver."

Agatha looked helplessly at James.

"There's no need to lie, Agatha," said James. "We had a short stay at the health farm, Bill, and while we were there, I had a chance to look at the records. Do you think the rest of the questioning could be left until we've had some sleep? We're both rather shaky."

"All right. But I expect you both at police headquarters as soon as you can manage it."

As Bill Wong drove off with the others, his first thought was, I've a lot to tell Maddie - followed hard by another thought, I'm damned if I will. It was strange they couldn't find the Gore-Appleton woman. And yet there was something nagging at the back of his mind, something someone had said, something very obvious he hadn't thought of doing.

The village carpenter effected temporary repairs, putting up chipboard and a makeshift door the next day while James phoned the insurance company. Mrs. Hardy phoned Agatha and asked if she would 'step next door' for a chat. "I'll see what she wants, James," said Agatha, "and then we'd better get off to Mircester."

Agatha went reluctantly next door. She had taken such a dislike to Mrs. Hardy, and yet the woman had done everything she could to help put out the fire. Not only that, she had saved their lives, thought Agatha. That was a wild exaggeration, when they could both have escaped out of the back door.

But it was a changed Mrs. Hardy who answered the door to her. "Come in, you poor thing," she said. "What a nightmare!"

"Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf." Agatha followed her into the kitchen.

"Coffee?"

"Yes, please."

Mrs. Hardy poured two cups of coffee. They both sat down at the kitchen table.

"I'll come straight to the point." Mrs. Hardy twisted her coffee-cup nervously in her ringed hands. "I decided to settle in the country for peace and quiet. I was finding it all too quiet, but what happened to you last night was frightening, not my idea of excitement. There's a maniac on the loose and I want out of here. I am prepared to take your offer of one hundred and ten thousand pounds."

Agatha had a sudden impulse to say she would make it one hundred and thirty, the sum she had originally offered, but bit it back in time.

"When do you want to settle at the lawyers'?"

"Today, if possible," said Mrs. Hardy.

"Let me see, we're just about to go into Mircester to make our statements. We could go on from there to Cheltenham. What about four o'clock?"

"I'll fix it."

"Tell me," said Agatha curiously, "what is it about Carsely that you don't like, apart from murder and mayhem?"

She gave a little sigh. "I've been very lonely since my husband died. I thought a small village would be a friendly place."

"But it is!" protested Agatha. "Everyone's prepared to be friendly if you just give them a chance."

"But it means going to church and talking to the yokels in the pub and joining some dreadful ladies' society."

"I find them delightful."

"Well, I don't. I like cities. I'll rent in London. I'll put my stuff in storage and take a service flat for a few weeks and look around."

But that remark of Mrs. Hardy's about not being able to make friends had gone straight to Agatha's heart as she remembered her own lonely days before coming to Carsely.

She said, "Why don't you stay? We could be friends."

"That's very kind of you." Mrs. Hardy gave a wry smile. "Don't you want your cottage back?"

"Well, I do, but..."

"Then you shall have it. I'll see you at the lawyers' this afternoon."

"And that was that," said Agatha to James a few minutes later. "So I'll soon be home again. She said as I was leaving that provided all the papers were signed, I can move in in a fortnight."

James felt slightly irritated. A moment before it had seemed that all he wanted out of life was to have his cottage to himself, without Agatha Raisin dribbling cigarette ash over everything. He decided that she ought to look less delighted at the prospect of leaving his home.

"Well, if you're ready," he said, "let's get to police headquarters."

Leaves fluttered down in front of them as they drove off, autumn leaves, dancing and whirling, blown down by a great gusty wind from a sky full of tumbling black, ragged clouds.

The whole countryside was in motion. Showers of nuts pattered on the roof of the car. A woman getting out of a car at the Quarry Garage clutched at her skirts to hold them down. An old newspaper spiralled up and then performed a tumbling hectic dance through the furrows of a brown ploughed field. And somewhere, thought Agatha, crawling around out there is a murderer.

"It must be something to do with that Helen Warwick," she said.

"Don't be ridiculous," snapped James. "Do you mean! she travelled down from London to pour petrol through our 1 letter-box? Why?"

"Because I swear she knows something."

"Oh, really. Then I had better go back and see her."

"Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Very much. I found her a charming woman."

"Men are so blind. She was sly and devious. And mercenary."

"In your jealous opinion, Agatha."

"I'm not jealous of that plump frump. We could have been killed last night."

"Not with a back door to the garden."

"What if we had both been asleep?"

There was no answer to that.

They completed the drive to Mircester in silence.

