Agatha Raisin and The Potted Gardener

Nine

Agatha remembered Bill Wong's warning when she was putting on make-up in her bedroom and heard her front door open the next day and someone walk into the hall. She was looking wildly at her dressing-table for some sort of weapon and seeing only the nail scissors when James's voice called up, "Agatha, are you there?"

"Coming," she yelled, and put some Blush Pink lipstick over her chin, swore dreadfully, wiped it off, and applied it properly.

She ran down the stairs. "What's the matter?"

"I wondered whether you would fancy a trip into Oxford," said James. "I remembered this professor friend and phoned him up. He's at one of the other colleges but he's got us an introduction to a don at St Crispin's. I phoned him and asked him to lunch. That way we can find out more about John Deny."

"And Beth," said Agatha eagerly. "Wait a minute. I'd better change."

He looked appraisingly at her flowered blouse and plain skirt. "You'll do. We're lunching at Brown's and no one dresses for that. I'll drive."

And Agatha was happy as they drove off. She tried to persuade herself that she was happy because the day was sunny, because she was getting out of the village and ahead with the investigation. She did not want to admit that James's company was beginning to exert its old magic.

He took the road through Chipping Norton and Woodstock. "Do you think anything will come out of this lunch?" asked Agatha.

"It might. I don't think either Beth or John Deny had anything to do with the murder, but we may as well try everything."

"I wonder what he'll be like, this don. What's his name?"

"Timothy Barnstaple."

Perhaps he'll be attractive, thought Agatha.

James parked in the underground car-park at Gloucester Green and they walked back along St Giles and so to Brown's Restaurant on the Woodstock Road.

"This is silly," said James. "I forgot to ask what he looked like."

"Did you book a table?"

"No. We're meeting him now, at twelve, so it won't be too crowded, and it is the university holidays."

They entered the restaurant and looked about. A thin middle-aged man got up as they walked in. He was leaning on a stick. He was dressed in a black jacket and black trousers. His black hair was greased back from a tired lined face. Porter from one of the hotels, thought Agatha and turned her eyes elsewhere.

But the man called out, "Are you Mr Lacey?"

This, then, was Timothy Barnstaple.

"I took the liberty of ordering a drink while I waited for you," he said. His voice was beautiful. In these days of the cult of the common accent, it was a pleasure to hear a well-spoken, well-modulated voice.

"I didn't know you were bringing Mrs Lacey," said Timothy, leering at Agatha, "but the pleasure is all mine."

"Mrs Raisin is my neighbour and friend," said James.

"And where is Mr Raisin?"

"I don't know," said Agatha truthfully. "I walked out on him years ago. I suppose he's dead."

"Sit beside me, Mrs Raisin. But why are we so formal? What is your first name?"

"Agatha."

"A good old name, Agatha. So sad the way they name girls these days. I have a student called Tootsy. That is her real name. She was christened that. A most scholarly girl. But how will she succeed in life? Her full name is Tootsy McWhirter, and she is a Thatcherite. Could not her parents write down, say, the Right Honourable Tootsy McWhirter and see how strange it might look? But we digress. I am very hungry. I will just order another drink while we look at the menu."

The don ordered another double whisky and water and then peered over the menu. When they had ordered their food and Timothy had ordered a bottle of claret - 'We'll start with one bottle and then see how we get on' - he leaned his elbows on the table, pressed his knee against Agatha's and asked, "How can I help?"

James told him briefly about the murder.

"Ah," said Timothy, "I read about that."

"The thing is," said James, "we're just blundering about, finding out what we can about the characters of all the people close to Mary Fortune. What do you think of John Deny?"

"The college," said Timothy, "started to discriminate against the public schools, you know, Eton, Marlborough, Westminster, some time ago. Help the underprivileged and all that stuff. Down with elitism. The sad fact is that we have quite a lot of John Derrys, beer-swilling, loud-mouthed, at a loss at university, diligent enough swot at his comprehensive school, but not university material. Sort of chap who gets a bad degree if he gets one at all and then blames the capitalist system. Subsequently can't get a job and refuses to believe that turning up for interviews in torn jeans and a boorish manner has anything to do with failure. He latched on to Beth in their first year.

