A Spoonful of Poison

Chapter Six

THE WEATHER WAS MISERABLE. Ever since the thunderstorm, it had rained steadily, weeping from heavily laden clouds that seemed to sit on top of the Cotswolds hills.

Agatha’s cats, Hodge and Boswell, mewed disconsolately as they stared out at the deluge from the ledge in front of the kitchen window.

Everything felt damp, but the air was not cold; rather it was heavy, hot and humid. Meteorologists said it was the La Nina effect, as opposed to the El Nino, which all seemed to mean that it was guaranteed to rain and rain for weeks to come.

Agatha drove to Comfrey Magna and parked outside the vicarage. She climbed out of her car, unfurled a large umbrella and hurried to the vicarage door, wishing she had worn Wellington boots, for her shoes were soaked by the time she covered the short distance to the shelter of the front porch.

Trixie answered the door, her golden hair cascading about her shoulders. “So what now?” she asked rudely.

“I would like to have a word with your husband,” said Agatha.

“If you must. Come in. He’s in the study.”

Trixie pushed open the door of the study and wandered off. Agatha went in. Arthur was sitting at his desk with George Selby.

Agatha was taken aback at the sight of George. She had forgotten how very handsome he was. “Come in. Sit down,” said Arthur. “Arnold has just left. We have more or less finished working out where the money goes. Do you have the safe deposit key? We are going to transfer the money into an account and then, when the chequebook is issued, we will start sending out cheques.”

“The police have the key,” said Agatha. “Someone tried to break into my cottage, so I thought the key was safer there. If I had thought of it at the time, it might have been more sensible to deposit it in an account right away.”

“We all agreed to the safe deposit box,” said Arthur. “At that time, it seemed more sensible than having chequebooks lying around before we had worked out who gets the money apart from what is needed for the repairs to the roof. So many people seem to just walk into the vicarage during the day. I am sure everyone in the village is honest, but, just in case, we let everyone know that the money was in the safe deposit box. I’ll drive Arnold over to… Mircester, is it?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll pick up the key soon and arrange a time to go to the bank. Is this a social call?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were satisfied that Sybilla Triast-Perkins put LSD in the jam.”

“Alas, yes. I am afraid the poor lady had been behaving oddly these past few months. So sad. But such a relief to have the whole matter solved. I sent you a cheque for your services.”

“Thank you. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help.”

“My dear lady, it is because of you that we will be able to repair the church.”

George’s grass-green eyes fastened on Agatha’s face. Could they really be that green? Or could he be wearing contact lenses?

“Mrs. Raisin…”

“Agatha, please.”

“Agatha. Can it be that you have doubts about the police verdict?”

“Well, I can’t help wondering how Sybilla got hold of something like LSD.”

“Have the police confirmed it was LSD?”

“Wait a minute.” Agatha took out her phone and called Jimmy Wilson on his mobile. “Jimmy, I forgot to ask you, was it LSD in the jam at Comfrey Magna?”

She listened carefully, thanked him and rang off. “Yes, she said. LSD it was. So how did she get her hands on it? If it was a young woman, I could imagine her getting it at a club, although even that’s odd because it’s all Ecstasy and heroin and cocaine these days, not to mention some lethal-type pot grown in greenhouses. She wasn’t a chemist at some time in her life?”

“As far as we know, she never worked,” said George. “But perhaps she had a wild youth and had some left over.”

“But why did her suicide note refer to one death and not two?”

Said the vicar, “She could hardly have been in a normal state of mind when she wrote it. Her sister is at the manor at the moment. You could ask her. But really, Agatha, our little village has settled back into its usual tranquil ways. The funerals of Mrs Andrews and Mrs. Jessop were very moving and yet healing in their way. We were all united in our grief.”

“I think I’ll go to the manor,” said Agatha. “The sister, Mrs. Unwin, might have something interesting to say.”

“Perhaps now might not be a good time,” said George. “The poor woman must still be grieving.”

