The Love from Hell

∨ The Love from Hell ∧

6

THE following day, Agatha said, “We’ve got to try Mr. Dewey again.”

“We’ve only got to show our faces near his house and that damned woman will start shouting for the police.”

“I don’t think so. She’s already made a fool of herself.”

“Oh, really? I thought it was you who had made a fool of yourself, saying you had a gun.”

“Never mind that. I paid Dewey a generous amount to repair his window. Let’s try. I can’t just sit here and worry about James.”

“I thought you didn’t love James any more.”

“I just want to get my hands on him and give him a piece of my mind. Come on, Charles.”

As they drove towards Worcester, Agatha said, “Now there’s this new bypass, I miss seeing Broadway. I keep thinking I must turn off one day and see what the old place looks like.”

“Tell you what. If we ever find out who did this murder, I’ll treat you to dinner at the Lygon Arms.” The Lygon Arms was Broadway’s famous and expensive hotel.

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” remarked Agatha. “You promising me an expensive dinner makes me think you don’t believe we’ll find anyone.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll just blunder about in our usual way and unearth something.”

They were approaching Evesham when Charles muttered something and pulled over by the side of the road and got out. “What’s up?” asked Agatha when he got back in the car.

“Slow puncture. Anywhere around here can fix it?”

“Don’t you have a spare?”

“No, I used that last year and forgot to get a new one.”

“Well, if you go round that next roundabout and into the Four Pools Estate, there’s a place called Motorways. They’ll fix a new wheel in minutes.”

By the time they parked at Motorways, the wheel was nearly flat. They sat down in the office and waited. A mechanic came in and said, “Your other tyres are nearly bald.”

Agatha fixed Charles with a steely glare. “Do get all your tyres fixed. What if one blew out when we were speeding along some motorway?”

Charles said he would like all new tyres and one spare.

“I like seeing you spending money,” said Agatha with a grin.

The man behind the counter said, “The coffee in the machine over there is free, if you’d like some.”

Charles brightened visibly, as if the thought of something free had allayed some of the dismay he had felt at having to shell out for new tyres.

Agatha sat nursing a cup of coffee and staring dreamily about her. It was funny, she thought, not for the first time, how one never got the city out of one’s bones and how even industrial waste had a certain sort of comforting beauty. The rain had started to fall outside and she breathed in that old familiar smell of rain on hot dusty concrete. In the village, she was surrounded by flowers: lavender and hollyhocks, impatiens, roses, delphiniums, gladioli, and pansies, and yet she could still see beauty in willow-herb thrusting up out of the cracks in an industrial estate.

She was almost sorry when the car was pronounced ready. “Seriously, Charles,” she said as he drove off, “how did you get to be so mean? It’s not as if you’re short of a bob.”

“I suppose it all started with death duties,” said Charles. “And my father had let the land go to rack and ruin. The farms weren’t paying. It was a hard fight to turn things around, getting a good stockbroker so that money could make money. I couldn’t bear to lose the house and land. I got used to economizing on everything I could and the habit’s stuck, I’m afraid. I even took a diploma in agriculture and a course in bookkeeping so I could do the accounts and save the expense of an accountant. For a while I even opened the house to the public.”

“Don’t want to run down your home,” said Agatha. “But it’s a great Victorian pile, hardly an architectural gem.”

“I invented a ghost,” said Charles. “I engineered an occasion for dry ice to leak out through the walls of the library. Gave the visitors no end of a thrill. They used to come in coach-loads. But the minute I got solvent, I stopped the house tours. That stock-broker is a whiz. He made me a fortune.”

“Mine’s pretty good, too,” said Agatha, and so they talked comfortably about stocks and shares until they reached the outskirts of Worcester. “We may not be lucky enough to find him at home this time,” said Agatha.

And this proved to be the case. No answer to the doorbell, but at least the Neighbourhood Watch woman was nowhere in sight.

“Let’s try next door,” said Charles. “I saw a curtain twitch.”

“No, let’s not,” said Agatha hurriedly. “The neighbour probably last saw us being carted off by the police. I saw a newspaper shop just outside the housing estate. They might know where he is. We forgot to ask him if he worked at anything.”

