Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate

∨ The Case of the Curious Curate ∧

5

Mrs. Tremp lived in a converted barn outside the village. Agatha remembered seeing her at various village events. She was a small, mousy woman, and when the colonel was alive, the locals reported that he bullied her.

They bumped down the pot-holed drive leading to her home. As they got out of the car, Agatha slammed the door, and rooks, roosting in a nearby lightning-blasted tree, swirled up to the heavens, cawing in alarm. The harvest was in, and the large field beside the house was full of pheasant pecking among the golden stubble.

The converted barn looked large and solid. Agatha rang the bell and they waited. The rooks came swirling back to their tree and stared down at Agatha and John with beady eyes. Agatha shivered. “I don’t like rooks. Birds of ill omen.”

“You mean ravens,” said John.

The door opened and Mrs. Tremp stood there, blinking myopically up at them in the sunlight.

“It’s Mrs. Raisin and Mr. Armitage, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Agatha. “May we come in? We want to talk about Tristan Delon.”

“Oh dear. I was just making jam…and…I suppose you’d better.” She turned and walked indoors and they followed her into a huge sitting-room with long French windows. The furnishings were a comfortable mixture of old and new. The air was redolent with the smell of plum jam.

“Do sit down,” said Mrs. Tremp. “I hope you don’t mind, I keep the windows closed when I am making jam or I get plagued by wasps. What do you want to know about Mr. Delon?”

“We heard you were friendly with him,” said Agatha.

“Yes, I was, and I was most distressed to hear of his death. And now this other terrible murder. There was never anything like this before you arrived in our village, Mrs. Raisin.”

“Nothing to do with me. I don’t go around murdering people. But I’d like to know who is for Mr. Bloxby’s sake.”

“He has only himself to blame for being a suspect,” said Mrs. Tremp. “He was so jealous of Mr. Delon.”

“I suppose Tristan told you that.”

“He did let slip that he was having a difficult time with the vicar, yes.”

“Did you know that he was gay?” asked John. “And that he tried to get women to give him money?”

She raised a gnarled and veined hand up to her suddenly trembling mouth. “I don’t believe it. That’s a wicked thing to say.”

“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Agatha. “Did he try to get you to give him money?”

“He did tell me he had this project to start a club for the youth of the village. He said he would need help. I did offer to support him. In fact, I had a cheque ready for him. But he was killed, so he could not collect it. But I am sure he really did want to start this club. You must be mistaken. He was a real Christian.”

“Mrs. Tremp,” said Agatha firmly, “you are very lucky that he never collected that cheque. He would have pocketed the money. How much was the cheque for?”

“Five thousand pounds.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“I can afford it. My dear George left me very comfortably off. He did not like me spending money. I made all our jam and cakes and bread. He insisted on it. And he would go over my housekeeping books every week, and goodness me, he would get so angry if he thought I had spent a penny too much. We lived in that poky little cottage on the Ancombe road for years. So full of junk I could hardly move! He never threw anything away. I craved space and light. The cottage was so dark. When he died, I rented a skip and threw everything out and then I bought this place.”

She gave a little smile. “Nice, isn’t it?”

“How did your husband die?” asked John.

“In a fit of temper. I was always saying, do watch your blood pressure. I’m afraid it was the cigarettes that did it.”

“He smoked too much?” Agatha thought guiltily of the packet of cigarettes in her handbag.

“No. What happened was I suddenly craved cigarettes. He wouldn’t let me smoke. There was a new cut-price grocery shop in Evesham. I realized if I shopped there instead of the village shop, I could enter the village-shop prices in the housekeeping book, but save enough for a packet of cigarettes. He had said he was going for a round of golf. I had just lit one up when he came crashing in. He had forgotten something. He started to rant and rave about my smoking and then he made some strange gargling sounds and dropped dead.”

She gave another little smile. “I sat down and watched him for quite a while before I phoned the ambulance. He was quiet for the first time.”