“Oh, right,” said Agatha.

She left the vicarage and found Charles waiting by her car. “I thought I might find you here,” he said. “What’s all this about suicide at the manor?”

Agatha gave him all the details and her suspicions that Sybilla’s suicide note had been referring to the murder of Sarah Selby rather than the jam at the fête.

“I’ve been warned off at the vicarage against going to see her,” she finished by saying.

Charles grinned. “And that’s not going to stop you?”

“No.”

“Right. Leave your car and we’ll take mine.”

The rain was coming down in torrents by the time they reached the manor. The door was standing open.

“Anybody home?” called Agatha. Rainwater was dripping through the roof into several buckets placed about the hall.

A plump, fussy woman appeared in the hall. “What do you want?”

“Mrs. Unwin?”

“Yes?”

“I am Agatha Raisin…”

“You’re that wretched woman who started all this off by interfering in the village fête! Get out of here.”

“And this,” said Agatha loudly, “is Sir Charles Fraith.”

Oh, the magic of a title, thought Agatha cynically, as Mrs. Unwin visibly thawed. “I suppose it will do no harm to speak to you for a little,” she said. “Come into the drawing room. Would you like some tea or coffee, Sir Charles?”

“It’s all right,” said Charles. “You’ve obviously got a lot to do with all these leaks.”

“That was so like my sister,” complained Cassandra Unwin as she led the way into the sitting room. “Never had any repairs done.”

“Will you sell this place?” asked Charles.

“I’ll need to fix it up. Mind you, a builder would pay a lot for it. Knock down the house and put a housing estate on the land.”

“Wasn’t this your family home?” asked Agatha.

“We grew up here, but I don’t have any happy memories. If Sybilla hadn’t insisted on hanging on to the place, she might have made a better life for herself. But suicide! I can’t take it in. She can’t have been responsible for anything like putting LSD in the jam. Where would she get it?”

“Your sister only referred to one death in her note,” said Agatha, “and yet there were two caused by the LSD.”

“Well, I don’t suppose she was sane when she wrote that.”

“I believe she was very fond of a Mr. George Selby,” said Agatha, cautiously feeling her way through what she saw as a minefield of difficult questions.

“She talked a lot about him. I think she even had a sort of schoolgirl crush on him. Why do you ask?”

Charles saw that Agatha was going to jump in with both metaphorical hobnailed boots, and said hurriedly, “We wondered whether he had called on you. Perhaps he might have a better idea as to your sister’s state of mind.”

“Then why don’t you ask him? Really! I have a lot to do and I cannot see the point of all these questions.”

Charles thanked her and, taking a reluctant Agatha by the arm, propelled her outside. “It’s no use,” he said. “You’re not going to get anywhere. You can’t come right out and ask her if Sybilla murdered George’s wife. She won’t have a clue anyway.”

“Let’s go and see Maggie Tubby and Phyllis Tolling. They’re the ones who put the idea in my head.”

The rain was still pouring down and they stood under an umbrella on the porch of the cottage in the main street, which seemed to be rapidly turning into a river behind them.

Phyllis opened the door. “You again. I thought the case was closed.”

“Not quite,” said Agatha.

“Come in.”

Maggie was reading a book in the front parlour. “Who’s your friend?” she asked.

“This is Sir Charles Fraith, who is helping me in the investigation.”

“A ‘sir,’” mocked Maggie. “How too terribly Dorothy Sayers. What do you want now?”

“Why did you suggest that Sybilla killed Sarah Selby?”

“We’re sure she did. She was so unbalanced when it came to George. Now it looks as if she went even battier and tried to poison the village.”

“But in her suicide note, she said she was sorry about a death. A death. Not two.”

“You don’t think she would be in exactly a sane state of mind,” said Phyllis. “What’s the matter with you? Trying to drum up some business? I tell you, the sooner that accountant gets to the bank and you give him that safe deposit key and he starts sending some money to the Andrews and Jessop families, the better it will be.”

