The Love from Hell

∨ The Love from Hell ∧

7

MRS. Ellersby looked perfectly sane when she answered the door to them. She had grey hair worn curled and shoulder-length, thick glasses, and a face where all the wrinkles seemed to run downwards to a turtle-neck. Agatha surreptitiously felt her own neck and mentally planned to visit her beautician soon.

After introductions and explanations, she led them down to her kitchen. These tall Victorian houses, thought Charles, would once have had maids and a cook. Now the residents, if they were lucky, made do with a cleaning woman. The kitchen was neither pretentious nor weird. Fittings, thought Agatha, casting an expert eye around, by Smallbone of Devizes. Must have money.

“So you want to know about Melissa?” said Mrs. Ellersby. “Before we start, can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

Both shook their heads. “I met Melissa at a class on Buddhism. I was very taken with her. So full of energy. So anxious to learn all she could. I lent her my books on the subject and we had interesting discussions.”

“Where is this class?” asked Charles.

“It’s been disbanded. So sad. It was in a church hall in Saint Giles’.”

“So you found Melissa a perfectly nice person?” asked Agatha.

“At first. Then I was disappointed.”

“Why?”

“She turned out to be rather silly. She was interested in reincarnation. But only because she was sure she had been someone famous in a previous life. You see, at the beginning, she would listen to me as if she was fascinated by everything I had to tell her, and I must admit I was flattered. When I really got to know her, I was startled that I had not previously for a moment guessed at the sheer shallowness of her brain. She appeared to have a fixation that she had been the Empress Josephine in a previous life.”

“Did she ever talk about her husband?”

“Not to me. She talked about herself as Josephine, saying that Napoleon had given her a hard time and on occasions beat her up. I must say, I wondered if she might be referring obliquely to her own husband. I did not like him one bit.”

“Did you know him?” asked Agatha.

“Oh, yes. I had a party and I felt obliged to invite both of them. I had gone off Melissa, but she was still so friendly, I felt trapped. How can you say to someone, ‘I wish I had never befriended you’? I had invited some friends. The Sheppards behaved very badly. She kept making pointed little jokes at his expense. You know, that awful type of married woman who humiliates her husband in public. He drank too much, and then he suddenly shouted at her in front of everyone, ‘I must have been mad to marry you.’ I decided after that to have nothing more to do with her. The next time she called, I hid downstairs in the kitchen, waiting for her to go away. But she must have walked down the steps at the front of the house. I was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a cup of coffee. I looked up and saw her face pressed to the glass. We stared at each other for a long time. Then she went away and I never saw her again.”

“Do you think Sheppard could have murdered her?” asked Charles.

“Oh, easily,” said Mrs. Ellersby. She turned her mild, myopic gaze on Agatha. “But your husband was attacked, was he not? I can imagine Sheppard attacking her, but not anyone else.”

“But my husband had been having an affair with Melissa,” said Agatha through gritted teeth.

“I read about that. But she was divorced. It would take a very jealous man to do that, and it is my opinion that Sheppard hated her so much, he would probably be sorry for any man who became involved with her. Do not think too badly of your husband, Mrs. Raisin. You must wonder how he could ever have become involved with such a person. But she had great charm when one first met her. She exuded enthusiasm and energy and warmth. I’ve always prided myself on being a great judge of character, and yet I was initially taken in by her very easily.”

“Thank you,” said Agatha. “I needed to hear that.”

“Is there any news of your husband? I gather from the newspapers that he was ill.”

“Yes, he had a cancerous tumour,” said Agatha, “but the police have checked all the hospitals. He took his passport with him, but there is no record of him having left the country.”

“Which hospital was he being treated at?”

Agatha looked at her and frowned. “I don’t think he had started his treatment.”

“But he knew he had a tumour, so he would need to be diagnosed.”

“It would be Mircester General Hospital.”

“Perhaps if you ask there, you can find out perhaps how bad the tumour was, or if he let slip any of his plans. A lot of people are terrified at the idea of chemotherapy. He may have said something to his doctor.”

“I never thought of that,” said Agatha eagerly. “We can try there.”

They said good-bye to Mrs. Ellersby. “I’m hungry,” complained Charles, “and I’m not dashing off to Mircester and neither are you. Let’s leave the car where it is and walk up to Brown’s on Saint Giles’ and eat hamburgers.”

“All right,” said Agatha. “I’m suddenly weary.”

Brown’s, as usual, was very busy, but they got a table in the smoking section after only a ten-minute wait. “So many young people,” said Charles when they were seated. “Doesn’t it make you feel old, Aggie?”

The honest answer to that was that she had been feeling old all day, but Agatha only grunted by way of reply.

Charles ordered two hamburgers and a bottle of wine. “I’m driving,” said Agatha.