“To get back to Tristan,” said Agatha, “how did he first get in touch with you?”

“He called on me. He said he was doing the rounds for the vicar. He was so charming. He loved this house. He said he could live here forever. He said Alf Bloxby was a bully. I said I knew all about bullying and told him about my life with George.”

“Alf Bloxby is not a bully,” said Agatha firmly. “You have known him a long time. Can you see Mrs. Bloxby putting up with a bully?”

“Mr. Delon said she was very long-suffering. I think you have been listening to malicious gossip, Mrs. Raisin. Even if he were gay, where’s the shame in that?”

“None whatsoever, except it was a fact he kept from the women he was tricking out of their money.”

A mulish looked firmed Mrs. Tremp’s normally weak features. “I think you had both better go. I am not going to listen to any more slander and lies.”

She rose and went and held open the front door. “And don’t come round here again.”

“I think she deliberately smoked that cigarette to make her husband have an apoplexy,” said Agatha waspishly. “Terrifying woman.”

“There’s one thing that came out of it,” said John.

“What?”

“She said she had a cheque ready for him. If he was prepared to take cheques rather than cash, then our Tristan planned to get as much as he could and then disappear.”

“Maybe. But if he’d taken village people’s money and disappeared, he would need to leave the church, and it was his position as a churchman that made it easier for him to get money out of people.”

“But if he had received some sort of threat on his life, he might have planned to leave the country.”

“Humph,” said Agatha, annoyed that she had not thought of any of that. “We’ve not got much. What do we do now?”

“It’s early yet. We could go back up to London to try whatever church it was in Kensington that Tristan used to work at.”

“Bill didn’t say what church it was.”

“We could ask around.”

“It might be in west Kensington. Might take us all day.”

“I’m willing to bet it’s somewhere around south Ken,” said John. “Our Tristan would want somewhere fashionable.”

“What if the police call round again?”

“Well, maybe we’ll leave it until tomorrow. Let’s find out how Mrs. Bloxby is getting along.”

Mrs. Bloxby led them through to the vicarage garden. “Alf is lying down,” she said. “This has all been a nightmare.”

They sat down in the garden. “And no word of anyone seeing a stranger in the village?” asked Agatha.

“Nothing at all. It’s television, you see. So many people appear to have been indoors, glued to their sets. I often wonder what it was Miss Jellop wanted to talk to me about. Was it something important, or just one of her usual complaints?” Mrs. Bloxby sighed. “Well, I’ll never know now.”

“What about the press?” asked Agatha. “Some of them must have still been around. People might remember someone with a camera and think, oh it’s just another one of them and not bother saying anything to the police. By the way, Tristan started off at a church in Kensington. Any idea which one?”

“It might be in the letter that Mr. Lancing wrote to Alf to introduce Tristan. Wait here and I’ll look.”

When Mrs. Bloxby went inside, John said, “We’ve been neglecting our local pub. That must be a hotbed of gossip at the moment. We’d better try there after we’ve finished with Mrs. Bloxby and get some lunch at the same time.”

Mrs. Bloxby came back holding a letter. She held it out to John, much to Agatha’s irritation. Agatha pushed her chair up next to John and they both read it at the same time. It described Tristan’s need to move to the country for his mental health. It then said in the last paragraph that he had previously worked at St. David’s in south Kensington before moving to New Cross.

“We’ll go there tomorrow,” said John. “It’s probably someone from Tristan’s past.”

“I think poor Miss Jellop was very much from Tristan’s present,” pointed out Mrs. Bloxby.

“But she might have found out something,” John persisted.

“Has that sister arrived?” asked Agatha. “Miss Jellop’s sister? The one from Stoke-on-Trent?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “If I do, I’ll let you know.”

“We’re going to the pub for lunch,” said Agatha. “Care to join us?”

“No, Alf will be up and about soon.”

