Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate

∨ The Case of the Curious Curate ∧

8

For the next two weeks, Carsely was a village under siege. It was flooded by press and by sightseers. Finally rough weather drove the sightseers away, leaving behind them soda cans and sandwich wrappers, and another Balkan uprising sent the press rushing back to London. It was a relief to walk down the village streets without being accosted by reporters. The members of the ladies’ society picked up all the rubbish left behind and bagged it. Even John Fletcher, landlord of the Red Lion, who had done a roaring trade, was glad to see the last of the press and the gawking public.

John Armitage had returned from London as soon as he had heard the news of the latest murder. Agatha was once more restored to a brunette, having gone straight to the hairdresser’s the day after the murder and right after signing her statement at police headquarters in Mircester. Only the dogged police were left, still going from house to house in Carsely and in the neighbouring villages, questioning everyone over and over again. The weapon with which Peggy had been so brutally murdered had never been found.

Agatha had expected John to be a frequent caller to discuss the case, but he seemed quiet and withdrawn, saying he was behind with his writing and had to catch up. She herself had been frightened into inactivity, although she would not admit it to herself. Such as Agatha Raisin hardly ever admitted to being frightened. She persuaded herself that three murders were just too much. Out there was a madman who should be left to the police. But she lost weight through nerves, waking up during the night at the slightest sound and picking at her food during the day.

Mrs. Bloxby had given up urging Agatha to find the killer. “It really is not safe for you, Mrs. Raisin,” she said. “What if this dreadful murderer should decide you knew something as well?”

The day after the press had gone, John Armitage called round. “Are you eating?” he asked anxiously, as if noticing Agatha properly for the first time since his return from London. “You look haggard.”

Agatha glared at him. Despite her fright, she had been pleased with her new slimline figure. “I did find the body,” she snapped.

John sat down at her kitchen table. “And what about you?” asked Agatha. “What have you been doing?”

“I told you. Writing and more writing.”

“But you’ve never said anything about how you got on in London.”

“There’s nothing much to tell. I saw my publisher, I saw my agent, I saw my friends…”

“And you had at least one dinner with Charlotte Bellinge.”

“How did you know that?”

“There was a parcel sticking out of your letter-box. I opened your door to put it on the table and heard her dulcet tones on your answering machine.”

He coloured faintly. “I thought there might be a lead there, but there was nothing further to add. I did go back to see that vicar at New Cross, but he said he was busy and slammed the door in my face.”

“Don’t you find that suspicious?”

“Not really. I think he’s guilty about having lied to us in the first place. Anyway, to get back to Peggy Slither. She thought she had found out something. And you saw nothing around her home before you found the body? No sinister men?”

“Nothing.”

“Any cars on the road?”

Agatha frowned in thought. “Two passed me going away from Ancombe but don’t ask me the colour or make. It was dark and I didn’t notice them in particular.”

Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she was driving towards Ancombe that evening. “The rambler,” she exclaimed. “I forgot about the rambler.”

“What rambler? Did you tell the police?”

“No, I forgot about him. The shock of finding Peggy lying in all that blood drove him right out of my head.”

“What was he like?” asked John eagerly.

“I just got a glimpse. One of those dark woolly hats and a scarf over the lower part of his face. An anorak, a backpack, dark trousers.”

“A scarf over his face and you didn’t think that suspicious?”

“There was a freezing wind that night. Oh, God, I’d better tell the police. They’ll think me such a fool for forgetting.”

The doorbell rang. “You get it, John,” said Agatha. “Probably some lingering local reporter. To think of the days when I cultivated the press!”

John went to the door and came back a few moments later followed by Bill Wong.

“There you are Agatha, you want the police and here’s Bill.”

“Why do you want the police?” asked Bill, shrugging off his raincoat and placing it on a chair.

“I’ve just remembered something.” Agatha told him about the rambler.

“Agatha!” Bill sounded exasperated. “Why didn’t you remember this before? I’m off duty, but get me a piece of paper. I’ll need to take this down.”

Agatha went through to her desk and came back with a sheet of paper and then sat down and described the rambler.

“Do you know what I think?” Bill put down his pen with a sigh. “I think our murderer was very lucky. Wilkes is going to be furious when I tell him this. If you had told us right away on the night of the murder, we could have put up road-blocks, we could have scoured the countryside for him. I’d best get off. We’ll put out a police bulletin asking him to come forward.” He got to his feet and put on his coat.

