The Case of the Curious Curate

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 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?”

“I can’t remember. Wait and I’ll get the phone-book.” Agatha went out and came back with the telephone directory.

As Agatha turned the pages, John said, “I remember. Shangri-la. That was the name of her place.”

“That’s right. Gnomes in the garden. I remember. Here it is. Doesn’t give a street, just the name of the