The Pakistani shopkeeper volunteered the information that Mr. Dewey kept an antique shop in The Shambles opposite the back of Marks & Spencer in the centre of Worcester, and so they drove into the main car-park by the river, where swans sailed majestically up and down. The rain was quite heavy now. Charles produced a large golf umbrella from the boot of the car and under its shelter they walked up and across the main street and through to The Shambles.

It turned out to be a very small shop selling nothing but antique dolls. They stood for a moment looking in the window. “There’s something scary about old dolls, I always think,” said Charles. “All those watching eyes. I sometimes think a bit of the personality of each child who loved them is still there inside them.”

They entered the dark shop and walked in. Mr. John Dewey was sitting at a small table at the back of the shop. He rose to meet them. “Oh, it’s you again,” he said.

“I hope you got my cheque,” said Agatha.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Our conversation was interrupted.”

“I can’t think of anything else to tell you. Do you mind if I go on working?”

He sat down at the table and picked up a large Edwardian doll with only one blue eye. “Just getting a new eye for her,” he said. He had a tray of glass eyes in front of him. “It’s a matter of getting just the right colour and the right size,” he said.

“Ah, perhaps this.” He picked out an eye and carried it to the window. “Mmm, I think this will do.” He returned and sat down and held the doll on his lap. “Soon have you seeing the world again,” he said. With one deft movement he removed the head. “I fix it from the inside,” he said, looking up at them.

He looked so small and neat and absorbed in his work that Agatha blurted out, “How could you marry someone like Melissa?”

“I sometimes ask myself that,” he said. “I’d never bothered much about the ladies before. But then she seemed to have such a knowledge of antique dolls. Wait, I’ll show you something.” He put down the doll he was working on and went into the back shop.

“He’s weird,” muttered Agatha. “If he comes back swinging a hammer, run for it.”

“What made you think of a hammer?” asked Charles. “They never found a weapon.”

“I always thought of a hammer, I don’t know why.” Mr. Dewey came back carrying a doll. “This is my favourite. Eighteenth-century. Do you notice these old dolls often have human faces?”

The doll had a leather face and green eyes. The hair was powdered and the dress was panniered silk. Agatha looked at it uneasily. She thought the doll had a mocking, knowing look. “What’s this doll got to do with Melissa?”

“Everything. We had been talking in the shop for a few weeks and then we occasionally had lunch, always talking about dolls. Then she said she had two tickets to a fancy dress ball in the town hall and would I come? I was very shy and said I didn’t dance, but she said it would be fun to dress up and watch the costumes.”

“What did you go as?” asked Agatha. “I went as Blackbeard, the pirate,” he said. Agatha tried not to laugh, he looked so neat and prim, cradling the doll in his arms. “I said I would meet her there. It’s only a short walk from here to the town hall. I must say, I felt quite different in my costume. I I even swaggered a bit. When I got there I looked around for her and what I saw first was not Melissa but this doll, my precious. She had copied this gown and had her hair powdered. I fell in love on the spot. I was dazed. I asked her to marry me before the evening was over.” He sighed.

“And how did the marriage break down?”

“As soon as we were wed, she stopped talking about dolls, showed no interest in them. And she wouldn’t ever wear the dress again. I asked her to wear it in the house, just for me, but she wouldn’t. She seemed to have become a different person, hard and brittle. I immersed myself in my work. But I wanted to save our marriage. It had been dragging on in a terrible way for over three years. I pleaded with her one more time to wear the dress and she said, ‘That’s it!” and she got a pair of kitchen scissors and she said she was going to cut my favourite doll to ribbons.

“My heart was beating fit to burst but I forced myself to speak in a calm and reasonable voice. I told her she didn’t have a key to the shop, that the metal shutters were down over the window and door and the burglar alarm set. I told her I would never ask her to wear the dress again. I told her to sit and I would fix her a drink. She drank a lot. I said I would mix her a special cocktail. I did. I opened up several of my sleeping pills and mixed up some concoction from the cocktail cabinet. I remember her eyes were hard and glittering as she drank it down. When she passed out, I tied her arms and legs very firmly. With wire.”

Agatha moved close to Charles.