“Where was Alf Bloxby on the evening of the murder?” asked John.

“According to his wife, he was out on his rounds all evening. We’ve interviewed all the people he said he’d been to see, but it still leaves an hour unaccounted for.”

“Mrs. Bloxby never told me that.” Agatha experienced a pang of unease. “What does the vicar say he was doing during that hour?”

“He says he was just walking about. He says the whole business of Tristan’s murder had upset him dreadfully and he felt like taking a good walk before bedtime to clear his head.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Agatha. She followed him to the door. “Why did you call?”

“Social visit.”

“How’s Alice?”

“She’s fine.”

“Take her to see your parents?”

“Yes. They loved her.”

Oh dear, thought Agatha.

She saw him out and returned to the kitchen. “Why did you ask about Alf Bloxby?” she demanded.

“I’ve been thinking. Just because we love Mrs. Bloxby doesn’t mean we know anything about Alf. Do you?”

“No, I don’t know much, but I do know this. Such as Mrs. Bloxby would never, ever stay married to any man capable of murder.”

“She might not know he was capable of murder.”

“Rubbish.”

“I mean, did she say anything to you about Alf being unable to account for an hour of his movements?”

“He did account for them!”

“But only his word. No witnesses. Let’s go and see her.”

“All right. If it’ll make you feel any better.”

“You’re not wearing your ring.”

“Oh, that. I’d forgotten about it. Do you want me to put it on?”

“May as well maintain the fiction.”

“We don’t need to maintain it in front of Mrs. Bloxby.”

“But we do in front of other people,” said John.

Agatha went through to her desk and fished out the ring and put it on her finger. It felt loose. Good heavens, she thought, I’m even losing weight on my fingers.

Leaves wheeled and whirled about them as they walked to the vicarage. To Agatha, the village no longer felt like a safe haven. She felt there was menace lurking around every corner. She longed for a cigarette and remembered the days when one never, ever smoked in the street. Now the street was about the only place outside one’s own home where one could smoke.

Mrs. Bloxby opened the door to them. “Come in quietly,” she said. “Alf is resting.”

They followed her into the vicarage sitting-room. Agatha and Mrs. Bloxby surveyed each other. Mrs. Bloxby noticed that Agatha was considerably thinner and Agatha noticed that Mrs. Bloxby’s usually mild eyes held a haunted look. They had talked since the murder, but only briefly.

Agatha told her about the rambler and Mrs. Bloxby clasped her hands as if in prayer. “If only you had remembered this earlier, Mrs. Raisin.”

“They’re putting out a bulletin, asking him to come forward,” said John. “If he’s innocent, he will.”

“I’ve been thinking about ramblers,” said Agatha. “I mean, one never really notices them.”

“Not groups of ramblers,” commented Mrs. Bloxby with a certain edge in her voice. “But one, on his own, at night!”

“I know, I know,” mourned Agatha. “But the horror of Peggy’s murder drove it right out of my mind until today.”

“Bill was round this morning,” said John. “He says there is a whole hour your husband can’t account for.”

“Most of us have whole hours in our lives we can’t account for,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “It’s just unlucky for Alf his hour should have happened on the evening Peggy was murdered. All this is wearing my husband down. I could do without your suspicions being added to our worries, Mr. Armitage.”

“I didn’t – ”

“Yes, you did,” interrupted Mrs. Bloxby. She rounded on Agatha. “I thought you had given up investigating.”

“I had,” said Agatha, silently cursing John.

“Whoever is committing these murders is highly dangerous. I suggest you both leave it to the police. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.”

They both left the vicarage, Agatha furious with John. “I never should have gone along with you,” she said. “Mrs. Bloxby is my best friend.”

“Never mind. It’s lunch-time and you look a ghost of your former self. We’ll go to the pub and have something.”

Agatha was about to say pettishly that she didn’t want to go with him, but realized she was reluctant to be on her own. “All right,” she said ungraciously. “But I don’t want much.”

In the pub, they both ordered shepherd’s pie. Although there were quite a few regulars at the bar, there wasn’t much conversation. The murders had poisoned the atmosphere.

Agatha surprised herself by eating all the food on her plate. She decided it was time she went in for some decent home cooking instead of microwave meals.

When they had finished, she looked curiously at John. “You are strangely reticent about Charlotte Bellinge.”