“So you are. All the more for me.”

“I would have thought something plebeian like beer would go better with hamburger and chips.”

“You’re only saying that because you can’t have any.”

“I can have a glass. That’s below the limit.”

“Cripes! Look over there. No, don’t stare. Do it casually. The table over in the corner on your left.”

Agatha took a covert look.

Then she turned back and hissed, “By all that’s holy, it’s Sheppard and his would-be child bride.”

“Wonder what they’re doing back in Oxford?”

“Probably just in for a meal,” said Agatha. “James and I often drove into Oxford for a meal. Do you think he likes her dressed like that?”

Megan Sheppard was wearing a short black dress with a white Peter Pan collar.

“She looks quite fetching, Aggie. She can get away with the girlish look.”

“Humph!”

“Oh, oh, he’s seen us and he doesn’t look too happy. He’s coming over.”

Sheppard loomed above them, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Are you following me?” he demanded.

“Why on earth should we do that?” said Charles mildly. “We’re having a meal here, just like you.”

He stood staring at them, his face dark with anger. Then he strode away. Agatha swivelled round to see what was happening. He bent over his wife, and then jerked her up by the elbow. He threw some money down on the table and then strode out of the restaurant, practically pulling his small wife after him.

“Now there’s a man with a guilty conscience,” said Agatha, turning back, her eyes gleaming.

“Have you ever thought that he might be perfectly innocent,” said Charles, “and that we frighten him?”

“Us? Why?”

“If you were questioned and then apparently pursued by two people, one of whom is married to the prime suspect and she herself is suspect number two, wouldn’t you get nervous?”

“Only if I had done the deed myself,” said Agatha stubbornly. “I swear that man’s a killer.”

“You had Dewey down as number-one suspect yesterday.”

“Oh, well, I mean, that was different.”

“How?”

“He was scary, telling us about threatening to take her eyes out. But I mean, striking someone with such a savage blow, like what happened to Melissa, is just the sort of thing Luke Sheppard would have done.”

“Don’t let your imagination keep running away with you. We have to dig up some hard facts. All we’ve got at the moment is speculation. We set out to find out all we could about Melissa. We felt sure if we really got to know her character, that would lead us to the murderer. But what have we got? A shifting, changing, manipulative woman who, quite frankly, could have been killed by anyone. And the main piece of the jigsaw is James. Without James, we haven’t a clue.”

“We’ll just need to go on, however,” said Agatha, “as if we’re never going to find James. You say, maybe if we clear his name and wherever he is, he reads it in the newspapers, he may come back.”

“To you, Aggie? Not still hoping for a happy marriage?”

“I just want to know that he is still alive,” said Agatha, staring down at her plate and not meeting his eyes.

“So what’s our next plan of campaign?”

Agatha racked her brain. She did not want to tell him she was at a dead end, in case he would pack up and go home and she would be left with her own company. What had happened to the old Agatha Raisin, who had not needed anybody? Maybe I did, she admitted ruefully to herself, and wouldn’t admit it.

Then her face cleared. “Of course. The hospital! At least as his wife I can ask the doctor what his condition was.”

“All right. We’ll go tomorrow.” Agatha heaved a sigh of relief. “But before we do, I think we should sit down and start to make notes, put everything in order. Oh, and then there’s Melissa’s sister, Julia. I really think we should make the effort and go to Cambridge to have another word with her. We’ve been looking at sex and passion and forgetting about the other prime motive, and that’s money.”

♦

Agatha was up early the next morning and anxious to leave for Mircester, but Charles insisted, “Notes first.”

Agatha switched on her computer. Her cats were in a playful mood that morning and were insisting on doing what cats like to do, namely jumping up on the keyboard and jumping on the keys. Charles carried them out into the garden and returned to sit down beside Agatha.

“Let’s start with Sheppard,” said Agatha. “He has a good alibi for the night of Melissa’s murder and that in itself is suspicious. Usually innocent people do not have any alibi. Motive? Mehssa may have known something about him that he did not want anyone else to find out.”

“So where does James come into it?”

“Rats! James. Well, Melissa might have tried to tell him that something. James flees after avoiding being killed.”

“So why not just kill Melissa and leave James alone?”

“I’ll never get anywhere if you insist on playing devil’s advocate.”

“All right. Go on.”

“Maybe Sheppard continued to hate her. Maybe – ”

“I’ve a thought. Maybe James does not know anything about Melissa’s murder. He shot off after he was attacked. He may have amnesia. He may not have read the papers.”

“You mean, if he’s alive, he may have information that would solve this case?”

“Something like that. Then what about what our genteel friend Miss Simms calls rough trade, Jake and his friends? She was sectioned for drugs. That’s it!”

“What’s what?”

