WATERY sunlight struck down on the cobbles as they made their way to Mrs. Dairy’s cottage. Not for one moment would Agatha admit to herself that she was intimidated by the waspish Mrs. Dairy and yet she experienced a sinking feeling as they approached the cottage and she saw that the door was standing open and the nasty little dog was snuffling about the steps.
“No castor-oil plants,” commented Charles, looking around the small front garden. “Nothing but laurels and other dreary shrubs. Wonder what’s round the back.”
Mrs. Dairy appeared at her front door. Her greeting was typical. “What do you want?”
“We wanted to have a word with you.” Agatha surreptitiously edged the snuffling dog away from her ankles with her foot.
“I don’t think I should invite you in,” said Mrs. Dairy, her thin face bright with malice. “I have my reputation to think of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Agatha, irritated, gave the little dog another kick.
“I don’t think I should let you and one of your fancy men into my home.”
Charles brayed with laughter and Agatha glared at Mrs. Dairy.
“Okay,” she said truculently, raising her voice. “We’ll stand out here and discuss your fancy man, the late Mr. John Shawpart.”
For once, Agatha had obviously scored over the terrible Mrs. Dairy, whose green eyes goggled and then darted right and left. “Come in,” she said abruptly. Her little dog raised his leg and peed onto Agatha’s shoe.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” howled Agatha. The dog scampered into the house. Agatha removed her shoe and, taking out a tissue, wiped it clean.
“Supposed to be lucky, Aggie,” said Charles. “Let’s go in before she changes her mind and slams the door on us.”
Another dark cottage living-room, everything in shades of dull green: green velvet upholstered three-piece suite, green walls, dark green fitted carpet, green leaves from the thick ivy outside which covered the cottage, blocking out any light the small windows might have afforded. All sat down and faced each other in this subterranean gloom.
“What did you mean by that remark?” demanded Mrs. Dairy. The dog leapt on her lap and she kneaded her thin fingers in its coat.
“John Shawpart was a blackmailer,” said Agatha. “He wooed women, found out about them, and then blackmailed them.”
“Rubbish!” Mrs. Dairy sounded breathless. “I’m a respectable woman. Who could possibly want to blackmail me? I am not like you, Mrs. Raisin, with your scandalous affairs with younger men.”
Checkmate, thought Agatha. What could there be in this acidulous women’s life that was worth a blackmailer’s time?
“Money,” said Charles suddenly. “It was all about money. We know that.”
He was half talking to himself, but Mrs. Dairy stared at him like a rat hypnotized by a snake.
“You know,” she said through dry lips.
Agatha was about to say they didn’t know, but Charles looked at Mrs. Dairy compassionately and said, “Oh, yes. We haven’t told anyone and Agatha here went to great lengths to try to destroy any evidence that might have incriminated you. That is why we have not gone to the police. We would be in trouble ourselves. Just tell us how he came to get the information.”
“I went there to get my hair done,” said Mrs. Dairy in a low voice, quite unlike her usual biting tones. “We got friendly. Had a few meals. I was flattered. I told him that my late husband had been a plumber. A master plumber,” she added with some of her old spirit in case he might think he was an ordinary tradesman. “We were talking about taxes and VAT and how iniquitous both were. He said sympathetically that there were ways round it. He knew a lot of tradesmen who would offer to do a job for a bit less for cash in hand. I’d had a bit too much to drink and so I told him that was what my Clarence had done and so that was the reason I had been left comfortably off.
“Then he phoned me two days later. I couldn’t believe it. We were friends! He told me unless I paid him five thousand pounds, he would inform the Inland Revenue that my husband had been cheating them for years. I panicked. I called on him and said that if he did that, I would kill him.” She fell silent. Then she said, “When I heard he was dead, it was like the end of a nightmare.”
“But look here,” said Agatha. “When did your husband die?”
“Five years ago.”
“But how on earth could the Inland Revenue find out that he had been taking cash payments and not declaring them?”
“They could have gone to his old customers. 1 sold the plumbing firm, but they’ll still have the old records.”
“But if they were paying cash,” said Agatha patiently, “those payments would not appear on the books.”
“But what if they found out his old customers and asked them?”
“What would they say?” asked Charles. “They couldn’t admit to cheating the income tax either. They’d be in a deep shit.”
Weak tears ran down Mrs. Dairy’s face. “So it was all for nothing.”
“All what?” asked Agatha sharply.
“All my worry. All my sleepless nights.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“No. I read about it in the papers. Ricin. I’d never even heard of it. Please don’t tell the police any of this.”
“I can’t,” said Agatha. “I went to his house to destroy any evidence and someone set it alight. The police don’t even know I was there.”