“How do you know about the safe deposit key?” demanded Agatha.

“It’s all over the village. Everyone’s been trying to get their hands on some of the money. Some claim that the visitors trampled over their gardens and ruined them-that sort of thing.”

“So the only reason you think Sybilla killed Sarah Selby was a hunch?”

“Of course it was a hunch, you thickheaded creature. If we’d had any proof, we’d have gone to the police.”

“Come along,” said Charles. “The two witches haven’t got anything important to say.”

Maggie’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “You don’t like us, do you?”

“Who would?” said Charles.

Two days later, as the monsoon-like rain still continued to pour down, Agatha phoned her office. “I’ll be a bit late,” she said to Mrs. Freedman. “I’m going into Evesham to get my hair done.”

“You can’t, in this rain. Evesham’ll be drowned.”

“That’s down in the town. My hairdresser is in Bridge Street and it never gets flooded. I’ll go in by the ring road.”

“You’d better watch your village doesn’t flood.”

“Carsely never floods.”

“It might this time.”

Agatha noticed as she drove over the Simon de Montfort Bridge on the ring road that the river Avon had already flooded and was spreading rapidly out over the farmland on either side.

Although the traffic was moving easily on her side of the road, the other side seemed to be grid-locked.

She parked in the Aldi supermarket car park and walked through to Bridge Street. Outside Achille, the hairdresser’s, she turned and looked down towards the bridge. Police barriers were up. She walked down and joined the crowed of sightseers on the bridge. Waterside on the other side of the bridge was flooded. A large mobile home came hurtling down the river and smashed into the bridge. Bits of it appeared on the other side as if it had been through a giant shredder.

Agatha debated whether to return home while there was still time, but without her hair done she felt insecure.

Jeanelle, her hairdresser, greeted her with surprise. “We’ve been phoning up clients telling them not to come,” she said.

Agatha’s mobile rang. It was Toni. “We’re evacuating the office,” she said. “The police have been round telling us the water’s rising. The street below is flooded. We’re on the first floor, so with luck the water won’t come this high. But Phil’s found a man with a tractor and we’ve all been loading up the files and computers. The car park’s still dry, so once the tractor gets the stuff there, we can load it into our cars and take it to a storage unit we’ve rented on high ground.”

“It’s really bad, isn’t it?” said Agatha.

“Nobody’s seen anything like it.”

“Phone you later,” said Agatha.

But she insisted on getting her hair done.

As she joined the queue inching out of Evesham, she wished she had never come. She had complained about the rap music playing in the hairdressing salon. It had crashed around her ears sounding like “Ugh, hunna hunna mudda fudda bitch, ugh.”

“Who likes that awful music?” she had asked Jeanelle. “Young people,” said the hairdresser. “It’s our music, if you know what I mean.”

I feel on the outside looking in, mourned Agatha. I feel trapped in an age group that’s out of touch with every other age group.

It took her three hours to reach the Carsely turn-off on the A44 by managing to plough through areas of flooding on the road.

When she got down to just before the centre of the village, she was met by a flood. Groaning, she parked the car, took off her shoes and began to wade through the swirling water. A dead cat floated past and a spasm of fear clutched her as she thought of her own cats.

The rain was still falling in torrents. She slipped and stumbled, several times nearly falling, until at last she reached dry ground on the other side. Agatha put on her shoes and hurried to Lilac Lane. Water was swirling down the lane. She rushed to her cottage. Charles had barricaded the front door with sandbags.

Agatha let herself in. He had left her a note on the kitchen table.

“Gone to check my own place. Keep dry! Love, Charles.”

Agatha checked her cats were safely indoors before going upstairs to change into dry clothes.

“It can’t get any worse,” she muttered.

But it did. Gloucestershire and the counties round about went under water. Her cottage stayed dry, but she had to house three elderly couples from the village who complained constantly that all the food she seemed to have were microwave curries.