“We ask the sister when she was sectioned, where, and what were the circumstances. Was she into really heavy mainlining stuff?”

“She certainly wasn’t on anything last time I saw her,” said Agatha. “No dilated pupils, no track marks on her arms. I really don’t think we’ve enough at the moment, Charles, to make notes. Please let’s go to the hospital.”

“I know you’ll never settle to anything until we do go. Come on, then.”

♦

Mircester General Hospital lay on the outskirts of the town, a gleaming modern building which had replaced the old Victorian hospital in the town centre, now a hotel. “Look at that!” said Agatha, outraged, as they drove into the hospital car-park. “We’ve got to pay for parking.”

“I suppose they’ve got to try to make any money they can, these days. I mean, you must remember when me National Health Service started, Aggie.” Agatha winced at this reference to her age. “It was going to be easy free treatment for everyone. Now it’s all breaking down. And the reason it’s breaking down, apart from sheer bad management, is all the new operations that everyone now expects – free hip replacements, free heart transplants, and all that costs a bomb.”

“I still think it’s a lousy trick forcing people to pay for parking,” muttered Agatha. “How long do you think we’re going to be?”

“Put in enough money for a couple of hours.”

With Agatha still complaining, they walked into me hospital. To their request to see the consultant or doctor who had diagnosed James Lacey, they were told to wait. And they did. They waited and waited. Agatha flipped nervously through pages of old Good Housekeeping magazines, barely taking in what she was reading. She was just about to approach the reception desk and make a very Agatha-type scene, when a tall, thin man in a white coat came up to them. “I am Dr. Henderson. I was a friend of James. I am so sorry, Mrs. Lacey. I gather there is no news?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Agatha. “I wanted to talk to you about his condition.”

“Come with me. I can spare you a little time.” He led them along gleaming hospital corridors to a small cluttered office. “Please have a seat. I can only tell you what you must know already, that he had a brain tumour. We were going to try chemotherapy. He was due for an appointment, his first treatment, when he disappeared.”

“What was his state of mind when you saw him?” asked Charles.

“He was deeply shocked and upset. He asked a lot about alternative methods. He was very interested in mind over matter. He had heard that in California they have tapes which you play which train you to combat the illness mentally. He also asked about diet. I said that miracles sometimes did happen, but that in his case, I could only recommend chemotherapy. I am afraid I do not believe in miracles.”

“But you said they sometimes do happen,” pointed out Agatha.

“Not in my own experience, but some of my colleagues have experienced such. Sometimes people can have some leap of faith which seems to restore the immune system, but I am an agnostic, and I believe that it is down to coincidence. James did ask to see a psychiatrist. No doubt he was hoping to be instructed in some mental tricks.”

“A psychiatrist? At this hospital?” said Agatha.

“A Dr. Windsor.”

“May we see him?”

He picked up a phone on his desk. “A moment. I’ll see if he is free.” He turned away from them and dialled an extension. “I have James Lacey’s wife and a friend of hers with me,” they heard him saying. “Can you spare them a minute?”

A voice quacked from the receiver. “Right,” said Dr. Henderson. “I’ll send them along.”

He replaced the receiver. “You are lucky. He has fifteen minutes to spare between patients. If you go out of here and turn left, walk back along the corridor and through reception and follow the signs to the psychiatric unit, you will find a small reception area and he will be waiting for you.”

They hurried off and, following his instructions, arrived at the psychiatric unit. Agatha had been expecting a stereotype psychiatrist, a heavy-set bearded man with a German accent, and was startled to be greeted by a small, slim man in a sports jacket who looked to her eyes far too young to be a psychiatrist.

“I am Dr. Windsor,” he said, shaking hands with them. “Please sit down. Is your husband still missing?”

“I am afraid so,” said Agatha. “We gather that James came to see you because he was interested in finding out if it might be possible to cure cancer by mind over matter.”

“Actually, it was not that at all. I normally would not discuss any patient’s business, even to the nearest and dearest, but his question seemed to me to be academic, so I do not think there is any problem in telling you what he wanted to know.”

“Which was?” Agatha crouched forward in her chair, her bearlike eyes fixed on his face.

“He was asking me about the symptoms of antisocial personality disorder. He said he was not asking about anyone in particular. He needed details for a book he was writing.”

“I am surprised you could give him your time when he wasn’t a patient,” said Charles.

“He was paying for my time. I saw him at my private consulting rooms in the town.”

“We read up on that mental illness,” said Agatha, disappointed, and slumping back in her chair. So James had diagnosed Melissa before they had. Big deal.