There were many questions to answer at police headquarters. Detective Inspector Wilkes was in charge of the question- I ing this time, flanked by Bill Wong. Agatha found herself beginning to sweat. She was terrified either she or James would let something slip and Wilkes would know about their bur-glaring.

When it was at last all over and they had signed their statements, Wilkes said severely, "I should charge both of you with obstructing police business. But I'm warning you for the last time. We may seem to you very slow, but we are thor- j ough."

They left feeling chastened. From an upstairs window, Maddie Hurd watched them go. She bit her thumb nail and stared down at them. She had not been invited to join in the interrogation. She had not been asked to do anything further on the case at all. She had been given a series of burglaries to investigate instead. She blamed Bill Wong for turning her superiors against her.

Although Bill had not opened his mouth, her jilting of him had a lot to do with it. Bill Wong was very popular, Maddie was not. Women, even in the police force, were expected to be womanly. Women in the police force were not expected to jilt fellow officers. So, although Chief Inspector Wilkes did not sit down and say, "We don't want Maddie Hurd on the case because of the way she has treated Bill Wong," he had, without even thinking about it, decided she was not the right officer for the job.

Agatha completed the business of buying her cottage back, although conscience prompted her finally to offer PS120,000. She felt she had misjudged Mrs. Hardy, that here was a fellow spirit.

When they were leaving the lawyers', Agatha said impulsively, "Look, there's a dance at the village hall on Saturday evening. Why don't you come with me and James? No, don't refuse right away. I thought I would hate things like that, but they're really rather fun. And it's in a good cause. We're raising money for Cancer Relief."

Mrs. Hardy gave a weak smile. All her aggression seemed k to have left her. "Well, maybe..." she said hesitantly. "That's the thing. Think about it." Agatha waved goodbye and headed off to the car, where James was waiting for her.

"Well, that's that," she said cheerfully. "Do you know, she's not that bad? I've asked her to come to the dance with us on Saturday."

James groaned. "I didn't know we were going'. 'Of course we are. What would a village dance be without us?"

Agatha put on a chiffon evening blouse and black velvet skirt for the dance on Saturday, wishing the days of proper evening gowns even for a village hop were not gone forever. Full evening dress was glamorous. She was regretting her decision to 'mother' Mrs. Hardy at the dance. And yet surely the: was no one in the village to catch James's wandering eye. An he did have a wandering eye, witness his interest in Helen Warwick.

He must have meant something hopeful by that 'Give me time'. Perhaps they could go away together to northern Cyprus just for a holiday. It wouldn't need to be a honeymoon. She sat at her dressing-table, a lipstick half-way to her mouth, her eyes unfocused by dreams as she imagined them walking along the beach together, talking.

Then she gave a shrug and, leaning forward, applied the lipstick with a careful hand. The dream James always talked so well, always said all those delightful things she longed to hear. The real James would probably talk about books or the political situation. She stood up. Her skirt was loose at the waist. No thanks to that brief stay at the health farm. It was a result of living with James and eating James's carefully prepared meals - no fries, no puddings. There was no incentive either to snack before meals because she still felt obliged to ask him for everything, and it was easier not to eat anything between meals than to request something and maybe be damned as a glutton. Her face was thinner and her skin clear. I could pass for forty - maybe, thought Agatha.

When they collected Mrs. Hardy and they began to walk towards the village hall, Agatha glanced sideways at her and thought she might at least have made some effort with her dress. Mrs. Hardy was wearing a rather baggy green tweed skirt and a black shirt blouse under a raincoat.

"I don't think this is a very good idea," said Mrs. Hardy. "I don't like dancing."

"Stay for a bit and have a drink," urged Agatha, "and then, if you still don't like it, you can go home."

Light was streaming out of the village hall and they could hear the jolly umpty-tumpty sound of the village band. "It'll be old-fashioned dancing tonight, not a disco," said Agatha. "No heavy metal."

"You mean 'Pride of Erin' and the military two-step, things like that?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I can do those," said Mrs. Hardy. "I didn't know anyone did those sort of dances these days. I thought they just took ecstasy pills and threw themselves about like dervishes."

They left their coats in the temporary cloakroom manned, or 'womanned', by old Mrs. Boggle. "That'll be fifty pee each," said Mrs. Boggle, "and hang your own coats up."

"It's the first time I've ever been charged for a cloakroom ticket at the village hall," said Agatha suspiciously.

"You don't think I'm going to do this for nothing," grumbled Mrs. Boggle.

James paid the money and then led them both into the village hall. "The next dance is a Canadian barn dance," announced the MC, vicar Alf Bloxby.

James turned to Mrs. Hardy. "Care to try?"

"I don't know..."