John and Agatha left her and drove the short distance to the pub. “We’re getting lazy,” commented Agatha. “I used to walk everywhere.” This was not true, but Agatha only remembered her rare bursts of exercise. She even had a bicycle rusting in the shed at the bottom of her garden that she had not taken out for over a year. She remembered cycling with Roy Silver, her one-time assistant in the days when she had her own company. Strange, she thought, that he hasn’t phoned. He must have read about the murders in the newspapers. And what of Sir Charles Fraith, her one-time friend and “Watson?” She gave a little shiver. Her friends were deserting her. Even Bill Wong looked at her with a policeman’s eyes these days rather than with the eyes of a friend.

The pub was noisy and full of smoke, not from cigarettes but from the open fire. The landlord, John Fletcher, was bending over it, coughing and spluttering. “It’s that last load of wood,” he said when he saw them. “Green.” He lit a fire-lighter and threw it in among the logs. Reluctant flames started to lick up round the wood. “That should do it.” He straightened up, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Now, what can I get you?”

They both ordered beer and sandwiches and retreated to a table in the corner by a window, propped open to let out the smoke. The fire crackled, a comforting sound. Outside the open window and beyond the small car-park, golden fields of stubble stretched out under a pale sun. The air coming in through the window held the chill of autumn. If only these murders hadn’t happened, thought Agatha, forgetting how bored she had been recently, it would be nice to sit here and eat sandwiches and drink beer and then go home and play with the cats.

John brought over their beer and sandwiches. “So what’s the gossip?” asked Agatha.

“Nothing much,” said the landlord. “At first they all thought the vicar did it, but there’s been talk that our curate wasn’t really a very nice person, and so people think it was someone outside the village.”

A customer at the bar shouted that he wanted a drink and John left.

Agatha took a sip of her beer and made a face. She preferred gin and tonic but often ordered beer, knowing she wouldn’t finish her half pint or want another. Alcohol was just about the most ageing thing a middle-aged woman could take.

There was the brisk tap of high heels on the stone-flagged floor to herald the arrival of Miss Simms, secretary of the ladies’ society.

She was clutching a glass of rum and vodka. “Mind if I join you?”

“Please do,” said John Armitage.

Miss Simms sat down on a chair next to Agatha. “Terrible about Miss Jellop, innit? But she had it coming to her.”

“How’s that?” asked Agatha.

“Always complaining and poking her nose into things. Terrible gossip, she was. You should have heard the things she said about you, Mrs. Raisin.”

“I don’t want to know,” snapped Agatha. “Do you still think Tristan was a saint?”

“No, he did a nasty thing.”

“What?”

“I met him in the village on the day before he was murdered. He asked me out. Said he was tired of all those old women in the village. Now, that wasn’t a nice thing to say, but at the time, like, I was so flattered that he wanted my company because he asked me out for dinner.”

“But that was for the evening I had dinner with him!” exclaimed Agatha.

“I know. I’m coming to that. I was to meet him in that new restaurant, Stavros, in Chipping Norton, at eight o’clock. By ten past eight, I’d ordered a drink. He still didn’t show. By eight-thirty, I decided to leave. Well, I’d had a look at the menu and I knew I couldn’t afford their prices, so I just paid for the drink, picked myself up some fish and chips in Sheep Street and went home. I phoned and Mrs. Feathers said he was entertaining you and couldn’t be disturbed. When did he invite you?”

“The day before he was murdered.”

“But he asked me out for dinner in the afternoon of that day,” wailed Miss Simms. “I just don’t understand it.”

“Maybe he did it deliberately,” said John. “He’d already made a dinner date with Agatha here. Maybe he enjoyed the thought of you sitting, waiting.”

“But he seemed so nice, ever so nice, but now there’s some murmurs that he could be a bit, well, cruel, like.”

“Got any examples?” asked Agatha.

