The Case of the Curious Curate

to take the church takings with him. He was too mean, I think, to let Mrs. Feathers know he had a phone of his own. He preferred to run up bills on hers.”

“Did you tell Bill?”

“Yes, for once, I did. He’s getting the police to check it.”

“If only, oh, if only these murders could be solved.”

“If they ever are,” said Agatha, “I’ll never complain of being bored again. But Bill has definitely warned me off for the last time, so I’ll need to leave it to the police.”

“He didn’t warn me off,” John pointed out.

But Agatha didn’t like the idea of John playing detective when she herself was not allowed to.

“Mind you,” she said, “there would be no harm in continuing to ask around the village. Look at the news I got from Mrs. Feathers. Might do no harm to go and talk to Mr. Crinsted, the man Tristan used to play chess with.”

“I’ll come with you,” said John. “We’ll try him in the morning.”

“What do you know of Mark Brent?” Agatha asked Mrs. Bloxby.

“Nothing bad. Nice man. Always willing to help out. Why?”

“He was upset with Tristan. Seems his wife, Gladys, got a crush on Tristan and Brent warned him off.”

“I cannot imagine for a moment that such as Mr. Brent or his wife would resort to violence of any kind,” said Mrs. Bloxby.

“Well, we’ll try Mr. Crinsted. Oh, and the mobile library is due round during the week. I’ll have a word with Mrs. Brown.”

“Do you think it will do any good?” asked the vicar’s wife wearily.

Agatha could feel a resurgence of her old energy for investigation which had so recently deserted her. “I’ve blundered around asking questions before. Something’s got to break.”

Agatha and John drove to the council estate on Monday morning. “Do you think he’ll be at home?” asked John.

“He’s very old,” replied Agatha. “Bound to be.” Mr. Crinsted answered the door to them. He was stooped and frail with a thin, lined face and mild eyes behind thick glasses. “Do come in,” he said. “Dear me, how nice to have some company. The only company I usually have is the television set.”

His living-room was neat and clean. Agatha looked at photographs on the mantelpiece of couples with children. “How many children do you have?” she asked.

“A son and daughter and six grandchildren.”

“Must be nice for you when they come on a visit.”

“I’m afraid I only see them at Christmas. I think they find visits to me rather boring. The children are dreadfully spoilt.” How awful, thought Agatha, to be trapped here, never seeing anyone. Her mind worked busily. She would suggest to Mrs. Bloxby that they start an old folks’ club. Her stocks and shares had been doing very well. Maybe she could see about getting the church hall renovated, turn it into an old folks’ club.

“The reason we called,” said John, “is to ask you for your opinion of Tristan Delon.”

“Oh dear. Do sit down. I’ll make some tea.” Agatha glanced at her watch. “Don’t worry. It’s nearly lunch- time. Tell you what, we’ll chat for a bit and then we’ll go down to Moreton for some lunch. My treat.”

John stared at Agatha in surprise, but Mr. Crinsted was obviously delighted. “Goodness me, it does seem an age since I’ve been out of the village. So what can I tell you about our late curate? Well, he called round one day when I was working out some chess moves and offered to play. I was so delighted to have a partner that I let him win on a couple of occasions. He was such good company. I thought he really liked me and that was very flattering to an old man like me. Then the last time, I became absorbed in the game and forgot to let him win. I have never in my life before seen anyone change personality so completely. He accused me of cheating. I patiently began to explain to him the moves I had made and he said, ‘You’re lying, you silly old fool,’ and he upset the chessboard and sent the pieces flying and stalked out of the house. I was very disappointed. You see, I did think we might be friends.”

“Before he became upset with you,” said John, “did he let fall anything about his private life?”

“Not really. Chess is such a silent game. He did say once that people were like chess pieces, easily moved around. I pointed out that people could be very unpredictable.”

“Let’s continue this over lunch,” said Agatha.

They went to a pub in Moreton and ate great helpings of steak-and-kidney pie. Agatha ordered wine. To John’s amazement, she sparkled for Mr. Crinsted’s benefit, telling him stories about her public relations jobs. Warmed by the wine and food, Mr. Crinsted talked in turn about his own life. He had been a nuclear physicist, working at Los Alamos, and then in Vienna. He had married an Austrian wife, Gerda, but she had died of breast cancer after their second child was born. “I spent a lot of money sending my son and daughter to the best schools and then university. Freda, my daughter, became a nurse and then married a doctor, and my son, Gerald, he became an accountant and married his secretary.” Mr. Crinsted sighed. “I never saved any money and I was lucky to get that council house. I have a comfortable pension and my needs are small. I am glad both my children are very comfortably off.”

“Don’t they help you out?” asked John.

“I never ask them. I don’t have any expensive needs. Perhaps I did too much for them and taught them to be selfish.”

“You know the church hall?” asked Agatha.

“I know where it is, but that’s all.”

“I thought I might see about getting it repaired. The roof needs doing. I could start an old folks’ club – films, bingo, stuff like that. You could give chess lessons. We’d need a minibus, too, to take people to the shops in Stratford, maybe the theatre.”

“That would be wonderful. I would love to give chess lessons.”

Again John looked at Agatha in surprise. He had recently come to think of her as a bossy, occasionally grumpy woman. But her eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm and old Mr. Crinsted looked positively rejuvenated.

He had to remind her after two hours of conversation that if they didn’t hurry up, they would miss the mobile library.

After they had left Mr. Crinsted, John said, “Are you really going ahead with this old folks’ club?”

“Yes, it’ll be fun to have something to do.”

“You surprise me.”

“I can believe that. You have me down as a pushy, selfish woman.”

“I have not,” said John, reddening.

“There’s the mobile library. Let’s see what Mrs. Brown has to say.”

They had to wait patiently while various villagers returned books, took out more books, and discussed books. At last they were left alone with Mrs. Brown.

“Mr. Delon?” Mrs. Brown looked at them thoughtfully over her half-moon glasses. “Now there was a young man just waiting to be murdered.”

“Why do you say that?” asked John.

The plump little librarian picked a book off her desk and put it back on the shelves. “I’ve often thought about the way he humiliated me, jeering at my choice of books. There was no reason for it. It was an exercise in spite. I thought after I’d heard he had been murdered that if he could be bothered to go out of his way to be nasty to a country librarian, then he had probably been extremely nasty to someone who was prepared to retaliate.”

“And you can think of no reason why he should suddenly have sounded off at you?” asked Agatha.

“There was one silly little thing. Mrs. Feathers likes romances, so I always choose one of the more innocent ones and keep it for her. She doesn’t like the ones with explicit sex. We got talking one day and she said that Mr. Delon wanted to invest her savings for her. I told her that she should hang on to them, Mr. Delon was not a stockbroker. Perhaps that was what made him angry. But when Mrs. Feathers thanked me for my advice, I asked her not to tell Mr. Delon it came from me and she promised me she wouldn’t tell him. That is why I thought his malice was unprompted.”

“I think she probably did tell him,” said Agatha. “What’s the gossip about these murders?”

“I’m afraid a lot of people still suspect the vicar. They say Mr. Delon was murdered in the vicarage and that Miss Jellop and Mrs. Slither may have known something incriminating and Mr. Bloxby might have silenced them. It’s