"Oh, go on," said Agatha, determined to be charitable and reminding herself that she would soon be moving back into her old home.

James and Mrs. Hardy took the floor. Agatha moved over to the bar, where the publican, John Fletcher, was working, having left his wife and son to manage the pub. "Gin and tonic, John," said Agatha.

"Right you are. How's that murder investigation going? They caught anyone?"

Agatha shook her head.

"It's odd, isn't it? And then the murder of that poor woman in the cinema. Mind you, the police don't think nc that the two murders are related."

"Since when?"

"I dunno. Fred Griggs was saying something like that the other day."

He turned away to serve someone else.

Agatha found Mrs. Bloxby next to her. "Mrs. Hardy appears to have come out of her shell," said the vicar's wife.

Agatha turned round and surveyed the dance floor. Mrs Hardy was dancing with unexpected grace. She was laughing at something James was saying.

"And if I am not mistaken, that's quite a flirtatious look in her eyes. Not," added Mrs. Bloxby hurriedly, "that she is any competition. You are looking remarkably trim and well these days."

"Must be James's cooking," said Agatha. "We brought along Mrs. Hardy to cheer her up. I only hope now she doesn't cheer up too much or she will decide to stay."

"But you have your cottage back?"

"Yes, everything's signed and agreed on."

"In that case, she can do nothing about it."

"I hope James is not going to get carried away by my good Samaritan act," said Agatha. "If he asks her for the next dance, I'll murder her...oh, dear, how easily one says things like that. I don't think we're ever going to find out who murdered Jimmy."

"Let's sit over there in the corner, away from the noise of the band, and you can tell me about it," said Mrs. Bloxby.

Agatha hesitated. The dance had finished. But James was asking Miss Simms for the next dance.

"Okay," she said. They carried their drinks over to a; couple of chairs in a corner of the hall.

"I think a lot of it you already know," began Agatha. "Jimmy, and possibly this Mrs. Gore-Appleton, who ran a dicey charity, stayed at a health farm, found out what they could, and blackmailed some of the other guests. I believe one of them murdered him." She went on to describe all their investigations.

Mrs. Bloxby listened carefully and then she said, "I would think the most likely suspect would be Mrs. Gore-Appleton herself."

"But they were in it together!"

"Exactly. But Jimmy went back on the booze and down to the gutter. But he surfaced for long enough to get cleaned up for your wedding. So, say, before that he had some stage where he was relatively sober and needed money. Why should he not seek out his old protector? And think of this. Let's say she wants nothing more to do with him - her miraculous cured alcoholic isn't cured. So she tries to send him packing. But Jimmy has a taste for blackmail, and as he was close to her at one time, he must have known about the fraudulent charity. He knows the police are looking for her. So he says something like, 'Pay up or I'll tell them where you are'? Wait a bit. It could be just before he came down here. He says he's going to be in Carsley. She follows him and waits for the right moment, and what better moment is there than when he is hopelessly drunk and has just had a row with his wife?"

Agatha looked at her open-mouthed and then said, "That's all so very simple, it could well be what happened. But surely the police can find this woman, with all their resources and all."

"She could have changed her name."

"That might be an idea. I wonder if they've checked the Records Office to see if a Mrs. Gore-Appleton changed her name to anything else. Damn, they're bound to have done that."

"She was and still is a criminal, Agatha. She could easily get false papers. Apart from her, have you come across anyone during your investigations who might be a murderer or murderess?"

"It could be any of them. Those men's footprints near the body could be a blind. I have a gut feeling it's some woman. That secretary, Helen Warwick, I don't trust her at all."

"It would take some strength to strangle a man."

"Mrs. Comfort said something odd about Mrs. Gore-; Appleton. She said she looked like a man."

"So she could be a he, pretending to be a woman?"

"I suppose anything's possible."

"There you are," said James. "Dance, Agatha?"

"Sit down a moment," said Agatha. "Mrs. Bloxby's got some ideas." By the time Mrs. Bloxby had finished outlining them, her husband was announcing a ladies' choice, and to Agatha's dismay, Mrs. Hardy came up and tapped James on the shoulder and marched him off rather like a military policeman arresting a deserter.

"I wish that woman would go back in her shell," muttered Agatha. She was beginning to have that old feeling of being a wallflower, Then she remembered it was a ladies' choice and asked one of the farmers for a dance.

Mrs. Bloxby watched her and reflected that Agatha was looking almost pretty. Her eyes were too small and her figure, however slimmed down, always appeared a bit stocky, but she had excellent legs and her brown hair shone with health.