“When she recovered, I said I was going to take her eyes out and replace them with doll’s eyes. Did I say I had gagged her as well? No? Well, I did. I told her I wanted a divorce, I wanted her to leave immediately. I told her to nod her head if she agreed. She nodded. I wanted to frighten her so much, you see, that not only would she leave me and divorce me, but that she would not attack me when I released her. As soon as she was free, she packed and left.”

Agatha looked at him, her eyes gleaming. “But you must have still loved her.”

“Why?”

“You learned somehow that she was having an affair with my husband, so you attacked him first, but he escaped, and you then killed Melissa.”

He gave a gentle little laugh. He did not seem at all upset Agatha’s accusations. “I am not a violent man. Oh, if you could have felt the relief I felt when she had gone. Did I say I could not dance? I meant, I was too shy to dance. But when she had gone, I waltzed around the house.” He took the doll’s tiny hand in his and waltzed round the shop.

Just then a customer walked in and he stopped dancing. “I will be with you in a minute,” he said. He retreated to the back shop with his doll.

“Let’s get out of here,” muttered Agatha.

They walked outside. The rain had stopped and patches of pale-blue sky were appearing among the ragged grey clouds far above them.

“We should tell Bill about this,” said Charles.

“Phew!” Agatha clutched his arm. “I could use a drink.”

They went into a pub. Agatha asked for gin and tonic and Charles had an orange juice. “Didn’t Bill say he had an alibi?” asked Agatha.

“No, he said Sheppard had an alibi. He didn’t say anything I about Dewey and we didn’t ask. I think we should tell him this. The man’s mad.”

Agatha took out her mobile phone. But she was told when she dialled police headquarters in Mircester that Bill had gone home.

“I hate seeing him at home,” mourned Agatha. “Those parents of his!”

“We’d better try anyway. Drink up!”

♦

The Wongs lived in a builder’s estate much like the one inhabited by Mr. Dewey. Bill’s father was Hong Kong Chinese, and his mother, from Gloucestershire. Mrs. Wong opened the door. She stared at them and then shouted over her shoulder, “Father, it’s that woman again!”

She was joined by Mr. Wong, who shuffled forward in a pair of carpet slippers. “May we speak to Bill?” asked Agatha. “It’s very important.”

“You should’ve phoned first to make an appointment.” He stood in the doorway with his wife at his side and neither of them showed any signs of moving. How could Bill ever hope to get married, thought Agatha, living as he did with these possessive parents?

She suddenly shouted, “Bill!” at the top of her voice, and was relieved to hear his answering voice, “Agatha?”

Reluctantly his parents backed away from the doorway and then Bill stood there, beaming. “Come in, come in. Perhaps we could all have some tea, Ma?”

“I’m not making tea for nobody,” grumbled his mother.

“Can we go into the garden, maybe?” suggested Agatha. “We’ve got some news that might interest you.”

“Sure.” Bill led the way through the house into the garden at the back, which was his pride and joy. They sat down at a garden table surrounded by a riot of flowers.

“What have you got for me?”

Agatha described John Dewey and then related the story of his marriage, ending up with asking, “Did he have an alibi?”

“There are witnesses to testify that he was working late in his shop the night Melissa was killed, and that Neighbourhood Watch woman saw him returning home around midnight. Of course, we can’t pin-point the exact time of death. He could easily have driven over to Carsely. We’ll keep an eye on him. Anything else?”

Agatha told him about the visit to the disco, about learning that Melissa at one time had been sectioned for a drug addiction and diagnosed as a psychopath. Then she said, “Of course, there is the other husband, Sheppard.”

“But Luke Sheppard and his wife spent that night at the Randolph in Oxford.”

“Still, that’s not far. He could have driven to Carsely, done the deed, and driven back. It takes about three quarters of an hour to get to Oxford. Half an hour if someone broke the speed limit.”

“We checked. The night staff didn’t see him leave.”

“It’s impossible,” groaned Agatha. “It could well be someone from way back in her past. She told my cleaner she was engaged on secret work for the government. Now I know that’s another of her lies, but what prompted that lie? Could she have been tied up with some MP or army man?”

“Like James?” suggested Bill, and then regretted saying it as a haunted look appeared in Agatha’s eyes.

“Is there no word of him, Bill?”

“Not a thing. We regularly check to see if he’s drawn any money, but there’s nothing. Look, why don’t you stay here and relax and then we’ll all have dinner.”