“Well, Mrs. Brown, her what comes with the mobile library, she said he was charming to her one week and then, the next, he announced in front of the other customers that the selection of books was for morons and some moron must have chosen them. Mrs. Brown chooses most of the books herself, everyone knows that. There was a bit of a shocked silence, but he stood there, looking so gorgeous and smiling so sweetly, that everyone sort of decided they must have misheard. Then old Mr. Crinsted near me at the council houses, Tristan used to call round and play chess with him. Mr. Crinsted said he was so glad of the company that he let Tristan win the first couple of times, but on the third, he beat him and he said Tristan got very angry and accused him of cheating.”

“There’s one good thing about stories like that going round the village,” said Agatha: “people can’t be thinking Alf Bloxby murdered Tristan in a fit of jealousy.”

“No, not anymore. But then, people do say things like – but who else could have done it?”

“What about Miss Jellop?” asked John. “What’s being said about her?”

“She wasn’t very popular. Always complaining. I mean, she irritated people. But I can’t see anyone wanting to murder her. Of course, people are saying she was being spiteful about the vicar, saying he murdered Tristan, things like that.”

And what that amounts to, thought Agatha wearily, is that people will still be thinking of Alf Bloxby as a murderer. I must do something. But what? Just keep on ferreting around and hope I find something out.

Miss Simms finished her drink and left. “What should we do now?” asked Agatha.

“I don’t know. We’ll try that church in London tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s go down to the library and look up the name ‘Jellop’ in the Stoke-on-Trent directory. We might get the sister’s number and we could call her. Tristan obviously told Miss Jellop something that made her dangerous.”

“Nothing here,” said Agatha, half an hour later. “Not in the residential addresses.”

“Jellop’s Jams and Jellies. Try under the business addresses,” said John.

Agatha searched the book. “Got it,” she said.

“Write it down and we’ll go back and phone in comfort.”

Back at Agatha’s cottage, she said, “Who’s going to phone? You or me?”

“I’ll do it.”

Agatha went into the kitchen and petted her cats and let them out in the garden. She stood for a moment surveying the scene in front of her, and thinking the garden looked rather dull. Not having green fingers herself, she had hired a gardener, but he turned out to be expensive and lazy, so she had fired him and replaced the flowers with shrubs. Next year, she thought, she would start all over again and have a colourful display of flowers.

John came out to join her. “Miss Jellop’s sister is a Mrs. Essex. A nice woman in personnel even gave me her home address. You want to try it?”

“No, you do it.”

John gave her a surprised look, but went back indoors.

Agatha was suddenly tired of the whole business. She should leave it to the police. She wanted something else to occupy her mind. Anything else. She could not, somehow, relax in John’s company. Agatha could not understand that it was John’s regular good looks which fazed her. Such men were usually interested in prettier and younger women. Such men were not for the likes of Agatha Raisin. And Agatha was old–fashioned in that she could only relate to men when there was a sexual undercurrent.

When John returned again, he said, “I spoke to the husband. Mrs. Essex is down here, at Mircester police headquarters. Let’s go. We might catch her as she comes out.”

“We might not recognize her,” said Agatha, reluctant to move.

“With luck, there’ll be some sort of family resemblance.”

“She might have left Mircester and be up at the cottage.”

“I doubt it. I took a walk up there early this morning. It’s still taped off and the forensic people are still working on it. Come on, Agatha!”

They waited in the car-park outside Mircester police headquarters, studying all the people coming out. After an hour, Agatha yawned and then shifted restlessly. “No one who even looks like her. I say we should go home. She probably left ages ago.”

“That might be her,” said John. A middle-aged woman had just emerged accompanied by a policewoman. She had protruding eyes and a ferrety appearance. A police car drove up and both women got in the back.

“Now what?” said Agatha.

“We follow them. She might be staying somewhere locally.”

John, who was driving, followed the police car at a safe distance. “They’re going in the Carsely direction,” said John after a few miles. “Maybe the police have finished with the cottage and she’s going to stay there.”