Agatha began to forget about murder and enjoyed the evening. James asked her for the next dance and then they moved to the bar for some companionable drinks. Mrs. Hardy was on her feet for every dance, her face flushed, her eyes shining.

"Who would have thought that nasty old bat would turn out to be so nice, if you know what I mean," said Agatha.

The village dance ended as usual at midnight. They said their good-nights, Agatha noticing that old Mrs. Boggle, having collected the money, had cleared off, leaving all the coats unguarded.

They walked home, Mrs. Hardy hanging on to James's arm, much to Agatha's irritation, and saying what a good evening it had been. They were just rounding the corner of Lilac Lane when a dark figure detached itself from the thicker blackness of the bushes.

In the dim light from the moon above, they saw with horror that a man was confronting them, a masked man who was holding a pistol.

"This is a warning," he grated. "Bug out. And just to make sure you know I mean business..."

The pistol was lowered to point at Agatha's legs.

For one split second they stood paralysed, then Mrs. Hardy's foot shot out like that of a karate expert and she kicked the gun out of the man's hand. He turned and fled. Mrs. Hardy went plunging after him, but tripped and fell headlong, blocking James's pursuit. He tripped over her and sprawled in the lane.

Agatha found her voice and began to scream for help.

More police interviews. Agatha, white and shaking, was somehow more upset to learn that the gun was a replica. Mrs. Hardy was told she had been very brave but very foolish. It could have been a real gun.

"Where did you learn to kick like that?" asked Bill Wong.

Mrs. Hardy laughed. "From those Kung Fu films on television. I suppose it was a silly thing to do - it was just an accident that I managed to kick the gun out of his hand."

"Remember," cautioned Bill, "that if that gun had been real and had been loaded, it could have gone off."

"Well, I think she was very brave," said Agatha, clutching a cup of hot sweet tea.

While James and Mrs. Hardy were being questioned again - what had the man's voice sounded like, what height, clothes? - Agatha began to think of Helen Warwick. They had gone to see Helen and then James's house had been set on fire, and now this.

There must be some connection.

But when the police had left to join the milling hordes of other police combing the area - armed police, police with dogs, and police with helicopters - and when Mrs. Hardy had finally gone to her cottage, Agatha broached her suspicions of Helen Warwick to James. He shrugged and said, "That's ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous!" cried Agatha.

"You've had a bad fright," said James soothingly. "I've got to go to London tomorrow to see an old friend. I suggest you have a day in bed to recover. No, not another word. You're not in a fit state to think properly."

Agatha awoke at nine to find the cottage empty and James's car gone. She was suddenly angry. Damn it, she would go to London herself and ask Roy Silver if he had found out anything else from that detective.

The doorbell rang. She ran to answer it, hoping James had come back. But it was the vicar's wife who stood on the step.

"Oh, Mrs. Bloxby. Come in. I was just about to leave for London."

"I keep telling you to call me Margaret. And shouldn't you be resting?"

"Have they caught anyone?" asked Agatha over her shoulder as she led the way through to the kitchen.

"Not a sign. They're still searching. The woods above the village are full of men and dogs. Was the man wearing gloves?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Well, fingerprints."

Agatha seized the coffee-jug from the machine. Her hand suddenly shook and she dropped the coffee-jug, which did not break but bounced across the floor, spreading coffee and spattering the cupboards. Agatha sat down and burst into tears.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Bloxby, guiding her to the table. "You just sit down there and I'll clean up this mess."

"J-James is so-so persnickety," sobbed Agatha. "He'll be furious."

"By the time I've finished," said the vicar's wife, taking off her coat, "he won't know anything has happened."

She opened the cupboard under the sink and took out cleaning materials and a floor-cloth. While Agatha sniffed dismally into a handkerchief, Mrs. Bloxby worked calmly and efficiently. Then she put on the kettle, saying, "I think tea would be better for you. Your nerves are bad enough. I am surprised James has left. Why?"

"He said he had to see an old friend." Agatha, who had temporarily got a grip on herself, found she was beginning to cry again. "But I don't think he's gone to see any old friend, I think he's gone to see that murderess, Helen Warwick."

"I'll make us a cup of tea and you can tell me about it."

When they were both seated at the table, Agatha described the visit to Helen Warwick and how, after that visit, someone had tried to burn them to death, and then, last night, the masked man had been about to shoot her in the legs if Mrs. Hardy had not kicked the gun out of his hand.

"I heard about that last night. Very brave of Mrs. Hardy. But it all goes to show, Agatha, that your Christian act in taking her to the village dance had its reward. It always reinforces my belief in the fundamental goodness of people in the way that a little bit of kindness engenders such a reward."

