Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate (7 page)

When they parked, Bill Wong and a detective constable and a policewoman got out of the waiting car.

Bill looked grim. ‘Where were you, Mrs Raisin?’ he demanded. Agatha’s heart sank at the formal use of her second name.

‘In London, going around the shops,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘We’d better go inside,’ said Bill. ‘You come along as well, Mr Armitage.’

Agatha unlocked her cottage door. ‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said, nearly tripping over her cats, which were winding themselves around her ankles.

When they were all seated around the kitchen table, Agatha said, ‘What’s this about? I’ve made a statement.’

‘There has been a further development,’ said Bill, his eyes hard. Then he winced as Hodge dug his claws into his trouser leg.

‘Miss Jellop has been murdered.’

‘How? When?’ asked Agatha.

‘We cannot ascertain the exact time of death at the moment, but sometime early this evening. She was strangled. She lives alone and might not have been discovered for some time except Mrs Bloxby went to call on her and found the door open and then found Miss Jellop.’

‘Poor Mrs Bloxby!’ Agatha half-rose. ‘I’d better go to her.’

‘Sit down! Detective Inspector Wilkes is with her. Let’s go through your movements.’

‘But we’re not suspects, surely?’

‘You stir things up and I would like to know just what you’ve been stirring.’

John took over. ‘We decided to get out of the village. We took a picnic and had that in Green Park. We went round the shops, window-gazing. Then we stopped at that service station on the A40 and had an all-day breakfast.’

‘When?’

‘About an hour and a half ago.’

‘You weren’t up in New Cross trying to play detective?’

‘No,’ said John, praying that the vicar would keep silent.

‘So you went off together for the day. Why?’

‘We wanted to look at the shops. That’s all.’ John desperately improvised. ‘As a matter of fact, we took a walk around Kensington as well to see if there was a location that might suit us.’

‘What location? Why?’

John took a deep breath. He was tired and the news of this second murder had rattled him. ‘Because we’re thinking of getting married.’

Cursing him inside, Agatha forced a cheesy smile on to her face and said, ‘I didn’t tell you before. I wanted it to be a surprise.’

‘And when is this wedding to take place?’

‘We haven’t fixed the date yet,’ said Agatha. ‘But when the time comes, Bill, I hope you’ll give me away.’

Bill’s almond-shaped eyes fixed on both their faces. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said flatly. ‘But we will check out your alibi.’

The questions continued. Had anyone talked to them in the shops, in Green Park, at Kensington? They were both tired and began to find it easy to lie, both sticking to their stories until Agatha almost began to believe they really were going to get married.

When the questions had finished, Agatha asked, ‘So does that mean Mr Bloxby is in the clear?’

‘No one is in the clear,’ said Bill. ‘Don’t take any more trips in the next few days.’

When they had gone, John could see that Agatha was about to round on him about their supposed forthcoming marriage.

‘Save it,’ he snapped. ‘We’ve got to get on the phone to that vicar and to Mrs Hill and tell them to keep quiet.’

‘You do it, O future husband of mine,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m going to get a drink.’

‘Get a large whisky for me at the same time. Before you do that, give me Mrs Hill’s number. I saw you making a note of it.’

Agatha gave him the number. She went into the sitting-room and poured a large gin and tonic for herself and a whisky for John and then sat down, hearing his voice talking on the phone, but unable to make out the words because she had closed the sitting-room door. They should have told Bill the truth, she thought wearily. It looked as if John had been right and that the murderer was down here in the Cotswolds.

The doorbell rang. She peered through the curtains and saw several members of the press outside.

She let the doorbell ring and sat sipping her drink until John joined her.

‘That the press outside?’ he asked.

‘Yes, lots of them. Why on earth did you say we were getting married?’

‘On impulse. This second murder rattled me. We can go along with it for the moment and then say we broke up.’

‘Bill didn’t believe us.’

‘He will. All we have to do is look a bit lover-like when he calls again – which he will. Feel up to it?’

‘I don’t feel up to anything at the moment,’ said Agatha. ‘Why was Miss Jellop murdered?’

‘She obviously knew something. I think the best thing for us to do is lie low and let things quieten down. We can go and see Mrs Bloxby when the coast is clear. She’ll know all about Miss Jellop. Who were the two others Mrs Bloxby talked about?’