Just when Agatha felt like committing murder herself, the sun came out and the waters receded. With great relief she saw her unwanted house guests leave. But then she was drafted in by Mrs. Bloxby to help clean out flooded cottages and to make frequent trips to the supermarket in Stow to bring back supplies of bread and milk.

At last she was free to go to her office in Mircester. Her staff were all there, unloading computers and other office equipment.

Gradually everything got back to normal and Agatha was just considering one evening whether to pursue the Comfrey Magna poisoning when she received a visit from Bill Wong.

“Survived the floods, Bill?”

“Just about. Agatha, this isn’t a social call.”

“What’s happened?”

“Someone masquerading as Arnold Birntweather, the accountant, and with all his identification called at the bank with the safe deposit key. He said the money needed to be counted again. He put it all in a large holdall and disappeared. In appearance, he seemed to be like the accountant, elderly and stooped.”

“But did the police hand this impostor the key?”

“They seem to have handed it over to the genuine man just after the flooding was over. He was accompanied by the vicar. When the vicar did not hear from him, he called at his house. Mr. Birntwweather had been killed by a savage blow to the head.”

“But they had seen Mr. Birntweather at the bank before.”

“Mr. Birntweather was old, with a dowager’s hump, thick glasses and dyed brown hair. The impostor looked exactly like that.”

“But how did the impostor get the number of the safe deposit box?” asked Agatha.

“Arnold Birntweather had a card inside his wallet with the number of the box on it. It was conveniently marked, ‘Safe deposit box number eleven.’”

“Snakes and bastards! When I went to see that precious pair, Tolling and Tubby, they told me that everyone in the village knew I had the safe deposit key, which probably explains the break-in at my cottage.”

“Do be careful, Agatha. I’d better get back to work.”

“Wait a bit. What about fingerprints?”

“Everyone knows about fingerprints these days.”

“CCTV cameras at the bank?”

“There’s a thought. You’d better come to headquarters with me and look at the film. See if you can penetrate that disguise somehow and recognize someone from that village.”

At police headquarters, Agatha studied the security tape film. Bill waited impatiently.

“Well?” he demanded at last.

“It’s odd,” said Agatha. “But I really do think that’s Arnold.”

“Mr. Birntweather?”

“Yes. I don’t think any impostor could be that good. Have you any footage of the street outside the bank?”

“I’ll run it for you. Why?”

“Maybe someone was waiting for him-someone who had threatened him.”

Bill slotted in another tape. Agatha saw Arnold climbing stiffly out of his old Morris Minor. “Look!” said Agatha.

“What?”

“Run that again. A car with tinted windows pulled in right behind him.”

“This is a very long shot, Agatha. I’ll check the number plate. Wait there.”

Agatha continued to study the tapes.

Then the door opened and Bill, Wilkes and Collins came in. Bill said, “You’re on to something. That car was stolen during the floods. It belongs to a respectable shopkeeper in Badsey.”

“You can go now,” said Collins.

“No ‘thank you’?” demanded Agatha. “I thought you had gone to Scotland Yard. Did they send you back?”

“Just get out of here!” snapped Collins.

Bill escorted Agatha out. “I thought she’d gone,” said Agatha.

“She did. But for some reason she came back and now we’re stuck with her. Thanks, Agatha. You’re a great help.”

Before she drove off, Agatha phoned Charles on his mobile, but as usual, it was switched off. She couldn’t text him a message because, even though she had a state-of-the-art mobile, not only did she not know how to text, she did not know how to take photographs or send e-mails. She phoned his home and for once she was in luck. Charles himself answered, rather than his man, Gustav, or his aunt. Agatha told him about the latest development.

“Where are you?” asked Charles.

“Just about to leave Mircester.”

“I’ll meet you at your cottage.”

“Thank goodness it’s dry at last,” said Charles. “But it’s cold. Mind if I light the fire?”