Agatha managed a watery smile. "Doesn't seem to work with the Boggles."

"Oh, them, well...There is always an exception. But surely James's interest in Helen Warwick is simply to do with the case?"

"James has quite dreadful taste in women," said Agatha gloomily. "Remember Mary Fortune?" Mary Fortune, a divorcee who had been murdered, had enjoyed a brief affair with James before her death.

"You were away then," pointed out Mrs. Bloxby. "Have there been any reporters, asking questions?"

"About the attempted shooting? No. I think the police want the press out of their hair and that they have somehow managed to keep it quiet for the moment. The villagers are tired of the press as well, so none of them is going to phone up a newspaper. I'll go to London and see if Roy Silver has found out anything. I've something in mind. I may stay the night. I'd best leave a note for James."

"Hadn't you better stick around? The police will surely be back to see you."

"They can talk to the Hardy woman. I want a change of scene anyway."

"I do feel you should take care, Agatha. Someone appears to be more afraid of your investigations than they are of the police."

"I'm beginning to think that someone is mad. Look, it was a man who held us up last night. Mrs. Comfort said something about Mrs. Gore-Appleton looking like a man. Perhaps there never was a Mrs. Gore-Appleton. Perhaps there was a Mr. Gore-Appleton. Perhaps some man pretended to be a woman as part of that charity scam."

"I still think you should stay here and rest, Agatha."

"No, I'm going. I'll feel better once I'm out of the village." But Agatha forgot to leave a note for James.

But once she reached London, Agatha found herself driving towards Kensington, to the Gloucester Road. She had to reassure herself that James had really gone to see a friend and that the friend wasn't Helen Warwick. As she drove along the Gloucester Road towards the block of flats, she kept looking at the parked cars. Of course, James could be parked anywhere. It was difficult to find a parking-place in Kensington at the best of times. His car could be tucked away in Cromwell Gardens or Emperor's Gate or somewhere she could not see it. But suddenly, there it was, on a meter, a few yards from Helen's building. And as a final nail in Agatha's coffin, there, just leaving the flats, came James and Helen, laughing and talking like old friends. The car behind Agatha, who had been driving at about five miles an hour, hooted impatiently. Agatha speeded up. She longed to turn the car around, catch up with them and hurl abuse at James from the window.

But she drove along Palace Gate instead, made a left at Kensington Gardens and headed over to the City.

Roy was in his office. He backed away behind his desk when he saw the grim look on Agatha's face. "What have you been up to, sweetie?"

Agatha told him all about the fire, the attempted shooting, and their investigations. Roy visibly relaxed, assuming that all this mayhem was the reason for Agatha's angry face and not anything to do with himself.

"Perhaps it's that Hardy woman after all," he said when Agatha had finished. "She turned up out of nowhere to live in Carsely. What if she's really Mrs. Gore-Appleton? I mean, coincidences happen the whole time. Lots of people move to the Cotswolds and find themselves living next to someone they've been trying to avoid all their lives. So how's this? She takes your cottage. The fact that your name is Raisin and you're probably Jimmy's wife amuses her. It's not all that usual a name. She knows about your proposed wedding to James but thinks you must be divorced. Jimmy may not even have mentioned you. Then, in his fumbling, drunken wanderings, he runs into her, recognizes her as his old buddy and tries to put the screws on her. She bumps him off. Then she goes to that cinema in Mircester and there, in the cinema, she sees Miss Purvey and, what is worse, Miss Purvey sees her, so Miss Purvey must be silenced...

"Now she's running scared. She tries to burn the pair of you to death, but some neighbour starts screaming, 'Fire!' and she sees your light upstairs and hears you shouting, 'James!' or something and decides, as you are not going to die, she'd better start heaving buckets of earth around to make sure she's not suspected. Then she thinks up a scheme to throw you off the scent. She hires some actor or villain to stage that hold-up and give you a fright and at the same time she can figure as the heroine of the piece, and who's going to suspect a heroine?"

"That's very clever, Roy, and I wish it could stand up, but the fact is James and I went into her cottage - I've still got the keys - and we went through her papers and she is exactly who she says she is."

"Damn."

"Your detective seems to have a touch with the down-and-outs that the police lack."

"The problem with Iris is that she's very busy at the moment. She's overworked. She's got at least a couple of battered wives on her books."

"See if you can get her. I'll pay her." Agatha walked to the window and stared out unseeing at the jumble of City roofs and spires.

Then she swung round. "I know, we'll go and see what we can find out."

"We, Paleface? I've a job to do here, remember?"

The door opened and Bunty, Agatha's former secretary, popped her head round the door. "Oh, hallo, Mrs. R. Roy, Mr. Wilson wants to see you."