"Beth, on the other hand, is a highly intelligent girl."

"So why get tied up with John Deny?" asked Agatha.

"The brighter the girl, the more sexually naive. They think they are being feminist and liberated when they enter into a sexual relationship with some man at college, not aware that by funding him, washing his socks and making his meals, they are more in chains than their mothers. It's all sex."

He pressed his knee harder against Agatha's. It was a small table. She moved her legs away and found them pressed against James's, apologized and moved them away again, where Timothy's insistent knee was waiting under the table to welcome her leg back.

The food arrived, solid English food. "Do you think either of them could have committed a murder?" asked Agatha.

He held up a hand ornamented with dirty fingernails for silence and then attacked his food. He ate very rapidly, washing the meal down with great gulps of wine. "Perhaps another bottle?" he said, breaking his silence at last.

James ordered another bottle and poured a glass for Agatha and himself before serving Timothy. "Now," said James, "as I am sure you don't want to drink claret with the pudding, perhaps we can talk."

But Timothy, it transpired, could eat apple pie and ice cream and double cream washed down with claret.

Agatha waited in silence and then said sharply, "Let's get down to it. We brought you out for lunch to get a few facts."

Timothy smiled dreamily at Agatha's pugnacious face. "Dear lady," he crooned. "So forceful. I am but jelly in the hands of a forceful woman."

He seized hold of Agatha's hand and kissed it. She snatched it away. "Come on," she snapped. "Tell us more about John Deny."

He drained the last of the claret and signalled the waitress. "Perhaps a brandy with the coffee..." he was beginning but Agatha waved the waitress away. "We'll call you when we need you. No brandy, Timothy, until you talk to us. Tell us more about John Derry. Any incidents in college involving him? He and Beth are in their final year when the term starts, are they not?"

He sighed and leaned back and lit a cigarette. "There was an incident in John's first year. He beat up a fellow student in a drunken brawl. It never got to court. He was disciplined by the college,"

"What caused the brawl?"

"He said the student he had attacked had made a pass at Beth. Some witnesses said Beth had encouraged the advances and seemed delighted at the subsequent punch-up, egging John on to greater efforts. But I find that hard to believe. She is such a sweet girl. She'll get a good degree."

He began to talk about college life, and time after time Agatha steered him back to the characters of John and Beth, but without much success. Reluctantly James ordered brandy for Timothy - "A double, my dear," called Timothy to the waitress - and said, "The one thing we have got out of this is that report that Beth had incited John to fight."

"Beth Fortune is no Lady Macbeth," exclaimed Timothy, waving one hand expansively so that cigarette ash dropped into Agatha's coffee cup. He focused his tipsy eyes on James and nodded in Agatha's direction. "What's she like in bed? Feisty, I'll bet."

James sighed. "I have not had that pleasure."

"Why?" asked Timothy.

"Can we stick to the subject?" Agatha's voice was beginning to get a nasty edge to it. "On the night of the murder, John and Beth claim they were in Bern's rooms. But the police say there are no witnesses to give them an alibi."

"But there is a witness." He tapped his nose and then stubbed his cigarette out in the remains of his pudding.

They both leaned forward. "Who?"

"Me," he said triumphantly. "Of course, it should be 'I', but I always feel one can appear a trifle pedantic if - "

"What are you talking about?" howled Agatha. "What did you see?"

"I was crossing the quad below Beth's rooms on the evening of the murder. I looked up and distinctly saw John Deny and Beth Fortune standing by the window, talking."

"At what time?"

"At about eight thirty."

"Did you tell the police this?"

"They didn't ask me."

"But you must have known that they were looking for witnesses," said Agatha impatiently.

"I saw no reason for my evidence, dear lady. Such as Beth Fortune does not kill her own mother, and in such a gruesome way. Nor, for that matter, would John Deny. The manner in which she was killed suggests a brooding hatred. A real village murder."