“If I had anything relating to the case to tell you, Agatha, I would.”

“I don’t think you went to see her because you thought she had anything to add. I think you’re smitten with her.”

“She is a very attractive woman, but no, I am not smitten with her.”

“So she rejected your advances?”

“Don’t be cheeky, Agatha. We’re only pretending to be engaged. You have no right to question me on my personal life.”

This was indeed true but for some reason Agatha did not want to be reminded of it.

“So you told me briefly before that you’d been to see Mrs. Essex and Mrs. Tremp. Nothing there, I gathered.”

“No, except the wine.”

“What wine?”

Agatha told him about the home-made wine and the odd effect it had had on her.

“That’s interesting,” said John. “You mean, Miss Jellop may have given Tristan some and he might have told her things he wouldn’t otherwise have said?”

“Could be.”

John sighed. “And now she’s dead, we’ll never know. What about Mrs. Tremp? There was something cold-blooded about the way she talked about her husband’s death. If a woman can sit looking at her husband who’s just had a stroke without immediately calling an ambulance, then she must be really pretty tough.”

“I don’t know. I kept the discussion to the duck races. She seemed pretty friendly and normal.”

“Did she know Peggy Slither?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s go and ask her.”

“I somehow don’t want anyone to know we’re still investigating,” said Agatha.

“You told me she was going to bake cakes for the big event. We’ll ask her how she’s getting on.”

“I suppose we could do that.”

After they had returned to Lilac Lane and had driven off in John’s car, Agatha felt the black edges of depression hovering around her. For years she had been driven by her obsession for James Lacey, getting James Lacey, and marrying James Lacey. Then she had been divorced by him. After that, she lived in dreams that one day he would return to her. Cold reality was telling her he would never return. Carsely had become a sinister place. She was going to interview a woman who probably did not know anything at all relevant to the case with a man she was pretending to be engaged to. Bill Wong, who had been a sort of soul mate in that he was always being rejected by the loves of his life, had at last found one who evidently could stand up to his parents.

“What’s up?” asked John.

“Nothing. Why?”

“This car’s filling up with gloom and it’s coming from you.”

“I’ve got a bit of a headache, that’s all.”

“Want to go back home and take some aspirin?”

“No, I’ll be all right. Here we are. She’s probably at home. I don’t think she goes out much.”

They parked and got out of the car. The door was standing open. Agatha rang the bell beside the door. The bell shrilled somewhere inside the house.

“That’s odd,” said John. “She must be in. Try again.”

Agatha rang the bell and waited.

“I think we’d better take a look inside,” said John uneasily.

Agatha walked in first. “Mrs. Tremp!” she called. No reply. Outside, the rooks cawed from their tree and the wind rushed around the converted barn.

Followed by John, she walked into the kitchen and let out a scream. Mrs. Tremp was lying stretched out on the floor, her eyes closed and her hands folded on her breast.

“See if she’s alive,” said John, tugging a mobile phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call the police.”

Mrs. Tremp opened her eyes at that moment and struggled to her feet. “It is my meditation hour,” she said crossly. “I do not like to be disturbed. I hoped you would go away.” She smoothed down her tweed skirt with her hands. “What do you want?”

Agatha sank down onto a kitchen chair. “I just wanted to ask if you could cope with all the cake baking for the duck race.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Tremp. “I would have told you if I could not. How are the arrangements going?”

“I’m on my way to see Farmer Brent,” said Agatha.

“You mean you haven’t got permission from him yet? You’d better hurry up. It’s only three weeks to the races.”

“Isn’t it terrible about Peggy Slither?” said John.

“Oh, her.” Mrs. Tremp gave a disdainful sniff. “Probably her ex-husband. He was furious at having to pay out so much after the divorce proceedings.”

“Did you know her?” asked Agatha.

“Tristan took me over to meet her once. Disgusting, vulgar woman.”

“I gather Tristan was friendly with her.”

“She was so rude to me that Tristan assured me he would have nothing more to do with her.”

“And you haven’t heard from her since?”

“Why should I? Such as Mrs. Slither and such as myself have absolutely nothing in common. Now I do have things to do. I suggest you get Mr. Brent’s permission as soon as possible.”

“We couldn’t really stay to get more out of her,” said John as they drove on to Brent’s farm at the top of the hill.