“Must be tough if she is,” retorted Agatha. “I don’t know that I’d want to stay in a house where my sister had been murdered.”

“Maybe keeping an eye on her assets. She’ll probably inherit.”

Sure enough, the police car drove on down into Carsely.

“We’d best go home,” said John, “and wait, and then walk up later when we’re sure the police have gone. We’ll go to my place.”

Agatha always experienced a pang of loss when she entered John’s cottage. There was no feel, no trace of her missing ex-husband’s personality. James Lacey’s books had spilled from the shelves. John’s books were all in neat order, according to subject. He worked at a metal computer desk placed in front of the window. There were two armchairs covered in bright chintz and an oak coffee-table, shining and bare.

“Like a drink?” asked John.

“Gin and tonic.”

“I don’t have lemon or ice.”

“How British! I’ll drink it warm.”

While John went into the kitchen, Agatha sat down and closed her eyes, trying to conjure up an image of James and of the room as it used to be. She had nearly succeeded when John came back in. She opened her eyes and accepted a glass of gin and tonic. He carefully put two coasters down on the coffee-table.

“You live like a bachelor,” commented Agatha. “Neatness everywhere.”

“It’s the only way I can live. If I let it go for one day, then sloppiness sets in. There’s a police car just gone past.” He went to the door and opened it and looked out. “Bill!” he shouted. “In here.”

“I feel guilty every time I look at him,” grumbled Agatha.

Bill came in. He was on his own. “Was that you following us from Mircester?” he asked.

“We just happened to be in Mircester doing some shopping,” said Agatha defensively. “We saw the police car in front of us. I didn’t know you were in it.”

“I wasn’t. I was in the car behind you.”

“Anyway, now you’re here, what can we do for you?”

Bill studied Agatha’s face and noticed the way she dropped her eyes and reached for her drink.

“I think you pair have been up to something. I’ve never known you to let things alone before, Agatha.”

“It’s this engagement,” said John. “We’ve got so much to deal with. We don’t know whether to keep one of our cottages or buy somewhere bigger.”

“So you say. Have you heard anything?”

“Only that the villagers have been sharing views about Tristan and seem to be coming to the conclusion that he was rather nasty.”

“Give me an example.”

Agatha told him about Miss Simms. “Now, that is odd,” said Bill. “I mean, what would a gay man want with a woman without money?”

“Probably did it out of spite.”

“It still seems out of character. If he was out to fleece rich women, then he would be anxious to keep up his front of being sweet and charming. He must have known that Miss Simms would talk about it.”

“Unless,” said Agatha slowly, “someone or something frightened him and he’d decided to leave. That was why he wanted the church money. He probably hoped to get a cheque from me.”

“Or he decided to dump Miss Simms because you provided a possibility of good pickings.”

“But he asked Miss Simms out for dinner after he’d invited me. Did Miss Feathers say if he had received any calls during the night?”

“Not that she knows of, apart from the one from you.”

“Miss Simms must have been very flustered and excited about that invitation,” said Bill. “I wonder if she got the evening wrong. You had dinner with him on the Tuesday. I wonder if he said tomorrow evening and in her excitement, Miss Simms misunderstood him.”

“I’ll phone up the restaurant and see when he made the booking for,” said John.

“You’ll need an Oxfordshire phone-book,” said Agatha.

“I’ve got one. You two go on talking; I’ll phone from the bedroom.”

“So you’re really going to get married again,” said Bill, scrutinizing Agatha’s face.

“Seems like a good idea.”

“Women of your age often marry because they want companionship, or someone to go into pubs and restaurants with, or to mend fuses; but not you, Agatha.”

“I’ve decided I’ll never fall in love again,” said Agatha. “So I may as well settle for companionship. Can we talk about something else? Like is Miss Jellop’s sister going to stay in her cottage?”

“How did you know it was Miss Jellop’s sister?”

“The police car turned off in the direction of Dover Rise. Simple.”