“Go ahead,” said Agatha. “Doris has it all set and ready.” Doris was Agatha’s cleaner and about the only person in the village who called Agatha by her first name. “I’ll fix the drinks.”

When Charles was comfortably settled in an armchair, cradling a glass of whisky and watching the flames leap up the chimney, he asked, “Any ideas?”

“My money’s on Trixie.”

“Come on! The vicar’s wife? Can you see her stealing a car and threatening poor Arnold?”

“I’m sure she deliberately tried to spoil the accounts.”

“What’s all this?”

Agatha lit a cigarette, scowled at it and put it out. Cigarettes in the morning tasted great, but later in the day, they’d lost their magic.

“I was with Roy, and Arnold and the vicar were sorting through the accounts at a table in the garden. Trixie arrived with a jug of lemonade and I swear she deliberately tipped it over the papers.”

“And were they ruined?”

“Well, no. It was sunny. Remember sunshine? I suggested we pin them up to dry. Arnold told me they were okay. Now, if Trixie had been squirrelling some of the money away and doctoring the accounts, Arnold might have known about it, but straightened it out with the vicar, not wanting any scandal.”

“I can’t believe it. Look, there were a lot of unsavoury things going on during the floods. Cars left on dry ground were being stolen. The gossip about the safe deposit box could have spread out from beyond the village. Put on the news and see if there’s anything.”

“Let’s see if they’ve done better than their coverage of the floods. Hopeless. I had to turn on the radio to get any proper news. All there was on TV was some reporter’s great face blocking off the screen talking to the man in the studio. And they were all in Tewksbury. It’s the herd instinct. They’ve always had it. One reporter puts on his waders and stands in a flooded street in Tewksbury and the other reporters promptly head for Tewksbury to do the same, along with their cameramen. I’ll try the BBC 24 Hour News.”

They waited patiently through the usual dismal round of international news until suddenly the announcer said, “The village of Comfrey Magna is in shock tonight.” A brief summary of the disastrous fête and the theft of the money. “And now to our reporter, Alan Freeze, in Comfrey Magna, who interviewed the vicar, Mr. Arthur Chance, early this morning.”

“I am here with the vicar, Mr. Arthur Chance, and Mrs. Chance. This must be a sad blow, Mr. Chance.”

“It’s a disaster,” said Arthur Chance. Trixie stood beside him dressed in a long black gown with a low neck.

“I bet those breasts aren’t real,” muttered Agatha.

“I don’t know what to do,” Arthur went on, his voice trembling. “The church roof is leaking and there is no longer any money for the repairs.” He burst into tears. Trixie pressed his head into her bosom and stared nobly into the camera.

“Mrs. Chance?” pursued the reporter.

“I must take my poor husband indoors,” said Trixie. “It is not only the church roof that the money was needed for but for the families of the two ladies who were killed during the fête.” She tossed back her blonde hair but still managed to clutch her sobbing husband to her chest.

Her eyes filled with tears and she said with a little break in her voice, “Please help us.”

Then she escorted her husband into the vicarage.

“And now to the Middle East,” said the presenter.

“Switch it off,” said Agatha. “What a performance!”

“It was pretty moving,” said Charles.

“Oh, the vicar was genuine. But did you see how Trixie said ‘Help us’? Not ‘Help us find who did this terrible murder.’ She’s hoping for donations, and she’ll get them.”

Charles finished his drink. “You’re too cynical. We’ll pop over to Comfrey Magna in the morning.” He stood up and stretched and yawned. “I’m off to bed.” His eyes gleamed with mischief. “Coming with me?”

“My days of casual sex are over,” said Agatha.

“Didn’t know they’d ever started. Good night.”

After he had gone, Agatha sat looking into the flames, her cats beside her on the sofa. She felt strangely empty and purposeless. For so long, her obsession for James, her ex-husband, had fuelled all her actions. She missed the roller coaster of emotions. She even missed the pain.