Mrs. Dairy got up stiffly, as if her joints were hurting. “I shall make tea,” she said and disappeared into the nether regions.
“You can take the offer of tea as thanks for trying to save her neck,” said Charles.
“It wasn’t her scrawny neck I was trying to save but Mrs. Friendly’s. John really did pray on silly, ugly women who would be flattered by his attentions.”
“And some not so ugly,” said Charles with a slanting look at her.
“I wasn’t taken in for a moment!”
“That’s not the way I saw it.”
“Never mind that,” said Agatha hurriedly. “I wonder who inherits. Perhaps all this blackmailing business is clouding the issue. Perhaps he was murdered because of something else.”
“Highly unlikely. Here she conies.”
Mrs. Dairy returned and proceeded to pour tea that looked like discoloured water. Agatha guessed that she had only used one tea-bag in the pot and probably one that had been used already. There was a plate of hard biscuits.
Mrs. Dairy seemed to have recovered most of her old composure-or nastiness, as Agatha judged it to be.
“While I was making the tea,” said Mrs. Dairy, “I was thinking of your so-called detective abilities. I have a shrewd inquiring mind and I am sure I could find out who did it.”
“You mean you want to work with us?” asked Agatha with a sinking heart.
She gave a pitying laugh. “Oh, no. As the bard says, she travels fastest who travels alone.”
“It was Kipling,” corrected Charles. “ ‘He travels fastest who travels alone.’ ”
“Whatever.”
Agatha put her teacup down in the saucer with an angry little click. “Then we will not waste any more of your valuable time.” She got to her feet. Charles rose as well.
“We could compare notes,” said Mrs. Dairy graciously.
“Oh, but that would surely impede your progress.” Agatha headed resolutely for the door. Charles followed her outside. The dog ran after Agatha and began to snuffle eagerly at her ankles again. She picked it up, placed it inside and firmly shut the door. “Horrid little thing. Let’s get home, Charles, so I can disinfect my contaminated shoe.”
After Agatha had washed her feet and put on clean tights and shoes, she j6ined Charles in the kitchen and said, “Portsmouth.”
“What about it?”
“That’s where he used to have a business. We could go there and talk to hairdressers and see if there was any scandal about him.”
“Now? What if the police come calling?”
“So what? We’re not leaving the country.”
“Do you know Portsmouth? Huge place.”
“We’ll get a hotel and look through the Yellow Pages and phone up hairdressers.”
“Waste of time, Aggie. We go to Mircester Library and look up the Yellow Pages for Portsmouth and phone from here.”
Agatha sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I just wanted to get away.”
“Cheer up. If we find out anything on the phone, then we’ll go.”
Just then, the phone rang. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “I think I may have discovered your Maggie for you.”
“Who is she?” said Agatha eagerly. “Where does she live?”
“I may be wrong but I think you want a Maggie Henderson. She lives at nine, Terrace Road, in Badsey. She’s a schoolteacher.”
“How did you find out?”
“I simply give her description, such as it was, and her first name to various people in the surrounding parishes. It may turn out to be the wrong Maggie.”
“We’ll try anyway. Thanks a lot.”
Agatha said goodbye and rang off. She told Charles her news.
“Let’s leave Portsmouth for just now and try this Maggie,” he said. “Badsey’s only a few miles away.”
But when they drove to Badsey and found the correct address it was to find that Maggie Henderson taught at a school at Worcester and was not expected back until about five o’clock. “And with our luck,” said Agatha gloomily, “her husband will be home at the same time. Do we go to Worcester?”
“No,” said Charles. “Let’s go into Evesham and find a place for coffee and make notes on what we’ve got.”
They parked in Merstow Green and walked across the road to a tea-shop off the Market Square. “Look at this!” exclaimed Charles. “The last genuine old English tea-shop in captivity.” It was low-beamed, quiet and dark. A waitress with a gentle Scottish accent took their order.
“Now,” said Charles, taking out a small notebook and a pen, “let’s see what we’ve got in the way of suspects. Begin at the beginning, Aggie. Anything you can think of.”
Agatha rested her chin on her hands. “Let me see, what made me suspect him of being a blackmailer in the first place? Ah, I know. I told you. I heard some woman threatening to kill him when I was in the loo at the hairdresser’s. John said it was a couple in the shop next door who were always quarrelling. But although I could hear her voice, I couldn’t distinguish the voice of the man. He kept his low. It could’ve been John.”
“Right.” He made a note. “We’ll check out that shop afterwards. Next.”
“Wait a bit. He told me he had been married once. That’s a thought. I wonder if he had any children and who inherits.”
“We’ll try to find out.”