“She’s got a study off the hall,” said Agatha. “The door was open and I looked in as we went out. There’s a desk there with letters and correspondence. I’d love to have a look at them. I think she’s hiding something. I wonder if Tristan ever wrote to her.”

“Why should he?” asked John. “I mean, he was in the same village.”

“Still, I wouldn’t mind having a look. Maybe she wrote to someone about him.”

“Then the someone will have the letter. Not Mrs. Tremp.”

“There was a computer on the desk. Maybe she’s got letters logged in it. The days when it was considered bad manners to type a letter to a friend have long gone.”

“I don’t know how you’re ever going to have a chance to look at them.”

“Maybe. I wonder if she locks her door at night.”

“Meaning,” said John, “you plan to creep in one night and have a look? Don’t be silly. There’d be all hell to pay if you were caught. Is that the entrance to Brent’s farm on the left?”

“Yes, let’s hope he’s at home. I don’t feel like trekking over muddy fields looking for him.”

To her relief, Mark Brent opened the door to them himself.

“I was just about to have a cup of tea,” he said. He was a tall, thin man with long arms and stooped shoulders. His thick hair was grey and his long face burnt red by working outdoors. “The wife’s off visiting her sister,” he said. He prepared a pot of tea and put mugs and milk and sugar on the table. “Sit down,” he said. “Isn’t it awful about these murders? Is that why you’re here, Mrs. Raisin?”

“No,” said Agatha. “It’s about these duck races. I remember you had an event for the boy scouts in one of your fields with a pretty stream running through it.” She told him all about the duck races.

“It’s all yours,” said Brent. “There’s cattle in that field but I’ll move them for the day. When is it to be held?”

“October twenty-third.”

“Fine. I like to do my bit. Help yourselves. I’m glad I’m outside the village. It’s as if that there damned curate and his poncy ways brought something evil in with him.”

“You knew Tristan?” asked Agatha.

“My wife, Gladys, was friendly with him. I’d come in from the fields and there they’d be, laughing and joking, and Gladys looking like a dog’s dinner, all tarted up in her Sunday best although it was a weekday. Then she tells me she wants a cheque for this Tristan. She says he could invest money for us and make a killing. I said the only killing was going to be Tristan himself. There was something slimy about him. So I got him one day in the village and told him if he came near my wife again I’d set the dogs on him. Poor Gladys cried and cried when I told her and called me a monster.”

“‘I put up with it,’ I says, ‘until he tried to get money out of you.’ Fact is, she thought he fancied her. Now don’t get me wrong. My Gladys is a fine-looking woman but she’s in her fifties.” He looked at Agatha. “Didn’t have you fooled as well, did he, Mrs. Raisin? I heard how you had dinner with him the night he was murdered.”

“No,” said Agatha. “He did suggest investing money for me but I refused.”

“And I hear you pair are engaged?”

“That’s right,” said Agatha. “How did you hear that?”

“All over the village, it is. Good on you. I wish you both well. You’ll be getting married in the church. Nothing like a good old–fashioned village wedding.”

“You didn’t threaten to kill Tristan?” asked John.

“Meaning, did I stick a knife in him? No, that’s not my way. A telling-off was enough.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“I know what you meant,” said the farmer with unimpaired good humour. “Our Mrs. Raisin here has made a name for herself as a detective. Seems as if you’re well-suited.”

“I found Peggy Slither,” said Agatha. “On the road to Ancombe, I noticed this rambler. I’ve only just remembered and told the police. You didn’t at any time see anyone strange about the village?”

“Not on the days of the murders. We’re not a tourist place like Broadway. We get these chaps selling kitchen stuff round the doors. Then there are women from the Red Cross and the Lifeboat people come round collecting. Ramblers, of course. Few outsiders at the bed-and-breakfast places, but I gather the police have checked them all out. I think all of us have had the police round asking questions three or four times. But I tell you this, Mrs. Raisin.” His voice became hard. “Whoever is doing these here murders is a dangerous man. I think you should sit this one out and leave it to the police. Don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Sounds like a threat,” said John.

“Just a bit of sensible advice. Now I’d best get out there. There’s fencing to be repaired.”

“I think that was a threat,” said Agatha as they drove off.

“I don’t know. Seems a straightforward-enough man to me.”

Agatha sighed. “Well, I’d better throw myself into the publicity for these duck races. I’ll be round at Mrs. Bloxby’s if you want me.”

“Right. I’ll get on with some more writing.”