"What do you mean - village murder?"

"We don't go in for such colourful deaths in the city. Lots of inbreeding still in these old Cotswold villages, and witchcraft and all that sort of thing. Take my word for it, it's a village murder."

His eye roved round the restaurant for the waitress and James, guessing correctly that Timothy meant to ask for another brandy, forestalled him by asking for the bill.

Agatha was glad to escape and take a deep breath of fresh air when they got outside. "I thought we would be meeting a scholarly old gentleman," she said bitterly. "Do you think he meant all that, about being a witness?"

"Yes, I think he was telling the truth. Why should he lie?"

"Sing for his supper? Get more free booze out of you? When was the time of death exactly? Did we ask Bill Wong? We found her at eight o'clock."

"I asked. They estimate she was killed about an hour before we arrived."

"Why didn't I think of asking Bill?" demanded Agatha fretfully.

"Because we weren't exactly looking for alibis for people but more for reasons for killing Mary. Oh, God, think of the time it took to kill her and then to string up the body. He or she could have left only minutes before we arrived. And if John and Beth were seen at eight thirty, they could have had time to get back to Oxford, so they haven't really got an alibi, now I come to think of it,"

"Thank you for lunch, James. I should give you my share."

"That's all right. Take me out for dinner next week and we'll call it quits. Are you going to give away the money Mary left you, Agatha?"

"No, I think I'll keep it."

"Then you can afford to buy me dinner. Where now?"

"Back to Carsely, I suppose," said Agatha. "We might think of some ideas on the road."

But nothing occurred to either of them, although they swapped various theories.

"Mrs Bloxby was right," said Agatha with a shiver as they approached the village. "The murder seems more awful the further one gets away from it. I think the shock of the whole thing has kept reality at bay."

"There's the boy scouts' fete," said James, slowing the car outside a field above Carsely. "Want to have a look? They've got stalls and things, and I could do with some home-made jam. Mary used to keep me supplied. Damn it! Why did I have to think of that?"

"May as well have a look," agreed Agatha.

He stopped the car on the verge and they walked into the field, admission twenty pence. Admission to everything in Carsely seemed to cost twenty pence. They wandered along the stalls. Mrs Bloxby, raising money for charity as usual, was selling home-made jam. Agatha and James bought a jar each. James chatted away while Agatha edged off and stood waiting. She was still ashamed about her trick with her garden.

There were small boy scouts leaping about on a trampoline and boy scouts vaulting over a hobby horse. There was also a boy scouts' band playing tinnily.

Over in the corner was something that looked like a scaffold but turned out to be a 'mountain rescue' display. Three boys were hoisting a chubby boy scout up on ropes. He missed his hold and turned upside down and swung in the air.

"Just like Mary Fortune," said Agatha with a shudder. "Let's go."

They turned away. A wind had sprung up and the clouds above were heavy and grey. There had not been rain for some time and little dust devils swirled up from between patches of bare earth among the scrubby grass of the field. There was also a faint chill damp in the air, heralding approaching rain. Agatha rubbed her bare arms and shivered.

Then, from behind them, they heard a familiar voice shouting, "Harder, boys, harder! You're not pulling hard enough. I'll show you."

Agatha and James stopped and turned round and looked back.

Bernard Spott had taken off his jacket and was rolling up his sleeves to expose sinewy arms. He edged the boys at the 'mountain rescue' display aside and seized the rope and pulled one of the boys up easily. "You see how it's done?" said Bernard. "You use the strength of your forearms. Don't jerk the whole body. Just the forearms."

"Walk away with me," said James urgently. "Don't show too much interest."

"Why?"

"Because that's how it could have been done." He put an arm about her waist and drew her along.

Good heavens, thought Mrs Bloxby, I do believe Agatha has succeeded in attracting James at last.

"Bernard? You can't mean Bernard. He's an old man."

"But a very fit one. We kept discounting people because they weren't strong enough. But all anyone would have to do would be to bind her ankles with rope, leaving one long end, throw the end up over the hook, and pull the body up. Tie it up and cut the end."