"I'll wait for you," said Agatha.

Roy went off, straightening his garish tie and wondering whether it was too gaudy for a rising young executive.

Mr. Wilson surveyed Roy for a few moments and then said, "You've got the Raisin woman there."

"Just dropped by for a chat."

"That one never drops by for a chat. What does she want? To wring your neck for having buggered up her love-life?"

"No, she wants my help. She's crazy. She wants us to go among the down-and-outs and find out more about her husband's background."

"Then do it."

"What?"

"I said, do it. Agatha Raisin may be the nastiest, most ball-breaking woman I have ever come across, but she's the best PR in the business and I would like her on the payroll. I want you to be very nice to her. I want you to point out to her that since she retired, her life has been nothing but stress and murder down in that village. Hint that there's a good amount of money to be made. Put her in your debt."

"But I've got a meeting with Allied Soaps this afternoon."

"Patterson can take that. Off with you, and keep the old girl sweet."

Roy trailed miserably back to his office. Allied Soaps was an important account and Patterson would dearly like to get his hands on it. Life just wasn't fair.

He opened the door of his office and pinned a resolute smile on his face. "Guess what? I've got a slow day, so we can go."

Agatha looked at him suspiciously. "What did Wilson want with you? Not trying to get me back on the payroll?"

"No, no." Roy knew that if he told Agatha that was the only reason he was going to help her, it would alienate her for all time.

"Well, we'd better get some old clothes and look the part."

"Do we have to dress up?"

"Don't worry. I'll go and find the right stuff. See you back here in about an hour."

Some time later, two shabby individuals stood outside Ped-mans in Cheapside and tried to flag down a cab. Agatha had gone to an Oxfam shop for the clothes they were now wearing. Roy was dressed in jeans which Agatha had ripped at the knees for him, a denim shirt, and an old tweed jacket. Agatha was wearing a long floral skirt and two lumpy cardigans over j a blouse and carrying various plastic bags. Both stank of j methylated spirits, Agatha having doused their clothes liberally in the stuff. She had also dirtied their faces.

"This is no good," said Roy as the third empty cab sailed by them without stopping. Agatha went back into Pedmans and hailed the commissionaire.

"What d'ye want?" he growled.

"It's me, Agatha Raisin," she snapped. "Get out there and get a cab for me."

The commissionaire, who loathed Agatha, stared down at her, a smile breaking across his face. So the old bag had fallen on hard times. Let her get her own bloody cab.

"Shove off," he said. "We don't want the likes of you in here."

Agatha opened her mouth to blast him, but a quiet voice behind the commissionaire said, "Jock, get Mrs. Raisin a cab, and hop to it."

Mr. Wilson stood there. "Going off to a fancy dress party, Mrs. Raisin?"

"That's it," said Agatha.

Jock ran out into the street and flagged down a cab, and with his face averted held the door open for Agatha and Roy. Agatha pressed something into his hand. He touched his hat. The cab rolled off. Jock opened his hand. A penny! He hurled it into the gutter and stumped back inside.

"You haven't brought your handbag?" asked Roy.

"No, I left it with your secretary. It's in her desk. You left your wallet, I hope?"

"Yes, but who's paying for this cab?"

"You are!"

"But I left all my money behind!"

"So did 1.1 mean, I've got about a pound in change, but that won't pay for this cab to Waterloo."

"What are we going to do?" wailed Roy. "Of all the stupid - "

"Let's just hope it's not one of those cabs where they lock the doors." The cab slowed and stopped at traffic lights.

"Now!" said Agatha.

She wrenched open the door and, followed by Roy, dived out into the street, pursued by the outraged howls of the cabby.

"You can still run," panted Roy when they finally came to a halt. Agatha clutched her side. "I've got a pain. I really must get back into condition."

They started to walk, an aroma of methylated spirits floating out from them. "I think we had better do some begging," said Agatha, stopping in the middle of London Bridge.

"We don't look appealing enough. We need a dog or a child."

"We haven't got one. Can't you sing or something?"

"Nobody would hear a note with this traffic noise. Beg- i gars who get money are either pathetic or threatening."

"Okay." Agatha stepped in front of a business man and held out her hand. "Money for food," she said. "Or else."

He stopped and looked her up and down.

"Or else what?"

"Or else I'll hit you with my bottle."

"Get lost, or I'll call the police, you scum. It's layabouts like you that are bringing this country to its knees. You're too old to work, but you should get your son to support you."

Roy giggled maliciously.

The business man appealed to the passers-by. "Can you believe this? They're demanding money with menaces."