Agatha spent the afternoon discussing arrangements such as the hiring of a marquee with Mrs. Bloxby and phoning up local papers, arranging advertisements for the duck races to go in and also for free publicity. But once a public relations officer, always a public relations officer. She also sent press handouts to all the nationals and TV stations to the effect that the murder village was returning to normal. Might get a few of them down from London.

It was only that evening that her thoughts turned to Mrs. Tremp’s desk. No one in the village would leave their doors open at night after three murders. But country people often left a spare key in the gutter or under the doormat or in a flowerpot. Had Agatha not felt the black edges of depression returning, she would never have decided to try to break into Mrs. Tremp’s home. But action and thoughts of action kept the depression at bay. She set her alarm for two in the morning but she was so restless that she only fell asleep at twelve-thirty and woke at the alarm’s shrill sound feeling groggy.

She dressed in dark clothes and decided to walk. Thank goodness Mrs. Tremp doesn’t keep a dog, she thought, as she finally reached the converted barn. The guttering was too high up for anyone to reach and there was no doormat or flowerpot. Frustrated and not wanting to turn back now she had come so far, she walked round the side of the house. That must be the study window, she thought. Easy to break a pane of glass and release the catch, but that would mean Mrs. Tremp might hear the noise. Shining the light of a pencil torch at the ground to make sure she did not trip over anything, she made her way round to the back of the house. At the back there was a trapdoor in the ground with coal dust around it. She eased back the bolt and lifted the trapdoor and looked down. Coal had been delivered recently and glittered with reptilian blackness in the faint beam of her torch. She eased herself down onto the top of the pile. The coal began to slide under her feet. She reached upwards trying to catch the top of the trapdoor but she was descending too fast, crashing down among rumbling lumps of coal to finally land at the bottom of the cellar. She lay there, her heart thumping. She had lost her torch but there was faint light from the open trapdoor. She crawled to her feet, feeling bruised. She could dimly make out a stone staircase.

Agatha was just creeping towards it when she heard from above someone running down the stairs and then a key being turned in the cellar door. Then she heard the front door of the house opening and footsteps hurrying round the side of the house. Agatha scrambled away from the coal and into a corner piled with old suitcases and boxes. Mrs. Tremp’s voice said triumphantly, “Got you. You can wait in there until the police come.” She slammed down the trapdoor and Agatha could hear her shooting the bolt across.

Agatha felt her way across the floor on her hands and knees with the mad idea of trying to climb up the coal stack and force the trapdoor. Her hand touched her lost torch and she grabbed it eagerly. No, she could not force the trapdoor. She must hide somewhere, somewhere the police would not find her. The beam of the torch lit on a rusty suit of armour covered in coal dust. In a mad panic, Agatha hauled the suit upright. It was unusually light. Probably a replica. She lifted off the helmet and headpiece. Standing on one of the old suitcases, and putting the legs of the suit at an angle, she eased herself into them. She put on the breastplate and fastened it with the leather straps at the back. Then she put on the gauntlets and lifted the headpiece over her head and with a trembling hand forced the rusty visor down, shuffled off into the corner and stood there.

It was then she realized that because of the murders it wouldn’t be one local policeman from Moreton-in-Marsh who would arrive but probably the whole squad from Mircester.

She stood there, trembling with cold and fright until she heard the wail of police sirens drawing closer and closer. Then Mrs. Tremp’s voice shrill with excitement. “I’ve got him locked in the cellar. He can’t get out.”

The cellar door opened, the light was switched on. There was a light switch at the top of the stairs, thought Agatha. But Mrs. Tremp had sounded the alarm before I could have reached it. Bill Wong was there with Wilkes. Four policemen were systematically going through the cellar, turning over boxes, raking over the coal. Coal dust rose in the air. Agatha prayed she would not sneeze.

And then Bill Wong walked over to the suit of armour which encased the trembling Agatha. He raised the visor. A pair of terrified bearlike eyes stared back at him. Bill slammed down the visor.

“Nothing here,” he said.

After the search was over, Agatha could hear Wilkes complaining that everyone around was getting hysterical and that Mrs. Tremp had probably left the trapdoor open herself or the coalman had. She had said a load of coal had been delivered only that day. The coal must have shifted and tumbled down in the night. At last Agatha was left alone. She lifted off the visor, took off the gauntlets and headpiece, and lay against a pile of boxes and eased out of the armoured legs. The house was silent again. She crept up the cellar stairs and tried the door. It was unlocked. Agatha walked through a laundry room and then into the hall. All she wanted to do now was escape. She tiptoed to the front door and gently unlocked it and slid back the bolt. Mrs. Tremp would just have to think that in all the excitement she had forgotten to lock the door.