Agatha repressed a shudder. His mother was a dreadful cook and his parents would grumble about their presence all through the meal. She was always amazed that Bill could not see how awful they were, but he obviously adored his father and mother and could see no fault in them. “No, thanks,” she said. “We’d better get on.”

“Thanks anyway for your news. We may pull in Dewey for questioning again. If he could tie her up like that and threaten to take her eyes out, then he could easily have killed her.”

♦

“Where to now?” asked Charles. “Call it a day and go for dinner?”

“I’m tired. But we could just catch Luke Sheppard again before he closes his shop.”

“And what can we ask him we haven’t asked him already?”

“We could tell him about Dewey. I mean, ask if he’d ever met Dewey. Ask him whether Dewey ever called on Melissa.”

“All right,” said Charles amiably. “We’ll give it a try.”

Agatha looked at him with a sudden burst of affection. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Charles!”

His face took on a tight, closed look. Damn, though Agatha. Rule number one. Never tell a man you need him. In a moment or two, he’ll tell me he wants to go home and pack. But to her surprise, he drove steadily and said nothing until they drove into the main car-park at Mircester.

“I feel our Sheppard is a bad-tempered man,” said Charles. “Let’s hope he doesn’t exercise it on us.”

“You could buy something,” suggested Agatha. “That would put him in a good mood.”

“From that shop? You must be joking.”

“A thought, that’s all.” As they walked along the street where Sheppard’s shop was situated, they saw him outside, pulling down the shutters. They quickened their step and came up to him. “Oh, it’s you pair,” he said ungraciously.

“We wondered if you could spare us a minute,” said Agatha.

“Okay, but a minute is all I’ve got. Let’s go to the pub.”

Once inside, Agatha asked him what he wanted to drink, not wanting Charles to start on one of his tales about a missing wallet.

She carried the drinks over to the table. She had bought an orange juice for herself as well as Charles. She would offer to drive them home.

Agatha told Luke Sheppard about their meeting with John Dewey and then asked him, “Did Melissa ever talk about her previous marriage? Or did Dewey ever try to see her?”

“She said he was weird. She said he loved his dolls more than humans. But she didn’t volunteer much else except it was one marriage she was glad to get out of.”

Agatha was disappointed. “She didn’t say anything about being frightened of him?”

“No, I saw him once. Curiosity, you know. I went to that shop of his. Insignificant little chap, if you ask me. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. She didn’t have any trouble divorcing him.”

Charles said, “But he forced her into a divorce. Didn’t she tell you?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “No, she told me he had agreed to the divorce without a murmur.”

“Here’s what really happened,” said Agatha, and told him about Dewey’s dragging Melissa and threatening her.

He goggled at her. “She never said a word. But she was secretive. She had a lot of money of her own. But she never discussed it with me. She kept her bank-books and bank papers locked up. Mind you, that didn’t bother me much. I wanted rid of her after the honeymoon.”

“What happened on the honeymoon?” asked Agatha eagerly.

He glanced impatiently at his watch. “I’ll make it quick. It was like this. We went to Paris. It was August and there weren’t many French people around. All gone off on me annual holiday. She was a great know-all. Had memorized the guidebook. We trudged round everywhere – Notre Dame, Versailles, Sacre Coeur – you name it. I don’t speak French. She said she spoke it like a native. I said, ‘How come then the natives don’t understand a word you’re saying’? She’d dropped the act of hanging on my every word, being the perfect partner. She demanded attention the whole time and not only from me, from about every man who crossed her path. I often wondered how she would get on in a roomful of men with different personalities, trying to be all things to all of them. I’m telling you, by the time we got back, I detested that woman.”

“So how did you get her to agree to a divorce?”

He looked again at his watch. “I’ve really got to go.”

“Quickly,” said Agatha. “Did you ask for a divorce and did she agree to it just like that?”

“Yes, something like that.” He got to his feet. “See here, I’ve given you pair enough of my time. Don’t come round here again.”

“Where were you living when you were married?” asked Charles.

He half-turned. “Why?”

“Just wondered.”

“Oxford.”

“Where in Oxford?”

“Jericho. Pliny Road.”

He marched out of the pub.

“What did you make of that?” asked Charles.

“I think,” said Agatha, resting her chin on her hands, “that he threatened her just like Dewey.”