“Now, why do I get the feeling that the pair of you found out that she was at police headquarters and waited outside and tailed her back here?”

“Because you’ve got a nasty, suspicious copper’s mind. Oh, here’s John.”

“Mystery solved,” said John, coming down the stairs. “Tristan booked a table for the Friday evening, not Thursday. The restaurant was quiet, so when Miss Simms turned up, saying she was waiting for a gentleman friend, but not giving any name, they put her at a table for two.”

“Another dead end,” said Bill. “I’d best be off. Don’t go bothering Mrs. Essex.”

“Who’s she?” asked Agatha innocently.

“As if you didn’t know!”

When Bill had left, John asked, “Are we going to bother Mrs. Essex?”

“Of course,” said Agatha.

“Better leave it a bit until we’re sure the police have gone. That’s Mrs. Bloxby just gone past the window. She’s probably on her way to your place.”

He opened the window and called, “Mrs. Bloxby!” She turned and smiled and then walked up to the door. John opened it and ushered her in. Mrs. Bloxby was looking so relaxed and cheerful that Agatha cried, “You look great. You must have heard some good news.”

“I haven’t heard any good news. But I’ve been in church and I have renewed my faith.”

Agatha felt embarrassed. She said, “Bill Wong has just been here.” She told the vicar’s wife about Miss Simms’s date, ending up with, “But I don’t see why he even asked her in the first place.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Bloxby slowly, “that perhaps he was not gay.”

“But by all accounts he said so himself,” exclaimed Agatha.

“He may have said that as one of his ways of rejecting and hurting people. Men who are very beautiful are naturally assumed to be gay. I must confess I made that mistake myself. Think, Mrs. Raisin, when you had dinner with him, did you ever think he might be gay?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Agatha. “He was exuding sexual vibes.”

“If he was as cruel as he seems to have been, it might have delighted him to lead both men and women on. To the men, he could imply he was gay and then reject them if they made any advances. To the women, he could say he was gay, and reject them that way. He liked manipulating people. He did at first imply that I was wasted on Alf, but, you see, that didn’t work with me, for I have never fallen out of love with my husband.”

Agatha felt a sour pang of jealousy which she quickly dismissed. Mrs. Bloxby deserved the rewards of a good woman. Maybe I should pray myself, thought Agatha.

They all went over what they knew about Tristan without getting any further.

When Mrs. Bloxby had left, John glanced at his wrist-watch. “Perhaps we should try Mrs. Essex now.”

They walked up through the village to Dover Rise. “If she was well off,” said John, “it’s a wonder she didn’t choose somewhere a bit more expensive to live. I think these used to be workers’ cottages at one time.”

“She was on her own and probably didn’t feel she needed anywhere larger. One of these terraced cottages costs nearly two hundred thousand pounds. Living in the Cotswolds is expensive. Everyone wants to live here. A lot of people who had second homes in the Cotswolds during the last recession opted to sell their London homes and commute from here. It’s only an hour and a half on the train from Moreton. If you live in Hampstead, say, it can take you all that just to get into the City.”

They stood at the end of the cul-de-sac and looked along it. “No police cars,” said John. “I can’t see a copper on duty either.”

“Why are they called coppers?” asked Agatha.

“It comes from an old acronym, COP, constable on patrol. Why are you playing Trivial Pursuits, Agatha?”

“Because I’m nervous. I expect Bill Wong to leap out of the bushes at me.”

“Looks all-clear.”

“I hate this business of being unauthorized,” Agatha burst out. “We look like a couple of Nosy Parkers.”

“The curse of the amateur detective,” remarked John cheerfully. “Buck up, Agatha. Where’s your stiff upper lip?”

“To quote the Goons, it’s over my loose wobbly lower one.”

They arrived at the cottage. The door was standing open. “Here goes!” said Agatha.