“There was another candidate for blackmail. There was a customer talking to him about her daughter Betty. She said she thought her daughter was not only on drugs but pushing them as well. Her husband was called Jim.”
“Good. More.”
“Then we now know about Mrs. Dairy, Maggie, and Liza Friendly. Wait a bit. There’s Josie.”
“Who’s she?”
“Vapid little receptionist. Seemed besotted with John and very jealous of me.”
“Ah,” said Charles, making another note. “I think I should handle that one. I’ll get my hair cut and chat her up. That way I can pick up the gossip about the customers.”
“Then,” said Agatha, “do you remember how Liza was telling us about watching the house and she saw this blonde? How did she describe her? Blonde, I think, rabbity, prominent teeth, skinny legs. I think that’s all we’ve got.”
“So there’s one of these suspects or maybe someone we haven’t heard of who had the keys to his house. Remember, you didn’t hear anyone breaking in… unless… Oh, why didn’t we think of the obvious?”
“What?”
“I bet when you let yourself in you didn’t lock the door behind you.”
Agatha goggled at him.
“Think!” urged Charles. “Was it a Yale, the kind that would automatically click shut and lock behind you?”
“No,” said Agatha slowly. “It was a mortise. Biggish key.”
“Then that explains that.”
Agatha clutched his arm. “Don’t you see, if someone knew just to walk in, they must have known I was in there!”
“Could be. Or maybe someone just tried the handle first and meant to break in if the door was locked. Did it have glass panes?”
“Yes, those stained-glass ones. You know, Charles, I think we might be concentrating too hard on the blackmailing angle.”
“What other angle is there?”
“Oh, passion and jealousy. Jealous woman, jealous husband. Remember, someone did beat him up.”
“Stick to blackmail,” said Charles in an authoritative manner which made Agatha long to prove him wrong.
“If you’ve finished,” said Agatha huffily, “let’s try that shop next door to the hairdresser’s. Wait a bit. Surely the hairdresser’s will be closed down?”
“Damn, of course it will be.”
“Let’s take a look anyway.”
They walked along the High Street. Sure enough, the hairdresser’s was closed and dark.
“We’ll try the shop next door,” said Charles.
They both entered a small dark shop which sold an assortment of cheap souvenirs.
There was an enormous woman behind the counter dressed in a man’s shirt and leggings. They could see the leggings because she was bending over to pick up something from the bottom shelves behind the counter.
“Excuse me,” began Agatha. The woman straightened up and turned round.
She had a large, round, truculent face and thick glasses. What d’ye want?” she snapped.
Agatha, accustomed to the usual friendly manners of the Evesham shopkeeper, blinked and said, “We wondered whether you knew that man next door who was murdered?”
“And what’s it to do with you? You’re not the police. Who are you? More of those ghouls who want to gossip about the murder and not buy anything?”
Agatha took the plunge. “I heard you threatening to kill Mr. John.”
Her large face was a study in surprise. “I never did! When’s this supposed to have happened?”
“I was in the toilet at the hairdresser’s a few weeks ago. I asked John Shawpart about it and he said you and your husband were always quarrelling.”
The woman held up a large, pudgy, ringless hand. “Ain’t got a husband. Come with me.” She lifted the flap of the counter. They walked through. She led them through to a grimy kitchen in the back shop. She opened the kitchen door. “Look!”
There was only a narrow little strip of yard. On the hairdresser’s side was a high wall. “On the other side of that wall is the hairdresser’s yard,” she said. “Whoever you heard, it couldn’t have been me. You heard someone out in the yard of the hairdresser’s.”
The bell tinkled in the shop. “Got a customer,” she said. “Get out of here.”
“What do you think?” asked Charles when they were back out in the High Street.
“I think Mr. John lied, that’s what 1 think,” said Agatha. “I say, that’s a new hairdresser’s across the road. Eve’s, it says. And look through the window.”
“What?”
“At the desk. It’s that receptionist, Josie.”
“Then take yourself off somewhere, Aggie, and let me go and get my hair cut and chat her up.”
“How long will you be?”
“Give me an hour. Here’s the car keys. I’ll meet you back at the car-park.”
“I tell you what. You go in and after a few moments, I’ll go in myself and make an appointment. Maybe all the old staff are there.”
Agatha waited impatiently while Charles crossed the road and went in. He spent some time talking to Josie, who was giggling and laughing. Then he disappeared into the nether regions.
Agatha crossed the road. Josie was still smiling, but the smile left her face when she saw Agatha. “So this is where you are,” said Agatha brightly. Within the salon she saw Garry and two other of Mr. John’s former assistants.
“Yes, we was lucky. Eve opened up and she took us all on.”
“Who’s Eve?”