"Come on, Aggie," pleaded Roy, getting frightened, as a crowd started to collect. "Police!" a woman started to shout. "Police!"

They took to their heels and ran again, thumping their way over the bridge until they had left the crowd behind.

"All this running, birdbrain," snarled Agatha. "We should have run back to the office and got some money."

"Not far now," said Roy. "Let's get it over with."

Dusk was falling. The roar of the going-home traffic drummed in their ears. Agatha thought of James and wondered what he was doing.

James was feeling guilty. He had taken Helen Warwick out for lunch and then gone back to her flat at her suggestion for coffee. She had a day off, she had explained. Life was quiet when the House wasn't sitting.

Perhaps because she had really nothing more to tell him than she had already told to James and Agatha, perhaps be-cause she did not seem nearly as charming as she had when he had first met her, James was able to realize that this visit had been prompted more by a desire not to let Agatha dominate his life than by any real interest in Helen. She was very clever at extracting information, and the information she seemed most interested in was the size of his bank balance. No question was direct or vulgar. Talk of stocks and shares, whether he had suffered over the Lloyd's or Barings disasters, things like that. And the friends they were supposed to have in common began to seem to James like people she had met at parties and in the course of her work but did not really know very well.

"Do you mind if I make a telephone call?" he said at last. "And then I really must go."

"Help yourself."

He dialed home and let it ring for a long time.

"No reply," he said with a rueful smile.

"Were you trying to get Mrs. Raisin?"

"Yes."

"Oh, she's in town."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw her driving past when we walked out for lunch."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was just about to, but you were talking about something and then the whole matter slipped my mind."

Now James felt like a guilty husband who had been caught out in an adulterous act. He then became angry because he was sure Agatha had come to town for no other purpose but to spy on him.

"I'd better go. Thanks for the coffee."

"Oh, do stay," said Helen. "I've nothing planned for this evening."

"I'm afraid I have."

She stood up and moved close to him. He moved back and found his legs pressed against the sofa. She raised her arms to put them around his neck, a slow seductive smile on her face. James ducked, stepped up on the sofa and walked over the back, his long legs taking him straight to the door.

"Goodbye," he said, opened the door, and ran down the stairs.

"Silly old fool," he said aloud, but he meant himself and not Agatha Raisin.

Agatha had had the foresight to buy two bottles of cheap sweet wine called Irish Blossom. They were the kind of wine bottles with screw-tops rather than corks. She and Roy found a group of down-and-outs near where Jimmy Raisin used to hang out. They were a mixed bunch, but more solid alcoholics than drug addicts, the drug addicts being younger and favouring better sites. The Celtic races predominated, Scottish and Irish, making Agatha wonder if there was any truth in the statement that alcohohsm got worse the farther north in the world one went.

No one seemed to want to know them, until Agatha fished in one of her plastic bags and produced one of the bottles of wine.

The others gathered around. Roy passed the bottle round. The contents were soon gone. An old man came up. He had two bottles of cider, which he proceeded to share. He had an educated voice and told everyone he used to be a professor. Soon they all began to talk, and Agatha and Roy found they were surrounded by jet pilots, famous footballers, brain surgeons, and tycoons. "It's a bit like those people who believe they had a previous life," muttered Agatha. "They were always Napoleon or Cleopatra or someone like that."

"They believe what they're saying," whispered Roy. "They've told the same lies so many times, they actually believe them now."

Agatha raised her voice. "We had a mate used to hang around about here," she said. "Jimmy Raisin."

The man with the educated voice, who was called Charles, said, "Someone said he got killed. Good riddance, sleazy little toe-rag."

They must have heard about the murder by word of mouth, thought Agatha. Few of them would ever look at a newspaper.

"What happened to his stuff?" asked Roy.

"Perlice took it away," said a thin woman with the sort of avid face and glittering eyes of a Hogarth drawing. "Took 'is box and all. But Lizzie got 'is bag o'stuff."

"What stuff?" Roy's voice was sharp.

"Just who the hell are you?" asked Charles.

Agatha glared at Roy. "I'll tell you who I am," he said, his voice slightly slurred. "I'm a big executive in the City. I only come down here evenings because I like the company."

There was a general easing of tension as the brain surgeons, jet pilots, and tycoons in general regarded what they thought was one of their own kind. "And I'll tell you something more." Roy fished in the capacious inside pocket of his Oxfam jacket. "I took this bottle of Scotch out of the desk before I came here."

This was nothing but the truth, but deep in the dim recesses of their brains they accepted him as a fellow liar. The Scotch was passed round. Since they were all, with the exception of Agatha and Roy, topping up from the last binge, it had the effect of knocking them into almost immediate drunkenness.