She hurried down the hill, keeping to the shadow of the trees. She let out a sob of relief when she turned into Lilac Lane. She reached her cottage door and put her key in the lock. A voice in her ear said, “What the hell were you playing at?”

Agatha gave a stifled scream and turned round. Bill Wong’s eyes gleamed at her in the darkness.

“Oh, Bill,” babbled Agatha. “I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”

“Let’s go inside. You’ve some explaining to do.”

In the fluorescent light of the kitchen, Agatha was a sorry sight. She was black with coal dust. “I’d let you clean yourself up first,” said Bill. “But I’m in a hurry.”

Agatha seized a handful of kitchen paper and ran it under the cold tap and then wiped her face and hands.

She sat down at the kitchen table. “Bill, thank you for not betraying me.”

“I should have done,” he said grimly. “This could cost me my job if anything came out. Lucky for you that Mrs. Tremp came to the conclusion that the coalman had left that trapdoor open and rats or something had shifted the coal during the night. She was most apologetic. So, what have you been up to?”

In a halting voice, Agatha told him all about her plan to look at the papers on Mrs. Tremp’s desk and also to see what was in her computer.

“Now, listen to me very carefully,” said Bill. “If I ever catch you doing anything like that again, I will not only have you arrested, our friendship will be at an end. I risked my job for you, Agatha. Of all the stupid things to do! This is one case you are going to leave strictly alone from now on. If you do hear of anything relevant to the case, then you are to tell me immediately. I am going to get some sleep with what is left of the night.”

“Any news of the rambler?”

“Lucky for you, there is. He walked into police headquarters around seven o’clock this evening – I mean, yesterday evening. Respectable computer nerd, member of a rambling society, said he liked night walking on his own occasionally. No record.”

“Why lucky for me?”

“If no one had turned up, it would have looked as if that faulty memory of yours had lost us the chance of getting the killer. Before I go. Why Mrs. Tremp? Did she say something you aren’t telling me about?”

“John and I saw her earlier in the day. Tristan had taken her once to meet Peggy Slither. There’s something not quite right about Mrs. Tremp. When her husband had his fatal stroke, she sat watching him for a bit before calling the ambulance. She seemed to be…well…gleeful that he was dead.”

“And that’s all you had to go on?”

“I know it sounds silly, but I’ve had good hunches before.”

“Agatha, for the last time, leave it alone.”

“Okay,” said Agatha wearily. She saw him to the door. “Give my regards to Alice.”

His tired face lit up. “Thanks. I will.”

Agatha shut and locked the door behind him and set the burglar alarm. Then she crawled wearily up the stairs and stripped off her dirty clothes and threw them in the laundry basket before taking a shower and scrubbing off all the coal dust.

Her last thought before she fell asleep was that she was actually relieved she could leave this messy and dreadful case alone.

Next day Agatha went to a printer’s where she got a flyer she had run off on her computer enlarged. She collected two hundred copies and spent an afternoon posting them up in shop windows and on trees in Carsely and in the villages round about.

When she returned home, John rang and said he’d be round in a few minutes.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said as he walked in, “that perhaps we’ve been neglecting the London end. We never found out who beat Tristan up in New Cross.”

“Forget it,” said Agatha. “I have been told in no uncertain terms to keep away from everything and anything to do with the case. And by the way, that rambler I saw was kosher. A respectable citizen.”

“Why are you warned off? What’s been happening?”

“I may as well tell you.” Agatha described the events of the night. John was hardly able to hear the rest of her story, he was laughing so hard. “You are an idiot,” he said finally. “Thank goodness you didn’t drag me into it. Not that I would have gone with you. But I haven’t been warned off.”

“I should think the warning applies to you as well.”

“So you’re just giving up? Have you ever given up before?”

“No, but I’ve never been at such a dead end before. I tell you, John, I’m going to concentrate on these duck races and make it all a success for Mrs. Bloxby and then find something safe and pleasant to do with my time.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll think of something.”

“I think I’ll go back up to London,” said John, “and see what I can find out. Want to come with me?”

Agatha shook her head. “I’ve given up.”