Josie gave an impertinent sigh and bent over the appointments book. “Do you want to make an appointment, Mrs. Raisin? We’re very busy.”
Agatha opened her mouth to blast her and then thought better of it. “Put me down for the day after tomorrow. Three o’clock.”
“Do you want Garry?”
“No, I’ll try Eve herself.”
“It’ll need to be four o’clock.”
“Okay, that’ll do.”
Agatha walked out again into the High Street. She wandered about Evesham, down Bridge Street to the Abbey Gardens, sat and smoked and then made her way to Charles’s car to find him standing outside, waiting for her.
“How did you get on?”
He took the keys from her and unlocked the car.
“I’ll tell you on the road to Badsey.”
When they drove off, he started, “I’m taking Josie out for dinner tonight. I gather that this new hairdresser came along and employed them all. Hard-looking woman. But fast. She has them all working-snipping and perming and tinting as if they’re all on an assembly line. Josie is going to tell me all.”
“Do you think this new hairdresser might have bumped off Mr. John to get his trade?”
“What a fertile imagination you have, Aggie. This isn’t Sunday night viewing on telly. This is real life. We have a dead blackmailer. So it is perfectly logical to assume that someone blackmailed him to get him out of their threatened life.”
“Well, we’ll see what Maggie has to say,” said Agatha gloomily. “She’s probably another woman with a truculent husband.”
“Her car’s outside, anyway,” said Charles as they drove up. “If it is her car and not her husband’s.”
They got out and walked up an ankle-spraining front path made of pieces of brick. The garden was neglected and weedy and the net curtains at the windows were dingy.
Agatha pressed the doorbell. “No ring,” said Charles. “Knock.”
Agatha rapped on the glass panes of the door. I wonder why anyone ever becomes a newspaper reporter, she thought. They condemn themselves to days of rejection.
The door opened on a chain and one of Maggie’s protuberant eyes stared at them.
Agatha smiled brightly. “Do you remember me, Mrs. Henderson? We met in the hairdressing salon, Mr. John’s, in Evesham.”
“What do you want?”
“We wanted to talk to you about Mr. John.”
“I’ve nothing to say.”
“We know he was blackmailing you,” said Charles.
The door slammed. Agatha and Charles looked at each other.
Then they heard the sound of the chain being dropped and the door opened.
Maggie Henderson looked at them triumphantly. “You can’t do anything to me now. I suppose you got hold of the letters that bastard had. Well, the damage is done. My husband’s left me, so go screw.”
“We’re not blackmailers,” said Agatha. “Can we come in? All the evidence is destroyed.”
“In the fire?”
Agatha nodded. “The reason I want to find out who killed him and who set the house on fire is that I was in the house when it was set alight. I went there to try to destroy any evidence. But don’t tell the police that. They don’t know.”
Maggie’s face softened. “So you were a victim as well. Come in.”
“Not really…” began Agatha, but Charles pressed her arm warningly as they followed Maggie into the house, as if to say, let her think you’re a fellow sufferer.
The living-room was untidy and dusty. “I had a call from a policewoman,” said Maggie. “Sit down. She was only checking her way through the list of customers and when I read that his house had burned down, I prayed my letters had gone up with it. I thought, you see, with all the rain that day that they might not, but the policewoman told me that he had used Calor gas and kept spare cylinders in the basement. The gas exploded. She said even the stuff in the filing cabinet had been destroyed.”
I did’t even see the filing cabinet, thought Agatha.
“So what happened between you and Mr. John?” she asked. “I am Agatha Raisin and this is Sir Charles Fraith.”
“Well, Mrs. Raisin… ”
“Call me Agatha.”
“That’s a name you don’t hear much these days,” said Maggie. “I had a friend called Agatha but she changed her name to Helen. Said she couldn’t bear people calling her Aggie.”
“I know how she feels,” said Agatha, casting a fulminating glance at Charles.
“I was so glad when I heard he was dead,” said Maggie. “I could’ve murdered him. But I’m such a rabbit. Things weren’t going too well in my marriage. Pete was a good husband, I suppose, but always a dab hand at nasty little putting-down remarks. Any time we went out to the pub with friends, I knew there would be a post-mortem in the road home. “Why did you say that, you made a fool of yourself, you looked like a tart,” that sort of thing. But that’s marriage for you. Then Mr. John started to ask me out, meetings on the sly. Pete was out at work and I was enjoying the school holidays. He made me feel like a princess. I began to complain about Pete to him. He was very sympathetic. He said a lot of women were stuck in lousy marriages because they hadn’t the funds to leave. I said I had always had my own money. My parents died in a car crash and left me comfortably off. He exhilarated me. 1 saw for the first time that it might be possible to find the courage to leave Pete. This is my house.”
