about a missing wallet.
She carried the drinks over to the table. She had bought an orange juice for herself as well as Charles. She would offer to drive them home.
Agatha told Luke Sheppard about their meeting with John Dewey and then asked him, “Did Melissa ever talk about her previous marriage? Or did Dewey ever try to see her?”
“She said he was weird. She said he loved his dolls more than humans. But she didn’t volunteer much else except it was one marriage she was glad to get out of.”
Agatha was disappointed. “She didn’t say anything about being frightened of him?”
“No, I saw him once. Curiosity, you know. I went to that shop of his. Insignificant little chap, if you ask me. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. She didn’t have any trouble divorcing him.”
Charles said, “But he forced her into a divorce. Didn’t she tell you?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “No, she told me he had agreed to the divorce without a murmur.”
“Here’s what really happened,” said Agatha, and told him about Dewey’s dragging Melissa and threatening her.
He goggled at her. “She never said a word. But she was secretive. She had a lot of money of her own. But she never discussed it with me. She kept her bank-books and bank papers locked up. Mind you, that didn’t bother me much. I wanted rid of her after the honeymoon.”
“What happened on the honeymoon?” asked Agatha eagerly.
He glanced impatiently at his watch. “I’ll make it quick. It was like this. We went to Paris. It was August and there weren’t many French people around. All gone off on me annual holiday. She was a great know-all. Had memorized the guidebook. We trudged round everywhere – Notre Dame, Versailles, Sacre Coeur – you name it. I don’t speak French. She said she spoke it like a native. I said, ‘How come then the natives don’t understand a word you’re saying’? She’d dropped the act of hanging on my every word, being the perfect partner. She demanded attention the whole time and not only from me, from about every man who crossed her path. I often wondered how she would get on in a roomful of men with different personalities, trying to be all things to all of them. I’m telling you, by the time we got back, I
“So how did you get her to agree to a divorce?”
He looked again at his watch. “I’ve really got to go.”
“Quickly,” said Agatha. “Did you ask for a divorce and did she agree to it just like that?”
“Yes, something like that.” He got to his feet. “See here, I’ve given you pair enough of my time. Don’t come round here again.”
“Where were you living when you were married?” asked Charles.
He half-turned. “Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“Oxford.”
“Where in Oxford?”
“Jericho. Pliny Road.”
He marched out of the pub.
“What did you make of that?” asked Charles.
“I think,” said Agatha, resting her chin on her hands, “that he threatened her just like Dewey.”
“I think you’re right. That’s why I asked for his old address.”
“Why?”
“Because we will go there tomorrow and ask the neighbours about Sheppard and Melissa. I wonder, why Oxford? It’s an hour-and-a-halfs drive at least from Oxford to Mircester.”
“We should have asked Melissa’s sister more questions.”
“We can still do that. I’ve got her card. She lives in Cambridge. The other university town.”
“Do we need to go all the way there? It’s quite a drive.”
“Maybe we’ll phone her. Let’s get out of here and have some dinner.”
“Come home and I’ll make us something.”
“Anyone who eats microwaved curry for breakfast is not to be trusted with dinner. Plenty of good restaurants in Mircester.”
¦
A wave of black depression hit Agatha as soon as she awoke the following morning. She had been dreaming about James, and in her dream they had been walking along a sunlit beach together and he had been holding her hand. Where was he? Was he alive? Did he ever think of her? Why was she going to all this trouble to clear his name?
She mumbled that thought to Charles when he came into her bedroom, demanding to know why she wasn’t getting up.
“Because we are out to clear your name as well, sweetie. Or had you forgotten? Your alibi is only for the evening James disappeared. You’ve got nothing to prove your innocence when it comes to Melissa’s murder.”
“Can you bring me up a cup of coffee?”
“No, you’ll drink it and lie in bed and smoke and gloom. Come downstairs.”
Agatha climbed out of bed. Her knees were stiff and she stared down at them. Here was another bit of body betraying her. She did some exercises and took a hot shower. By the time she had dressed, the stiffness had gone. But, she wondered, was this the beginning of the end? Good-bye healthy life and hullo rubber knickers and support hose? What would it be like to creak about on a Zimmer frame? She had a sudden craving for life, for excitement. She had an impulse to ask Charles to go upstairs to bed with her that minute. Then she thought, was this how James felt? If I can feel like this over a brief ache in the knees, what did he feel like when he learned he might die? He should have been making his peace with God, she answered herself. Would you? sneered a little voice in her head. Agatha slowly shook her head. The God she only half believed in had shaggy grey locks and wore open-toed sandals and disapproved of one Agatha Raisin.
“Agatha! Why are you standing there shaking your head and moving your lips?” asked Charles.
Agatha gave herself a mental shake. “I just wondered what thoughts were going through James’s head when he learned of his cancer.”
“Doesn’t bear thinking of. I’ve made toast and coffee. Eat. Drink. Then let’s get off to Oxford.”
As they drove to Oxford, Agatha driving this time, she switched on the air-conditioning in the car. “The sun’s so hot,” she said. “Going to be one very hot day.”
“Watch out for the speed camera just after Blenheim Palace,” said Charles as Agatha drove through Woodstock. “You just get used to the camera facing one way, and then they come and turn it the other way and catch all the drivers who increase speed when they think they are safely past it.”
“I never speed through towns or villages,” said Agatha virtuously. A car ahead of her, unaware that the camera had turned, went slowly past it and then speeded up. There was a bright flash as he was photographed. “See what I mean?” said Charles with all the satisfaction of one motorist seeing another getting caught by a speed camera.
“I was thinking, Charles, that we have all these suspects whirling around our brains. Well, maybe two suspects, Sheppard and Dewey.”
“Three.”
“Who’s the third?”
“Her sister. She inherits. Maybe she knew she was going to inherit. Melissa, it seems, had money of her own.”
“Yes, but where does James come into it?”
“I’d forgotten about him.”
“Why would the sister attack James?”
“We don’t know what James was up to. Remember, he was like you when it came to trying to find out things.”
“So three suspects…”
“Maybe more. What about Jake and his pals? No one’s going to bother much about a bit of pot these days. But remember, Melissa had once been sectioned for drugs. Maybe she wanted some hard stuff and they were pushing.”