“I think you’re right. That’s why I asked for his old address.”

“Why?”

“Because we will go there tomorrow and ask the neighbours about Sheppard and Melissa. I wonder, why Oxford? It’s an hour-and-a-halfs drive at least from Oxford to Mircester.”

“We should have asked Melissa’s sister more questions.”

“We can still do that. I’ve got her card. She lives in Cambridge. The other university town.”

“Do we need to go all the way there? It’s quite a drive.”

“Maybe we’ll phone her. Let’s get out of here and have some dinner.”

“Come home and I’ll make us something.”

“Anyone who eats microwaved curry for breakfast is not to be trusted with dinner. Plenty of good restaurants in Mircester.”

♦

A wave of black depression hit Agatha as soon as she awoke the following morning. She had been dreaming about James, and in her dream they had been walking along a sunlit beach together and he had been holding her hand. Where was he? Was he alive? Did he ever think of her? Why was she going to all this trouble to clear his name?

She mumbled that thought to Charles when he came into her bedroom, demanding to know why she wasn’t getting up.

“Because we are out to clear your name as well, sweetie. Or had you forgotten? Your alibi is only for the evening James disappeared. You’ve got nothing to prove your innocence when it comes to Melissa’s murder.”

“Can you bring me up a cup of coffee?”

“No, you’ll drink it and lie in bed and smoke and gloom. Come downstairs.”

Agatha climbed out of bed. Her knees were stiff and she stared down at them. Here was another bit of body betraying her. She did some exercises and took a hot shower. By the time she had dressed, the stiffness had gone. But, she wondered, was this the beginning of the end? Good-bye healthy life and hullo rubber knickers and support hose? What would it be like to creak about on a Zimmer frame? She had a sudden craving for life, for excitement. She had an impulse to ask Charles to go upstairs to bed with her that minute. Then she thought, was this how James felt? If I can feel like this over a brief ache in the knees, what did he feel like when he learned he might die? He should have been making his peace with God, she answered herself. Would you? sneered a little voice in her head. Agatha slowly shook her head. The God she only half believed in had shaggy grey locks and wore open-toed sandals and disapproved of one Agatha Raisin.

“Agatha! Why are you standing there shaking your head and moving your lips?” asked Charles.

Agatha gave herself a mental shake. “I just wondered what thoughts were going through James’s head when he learned of his cancer.”

“Doesn’t bear thinking of. I’ve made toast and coffee. Eat. Drink. Then let’s get off to Oxford.”

As they drove to Oxford, Agatha driving this time, she switched on the air-conditioning in the car. “The sun’s so hot,” she said. “Going to be one very hot day.”

“Watch out for the speed camera just after Blenheim Palace,” said Charles as Agatha drove through Woodstock. “You just get used to the camera facing one way, and then they come and turn it the other way and catch all the drivers who increase speed when they think they are safely past it.”

“I never speed through towns or villages,” said Agatha virtuously. A car ahead of her, unaware that the camera had turned, went slowly past it and then speeded up. There was a bright flash as he was photographed. “See what I mean?” said Charles with all the satisfaction of one motorist seeing another getting caught by a speed camera.

“I was thinking, Charles, that we have all these suspects whirling around our brains. Well, maybe two suspects, Sheppard and Dewey.”

“Three.”

“Who’s the third?”

“Her sister. She inherits. Maybe she knew she was going to inherit. Melissa, it seems, had money of her own.”

“Yes, but where does James come into it?”

“I’d forgotten about him.”

“Why would the sister attack James?”

“We don’t know what James was up to. Remember, he was like you when it came to trying to find out things.”

“So three suspects…”

“Maybe more. What about Jake and his pals? No one’s going to bother much about a bit of pot these days. But remember, Melissa had once been sectioned for drugs. Maybe she wanted some hard stuff and they were pushing.”

“All possible. But we can’t go to Bill with mere speculation. I can see both Sheppard and Dewey doing it, but I really can’t think of a motive. They were both clear of her.”

“Who knows? Maybe Melissa paid a visit to Dewey’s shop and spat on his favourite doll.”

“Which brings us back to where James came into it.”