She fell silent.
“Then what happened?” prompted Agatha.
“He made love to me and I felt beautiful.” Agatha felt a slight pang of regret that she hadn’t given the hairdresser a fling. “Then, after that, he was suddenly too busy to see me or even to do my hair. I was obsessed, frantic. The school holidays were coming to an end and I knew I wouldn’t have much freedom. So I wrote to him, reminding him of our love, of our afternoon of love.
“When he said he wanted to see me again, I was overjoyed. We met at those tea gardens on the river. He told me he wanted money, five thousand pounds. If I didn’t give it to him, he would send my letter to my husband. I hated him in that moment. I didn’t believe for a minute he would do it. So I told him to do his worst.
“I felt guilty about the way I had cheated on Pete over this useless, evil man. The next day, the very next day, Pete was off work with a cold. The post hadn’t arrived when I went out to work. So Pete got the letter. John must have posted it right after I left him the day before.
“When I got home, Pete had packed up and left. My letter was on the table and Pete left me his own letter, calling me all sorts of names… slut, whore.” Her voice broke.
“I’m so lonely without him. I never thought I would be. I used to dream day and night of getting my freedom and now I’ve got it, and it sucks.”
She began to cry.
Agatha handed her a pile of tissues from a box on the dusty table. Maggie blew her nose and wiped her eyes.
“Where is your husband now?” asked Charles.
“Over at his mother’s in Honeybourne.”
“Did either you or your husband go to the police?”
“Oh, no! I burnt my letter and Pete’s. And when I read about the murder I was frantic. I thought Pete had done it. But it was poisoning and Pete would have been more likely to club him to death. My Pete has a violent temper.”
“Perhaps we should have a word with your husband,” suggested Charles, thinking of Agatha’s description of the bruised face.
Agatha expected Maggie to exclaim in horror, but she pressed her trembling hands together and said, “If you could. He won’t speak to me and his mother takes all the calls and refuses to let me speak to him. Tell him I miss him. I mean, he wasn’t much company, but he was good at fixing things.”
“Give us the address,” said Charles, “and we’ll see what we can do.”
“It’s ten, Parton Lane, Honeybourne. But you mustn’t tell the police about me! I’m falling apart as it is. All I want is Pete back. You never know what you’ve got until you haven’t got it any more.”
If only James Lacey thought like that, mourned Agatha.
As Charles and Agatha got in the car again, Charles looked at his watch and said, “Can’t be too long on this next call. I’ve got to take Josie out for dinner.”
“We’ve got time,” said Agatha. “Honeybourne’s not far.”
They found the address quite easily. “Here goes,” said Charles.
The door was answered by a small, bent woman who peered up at them from under a thatch of grey hair.
“Mrs. Henderson?” said Agatha.
“Yes, and I’m not interested in buying anything.”
“We’re not selling anything.”
“We’ve come to see your son,” said Charles.
“Who are you?”
“Mrs. Agatha Raisin and Sir Charles Fraith.”
She scowled at them suspiciously and then retreated into the house. There was the sound of some altercation from the nether regions and then a large burly man filled the doorway. “Yes?” he demanded truculently.
How easy it would be to be a police detective, thought Agatha. Flash the identification and demand that they go indoors.
“It’s about that hairdresser, John Shawpart,” said Agatha.
“What the hell’s it got to do with you?”
“We wondered why you had beaten him up,” said Charles, edging in front of Agatha.
“You the police?”
“No, we became involved in the case.”
Pete Henderson roundly told Charles to go and perform an impossible anatomical act upon himself. The door began to close.
“Maggie misses you,” said Agatha desperately. “She really does.”
The door stopped closing.
“It’s her own fault,” said Pete. “Slut.”
“It was only one mistake,” cajoled Agatha.
“Serves her right,” he growled. “Did she think any man would be interested in her? She should have known he was a blackmailer.”
“But she was tricked,” said Agatha. “Now she misses you and she’s frantic with worry.”
A gleam of satisfaction replaced the anger in his eyes.
“I hope she’s suffering,” he said and slammed the door in their faces.
“Well, what did we get from that?” asked Agatha as they drove off.
“I think we can be pretty sure he’s the one that beat John Shawpart up. Better run you home, Aggie. Got to meet Josie.”
“I’ll wait up for you to hear your news.”
“Well… ”
“You wouldn’t, Charles! A young girl like that!”
“Don’t worry. She probably lives with her parents.”
After Charles had left, Agatha planned to have a peaceful evening but Worcester CID called and took her through her statement, demanding this time to know why she had lied about driving past Shawpart’s house. Wearily Agatha said it was because murder made everyone feel guilty and she had not wanted to sound like one of those ghouls who haunt the scenes of disasters. By the time they left, she felt almost as if she had committed the murder herself.