‘Peggy Slither over at Ancombe and Colonel Tremp’s widow.’

‘We can’t very well talk to them with police and press swarming all over the place. Do you want me to stay the night?’

‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘I thought we had sorted all that out.’

‘I only meant for protection. Someone might want to shut you up as well.’

Agatha gave a shudder but said, ‘I’ll be all right.’

The phone rang. ‘You get it,’ said Agatha.

John went out to the phone in the hall and then returned a few moments later. ‘Press,’ he said. ‘I thought your number was ex-directory.’

‘It is, but the press have ways of finding out ex-directory numbers. Unplug it from the wall as you go.’

‘Meaning you want to be alone?’

‘Exactly.’

John took a gulp of the whisky in his glass, placed the glass carefully on the table and made for the door.

‘Scream if you want me,’ he called.

Agatha sat nursing her drink after he had left. From time to time the doorbell shrilled. The press were persistent. They must have seen the police car outside her cottage earlier.

Then she rose stiffly and went up to bed. She carefully removed her make-up and peered at her face in the magnifying mirror in the bathroom. The lines around her mouth seemed to have got deeper. She undressed, took a quick shower, pulled on a night-dress and crawled into bed and lay staring up at the beams in the ceiling. At last the shrilling of the doorbell fell silent and she sank into an uneasy sleep.

It was early afternoon the next day when she remembered the phone was still unplugged and reconnected it. She dialled John’s number. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Writing. But I’ve got something for you. I’ll be right over.’

‘Knock the door, then, don’t ring and I’ll know it’s you.’

Agatha was wearing an old blue linen dress and flat sandals. She wondered whether to change into something more fashionable, but then reminded herself – it was only John.

When the knock came at the door, she answered it. John followed her through to the kitchen and put a small jeweller’s box on the table. ‘I think you’d better start wearing that to keep up the fiction.’

Agatha opened the box and found herself looking down at an engagement ring, a large sapphire surrounded by diamond chips.

‘When did you get this?’ she asked.

‘Years ago. It’s my ex-wife’s. She flung it in my face just before we broke up. Try it on.’

Agatha slid it on over the wedding band she still wore. It was a perfect fit.

A tear rolled down her face and plopped on the kitchen table.

‘What’s up?’ said John.

Agatha gave a shaky laugh. ‘I still have the engagement ring James gave me. I couldn’t bear to wear it although I still wear his wedding ring.’

John gave her a brief hug. ‘Best you wear a different one. Unless I’m mistaken, Bill Wong will be back soon. I’ll make us some coffee. Those cats of yours are prancing all over the kitchen table. Do you allow that?’

‘I’m afraid I let them do what they like. The table’s scrubbed regularly. Still, you’re right.’ She lifted both cats off the table, opened the door to the garden and shooed them out.

John was spooning coffee into the percolator when the doorbell rang.

‘I wonder if that’s the press again.’ Agatha went to the front door and peered through the spy-hole. ‘It’s Mrs Bloxby,’ she called.

She swung open the door. ‘Come in. Poor you. What a nightmare. Where is your husband?’

‘Helping the police with their inquiries.’

Mrs Bloxby sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Coffee?’ asked John. ‘It’ll be ready in a moment.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘Milk and no sugar.’

‘Why Miss Jellop?’

‘I just don’t know,’ said Mrs Bloxby. She accepted a cup of coffee from John. ‘Such a silly, harmless woman.’

‘Where did she come from? Everyone in Cotswold villages these days seems to come from outside. No wonder the locals complain about the villages losing their character.’

‘Miss Jellop moved here from somewhere in Staffordshire. I believe she was comfortably off. Her family were in jam. Jellop’s Jams and Jellies. Not much known around here but very popular in the north.’

‘Does Alf have an alibi?’

‘They don’t know the exact time of death, sometime in the evening. Alf was working in his study and I remembered that Miss Jellop had phoned in the morning. She wanted me to call round because she said she wanted to talk to me about something. She was always complaining about happenings in the parish and she wanted the church livened up, as she put it. Wanted to hire a steel band from Birmingham to perform at the services, that sort of thing. I phoned back late afternoon and said I would be around about nine in the evening. The door of her house was slightly open. There was no answer when I rang the doorbell and I went in, worried that she might have met with an accident.’ Mrs Bloxby raised a trembling hand to her mouth. ‘And there she was.’

