Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham (12 page)

‘Quite,’ murmured Agatha. ‘Such a pleasure to meet you again.’

‘Tcha!’

‘And ya sucks boo to you to,’ said Agatha when she and Charles emerged into the pouring rain. ‘Let’s run. I’m getting soaked.’

They ran all the way to Agatha’s cottage. They dried themselves off in their respective rooms, changed into dry clothes and met up again in the kitchen.

‘Well,’ said Agatha, ‘what did you make of that? Mrs Darry!’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The ferrety woman with the nasty little dog.’

‘Ah, the one who retrieved your phone book.’

‘The same.’

‘So do we tackle her next?’

‘I suppose so, although she’s going to be most dreadfully rude. Damn, if it hadn’t been for Liza, I would be regretting having tried to rescue any incriminating papers. God,
would I love to have some dirt on Mrs Darry.’

‘What’s her first name?’

‘In the ladies’ society of Carsely, Charles, first names do not exist. We are all Miss this and Mrs that.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Grim little house called Parks Cottage up Parks Lane, at the back of the village shop.’

‘The rain is easing off. I think we should go before you lose courage. Maybe she’ll have a garden full of castor-oil plants.’

Agatha hesitated. ‘What sort of approach are we going to take?’

‘Nasty and blunt, I should think, dear Aggie. Sort of thing you do best.’

Watery sunlight struck down on the cobbles as they made their way to Mrs Darry’s cottage. Not for one moment would Agatha admit to herself that she was intimidated by the
waspish Mrs Darry 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 Darry 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 Darry, 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 Darry.

‘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 Darry, whose green eyes goggled and then darted right and left. ‘Come in,’ she said abruptly. Her little dog raised his
leg and peed on to 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 Darry. 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 Darry 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 woman’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 Darry 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 Darry 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 Darry 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. I 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 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 deep shit.’

Weak tears ran down Mrs Darry’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 Darry 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 prey 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 comes.’

Mrs Darry 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 Darry 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 Darry, ‘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 Darry 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 joined 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 just for 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 discover 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 Darry, 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.