She had a hot bath and put on a night-gown and dressing-gown and sat in front of the television set, waiting for Charles to come home. She sometimes wondered if Charles regarded her as anything more than a sort of amusement to enliven his days. He was as neat and self-contained as a cat. Although he had temporarily moved in with her, he did not seem to take up any space at all.
It was around midnight, when she was just falling asleep in the armchair, that she heard him driving up.
She struggled to her feet and opened the door.
“Not trying to seduce me, are you, Aggie?” was Charles’s greeting as he surveyed her plain and serviceable dressing-gown worn over a high-necked cotton night-dress.
“Come in and tell me about it.”
Agatha led the way into the living-room and quickly switched off the television, where a rerun of “Star Trek” was showing in case Charles decided to watch it.
Charles poured himself a drink and sat down.
“I’ve found out the identity of the slim, rabbity blonde.”
“Who is she?”
He brought out his small notebook. “Jessie Lang. Evesham girl. Josie said bitterly that she came in one day and made a hell of a scene.”
“What about?”
“Seems he stood her up.”
“Another unhappily married woman?”
“No, she works as a dentist’s receptionist, isn’t married and doesn’t appear to be well off.”
“Got her address?”
“No, Josie said the police have the old appointments’ book and it only had phone numbers in it anyway. But she works at a dentist’s in the High Street. I’ve got the address. God, I’m tired. We’ll go tomorrow.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, our Josie was smitten by her boss, that’s for sure, but I gather she never got anywhere. She seemed ready to turn her affections on me.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I said I loved only you. Fortunately, that was over coffee, for the evening promptly went down the tubes.”
“What did she say to that?”
“You don’t want to know.” Josie had actually exclaimed, “What, that old frump!”
“What about Portsmouth?” fretted Agatha.
“It can wait a bit. The action’s here, Aggie.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that! I think the action began in Portsmouth. What if he blackmailed his customers there and one of them followed him up here? Oh, Worcester CID called when you were out. Nag, nag, nag. Same old questions, apart from the fact they’d found out I was lying about just hearing John’s house had gone on fire. Made me feel guilty.”
“So what should we do at the dentist’s tomorrow?” asked Charles. “March in and question her there?”
“No, she’s bound to go out for lunch. We know what she looks like. We’ll go in about lunch-time and waylay her.”
“She might have lunch at her desk. I suggest I use my charm and invite her out for lunch. You could fill in the time by getting your hair done.”
“I’ve got an appointment with that Eve person, but it’s for four o’clock, the day after tomorrow.”
“See if you can change it.”
“I should think the terrible Josie will delight in telling me that there are no free appointments, but I’ll try. I’ll phone in the morning. Oh, I forgot to check when we got back from Honeybourne if there were any messages.”
Agatha went to the phone and dialled. She listened and then put down the phone and turned to Charles. “A message from Mrs. Dairy. She says she wants to see me. She sounded like her old self. Nasty and bitchy. I’ll think about it. Maybe call on her when we’ve finished in Evesham.”
The following day, Agatha left Charles outside the dentist’s and went to the hairdresser’s. Josie was barely polite but reluctantly said there was a cancellation. Agatha had her hair shampooed and was led through to Eve.
Eve was a tall, stately woman, rather like a figurehead on an old ship, proud bosom, flowing dark hair, rounded arms.
As she worked away with the drier, Agatha said, “Did you know Mr. John?”
“The hairdresser who was killed? No. Terribly sad, that,” said Eve. “Lucky for me. I was starting up this business and about to advertise for staff, so I just took his old staff over. I think I’ll just pop some rollers in and put you under the drier. Gives it a firmer set.”
“I don’t want anything too fussy!”
“Oh, it’ll look great.”
“Are you from Evesham, Eve?”
“No, I moved here recently. Thought it might be a good place for business.”
“Where were you before?”
“Worcester.”
Agatha fell silent as the hairdresser put down the drier and then rolled her hair up and sprayed it.
“Yvette, put Agatha under the drier,” called Eve.
“Terrible about Mr. John,” said Agatha to Yvette.
“Yeah. Want some magazines?”
Agatha nodded. The drier was lowered over her head. Several copies of last year’s Vogue and Good Housekeeping were plopped on her lap. At first Agatha amused herself by reading last year’s horoscopes to see if they were anything like what had happened to her, but, like most horoscopes, they were so vague you could read anything you wanted into them.
Time passed. Agatha squinted at her watch. Her hair had been nearly dry when it had been put in the rollers and she had been under the wretched drier for nearly an hour.