She rang the bell beside the door, suddenly aware that she was wearing trousers, a shirt blouse and flat sandals. I’m letting my appearance slip, thought Agatha. I haven’t been to the beautician in ages. I hope to God I’m not growing a moustache. She nervously felt her upper lip. Was that a hair? She fumbled in her handbag and took out a powder compact and peered in the little mirror.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

Agatha lowered the compact and found Mrs. Essex staring curiously at her.

Agatha tucked the compact hurriedly in her handbag. She introduced both of them as friends of Miss Jellop and said they had come to offer their condolences.

“Too kind,” said Mrs. Essex. Her protruding eyes stared at Agatha’s face with such intensity that Agatha wondered if she was, after all, sprouting a moustache.

“We would like to talk to you about your sister,” said Agatha.

“Why?”

Agatha took a deep breath. Where had all her old confidence gone? “I have helped the police on murder cases before,” she said. “I thought we might be able to help find out who murdered your sister if we could ask you a few questions.”

“But I have already told the police all I know!”

John edged in front of Agatha. He gave Mrs. Essex a charming smile. “As you may know, I write detective stories.”

“What’s your name again?”

“John Armitage.”

Her pale lips parted in a smile. “Why, I saw you on the South Bank Show last year. Please come in. This is exciting.”

Hardly the grieving sister, thought Agatha sourly as she followed John into the cottage.

“I’m just making an inventory of everything,” said Mrs. Essex. “Poor Ruby never spent much on herself.”

Ruby, thought Agatha. So that was her first name. Momentarily distracted, she began to wonder about the first names of other women in the ladies’ society where the tradition was to use second names.

Then she realized John was speaking. “Your sister phoned Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar’s wife, asking her to call round as she had something to tell her, but by the time Mrs. Bloxby got here, your sister was dead. Did Miss Jellop say anything at all to you that might indicate she knew something dangerous about someone?”

“No, because we didn’t speak. We had a falling-out. I was amazed when the police told me they had found Ruby’s will and that she had left everything to me. In fact, she had changed her will the day before she died.”

Agatha’s bearlike eyes gleamed. “Who had she left her money to in the previous will?”

“To that curate. The one who was murdered. Poor Ruby. She was always getting these schoolgirl crushes on some man or another.”

“And you didn’t know anything about it?” asked Agatha.

Those protruding eyes fastened on Agatha’s face with a flash of malicious intelligence. “Meaning did I murder my sister the minute I knew she’d changed her will? You should leave detecting to your friend here.”

“Might there be something among her papers?” put in John quickly. “Letters or diary or something?”

“You’ll need to ask the police. They took all her papers away. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do.”

“Will you sell the cottage?” asked Agatha.

“I don’t know. Maybe keep it for holidays and weekends. My husband’s due to retire soon.”

“When did you last speak to your sister?” asked Agatha.

“Must have been about three years ago.”

“Not much there,” said John gloomily as they walked back down through the village. “You know, the car has caused a decline in gossip in English villages. I suppose not so long ago one would see people standing gossiping and walking about. Now a lot of them even use their cars to drive a few yards to the village stores.”

“But that means empty roads and lanes,” said Agatha impatiently. “Surely a stranger would have been noticed. Unless it was someone masquerading as a local reporter. The village is fed up with the press. They see someone that looks like a journalist and they shy away. I can tell a genuine journalist a mile off.”

“How?”

“Even if they’re well-dressed, they carry a shabby sort of people-pleasing alcoholism about with them.”

“You’re sour because you were a public relations officer.”

“You’re right,” said Agatha reluctantly. “I hated crawling to the bastards.”

“I can’t imagine you crawling,” said John. “I can imagine you frightening them into writing what you wanted them to write.”

This was in fact true but Agatha didn’t want to hear it or believe it. She still saw herself as a waiflike creature – shy, vulnerable and much put-upon. Sometimes when she looked in a full-length mirror, she could not believe that the stocky, well-groomed woman looking back at her was really herself.

They walked on in silence and then Agatha said, “What next?”

“Just keep on trying. London tomorrow.”