"Granted. But why Bernard?"

"I don't think it's Bernard," said James, stopping suddenly. "We've been arguing and thinking and speculating for so long, I'm jumping to mad conclusions."

They had reached the entrance to the field.

Agatha looked back. Bernard Spott was standing quite still, staring across the field at them.

"I say," said Agatha, "let's go to his house and wait for him. We could ask him if he knew of anyone else in the village who has his way with ropes. Don't look now, but he's staring and staring at us."

"May as well try," said James. "But why not ask him now?"

"I don't know. I want a look at his back garden. We could even spot something the police have missed. I mean, they're not going to have searched the garden of a respectable old villager like Bernard very thoroughly."

"I wish I'd never mentioned Bernard," said James peevishly. "I've had enough of this for one day."

"Then drop me off," said Agatha. "I'll go on my own."

"Oh, in that case I'd better go with you in case you make a fool of yourself," said James ungraciously. "Must you smoke?" he demanded, as Agatha lit a cigarette as soon as she was in the car.

"I thought you didn't mind people smoking."

"So I lied."

Agatha tossed the lit cigarette out of the car window.

He had moved off as he was speaking, but he immediately slammed on the brakes. "Of all the stupid things to do, Agatha. The ground's as dry as tinder. You could set the countryside alight."

Agatha stayed in the car, a mulish look on her face, as he searched the ditch until he had found her discarded cigarette and put it out. He had no right to speak to her in that tone of voice.

"You're a male chauvinist pig," she said as soon as he got back in.

"And you, my dear Agatha, are the greatest female chauvinist sow it has ever been my ill luck to come across."

"Oh, sod you, James, and bugger the countryside and all who sail in her. Are we going to Bernard's or not?"

"I've a good mind not to go. Do you know what? We're being childish even thinking that old man could do such a thing."

"I didn't like the way he was looking at us," said Agatha.

"Woman's intuition?"

"Something like that, James dear."

"So what are you going to do if he comes back while we are ferreting around, looking for God knows what? Point a finger at him and say, 'You did it!' and he will break down and say, 'Mea culpa, O great detective lady'?"

"Why are you so beastly angry all of a sudden?" demanded Agatha.

There was a silence while he steered the car round a corner and then up the hill to Bernard's cottage. "I don't know," he said in a mild voice. "I really don't know."

"Well, figure it out next time before you open your trap," said Agatha, still ruffled. When the car stopped she got out and went up the garden path and round the side of Bernard's house to the back.

James sat tapping the wheel and watching her disappear. Then he shrugged and got out as well and followed her.

The sky above was growing darker. Little snatches of sound from the scouts' band filtered to his ears. He went round the side of the cottage. The back garden was quite large, heavy with the scent of roses. A sharp wind sent a drift of blossom scattering over the grass. In the middle of the garden was a round pond where goldfish darted here and there in the greenish water.

Agatha turned and saw him and said in a quiet voice, "Come here and look at this."

He went to join her. There was a square patch of bare, well-raked earth planted with neat little wooden crosses. On each cross was a carved name, Jimmy, William, Harry, George, Fred, Alice, Emma, Olive, and so on.

"Animals' cemetery?" asked James.

"Do you know what I think those are?" said Agatha. "I think they're the graves of those goldfish that were poisoned."

"Come on, Agatha. Nobody gives names to goldfish,"

"I think he did. There's one way to find out." She bent down and started digging in the earth with her fingers.

"Stop that, Agatha," said James. "It'll be a cat."

"Then, if all these graves are animals, there's still something up with him. Aha!" She straightened up and pointed downwards. The remains of a nearly decomposed goldfish lay unearthed. "Don't you see?" she said, her eyes gleaming. "If he was as potty as this about a lot of goldfish and if Mary poisoned them and he knew about it, it could have turned his brain."

They both stiffened as they heard the front-garden gate squeal on its hinges. "Cover that up, quick," said James.