But Charles asked, “Was there any specific point he wanted clarified?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was. He wanted to know that if such a personality were rejected by someone, would they stalk, would they chase after that person. I said, not often, for although such a personality does not suffer from guilt, he or she suffers from intense feelings of bitterness and resentment. He then asked if two such people could be friends. I said that two such people might get together to aid and abet each other, but friendship, no. He wanted to see me again, but I refused.”

“Why?” asked Agatha.

Dr. Windsor’s face darkened. “I had a personal phone call while he was with me. I went into another room to take it. It was quite a long phone call. When I returned, he was sitting where I had left him. But after he had gone, I found several things that disturbed me. Two of the drawers on my desk were slightly open, as if someone had hurriedly tried to shut them, and several files in my cabinet – old files which I had removed from the hospital and kept in my rooms – I could swear had been disturbed. Papers were sticking out the tops of some of them. And yet the filing cabinet had been locked. I could not accuse my receptionist because she was having an evening off. Did I tell you it was evening? No? Well, it was because I could only fit him in after hours, so to speak. I phoned him up and accused him of having broken into my filing cabinet. He denied the whole thing, and very vehemently, too. But I said I could not see him again. I did not trust him. I was not long enough with him, but perhaps he, too, suffered from this mild form of psychopathy, and yet I am sure it must be almost impossible for anyone suffering from this form of mental illness to know they have it.” He glanced at his watch. “That is all I can tell you.”

Charles and Agatha walked out to the car-park. “Two of them,” said Agatha excitedly. “What was James on to? And who’s the other one?”

“Maybe one of the husbands.”

“If only we could find out. Perhaps we could break in and have a look at – ”

“NO! Absolutely not.”

“Just an idea. It’s early yet. If we went to Cambridge, how long would it take us?”

“Let me see,” said Charles. “If we take the by-pass which will get us onto the A-40 to Oxford, then out to the M-40, then the M-25 and then the M-11 right up to Cambridge, maybe about two and a half hours.” He fished a card out of his pocket. “Let’s see where she lives. Boxted Road. Have you a Cambridge map?”

“No, but we can pick one up in Mircester before we set off.”

♦

Even though she was not driving herself, Agatha found motorway journeys wearisome. After they had left the outskirts of Oxford, she closed her eyes and thought of everyone who might be connected with the murder. She fell asleep and into a dream where Dewey was approaching her with a sharp knife, saying, “Pretty dolly, you need new eyes.” She awoke with a start and looked around groggily. “Where are we?”

“M-11,” said Charles. “Not far now. When we get to Cambridge, we turn off the Madingley Road, just before Queen’s Road, go down Grange Road and turn off about the third street down on the right. Maybe we should have phoned first. I mean, she might not be home.”

“We’ve come this far now. May as well try. I mean, if we’d phoned her, she might have put us off, particularly if she feels guilty.”

They had left the sunshine behind in the Cotswolds. A uniformly grey sky stretched over the university city of Cambridge. “Cambridge is outstripping Oxford when it comes to brains,” commented Charles.

“Why is that?”

“For years now, Oxford’s gone in for inverted snobbery. They turn down bright pupils from private schools in order to favour pupils from comprehensive ones. Big mistake. It’s not only the rich who pay for the children’s education, but often it’s caring parents who are prepared to take out a second mortgage to pay school fees, and caring parents produce bright children. But Oxford still holds a lot of charm for people. Must be the weather. It can be a lousy climate over here and in winter cold mist creeps in from the fens and blankets everything. Let me see, this is the Madingley Road. Keep your eyes peeled for Grange Road.”

“There it is,” said Agatha, “over on the right.”

“So it is. Here we go. One, two, three. Ah, here’s Boxted Road. Very nice, too. You’d need a bit of money to live in one of these villas. What’s the number?”

“Thirteen, and, no, I am not superstitious.”

Charles parked the car and they both got out. “I wish I’d brought a jacket,” said Agatha, hugging her bare arms. “It looks almost misty at the bottom of the street. You can’t get fog in summer.”

“You can in Cambridge,” said Charles. “Let’s see if she’s at home.”

They walked up a path through a front garden without a single flower. Only laurel bushes lined the brick path. “Sounds of activity coming from inside,” said Charles. He rang the bell.

A young man opened the door. “Mrs. Fraser?” asked Charles.

He turned round and yelled, “Julia!” at the top of his voice. A door in the dark hall opened and Julia Fraser appeared.

“Good heavens, what are you two doing in Cambridge?” she asked. “Come in.” She ushered them into a pleasantly cluttered sitting-room.

“Was that your son?” asked Agatha.

“No, I rent rooms to students. Now, I suppose you’ve come to ask more questions, and I think it’s a bit thick. I know you” – she looked at Agatha – “must be anxious to find out about your husband, but I cannot help you any further. I told you it was years since I had anything to do with Melissa.”

