“I think this is the one, Agatha. You’re seeing her at her worst. You should be flattered.”
Agatha opened her mouth to say she wasn’t feeling flattered at all when Alice returned. Deciding to keep the conversation away from Alice, Agatha discussed the case with Bill while all the time she thought, he really mustn’t get tied up with such a creature. But she promised herself she would not interfere in his life.
But as they were leaving, Agatha said politely, “Give my regards to your parents, Bill.”
Alice, who had reached the front door ahead of Bill, swung round. “
“And so you shall,” said Bill. “Thanks for the drinks, Agatha. I’ll call you soon.”
Agatha slammed the door behind them. Bill’s formidable mother would soon send Alice packing, but what a horror she was. Agatha surveyed herself in the hall mirror. She sighed. It just wouldn’t do. Then she was struck by the thought that John, seeing her as a blonde, might get the idea that she was trying to compete with Charlotte and she would look pathetic. Agatha resolved to get it all dyed back the way it was as soon as possible.
She had arranged so that the phone would not ring during Bill’s visit. She picked up the receiver to put it back on the ringing tone and found she had a message. She dialled 1-5-7-1 and waited. “You have one message,” said the carefully elicited voice of British Telecom. “To listen to your messages, please press one.” Agatha did that and Peggy Slither’s voice sounded, “I’m streets ahead of you. You’ll never guess what I found out. I’m just going to check a few more facts and then I’m going to the police.”
Agatha saved the message. I don’t think she knows anything at all, she thought. She bit her lip. She picked up the receiver again and arranged the ringing tone and replaced it again. She was just turning away when it rang. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “How are things with you, Mrs. Raisin?”
“I’m not getting any further. Oh, Bill was just round with his latest love and she’s horrible. Nasty bullying sort of girl.”
“Well, as you’ve pointed out before, they never last after a visit to his parents.”
“He hasn’t taken her to see them yet but he’s going to, so that should be the end of that.”
“I gather from what you’ve told me that he usually favours nice quiet girls. Maybe this one will be a match for his mother.”
“No one,” said Agatha with feeling, “is a match for Bill’s mother. Oh, there’s something else.” She told the vicar’s wife about her visit to Peggy and the message she had just received.
There was a silence and then Mrs. Bloxby said, “I don’t like this. I can’t help remembering the time when Miss Jellop phoned me up. Do you think she could be in danger?”
“I don’t know. She did know Tristan pretty well. I tell you what, I’ll phone her and see what she’s up to. Probably just bragging. I’ll let you know.”
Agatha rang off and looked up Peggy’s number in the phone-book and dialled. She got the engaged signal. She went into the kitchen and looked in the freezer for something to microwave. The cats wove their wave around her ankles. “You’ve been fed – twice,” complained Agatha. She picked out a packet of frozen steak-and-kidney pudding and put it in the microwave to defrost. She tried Peggy’s number again, but it was still engaged. She returned to the kitchen and heated the steak-and-kidney pudding and shovelled the mess onto a plate. The cats sniffed the air and then slunk off, uninterested. Agatha picked at her food with a fork. After she had managed to eat most of it, she dialled Peggy’s number. Still engaged.
I’ll drive along and see her, thought Agatha. She went upstairs and changed into a sweater, slacks and flat shoes. She tied a scarf over her hair because the more she looked at it, the more it began to seem too vulgar- bright.
The night was blustery with wind. The lilac tree at the gate dipped and swayed, sending leaves scurrying off down the lane. A tiny moon sailed in and out of the clouds above.
Agatha looked ruefully at John’s dark cottage. She felt that she would have liked him to go along with her. The road to Ancombe was quiet. She passed only two cars on the way and one late-night rambler, trudging along, scarf over the lower part of the face as protection against the wind.
When Agatha parked outside Peggy’s cottage and saw that all the lights were on and music was blaring out, she experienced a feeling of relief. Peggy was obviously entertaining. Still, thought Agatha, having come this far, I may as well see if she’ll give me a hint of what she has found out. If I handle it properly, she may be tempted to brag.
She walked up the garden path where plaster gnomes leered at her from the shrubbery. The Village People were belting out “Y.M.C.A.” The door was standing slightly ajar. Agatha walked into the little hall. The music crashed about her ears but she could not hear any voices.
Suddenly frightened, she pushed open the door of the living-room and reeled before the increased blast of noise. She walked over to the stereo and switched it off. Now the silence, broken only by the sound of the peeing statue and the wind outside, was more frightening than the noise of the music.
“Peggy!” croaked Agatha. She cleared her throat and shouted loudly, “Peggy!”
Agatha looked longingly at the phone, which was in the shape of a shoe. Call the police before you look any further, she told herself. But something impelled her to go out and across the hall and push open the kitchen door at the back…She fumbled inside the door for a light switch and, finding it, pressed it down. Fluorescent light blazed down on the kitchen…on the blood on the white walls, on the blood on the floor and on the savagely cut body of Peggy Slither lying by the back door.
Agatha let out a whimper and stood with her hand to her mouth. She forced herself to kneel down by that terrible body and feel for a pulse. No life. No life at all.
She rose and scrambled back to the living-room and seized the phone and dialled the police. Then she went outside and leaned her head against the cold wall of the cottage.
? The Case of the Curious Curate ?
8
For the next two weeks, Carsely was a village under siege. It was flooded by press and by sightseers. Finally rough weather drove the sightseers away, leaving behind them soda cans and sandwich wrappers, and another Balkan uprising sent the press rushing back to London. It was a relief to walk down the village streets without being accosted by reporters. The members of the ladies’ society picked up all the rubbish left behind and bagged it. Even John Fletcher, landlord of the Red Lion, who had done a roaring trade, was glad to see the last of the press and the gawking public.
John Armitage had returned from London as soon as he had heard the news of the latest murder. Agatha was once more restored to a brunette, having gone straight to the hairdresser’s the day after the murder and right after signing her statement at police headquarters in Mircester. Only the dogged police were left, still going from house to house in Carsely and in the neighbouring villages, questioning everyone over and over again. The weapon with which Peggy had been so brutally murdered had never been found.
Agatha had expected John to be a frequent caller to discuss the case, but he seemed quiet and withdrawn, saying he was behind with his writing and had to catch up. She herself had been frightened into inactivity, although she would not admit it to herself. Such as Agatha Raisin hardly ever admitted to being frightened. She persuaded herself that three murders were just too much. Out there was a madman who should be left to the police. But she lost weight through nerves, waking up during the night at the slightest sound and picking at her food during the day.
Mrs. Bloxby had given up urging Agatha to find the killer. “It really is not safe for you, Mrs. Raisin,” she said. “What if this dreadful murderer should decide you knew something as well?”
The day after the press had gone, John Armitage called round. “Are you eating?” he asked anxiously, as if noticing Agatha properly for the first time since his return from London. “You look haggard.”
Agatha glared at him. Despite her fright, she had been pleased with her new slimline figure. “I did find the body,” she snapped.
John sat down at her kitchen table. “And what about you?” asked Agatha. “What have you been doing?”
“I told you. Writing and more writing.”
“But you’ve never said anything about how you got on in London.”
“There’s nothing much to tell. I saw my publisher, I saw my agent, I saw my friends…”