‘Did she have anything around her neck?’

‘I couldn’t see. I mean, I forced myself to check her pulse and then I phoned for the police and ambulance. But I couldn’t bear to look at her closely.’

‘Villages are getting like the city,’ said John. ‘Nobody notices things the way they would have done in the old days, when everyone minded everyone else’s business. There’s a high hedge on either side of her garden, as I remember, that effectively screens the door from the neighbours on either side.’

‘Let’s see,’ said Agatha. ‘She lived in a terraced cottage on Dover Rise up behind the general stores. It’s a cul-de-sac. Surely someone must have seen someone walking along.’

‘If you remember, there are only four cottages in that row. Mr and Mrs Witherspoon were away in Evesham visiting their daughter. That’s the first cottage you come to. Then there’s Mr and Mrs Partington. They were in their back parlour away from the road for a good part of the evening watching a couple of rented videos and eating TV dinners. Then comes Miss Jellop, and at the end of the row, Miss Debenham, who was with her sister in Cheltenham and stayed there the night.’

‘How come you’re so well-informed?’ asked Agatha.

‘I’ve had police in the vicarage half the night and they often talk as if I’m not there.’

‘So we come back to Miss Jellop,’ said John. ‘Did you overhear the police say anything about Tristan’s bank account?’

‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. He paid several sums into his account over the past few weeks, but all in cash. Before this murder, they interviewed several of the women they think he might have preyed on, but they all swear they gave him nothing. They say they had been thinking about it. They even checked old Mrs Feathers’s bank account, but the only large sum – large sum to her – she had drawn out recently was to supply you with dinner, Mrs Raisin. She evidently said he had promised to invest money for her, but women like Mrs Feathers are frightened of old age and harvest every penny. The fact that Tristan even got her to pay for his meals says a lot for his charm.’

‘So did you hear how much he had in his account?’ asked Agatha.

Mrs Bloxby shook her head. Her usually mild grey eyes were full of worry and pain. ‘I am so worried about poor Alf. Did you find out anything?’

‘We don’t want the police to know,’ cautioned Agatha, ‘because they would give us a rocket for interfering.’ She told Mrs Bloxby about the visit to New Cross and to Binser.

‘If only it would turn out to be someone from London,’ sighed the vicar’s wife. ‘The atmosphere in the village is poisonous, all these silly women telling the police that Alf was jealous of Mr Delon.’

Pale sunlight shining in through the kitchen window sparkled on the ring on Agatha’s finger.

‘That’s a new ring,’ exclaimed Mrs Bloxby.

‘John got rattled and told Bill Wong we were engaged to cover up what we were doing in London,’ said Agatha.

‘Perhaps you should have told him the truth,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘Anything to get the investigation away from poor Alf.’

‘I really don’t think Mr Bloxby has anything to worry about,’ said John soothingly. ‘In order to suspect him of the first murder, they would need to think you were lying to protect him and no one could believe that.’

Agatha was about to point out waspishly that John
had
suggested to her Mrs Bloxby might be lying, but with rare tact refrained from saying anything.

‘I’d better get back,’ said Mrs Bloxby, rising to her feet. ‘Alf might be back any time and I wouldn’t want him to find the vicarage empty.’

‘Do you want us to come with you? Aren’t the press pestering you?’

‘They’ve gone, apart from a few local reporters.’

Agatha saw Mrs Bloxby out and returned to John. ‘Let’s switch on the television and look at the news,’ he said. ‘Something big must have happened to send them running off.’

‘Wait until the top of the hour,’ said Agatha. ‘It’s twenty to three. It’ll be sport on every channel.’

She lit a cigarette. ‘That’s a filthy habit,’ remarked John.

‘I know,’ she sighed, ‘but one I love a lot.’

‘We’ll just need to wait. Things’ll be easier if the press have gone. We could leave it until tomorrow and then try to see what we can get out of this Peggy Slither. She’s in Ancombe and the police won’t be hanging around there. Did Mrs Bloxby say where she lived?’