Determinedly she put the magazines on a table beside her, removed her head from the drier and went through to the salon.
No sign of Eve.
“Where is she?” barked Agatha.
“Gone out for her lunch,” said Garry, who was perming a customer’s hair.
“What kind of place is this?” howled Agatha. “I want my hair finished now!”
Garry threw her a frightened look. “She’s in the restaurant next door. I’ll get her.”
Agatha stood and fumed. Eve came hurrying back in.
“In a rush, are we?” she asked sweetly.
“I don’t know about you, but I do not like to be kept waiting,” snapped Agatha.
“Well, I’m here now,” said Eve soothingly. She guided Agatha to a chair and began to remove the rollers. Then she back-combed and smoothed the hair.
Agatha stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“That,” she said bitterly, “is the epitome of provincial middle-aged hair-styles. Too bouffant.”
“It’s the latest style,” said Eve.
“It was the latest style somewhere around the sixties.”
“If you would like me to restyle it?”
“Oh, forget it. Just give me the bill and let me out of here.”
In a thoroughly bad temper, Agatha went back to the carpark to wait for Charles. Fortunately for her, they had used her car, so she sat and smoked and waited… and waited.
Eventually Charles turned up.
He burst out laughing when he saw Agatha’s hair. “Oh, shut up,” snarled Agatha. “I’ll never go there again. Take her for lunch while I sat here and starved?”
“No, our Jessie was very frightened. Said she had not known our Mr. John, refused to talk about him.”
“So what kept you?”
“I went for lunch.”
“Why didn’t you come looking for me?”
“I didn’t think. I was hungry.”
“I’m going straight home to brush out this wretched style and eat. You can do what you like.”
“Since you’re driving,” said Charles mildly, “whither thou goest, I goest.”
Agatha grumbled the whole way back to Carsely about the sheer selfishness of men.
Once home, she was restored to good temper by two chicken sandwiches and a cup of soup and by brushing her hair smooth.
“Now what?” she asked. “Perhaps I should have been the one to have a go at Jessie Lang.”
“You can have a try. What about Mrs. Dairy?”
“God, I’d forgotten about her. Let’s take a walk up there. She’s probably regretted telling us anything.”
“All right. You know, Aggie, if that ricin was put into his vitamin pills, it could have been done at any time. All the poisoner had to do was wait. You know what I mean? Poison two of them and you could be out the country by the time he got to them.”
Agatha sighed. “I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever find out who did it.”
“Anyway, let’s see what Mrs. Dairy has to say for herself.”
The day was cold and grey as they walked through the village. The first leaves of autumn twirled down at their feet. “All that that seems so far away now,” said Agatha. “I don’t like the winter in the country. You really never notice it in town. Afternoon, terrible weather, isn’t it?”
“Who was that woman you just spoke to?”
“I don’t know,” said Agatha. “Apart from the women who go to the ladies’ society, I don’t really know that many people in the village. In Carsely, we all say ‘Morning’ or ‘Afternoon’ to each other, whether we know each other or not.”
“What about the community spirit?”
“I think it went when everyone got cars,” said Agatha. “The children are bussed out to schools and a lot of the parents work up in Birmingham or Worcester and commute. Here we are now. I can’t help hoping she’s not at home.”
The little cottage lay dark and silent. “That’s her car,” said Agatha. “She’s probably walking the dog. Don’t peer in the window, Charles. I tell you, she’s out. Charles!”
He turned round and looked at her, his face strangely pinched and drawn.
“Aggie, there’s a pair of feet sticking out from behind the sofa.”
“She’s must be ill. Let’s try the door.”
Agatha turned the brass handle on the front door. It swung open. Agatha rushed into the living-room. Mrs. Dairy lay stretched out behind the sofa. Blood from a terrible wound on her head spread out on the carpet. Beside her lay the corpse of her little dog, and beside both lay a blood-stained brass poker.
Charles knelt down beside Mrs. Dairy, feeling for a pulse and finding none.
He shook his head dismally. Agatha dialled 999 and asked for the police and an ambulance.
She turned to Charles. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Better go outside on the road.”
Agatha fled. She was thoroughly sick. She tried to brace herself to return to Charles but found she hadn’t the courage to go back into the house of death. Somehow it was the memory of the little dog with its head smashed in as well that made the picture that was imprinted on her mind so full of horror. It had been murder done in a vicious rage. Murder done in Carsely. Murder coming closer to Agatha Raisin.
Fred Griggs, the village policeman, came hurrying up. Agatha told him in a weak, faltering voice what had happened. He went into the house.
Then two police cars arrived; Bill Wong, Detective Inspector Wilkes and various other plain-clothes detectives and police officers. Then the ambulance.