“At least I felt alive,” she whispered to her uncaring cats.

The morning was cold, damp and misty as Agatha drove herself and Charles to Comfrey Magna. At one point she said to Charles, “I forgot to find out about Jimmy Wilson.”

“What about him?” asked Charles.

“There’s something unsavoury about him. I asked Patrick to find out why he took early retirement from the police force. He made a pass at Toni.”

“Most men would. She gets prettier by the minute.”

Agatha felt a stab of jealousy. She had promised Toni to hold a dinner party to further the girl’s hopes with Harry Beam. Now she meanly decided not to do anything about it.

Agatha parked at the entrance to the village, just before the vicarage. A great lake of water lay across the road, fed by angry little streams rushing down from the hills.

“We’ll need to paddle,” said Charles. “I wouldn’t risk driving through that if I were you.”

“I’ll see if I can see the ground underneath the water.” Agatha got out of the car. She stared down at the water gloomily and then returned to Charles.

“We’ll need to paddle.”

“Right.” Charles got out of the car, took off his socks and shoes and then his trousers. Agatha took off her shoes and hitched up her skirt.

Charles, holding his trousers, socks and shoes above his head, walked into the water. “Not too bad,” he said. “It’s only just up past my knees.”

“There’s the postal van outside the vicarage,” said Agatha, fighting to keep her balance in the swirling water. “I’ve always come this way. The road in from the other end must be clear.”

“He’s unloading sacks of mail. The vicar’s distress must have caused a lot of people to send money. Dry ground at last,” said Charles. “We’ll nip into the church and I’ll put my trousers on. Don’t want to shock the vicar’s wife.”

“You’re kidding. Nothing could shock that one.”

The church was cold and damp. Buckets full of rainwater lay on the floor and balanced on the altar and the pews.

Agatha shivered as she pulled on her shoes. “This is misery,” she moaned.

“Never mind,” said Charles. “Think of those poor bastards in Cheltenham and Tewksbury. No drinking water and up to their armpits in sewage.”

“I can never feel grateful because of other people’s misery,” said Agatha piously. “Let’s go. Hope the police aren’t there or it’ll be a wasted journey.”

They were just about to emerge from the church when Agatha saw Wilkes and Collins leaving the vicarage. She retreated, colliding into Charles. “The police are just leaving,” she hissed. “Wait a minute. I wonder where their car is. I didn’t see a police car.” She peered round the church porch. A police car and driver drove in from the other end of the village. Wilkes and Collins got in and the car drove off.

“All clear,” said Agatha. “Let’s go.”

It was George Selby who opened the door to them. Does he never work? wondered Agatha.

“Oh, it’s you,” said George. “This is hardly a good time. Everyone is grieving.”

A merry peal of laughter sounded from the study.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” said Agatha. “Let us in.”

George reluctantly stood aside. Agatha felt a little sexual tremor as she brushed past him and opened the door of the study. Arthur Chance and Trixie were slicing open envelopes, their faces radiant.

“Come in!” called Arthur when he saw them. “People are amazingly generous.”

“I’m happy for you,” said Agatha. “But I really want to find out who murdered poor Arnold Birntweather.”

“The police are looking into that,” said Trixie, slicing open another envelope and extracting a cheque. “Oh, George, darling, come and help me.”

“I’ve got work to do. Mrs. Raisin…”

“Agatha, please.”

“Agatha, may I have a word with you in private?”

Agatha followed him outside.

“They really are upset and grieving,” said George, fastening those hypnotic eyes of his on Agatha’s face.

“Doesn’t sound like it. What can I do for you, George?”

“If you start asking them questions about Arnold’s murder, it will really distress them.”

“But the police have just left and they don’t seem a bit distressed.”

“Look, let’s go for dinner tonight and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Agatha brightened. “All right. Where and when?”

“The Cantonese restaurant in Mircester? Say at eight o’ clock?”