“It’s not that,” said Charles. “James Lacey seems to have been doing a bit of investigating before he left; we don’t know why. You said your sister had been diagnosed as a psychopath. James asked a psychiatrist at Mircester Hospital if it was usual for two such personalities to get together.”

“And you’ve come all this way to ask me if she had a mad friend? How would I know?”

Agatha looked around the pleasant but shabby sitting-room and heard the noise made by the resident students filtering down through the ceiling. “What interests us as well is how much money Melissa had. I mean, she seemed to have lived comfortably. She didn’t need to take in students.”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” said Julia, “if the pair of you will promise to go away and not trouble me again. You bring up things I would rather forget.”

Charles looked at Agatha, who nodded.

“It’s a deal,” he said.

Julia leaned back in her chair and half-closed her eyes. “Our father…do you know about him?”

They shook their heads.

“He was a Colonel Peterson, a rich landowner with a big estate in Worcestershire. He was the law at home. My mother was dominated by him and had little say in our upbringing. From an early age, Melissa contrived to make me look like the bad child. Father adored her. He could see no fault in her. It was a blow to him when Melissa was found to be taking drugs. She was living in a flat in Chelsea that he had bought for her. My mother died when we were still in our early teens. Melissa was found to have taken an overdose. Father had her transferred from a London hospital to a pyschiatric unit at Mircester Hospital so that he could keep an eye on her. His disappointment in Melissa affected his health. Shortly after she came out, he had a massive stroke. He left everything to Melissa. He left a letter for me with his will, which he had recently changed. He said I had always been wicked and the fact that I had introduced his dear child, Melissa, to drugs had proved that I was evil. I challenged Melissa. I was incandescent with rage. I’ll never forget that scene. She laughed and laughed until the tears streamed down her face. Of course she put the family home and the land up for sale.”

“But surely her father was told that she was a psychopath?”

“Probably, but he probably thought it was the effect of the drugs that the wicked Julia had pushed on her. I was married by then. My husband wasn’t very good with money. When he died, I really only had this house. That’s why I started letting out rooms to make a living.”

“But surely now you have inherited the money, you don’t need to do that any more?”

“True. I’m still recovering from it all, so I haven’t made any changes. Melissa had gone through very little money indeed. To be honest, I thought she would have squandered most of it.”

“So how much did she leave?” asked Agatha eagerly.

“Mind your own business. I’ve told you enough.”

“It’s very good of you to give us this time,” said Charles, bestowing a charming smile on her. “But you, too, must be anxious to find out who killed your sister?”

“Not really. Except to shake him by the hand. I hated Melissa from the bottom of my heart. I adored my father and she took his love away and she made my childhood a misery. But, no, I didn’t kill her, and in case you are getting any ideas about that, I was here with my students the night she was killed. Please go, now.”

“Is there anyone way back then, I mean around the time she was being sectioned, that she might have harmed? I mean, perhaps someone from her past murdered her.”

“I did not know any of her friends. Come to think of it, she never seemed to have any. People would take to her, but as she could never sustain her act for very long except with Father, they soon drifted off. Now, I really do want you to leave.”

As they walked down the path, Agatha said, “It’s a pity she’s got an alibi. What a motive!”

“I know,” agreed Charles. “I say, look at the fog! Let’s find somewhere to eat and see if it thins out.”

He drove to the multi-storey car-park off Pembroke Street and then they walked round into the main shopping area and found an Italian restaurant.

“So,” said Agatha, after they had ordered pizza, “where are we? Not much further.”

“If only this were a detective story,” mourned Charles, “and we were ace detectives, dropping literary quotations right, left, and centre, we would prove that Julia placed a dummy of herself in the window of her sitting-room to fool her students while she drove to Carsely and murdered her sister. I mean, think of the money she must have got.”

“We haven’t even stirred anything up,” said Agatha. “I mean, if one of the people we’ve been questioning were guilty, you would think they’d have shown their hand by now.”

“You mean, like trying to kill you?”

“Maybe not that. Just warning us off.”

“Julia more or less did that.”

“No, by warning us off, I mean someone saying something like, “Stop now, or it will be the worse for you.” We haven’t rattled anyone. Gosh, why did we order pizza, Charles? This tastes like a wet book.”

“Get it down you.” Charles peered out of the window at wraithlike figures moving through the mist. “I think we’re going to have to stay here the night, Aggie. We can’t drive home in this.”

But Agatha did not want to spend a night in a hotel with Charles. “We can try,” she said. “I mean, you said Cambridge was a foggy place. I bet when we get to the outskirts, it’ll start to clear.”

Charles opted to take the road which went back through Milton Keynes and Buckingham, saying that he did not want to drive on the motorways in fog.