Charles groaned. “Okay, let’s see if we can find out anything about Melissa and Sheppard when they were married that he hasn’t told us. I mean, it took nearly a year for the divorce to come through, so he didn’t start divorce proceedings immediately after the honeymoon.”

“It’s a pity we didn’t get the number in Pliny Road. I don’t know whereabouts in Jericho it is. I’ll pull into the lay-by and have a look at the map. You’ll find a street map of Oxford in the glove compartment. Jericho’s that residential area between the Woodstock Road, Saint Giles’ and the canal.”

“I know,” said Charles as Agatha drew the car to a stop. They spread out the map. “Let’s see the index,” said Charles. “Ah, here we are: Pliny Road, off Walton Street, just there.”

“Doesn’t look very long,” said Agatha. “We’ll just knock on doors.”

“While we’re in Oxford,” said Charles, “do you think there’s any point in asking questions at the Randolph? Maybe one of the staff saw something.”

Agatha shook her head. “I’ve a feeling the police will have covered that thoroughly.”

“Still…let’s see how we get on in Jericho first.”

“I hope the traffic’s not too bad,” said Agatha. “They’ve made Cornmarket a shopping precinct and for a while it’s been chaos.”

“Seems clear enough,” said Charles as they drove along me Woodstock Road. He studied the map again. “Turn next right, Aggie.”

“I thought for a while you’d given up calling me Aggie. I wish you wouldn’t. Every time you call me Aggie, I feel as if I ought to be standing at the doorway of a terraced house in a mining area in some northern town with my hair in rollers, wearing a chenille dressing-gown and fluffy slippers, and with a cigarette stuck in my mouth.”

“Sounds like you.”

“I’m driving or I’d hit you. Where now?”

“Turn right on Walton Street and next left.”

“It’s residents’ parking only.”

“So risk it.”

Agatha parked in Pliny Road, and they got out. Tall Victorian houses lined either side of the road. “Where should we start?” she asked.

“Let’s try the middle, although sod’s law probably has it that they lived at the end. You take the left side and I’ll take the right.”

After ringing several doorbells, Agatha began to wonder if she was going to have any success. Perhaps Oxford was like London and people didn’t know their neighbours.

Then she heard a shout from across the road and turned round to find Charles waving to her. He came to meet her. “A woman in that house,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “remembers them, because she sometimes chatted to Melissa at the corner shop. They lived at number fifteen.”

Number 15 had a poster for the Green Party in the window. Agatha rang the bell. A thin woman with an arrogant face answered the door. She was wearing a long red dress of Indian cotton and vinyl sandals. She was very tall. “What is it?” she demanded. A waft of incense floated out of the house.

“I am Agatha Raisin,” said Agatha. “I am anxious to find out what I can about the Sheppards. Did you buy the house from them?”

“I don’t like reporters. If you ask me, the capitalist press is the ruin of this country.”

“I am not a reporter,” said Agatha. “You see…”

Charles moved forward and smiled pleasantly. “I am Sir Charles Fraith. Haven’t we met before?”

The change in her was almost ludicrous. “I d-don’t think…Oh, do come in, Sir Charles.”

“How kind,” murmured Charles. Agatha followed him, muttering, “Snobby cow,” under her breath.

“I’m Felicity Banks-James,” their new hostess trilled over her shoulder as she led them down to the basement and into a kitchen which looked as if it had been taken straight from one of those photos in glossy magazines urging you to try ‘a French provincial kitchen look.’ Bunches of dusty herbs hung from the ceiling. A brace of pheasant hung from a hook near the cooker, which Agatha gleefully recognized as being stuffed, the kind the taxidermist in Ebrington sold to yuppies. Huge copper pans lined one dresser, looking as if they had never been used. An enormous scrubbed table surrounded by plain wooden chairs dominated the centre of the room. On another dresser, blue-and-white plates stood in rows, also looking as if they had never been used, to judge from the film of dust covering them. A pile of Marks & Spencer’s frozen dinners was stacked on a corner of the table. “Just got back from shopping,” she said, opening a giant fridge and hiding the evidence of un-chic microwave cooking. “Coffee?”

“That would be nice,” said Charles, beaming at her.

“It’s decaf. I do think caffeine is so…What are you doing?”

“Sorry,” mumbled Agatha, stuffing her packet of cigarettes back into her handbag.