“Right.”

He suddenly smiled down at her and Agatha felt weak at the knees. Must get rid of Charles, she thought frantically.

Toni had invited a former school friend, Sharon, round to her flat that evening. She felt uneasily that she had been blackmailed into the invitation by Sharon complaining that Toni never saw any of her old friends.

Thanks to Agatha’s generous salary, Toni had been at work on her flat since Harry had seen it. She had ripped up the carpet and polished the boards until they shone. They were now covered in brightly covered rugs she had bought at Mircester market. A new set of bookshelves ornamented one wall.

“This is ever so nice,” said Sharon. She was a plump girl with masses of dyed red hair. Her crop top and low-slung jeans revealed a roll of fat and a fake ruby in her navel. “You’ve got a lot of books.” There was one lying on the coffee table. Sharon picked it up. “Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust. Didn’t we get that at school?”

“No, none of us read much at school. We got the university notes on books and read them instead.”

“So why are you reading a book by some Frenchie? Marcel. Sounds like a hairdresser.”

Toni’s desire to talk about Harry overcame her. He hadn’t been able to come to Mircester because of the floods, but he had e-mailed her on her new computer and texted her regularly. In his messages, he suggested which books she should read and the type of music she should listen to.

“It’s my new boyfriend,” said Toni. “He’s studying at Cambridge. He’s awfully clever. I did ask him for suggestions as to what I should read and I’ve been out buying piles of books.”

Sharon, whose idea of a good read was the sort of magazine which described the private lives of celebrities along with other important female essentials like the type of vibrator to use, said, “I dunno if I’d like a chap like that.”

“Why?” demanded Toni, immediately on the defensive.

“Well, it’s like Kylie, remember her?”

“What about her?”

“She’s tied up with Wayne. Remember Wayne?”

Toni conjured up a memory of a gangling spotty youth who’d been in her class.

“What about him?”

“He and Kylie are an item. Got a flat out on the Evesham road. No sooner have they moved in together than he starts telling her what to wear. Dowdy clothes. He’s even got her to wear a cardigan and flat heels.”

“I don’t see the connection,” complained Toni.

“He’s making her over, don’t you see? And that’s what your fellow’s doing. Either the fellows like you for what you are or tell ’em to get stuffed.”

“It’s not the same. He knows I want to improve my mind.”

Sharon tossed back her thick hair. “Listen, babes, there isn’t a fellow out there who’s interested in a girl’s mind. If they start making you over, it’s because they want to control you and keep you feeling inferior so you’ll end up thinking no other boy will want you.”

“Oh, let’s talk about something else,” said Toni. “How’s your love life?”

Agatha told Charles that she had to go back to the office to catch up on work. “Don’t you want to go home and get some dry shoes?” asked Charles.

“I’ve got a change of clothes in the office, Charles. Are you staying tonight? I have to warn you I might be late.”

“Don’t sound so frantic, Agatha. Has George asked you out?”

Mulish silence.

“Aha. Okay, I’ll clear off. What’s he after?”

“He’s going to give me everything he can think of that might give me a clue as to who murdered Arnold.”

“And you don’t want me along because at one point in the dinner, he will reach across the table and take your hand and say he thought he could never find anyone to replace his wife, but now-”

“Oh, do shut up!”

Agatha really wanted to go home and spend a leisurely time getting ready for the evening, but Charles might hang around making sarcastic comments up until she left. The only reason she had said she was going to the office was to get rid of him.

She dropped him off at her cottage, turned the car around and sped back to Mircester.

Agatha was determined to buy something dazzling to wear. But the weather was a problem. It was actually cold. If the lowering sky sent down any more torrents, it might be better not to wear anything too filmy and seductive.

She settled on buying a black wool trouser suit, black court shoes with a modest heel, and a scarlet silk blouse.

With a flutter of anticipation she had not felt in ages, Agatha began to dream about the evening to come.