By the time they had crawled as far as the Bedford bypass, the fog was getting worse. “There’s one of those road-house places,” said Charles, swinging off the road. “We’d better check in for the night.”

“I’ll pay,” said Agatha quickly. “You’ve done all the driving.”

Once inside, she firmly booked two rooms. “Honestly,” complained Charles, oblivious of the stare of the desk clerk, “a double room would have been cheaper. And more fun.”

Agatha ignored him. She took the keys from the clerk and handed one to Charles.

“If you think of anything, let me know. I’ll be in my room.”

“I’m thinking of food for this evening. Have you a restaurant here?” he asked the clerk.

“Certainly, sir. You’ll find it through those doors on the left.”

“We’ll go there at seven,” said Charles. “That pizza didn’t go very far.”

Agatha, when she let herself into her room, was glad for the first time to be on her own. She undressed and had a leisurely bath and then washed out her underwear and dried it as best she could with the hair dryer.

Before she could get dressed again, there was a knock at her door. She whipped the coverlet off the bed and wrapped it around herself and opened the door. Charles handed her a sweater. “I just remembered I had a spare one in the car.”

Agatha took it gratefully. “Any sign of the fog lifting?”

“No, as thick as ever.”

“What time is it?”

“Going on for seven.”

“Won’t be long.”

When he had gone, Agatha put on her damp underwear and clothes and then pulled Charles’s sweater over her head. It was blue cashmere. James had one like it. She wished she could stop the sharp pain she felt every time she thought of James.

The restaurant was crowded with other stranded travellers. They managed to get a corner table.

“What now?” asked Agatha, after they had ordered fish and chips.

“I don’t know,” said Charles. “Bit of a dead end all round, if you ask me.”

“If only we could prompt someone into showing their hand. I know, maybe we could see that editor again and give him a story saying we know who the murderer is and we are just trying to find one final bit of proof.”

“Dangerous, that. Not only will he come after us, but the whole of Mircester police will be down on our heads. We’ll be asked to explain ourselves and when they find out we haven’t a clue, we’ll look ridiculous and the murderer will feel safer than ever.”

“Oh, well, maybe I will be able to think of something after a night’s sleep. What time should we ask for a call?”

“Eight o’clock. Go straight off and have breakfast on the road.”

♦

But when they set out the following morning, Agatha could not think of any bright ideas at all. A weak sun was shining through a hazy mist, and the dreadful fog of the day before had gone. She kept racking her brains. She felt that if she did not come up with something, then Charles would leave. Agatha hated being dependent on anyone, and yet she was afraid that without Charles, she would give up the hunt and sink into a depression.

They decided not to stop for breakfast, but to go straight to Carsely. Agatha stifled a yawn. She had slept badly.

Then Charles said the words she had been dreading to hear. “I’d better go home and see how things are. I mean, we seem to have come to a dead end.”

Agatha said nothing. Her pride would not allow her to beg him to stay, or ask him if he was coming back.

“So here we are,” said Charles, pulling up outside Agatha’s cottage. “I’ll get my stuff and be off. Don’t worry about any breakfast for me.”

“Charles,” said Agatha in a thin voice, “the door’s open.”

“Doris Simpson?”

“It isn’t her day for cleaning.”

“I’ll call the police.”

“No, I don’t think whoever did it would break in in broad daylight.”

They got out of the car and together they went up to the door. “It’s been jemmied open,” said Agatha. “Look at the splinters.”

“But what about that expensive burglar alarm system of yours?”

“I forgot to set it,” wailed Agatha. “Oh, my cats. What’s happened to my cats? I’ve got to go in.”

She strode into the house and into her sitting-room. “The television set and the radio haven’t been taken. Oh, look at this.”

Charles followed her into the sitting-room. The drawers of Agatha’s desk in the corner of the room were lying open and papers lay about the floor and her computer was still switched on.

“That’s it!” said Charles. “We’ve finally rattled someone. They were searching your papers, Aggie, to see if you had come up with anything. Look for your cats and I’ll call the police.”

Agatha went through to the kitchen, calling for her cats. Then she noticed the kitchen door was standing open. Her cats were rolling on the grass in the sunshine. She crouched down beside them and stroked their warm fur.

Then she heard Charles calling, “Fred Griggs is on his way. I’ll make some coffee.”

Agatha went into the kitchen. “Should we touch anything? I mean, they’ll want to dust everything for fingerprints.”

“I don’t think our criminal stopped to make coffee.” Charles filled the kettle and plugged it in.

Fred Griggs loomed up in the doorway, making them jump.

“Anything been taken?” he asked, pulling out his notebook. “I’ve phoned headquarters. They’ll be along soon.”

“Maybe I’d better wait for them to arrive,” said Agatha, “and it’ll save me going over the whole thing twice. I haven’t looked upstairs.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Charles to Fred. “You make the coffee, Aggie.”

