door. Only take a minute,” he pleaded.
Wilkes sighed. “Well, all right. But I’ve got a feeling we’ll have Binser’s lawyers on top of us by the end of the day. Agatha Raisin. Pah! Why can’t she mind her own business?”
“She’s often blundered onto something in the past.”
“If there’s nothing in this, I’ll charge that damn woman with interfering in police business and I really will do it this time!”
Down in the cellar, Agatha rolled onto her back again with a groan. Why wasn’t real life like the movies? In a movie, the heroine would have been able to get her hands on that knife and free her bonds.
She lay still for a moment and tried again. Her pockets were deep. She got a finger on the edge of the tissue paper and gently tugged. Bit by bit the knife began to emerge from her pocket. She gave a final tug and the knife in its tissue-paper wrapping popped out and fell on the floor. She rolled on her side and felt for it. But the tissue-paper wrapping had been Sellotaped around the knife and she could not get enough movement in her fingers to tear it off. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.
John Armitage was caught up in a traffic jam. He heard the sound of a police siren and saw the cars in front twist to the side of the road. A police car roared past. He got a glimpse of Bill Wong’s face. He suddenly felt that Agatha had made a terrible mistake and the police would never forgive her.
“This is the house,” said Bill. “Let’s try next door and find out if Agatha’s been seen.”
A young woman with two children hanging on her skirts opened the door. Bill described Agatha. She shook her head. “I’ve been busy with the children. Ask old Mrs. Wirtle across the street. She never misses anything.”
Mrs. Wirtle took ages to answer the door. She was leaning on a zimmer frame, peering up at them from under a bird’s nest of uncombed grey hair. Once more, Bill described Agatha.
“Yes, I saw a woman like that go in with Miss Partle,” said Mrs. Wirtle. “Then Miss Partle was taken away by the police. What’s going on?”
“And you did not see the other woman come out?” demanded Bill in a loud voice.
“No need to shout. I’m not deaf. No, I didn’t see her.”
They thanked her and went and stood in front of Miss Partle’s house. “Might take too long to get a search warrant,” said Wilkes.
“Try the door,” suggested Bill.
Wilkes turned the handle. “It’s open.”
“Then we can go in,” said Bill. “Responsible policemen checking unlocked premises.”
Agatha heard men’s voices. Had Miss Partle associates? But she was desperate. She made choking noises behind her gag and banged her feet on the floor.
“You hear something?” asked Bill, as they stood in the narrow entrance corridor.
They stood and listened. Again a faint banging sound followed by a moan.
They walked down to the kitchen. “Agatha!” called Bill sharply.
A stifled gurgling moan.
“That door over there is open,” said Bill.
He fumbled inside the door and located the light switch and pressed down.
There down on the cellar floor lay Agatha Raisin, her face blotched with tears.
The two men hurried down. Bill ripped the gag from her mouth and then, producing a clasp knife, cut the ropes that bound her.
“She was going to kill me,” gasped Agatha. “She’s coming back to kill me.”
Bill helped her to her feet. Agatha staggered and winced at the pain in her feet and hands, for the ropes had nearly cut off her circulation.
“Get her upstairs and give her some tea,” said Wilkes. “I’ll phone Kensington. They’ve got Miss Partle there.”
The Kensington police were becoming increasingly worried. This Miss Partle was formidable and business- like. She seemed to have powerful friends and her boss was a tycoon.
Miss Partle sensed their unease and was becoming increasingly confident. All she had to do was sit tight and sooner or later they would release her. She was not under arrest. All she had to do was answer the questions put to her by the clowns from Mircester police, go home, and decide what to do with Agatha Raisin’s body. If she and Agatha had been spotted together at the market, then she might have more questions to answer, but so long as there was no body to be found, there was not much they could do. It might be an idea to put the body in the boot of her car and dump it somewhere in Carsely.
A policewoman had been sitting with her. But the door of the interview room opened and two detectives came in. They looked at her grimly. One said, “We’ll start the questioning when Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes of the Mircester CID arrives.”
It was then that Miss Partle realized she could not remember locking her front door.
John Armitage arrived just as Bill and Wilkes were ushering Agatha into their police car.
“Come with us,” said Bill, “and look after your fiancee. She was nearly killed.”
As they drove to the police station, Agatha told her story.
“I wonder why she attacked you?” said John when Agatha had finished. “I mean, you didn’t say anything that might lead her to think you had any proof at all, did you?”
Agatha shook her head. “Mind you, I did tell her about the mobile phone and I did say I would never give up trying to find out who did it.” She was beginning to recover. The old Agatha Raisin was coming back. And the old Agatha Raisin was thinking what a pill John was. No glad hugs or kisses. No cries of “Darling, are you all right?” Sod him.
At the police station, John was told to wait while Agatha was led off by a detective to give her statement.
Bill and Wilkes entered the interview room where Miss Partle was sitting.
Wilkes said, “I am charging you with the attempted murder of Mrs. Agatha Raisin…”
And Miss Partle began to scream.
? The Case of the Curious Curate ?
11
Bill began to think she had gone mad and that they were never going to get a coherent statement out of her, but at last she calmed and it all came out.
“I am devoted to my boss,” she said in a flat, even voice. “I did everything for him, more than his wife. I made him the best coffee, I put his shirts in the laundry, I bought the Christmas and birthday presents for his children as well as dealing with his business affairs. Then I received a message one day to say there was a Mr. Tristan Delon in reception. He wished to see Mr. Binser with a view to getting a charitable donation towards a boys’ club. I sent down a message that he should put his request in writing.”
Wilkes occasionally interrupted to ask for times and dates.
“He must have somehow got a description of me from one of the receptionists, for when I left that evening, he was waiting for me. He invited me for dinner. He was very charming and I knew that Mr. Binser would never love me the way I wanted him to, and it was like a perpetual ache at my heart. Tristan made me feel attractive. I found myself promising him an interview with my boss. And then suddenly Mr. Binser and Tristan seemed to be going everywhere, but Tristan was still careful to take me out as well from time to time.
“Then Mr. Binser came to me and told me how he had been cheated out of ten thousand pounds. I told Tristan to visit me at my home. I took a cricket bat to him and said that was only a taste of what he would get if he didn’t return the money, and I thought that was the end of it. I checked with his vicar and found he had moved to the country.
“And then, when I had all but forgotten about him, he phoned me. He said he and Mr. Binser had gone to a gay bar and a friend who worked there had sent pictures of Tristan and Mr. Binser. Tristan said to tell Mr. Binser that if he did not pay up two hundred and fifty thousand, the photographs would go to his wife. Much as I thought Mr. Binser’s wife was not worthy of him, I knew he would be devastated. I hated Tristan Delon. He had fooled me. He had let me think he cared for me. I went down to Carsely in disguise, dressed as a rambler. I saw a group of
