next morning. “He travels a lot.”
“Maybe we should have waited at home and phoned him,” said Agatha sleepily.
“Best to surprise him.”
“How are we going to get past all the minions he’ll surely have to protect him?”
“We’ll send in a note saying we want to see him about Tristan Delon.”
“And if he doesn’t see us?”
“Oh, do shut up, Agatha. We have to try.”
“It will be difficult,” pursued Agatha. “I remember seeing pictures of him in
“Like I said, we must try.”
Richard Binser’s offices were in an impressive modern building of steel and glass with a great tree growing up to the glass roof from the entrance hall.
“Here goes,” said Agatha, marching up to the long reception desk where four beautiful and fashionably thin young ladies were answering phones.
“Mr. Binser,” said Agatha to the one she considered the least intimidating.
“What time is your appointment?”
“We don’t have one,” said Agatha. She produced a sealed envelope which contained a note she had written in the car. It was marked “Urgent, Private & Confidential.”
“See that he gets this right away. I am sure he will want to see us.”
“Take a seat,” said the receptionist, indicating a bank of sofas and chairs over by the entrance doors.
They sat down and waited, and waited.
At last the receptionist they had spoken to approached them and said, “I will take you up. Follow me.”
A glass elevator bore them up and up to the top of the building. It opened into another reception area. A middle-aged secretary greeted them and asked them to wait.
Again, they sat down. The receptionist had gone back downstairs and the secretary had retreated through a door leading off the reception. It was very quiet.
Agatha was just beginning to wonder if everyone had forgotten about them, when the secretary came back and said, “Mr. Binser will see you now.”
She led them through an inner office and then opened a heavy door leading off it and ushered them into a room where a small, balding man sat behind a large Georgian desk.
He did not rise to meet them, simply surveyed them coldly, then said, “That will be all, Miss Partle. I will call you if I need you.”
The secretary left and closed the door behind her.
“Sit!” commanded Richard Binser, indicating two low chairs in front of his desk.
Agatha and John sat down.
“You are not quite what I expected. I am taping this and I warn you both if you try to blackmail me, I will call the police.”
“We are not here to blackmail you,” said John. “We are investigating the death of Tristan Delon.”
“And you are?”
“John Armitage and Agatha Raisin.”
“John Armitage. The writer?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve read all your books.” The tycoon visibly thawed.
John explained that they both lived in Carsely and were friends of the vicar and anxious to clear his name; that they had learned that Binser had given Tristan presents.
Binser switched off the tape recorder and passed a hand over his forehead. “I thought you were his relatives.”
“Was Tristan trying to blackmail you?”
“Oh, yes, but he didn’t get anywhere. I may as well tell you what happened. I suppose the police will find out about me eventually. Where shall I begin? I give a lot of money to charities, but my employees sift through the applications, type up a report and I decide how much each should get. Therefore I was a bit taken aback when my senior secretary, Miss Partle, insisted that I should see Tristan in person. It seemed he wanted to raise funds to start a boys’ club in New Cross. I was amused that my usually stern secretary appeared to have been bowled over by this Tristan and so I agreed to see him. He was so beautiful and so charming that I began at times to doubt my own sexuality. He flattered me very cleverly. I do not have a son and it amused me to see the way Tristan’s eyes lit up when I gave him a present. Then I cut off the friendship.”
“Why?” asked Agatha.
“I went down to the church in New Cross one day to find out how the boys’ club was getting along. I had given Tristan a cheque for ten thousand pounds to rent a hall and buy equipment. He had asked for more money, but being first and last a businessman, I wanted to see how he had used the money he already had. He was out when I called, but the vicar was there. He said he’d never heard of a boys’ club. Tristan came in at that point and waffled and protested that he had meant it to be a surprise but it became clear to me that he had done nothing. I did not want anyone to know how I had been suckered and so I left the vicar to deal with him. Then Tristan wrote to me, threatening to tell my wife that we’d had an affair – which we most certainly had not – and saying he would show her the presents I had given him. I told him if he approached me again I would go straight to the police and that I’d taped his call. All my calls are taped. I never heard from him again. But I was puzzled at being so easily taken in. I consulted a psychiatrist friend and outlined what I knew of Tristan’s character. He asked me if Tristan was fascinated by mirrors. It seemed an odd question, but I remembered that on the few occasions I had taken Tristan out for dinner to a restaurant with a lot of mirrors that he would sit gazing fascinated at his own reflection.
“The psychiatrist said he was probably a somatic narcissist and that this type of narcissist could charm people by exuding that warm, fuzzy emotional feeling of well-being you get on a good day. He said this type could be prone to violence.
“Anyway, that was Tristan’s charm. He made me feel good about myself. I was sure, however, that I would hear from him again, but not a word. When I received your note, I thought he had left some journal about our friendship and that you had come to blackmail me. But that’s all there was to it. I pride myself on being a good judge of character and yet Tristan had me completely fooled.”
“I don’t think the police need to know about this,” said John, “unless the vicar tells them. We certainly won’t. Will we, Agatha?”
Again those jabs of conscience. But Agatha said reluctantly, “No.”
“I liked him,” said John, as they joined the stream of traffic heading for south London.
“Binser? I suppose.”
“You don’t seem too sure.”
“I had it in my mind that whoever beat him up or had him beaten up had something to do with his murder. A powerful man like Binser could have had him beaten up.”
“You’ve been watching too many left-wing dramas on the box about sinister company executives, Agatha.”
“It could have happened that way,” said Agatha stubbornly.
A glaring, watery sunlight was bathing London. Agatha glanced sideways at John and noticed for the first time the loosening of the skin under his chin and the network of wrinkles at the side of his eyes. This for some reason made her feel cheerful and she began to whistle tunelessly until John told her to stop.
Back at New Cross, they drove round to Jeves Place and parked in front of the villa. The front door was standing a few inches open. “Someone’s at home,” said Agatha.
“Good,” said John. “Let’s go.”
A thin voice was singing a hymn somewhere in the interior of the house. John rang the bell. A very small woman with greying hair and a sallow skin came to the door carrying a feather duster.
“Mrs. Hill?” asked Agatha, pushing in front of John who, she obscurely felt, was taking over too much of this investigation.
“Yes. I am Mrs. Hill.”