Agatha found the avid-faced woman was called Clara and sidled over to her. "Tell you a secret," she whispered.

Clara looked at her, her glittering eyes slightly unfocused. "I was married to Jimmy," said Agatha.

"Go on!"

"Fact. So that bag this Lizzie took belongs to me. Where is she?"

"She'll be along."

So Agatha and Roy settled themselves to wait. More joined them. More cheap drink. A man built a bonfire in an old oil drum. Clara began to sing drunkenly.

It was an almost seductive way of life, thought Agatha, provided the weather wasn't too cold. Just chuck up reality, goodbye to work, to family, to responsibility, beg during the day and get stoned out of your mind at night. No conventions to bind you, no getting or spending, no hassle.

"I wash not allush like thish," slurred Charles at one point. "I wash a profeshor at Oxford."

Perhaps he was, thought Agatha with a sudden stab of pity. But whatever Charles had been at one time in his life, it had obviously been something better than sitting under the arches in Waterloo scrambling what was left of his brains.

The night wore on. Fights broke out. Women cried, long maudlin wails for lost men and lost children. It's not a seductive way of life, thought Agatha. It's a foretaste of hell. There was a brief scramble of activity when the Silver Lady came round, a van with sandwiches and hot coffee, some of them trying to trade their sandwiches and coffee for another swig of drink.

Gradually, like animals, they crept off into their packing-cases. Still this Lizzie had not come.

Dawn was rising over grimy London. A blackbird perched up on a roof-top sent down a chorus of glorious sound, highlighting the degradation and misery and wasted live of those in the packing-cases beneath.

Agatha got stiffly to her feet. "I've had it, Roy. Give your detective lady the job of finding Lizzie and double her pay to do it. I'm going home."

"Haven't we even got enough between us for the tube?" asked Roy.

Agatha scraped in her pockets and finally found a pound. "That's for me to take the tube," she said firmly.

"You'll have to stick with me, sweetie, if you want to get into the office to get your bag and car keys. I have the keys to the office."

"Let me have them."

"No."

"Do you mean you're going to make me walk back all that way?"

"Yes."

Not speaking to each other, each stiff and sore and exhausted from their long night and with queasy stomachs from the awful mixture they had drunk, they headed in the direction of Waterloo Station.

A well-dressed man in evening dress approached them. He stood in front of them, stopping their progress, his face a mixture of pity and disgust. He fished in his pocket, took out his wallet and extracted a ten-pound note. "For God's sake," he said to Roy, "get your mother a decent breakfast and don't spend this on booze."

"Oh, thank you, thank you." Roy seized the note.

"Taxi!" he yelled, and, miracle of miracles, a taxi came to a stop. Roy shoved Agatha inside, shouted "Cheapside," and the cab drove off.

The man in evening dress gazed after them in a fury. That's the last time I waste money on people like that, he thought.

James had suffered a sleepless night as well. At first he had thought Agatha was staying away to get revenge, but then he began to think something might have happened to her. At last he settled down in an armchair in front of the cottage window, jumping to his feet every time he heard the sound of a car, but there was only, first, the milkman, and then Mrs. Hardy going off early somewhere.

His eyes grew heavier and heavier. Why hadn't she even phoned?

He fell asleep at last and in his dream he was marrying Helen Warwick. He only knew he did not want to marry Helen but that somehow she had blackmailed him into it. He was standing at the altar, hoping that Agatha Raisin would come and rescue him when the sound of a key in the lock made his eyes jerk open.

He jumped to his feet, shouting, "Agatha! Where the hell have you been?"

Agatha had not bothered to change out of her down-and-out outfit. James stared at the wreck that was Agatha, the black circles under her eyes and the terrible smell of stale booze mixing with the meths with which she had sprinkled her clothes at the beginning of the masquerade.

"Oh, Agatha," he said, looking at her, pity in his eyes replacing the anger. "I really thought Helen Warwick might have had something else to say, something useful. But if I had known it would upset you so much..."

Agatha sat down wearily. "The vanity of men never ceases to amaze me. I did not go out and get sozzled because my heart was broken, James dear. Roy and I dressed up and went down to the packing-cases of Waterloo, where we spent the night. We found out something useful. Jimmy had a bag of stuff which a woman called Lizzie took away. We're going to get Roy's detective to try to track her down. Now all I want is to sleep. I nearly drove off the road on the way down here. Enjoy your visit to Helen?"

"No," said James curtly. "Big mistake. Gold-digger."

Agatha gave a little smile and headed for the stairs.

"And burn those clothes," yelled James after her.