Agatha waited, shivering.
At last Bill Wong came out. “I’ll take you home, Agatha. You look awful.”
“It’s my hair,” babbled Agatha insanely. “That wretched hairdresser ruined my hair.”
“Get in the police car. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a cup of tea.”
Back at her cottage and despite her protests that she couldn’t drink anything, Bill made her a cup of milky sweet tea. “Try to get it down you. You’ll feel better.”
“If only I’d gone to see her last night,” mourned Agatha.
“Why? Why last night? What do you know?”
“I may as well tell you now she’s dead. She was being blackmailed by that hairdresser, Mr. John.”
“Drink some tea and begin at the beginning.”
Agatha did as she was bid and then in a halting voice told him about Mrs. Dairy.
When she had finished, he demanded, “Did you tell Worcester CID any of this?”
She shook her head.
“Why not? Perhaps she would still be alive if you had. I’ve warned you and warned you about the danger of playing amateur detective.”
“It was told to me in confidence.”
“Is there anything else you haven’t told the police?”
Agatha longed to unburden herself, but she could not betray Liza or Maggie. Besides, would either woman have been capable of committing such a savage and violent act of murder?
“No,” she lied. “Nothing.”
A voice in her brain screamed that any woman frightened of exposure as a murderess might kill again in a frenzy of rage, but she hung her head and stared at the floor.
“I’ll need to get back,” said Bill. “We’ll be along later to take a statement. Why did you call on her?”
“She left a message on my Call Minder.”
“Saying what?”
“Just that she wanted to see me. She sounded as bad-tempered and bitchy as usual.”
“Wait here.”
Bill left. Agatha sat hugging herself. A stiff wind had risen and moaned in the thatch.
The door opened and Charles came in. She rose and threw herself into his arms. “It’s horrible, Charles. Let’s leave it to the police. Let’s forget about the whole thing.”
“There, now. Brace up. They’ll all be along in a minute. I gather you told Bill Wong about Shawpart attempting to blackmail Mrs. Dairy. You didn’t tell him about the others?”
“No.”
“Neither did I. So we wait. We’ll not only have Gloucester police grilling us but Worcester as well because of the Shawpart connection. It’s going to be a long day, Aggie.”
And it was. They were both driven to police headquarters in Worcester and grilled again.
Agatha felt shaky and sick. Finally, they were released with a stern warning not to interfere in police business.
“Drink?” said Charles.
Agatha shivered. “I just want to go home.”
“Hey, we came here in a police car. How do the rats expect us to get back? Let’s go and ask them for a car.”
“We’ll get a taxi. I’m not going back in there.”
“Aggie, this is Worcester. It’ll cost us a lot. Let them do it.”
“I’ll pay.”
They sat silently side by side in the cab going home. Then Agatha broke the silence as they were nearing Carsely by asking, “Do you feel anything about all this, Charles? I mean, you seem very cool.”
“It was nasty, but I just put it out of my head.”
“I wish I could be like you,” mourned Agatha. “I think I’ll see poor Mrs. Dairy lying there until the day I die.”
“Come on. You didn’t even like her.”
“It doesn’t mitigate the horror.”
“Does for me,” remarked Charles with what Agatha thought was truly heartless indifference.
Indoors, he poured drinks for both of them and lit the fire, which had fortunately been cleaned out by Agatha’s help, Doris Simpson, who was once more back on the job.
Charles settled down to read the newspapers which had been delivered that morning.
“Listen to this, Aggie,” he said, rustling the paper. “It says in this report, ‘A fleck of dandruff, a licked stamp or a smudged fingerprint on a car key could soon be used by scientists to catch and convict criminals. Researchers have developed a method of DNA fingerprinting which will work with a single human cell.’ Didn’t shed any dandruff around Shawpart’s house, did you?”
“I don’t have dandruff,” said Agatha crossly, “and anyway, the police know I visited him although I didn’t tell them I was there when the fire started. So what?”
“Let’s eat.”
“I couldn’t.”
Charles threw down the paper. “I’ll make us something. Got to keep your strength up.”
After fifteen minutes, he called Agatha into the kitchen. “Cup of soup and cheese omelette. Get it down you.”
Agatha found to her surprise that she was hungry.
They tried to watch television after dinner, but Agatha finally said, “I think I’ll have an early night.” “Good idea.”
Agatha found she could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Mrs. Dairy and the dog lying in their own blood.
She got out of bed and went to Charles’s room. He was lying awake, reading.
“I can’t sleep,” said Agatha. “I’ve got the horrors.”
“Come and join me and cuddle up.”
She climbed into bed next to him. He held her close and then began to kiss her hair.
“Charles,” protested Agatha, “I didn’t come for…