After some time, they came back downstairs. “I had some papers in my suitcase, some farming accounts I meant to go over,” said Charles. “They’ve been tossed over the floor. Your bedside table’s been ransacked.”

“What about Mr. Lacey’s cottage?” asked Fred, and Agatha and Charles stared at each other in consternation.

“We’d better have a look,” said Charles.

“Do you have a key?” asked Fred.

“Yes, I keep it on a hook by the stove. Oh, it’s gone.”

“Of all the stupid places…” began Charles, but Agatha was already hurrying out the door.

Fred and Charles followed her to James’s cottage. “The door’s closed,” said Fred. He tried the handle. “And locked.”

“The key fits the back door,” said Agatha, “and whoever it was left my cottage by the back door.”

They went round the side of James’s cottage to the back door. It was standing open with the key in the lock. They crowded inside and through to James’s sitting-room. Papers were spread everywhere. It had been ransacked, just like Agatha’s cottage.

Agatha sat down suddenly and put her head in her hands. Fred heard the wail of sirens. “I think we’d better go back to your cottage.”

Agatha rose, helped by Charles and followed Fred next door. Bill Wong came to meet mem, his round face creased with anxiety. “What have you been up to, Agatha?”

“I haven’t been up to anything!” said Agatha, her voice shrill with shock. “I’ve been burgled.”

“Let’s sit down and go over it,” said Bill. He was flanked by a policewoman and a detective constable.

They all gathered round the kitchen table. Wearily, Agatha began to talk, explaining that she had forgotten to set the burglar alarm and yes, she had been stupid enough to leave a key to James’s cottage on a hook in the kitchen. “What I can’t understand,” she said, “is how someone knew the burglar alarm wasn’t set.”

Bill nodded to the detective constable who went outside. After a few moments he was back. “The wires have been cut.”

“And nothing of value has been taken?” asked Bill.

“Not at first glance,” said Agatha. “Whoever it was must have been trying to find out if we knew anything about the murders.”

“And had you?” asked Bill sharply. “Apart from what you’ve told me.”

“Nothing more than that,” said Agatha. Charles looked at her, wondering whether she had forgotten about the psychiatrist or was deliberately withholding that information.

They could hear cars drawing up outside. “That’ll be the forensic team,” said Bill, getting to his feet. “They can start with James’s cottage.” He turned to Fred Griggs. “Ask around the village and see if someone heard or saw something.”

The phone rang. Agatha picked up the extension in the kitchen.

It was Mrs. Bloxby. “I heard you had been burgled. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so,” said Agatha, “unless you can ask around and see if anyone was seen lurking around Lilac Lane during the night.”

“Where were you?”

“Cambridge,” said Agatha. “I’ll tell you later.”

“So you were in Cambridge,” said Bill when she put down the phone. “Asking the sister questions?”

“Just a chat,” said Agatha, “and then the fog was so bad we had to stop somewhere for the night. The thing is, who would know that I wasn’t coming home? It was a last-minute decision.”

“Someone was lurking about and got lucky,” said Bill. “It couldn’t be the sister, because you saw her over in Cambridge and I cannot imagine she would drive through that dreadful fog and back again.”

“Unless,” said Charles suddenly, “she followed us. I didn’t check whether anyone was following us. Why should I?”

“And why would she do that?” asked Bill patiently.

“She’s got the best motive, and if she were guilty, she’d follow us to see if we were ferreting around Cambridge for more clues.”

“Why? She’s got a good alibi. The students who lodge with her swear she was there the whole time Melissa was being murdered.”

“But would they really know? I mean, if she took off in the middle of the night, took the motorways, she could do it in two and a half hours.”

“Each way,” said Bill. “That makes five hours. A long time to be away.”

“Students don’t get up early,” said Charles. “Say she left at two in the morning, and allowing time for the murder, got back at eight, say. Her students might not have noticed anything. I mean, if someone says good night to you and there they are again at breakfast time, of course you think they’ve been there all night. We were driving very slowly through the fog. She could have followed us easily and seen us turn off at that road-house.”

“You could have been going for a meal.”

“She could have waited in the car-park. There’s a good view of the reception, all lit up, and despite the fog, she would have seen us making a booking.”

Bill passed a hand across his face. “You’ll need to do a lot better than that.”

“What I can’t understand,” Agatha burst out, “is why you couldn’t come up with at least one fingerprint or footprint when James was attacked and Melissa killed. I watch loads of forensic TV programmes and they seem to be able to tell from hair and fibres and footprints and fingerprints – ”

“It takes a long, long time these days to get results back from the lab. But in all cases, the perpetrator wore gloves. In James’s case, the footprints were scuffed; in Melissa’s case, whoever did it was very thorough. The place had been wiped clean of fingerprints and vacuumed thoroughly.”