“Decaf will be all right,” said Charles quickly. “What a charming house you do have. You did buy it from the Sheppards?”

“Yes, he wanted to sell me the furnishings as well. Oh, my dear, ghastly three-piece suites, horrible paintings, the kind Boots used to sell, I don’t know if they still do. You know, that woman with the green face and waves on the shore and little kiddies and puppies. They even had a fuzzy pink toilet tidy in the bathroom. Ugh. “Get it all out before I faint,” that’s what I told him. Then I had to rip up all their nasty fitted carpets. And then I found in a suitcase in the basement…Well, you’ll never believe it.”

“A body?” asked Agatha sourly.

She ignored her and said to Charles. “It was a fox coat!”

“What horror!” said Charles, accepting a green mug of coffee.

“Exactly. To think of all the effort I and my friends have gone to, to sabotage the hunt. I phoned up Sheppard. He’s a shopkeeper, gents’ outfitting, how quaint. She, that woman who was killed, Melissa, it was she who came to collect it.”

“Mrs. Banks-James – ” began Charles.

“Oh, do call me Felicity, Sir Charles.”

“Just Charles will do. Felicity, what did you make of her?”

Agatha and Charles had seated themselves at either side of the table. Felicity sat down beside Charles and went on as if Agatha weren’t there.

“Came as a shock, actually.”

“In what way?”

Agatha stood up abruptly. “Do you mind if I go out into your backyard there and have a smoke?”

“Be my guest,” said Felicity, not taking her eyes off Charles.

Agatha stumped off. Felicity waited until the door had closed and murmured, “What a grumpy woman, if you don’t mind my saying so, Charles. Not exactly one of us.”

Charles bit back the remark he was about to make, which was, “What do you mean, one of us, you pretentious raddled bitch?”

Instead he said mildly, “You were saying you were surprised about Melissa.”

“Well, my dear, after all that ghastly furnishing, she was not what I expected at all. She was very pleasant-looking and very smartly dressed. After introducing herself, she said, ‘I’ve come to rid you of that horrible coat.’ You could have knocked me down with a feather. She said he had bought it for her and she couldn’t bear to wear it without crying when she thought of all those dead little foxes. We had a long chat. She said she was so glad to be free of him. And then she began to cry and she said it had been a nightmare. After she had pulled herself together, I said I was surprised that such a sensitive person – I am very sensitive myself, some people say I am psychic – would have such furnishings, and she said he had chosen it all himself. She said he beat her. I told her to take him to court, but she said now that she was free, she just wanted peace and quiet. She promised to come out with the hunt saboteurs and left me a phone number, but when I tried it, it didn’t exist. She was so upset, she must have made a mistake. So I phoned Sheppard and asked him if he knew his ex-wife’s phone number and he snarled, ‘Get lost,’ and slammed the phone down. He did it, mark my words.

“Oh, Agatha Raisin! That’s the woman whose husband is missing. Poor her. No wonder she looks so fierce.”

“We really must be going,” said Charles. He felt he had suffered enough of Felicity’s company.

“Oh, must you…?” she began but Charles was walking to the kitchen door, which he jerked open and said, “Come on, Aggie.”

Felicity led the way up the stairs. “Charles, dear,” she cooed, “do give me your phone number and we can have a further chat about poor Melissa.”

“I’m living with Agatha at the moment,” said Charles smoothly.

“And my phone’s been disconnected,” said Agatha. “Come along, Charles.”

“Right with you, dear heart. ‘Bye, Felicity.” Charles trotted after Agatha and muttered to her, “Back to the car.”

He repeated everything Felicity had said, doing a very good impression of Felicity’s voice until Agatha was helpless with laughter. After she had recovered, she said, “I bet you Melissa did furnish that house. She was doing her chameleon bit, changing to suit whoever she was with. I bet she wore that fur coat as soon as she could. She probably hid it in the basement so that Luke Sheppard wouldn’t give it to his new wife.”

“We’ll wait here for a bit and then, when we’re sure Felicity isn’t looking, we’ll try the neighbours. I feel we’re getting somewhere at last.”

“I wonder what it would be like to live in a street like this,” mused Agatha. “So peaceful.”

“Lot of car crime in Oxford. You’d probably lose that expensive radio that you’ve got in yours and never play. Why don’t you play it?”