"No," said Agatha. She turned to face the entrance to the back garden. Bernard came round the corner of the house, his jacket over his arm. He stopped short at the sight of them for a moment and then walked quickly up to them. He looked down at the open grave at Agatha's feet and said in a quiet voice, "Why have you desecrated Jimmy's grave?"

"You killed Mary," said Agatha in a flat voice. "You discovered she'd poisoned your fish and so you killed her."

"Oh, really, so where are the police, Agatha?"

"They'll be here any moment," said Agatha, moving behind James for protection. She improvised wildly. "The forensic people traced that rope to you."

"That's not possible," he said. Then, as if realizing that by remark he had given himself away, he sat down suddenly on the grass.

"Why did you do it?" asked James.

"She humiliated me," said Bernard, his head bowed. "She flirted with me and when I made a pass at her, she laughed in my face and called me a silly old man. I was furious. I told her that she had deliberately led me on to make a fool of me and that I would tell everyone so. But of course I didn't. It would make me look too ridiculous, a man of my age.

"I heard a movement in the garden. The old do not sleep heavily. I looked out. There was bright moonlight. I saw her bending over the pond. I did not go out. I had become frightened of her, frightened she would laugh and jeer at me. But I found my goldfish dead in the morning, all my friends, my pets, my family. I used to sit by the pond and talk to them. I could think of nothing else but punishing her.

"It was surprisingly easy. The next time I saw her in the intervening weeks, she was easy and friendly with me, as if nothing had happened. She even called round, bringing me a cake. So I made my preparations. I called on her and asked her for a drink. I said I would like brandy, knowing that she often liked a glass of brandy. When she had poured two glasses, I said I thought I heard someone moving outside. When she went off to look out of the window, I put the poison in her glass.

"I had an agonizing time wondering whether she would drink it or not. At last I said when I was in the navy we used to drink our brandy down in one go, but I couldn't expect a lady to be able to do that. She laughed and said, 'Why not?' and tipped the contents of her glass down her throat.

"I watched her die. I felt nothing at all. Nothing. I hadn't yet touched my own drink. I poured it carefully into the bottle after I had pulled on a pair of gloves, and then put the top back on the bottle. I put my own glass in my pocket, along with the one she had drunk out of, to take away with me. I sponged the vomit from her mouth off the carpet. I knew traces of it would be found by the police, but I did not want to make matters easy for them.

"I lifted her up...and well, the rest you know. I wanted her to be found desecrated, the way she had desecrated those gardens and in revenge for killing my fish. I knew she was the one who had tried to destroy the other gardens. She was mad."

"I'll see if the police have arrived," said Agatha in a thin voice.

She ran from the garden, round the front and to the cottage next door, where she screamed at the startled lady, a Mrs Bain, to let her use the phone. She called Fred Griggs and then went back reluctantly to join James and Bernard.

But when she reached the back garden, James was alone.

"Poor mad old man," said James. "He's gone in to lock up a few things before the police take him away."

At that moment, Bernard reappeared. "I'll just feed my new family before I go," he said. He crossed to the goldfish pond. With a sigh of relief, Agatha heard the wail of a police siren in the distance.

James suddenly put his arms around her and she gratefully leaned against him and buried her face in his chest. "That's that," came Bernard's now quavering voice. "I'll just get something from the kitchen."

Agatha raised her head. "You should go with him. He might run away."

"We'd better go in anyway. The police will be hammering at the front door."

They went in by the kitchen door. Sure enough, there was banging on the door. Agatha opened it and Bill Wong and two detectives came in. "We got your message on the police radio. Where is he?"

Agatha looked wildly around. "I don't know. Somewhere."

And then a drumming sound reverberated down from the ceiling overhead.

Bill and his colleagues raced for the stairs. James pulled Agatha back. "Don't go," he said. "It won't be pretty."

"What do you mean?"

"I think he poisoned his new fish - and then he poisoned himself. They may be able to pump him out in time, but I doubt it."

Upstairs, radios crackled as they called for an ambulance. "Let's go and sit in the garden, Agatha," said James. "There's nothing more we can do here."