“Maybe if you checked the vacuum bag, there might be – ”

Bill shook his head. “Here’s a thing. We have a feeling that whoever did it brought their own vacuum cleaner.”

“This is getting madder and madder,” wailed Agatha. “How could anyone lug a vacuum cleaner through the village without being seen?”

“It could have been one of those hand ones people use for cars,” said Bill. “We get the feeling the murder was cold-blooded and calculated.”

♦

Agatha and Charles decided after the questioning was over to go and visit Mrs. Bloxby and leave the forensic team a clear field. “We’ll probably find the place covered in fingerprint dust,” complained Agatha. “I thought they used lights these days.”

“Don’t ask me,” replied Charles. “It’s all a closed book to me.”

“I thought you had to be home today?”

“I’ll hang on a bit longer. Things were getting a bit boring, but now they’ve picked up.”

Agatha felt a pang of dismay. Although she often suspected that all she meant to Charles was a diversion, she didn’t like to have it confirmed.

Mrs. Bloxby was just arriving back at the vicarage as they walked up. “Oh, you poor things,” she said. “Do come inside. I’ve just been visiting Mrs. Allan.”

Agatha remembered vaguely that Mrs. Allan was a battered wife who lived on the council estate. “She back with her husband?”

“No, he disappeared. But would you believe it, she actually misses him and keeps saying he wasn’t so bad and she should never have reported him.”

“At least there aren’t any children,” said Agatha. “I hate it when children are involved.”

“That reminds me,” said the vicar’s wife, ushering them in, “we have the concert and fête to raise funds for Save the Children in two weeks’ time. I wondered if you could help, Mrs. Raisin. We’re having a cake sale as well.”

“I’m not good at cakes.”

“But you are good at publicity. We need to get a lot of visitors.”

“You’ve left it a bit late. I’ll do what I can. Give me the exact date, time, and what’s on offer and I’ll see what I can do with the local papers.”

“Perhaps that friend of yours, Mr. Silver, could help. He was awfully good before.”

“It would mean inviting him down and he’d expect to be here for the whole weekend. Don’t think I could face it at the moment. But I’ll do what I can.”

“And we have no one to man the white elephant stall, yet. Perhaps you, Sir Charles…?”

“Sorry. I haven’t been home for a bit and I can’t stay away much longer. Besides, you know what these white elephant sales mean? People buy stuff one year to help out and then they put it in the next year, until no one really wants to buy anything.”

“But with Mrs. Raisin doing the publicity and attracting visitors to the village, I’m sure it will be a big success.”

“Sorry, not my scene.”

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Did you have any breakfast?”

“No, we haven’t had time with all this,” said Agatha.

“I made some fresh rolls. I’ll make you rolls and bacon.”

When she had gone off to the kitchen, Agatha leaned her head back against the feather cushions of the old sofa and closed her eyes. “This can’t go on,” she said. “I don’t think whoever broke in was bothered whether they would find me there or not. I keep thinking of some faceless man, armed with a vacuum and a hammer.”

“I’ve a nasty feeling we’re never going to get anywhere on this one, Aggie,” said Charles.

“But we’ve got to! We’ve got to clear James’s name.” She opened her eyes and looked at him accusingly.

“Fact is,” said Charles. “I really should be at home. Before we came along here, I phoned my aunt. She’s got some people coming to stay today. They’re bringing Tara with them.”

“Who the hell’s Tara?” grumbled Agatha.

“A very gorgeous girl.”

“Imagine naming someone after a plantation in Gone with the Wind.”

“Well, you know what parents are like. Boys get traditional names like John, Charles and David. But when it comes to girls, they call them really daft names.”

Mrs. Bloxby came back bearing a laden tray.

Charles took an appreciative bite of a bacon roll. “Bliss,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

“I might,” said Mrs. Bloxby with a flirtatious laugh. Agatha glared at her. She was a vicar’s wife. She should behave like a vicar’s wife.

“So have you any idea who might have broken into your house?” asked Mrs. Bloxby.

“My money’s on Sheppard,” said Agatha.

“Oh, why?”

“I think he really hated her. He exudes an air of threat and violence.”

“What about the other husband? Dewey,” said Charles. “He’s sneaky and creepy enough to have got into your cottage without being noticed.”

“I just don’t know,” said Agatha.

“Don’t you think you should move out of the village for a little?” suggested Mrs. Bloxby. “I do not like to think of you being there, a target for some murderer.”

“I’ll be all right,” said Agatha. She was about to add, “I have Charles,” and then remembered that the fickle Charles would soon be off in pursuit of some gorgeous girl called Tara, and he would probably forget about her for weeks.