“I like popular music when I’m driving, but the BBC’s going in for disc jockeys, particularly in the afternoon, who shout at you in estuary English, talk too much and sometimes sing along with the records.”

“Get your head down! Felicity’s coming out.”

They both crouched down in the front seat.

After a few moments, Agatha whispered, “I’m getting cramp. Has she gone?”

“Wait a bit longer.”

Agatha counted to ten, then twenty. She had nearly reached thirty when Charles said, “All clear.”

“Ooof!” Agatha straightened up with a groan.

“Let’s go. I think I saw someone behind the curtains in that house to the right of Felicity’s.”

They walked down the street, keeping a careful look-out in case Felicity should come hurrying back. They mounted the steps to the neighbour’s door and rang the bell. A thin, stooped man opened the door.

Agatha went through the introductions and the reason for their visit. “Come in,” he said. “I am William Dalrymple. I’ll tell you what I know, but it isn’t much. Can I offer you something?”

“No, we’re all right,” said Agatha. He ushered them into a pleasant sitting-room on the first floor. It was lined with bookshelves. There was a desk by the window overlooking the garden, piled high with books and papers.

“Do you teach at the university?” asked Agatha.

“Yes, history.”

How James would have loved to meet him, thought Agatha. James, where are you?

They sat down. “What precisely do you want to know?” asked William.

“We want to know,” said Agatha, “if you met Melissa Sheppard. What impression did you get of her, and were there any rows?”

“I can’t help you about the rows, because the walls of these houses are very thick. But Melissa called round several times until I told her not to.”

“Tell us about it,” said Charles.

“Shortly after they had moved in, Melissa came round and asked if she could borrow a screwdriver. I invited her in and went to look for one. When I came back, she had taken one of my books off the shelf, Arthur Bryant’s Age of Elegance, and was reading it. She asked if she could borrow it. I warned her that I thought it was in places a rather glamorized version of early-nineteenth-century history. She said she liked glamorous things and flirted a bit. I am an old bachelor and I must confess I was flattered. But I sent her on her way with book and screwdriver.

“She came back a few days later to return them. She said she had found the book fascinating, and asked if I had anything on Marie Antoinette. I realized then that she probably was only interested in history in the Hollywood sense – you know, Joan of Arc, Mary Queen of Scots, that sort of thing. I said I didn’t have what she wanted but I was sure Blackwell’s could find her something. She began to talk about herself. She said she believed in reincarnation and was sure she had been Josephine – you know, Napolean’s missus, in a previous life. I said it was amazing how people who believed in reincarnation always believed they had been someone important in a previous life, like Cleopatra or someone; I mean, never a scullery maid. We were both sitting on the sofa and she put a hand on my knee and said, ‘Oh, William, can you see me as a scullery maid?’ I removed her hand and said rather testily that I had a paper to prepare. I thought that would be the end of it. But she came back one more time.

“It was late at night. I heard the bell ringing and ringing. I opened the door and she flung herself into my arms and said her husband did not love her and could she stay with me.

“I thrust her away and told her never to call on me again. I slammed the door in her face. I thought she was mad. I mean, look at me! I’ve never been the sort of man that women go for.”

Agatha, looking at his gentle face, his droopy cardigan, and his other-worldly air, thought that before Melissa threw herself at him, there had probably been many approaches made to him which he had not even noticed.

“It’s all I can tell you,” said William. “Except I was not surprised to read of her murder. She was intensely narcissistic.”

“Do you happen to know if she was friendly with anyone else in the street?” asked Charles.

“She did say during her mad reasoning on incarnation that a Mrs. Ellersby at number twenty-five shared her views.”

“Right, we’ll try her.”

Agatha felt suddenly weary of the whole thing. She would have liked to stay longer in William’s pleasant sitting-room. “I was sorry to hear about your missing husband,” said William as he walked them to the door. He gave Agatha an awkward pat on the back. “Don’t worry. I always feel that no news is good news. Live people can hide, dead people usually get found.”

When Agatha and Charles had said good-bye to William and were walking down the street, Agatha suddenly said, “But why would James want to hide from me?”

“Guilt,” said Charles. “Guilt about his fling with Melissa. Let’s go and talk to the dotty Mrs. Ellersby.”