“So what were you doing in London?” asked Agatha.
“This and that. Bookshops, agent, publisher, the usual round. Are you free for dinner this evening?”
“I think I’ve got a date,” lied Agatha. “I’ll check.”
She dialled Mr. Crinsted’s number. “Is our date for tonight, Ralph, sweetie?” asked Agatha in a husky voice.
“I thought we’d arranged to play chess tomorrow,” came the surprised voice at the other end. “But tonight, any time is fine.”
“Look forward to it,” said Agatha. “See you then.” She put down the receiver and turned to John.
“Sorry, I’ve got a date.”
“Well, what about tomorrow?”
“Sorry, going to be busy for some time.” And I am not interested in Charlotte Bellinge’s leavings, thought Agatha. She must have ditched him.
“I’ll leave you to it.” John marched out, feeling doubly rejected. The rain poured down. What am I doing stuck in this village? thought John angrily. It doesn’t help a bit with the writing. I was better off in London.
After he had gone, Agatha took the ring he had given her out of the drawer and put it in an envelope. On her way out that evening, she popped it through his letter-box. Not that she was jealous of Charlotte Bellinge.
For Ralph Crinsted’s sake, Agatha tried to concentrate on her chess lesson while privately wondering what could be the fun in playing such a boring game. There seemed to be so much to memorize. “I don’t think you’re going to make a chess player,” said Ralph finally. “You’re not enjoying this one bit.”
“I will, I will,” said Agatha. And with a rare burst of honesty, she added, “You see, I’m not used to concentrating on anything other than people – what motivates them, why they commit murder, that sort of thing. Let’s try again another night. I’ll buy some sort of book,
“If you say so. Do you play cards?”
“Don’t know many games. Poker. I once played poker.”
“Like a game?”
“Sure.”
Agatha actually won the first game and began to enjoy herself. It had reached midnight when she finally put down the cards and said ruefully, “I’m keeping you up late.”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep much. The old don’t, you know.”
As Agatha drove home, she thought with a shiver of impending old age and loneliness, would she endure white nights and long days? Would her joints seize up with arthritis?
Tomorrow, she thought gloomily, I’ll draft out my will. I’m not immortal.
Had the weather cleared up, Agatha might have put off thoughts of making out a will, but another day of rain blurred the windows of her cottage and thudded down on the already rain-soaked garden.
She went into the sitting-room, carrying her cigarettes and a mug of coffee and sat down at her desk. She took a small tape recorder out of her drawer and had got as far as “This is the last will and testament of Mrs. Agatha Raisin” when there was a ring at the doorbell.
“Blast,” muttered Agatha and went to answer it.
Mr. Binser stood there. “Good heavens,” said Agatha. “Come in out of this dreadful rain. What brings you?”
“I just came to see you and thank you for clearing up those dreadful murders,” said the tycoon. “I’m curious. How did you arrive at the truth?”
Agatha took his coat and ushered him into the sitting-room. “Coffee?”
“No,” he said, sitting down on the sofa. “I haven’t much time. So how did you guess it was my Miss Partle?”
Agatha, glad of an opportunity to brag, told him how she had managed to leap to the conclusion that the culprit was Miss Partle.
“Interesting,” he said when she had finished. “You seem such a confident lady. Are you never wrong?”
“I pride myself I’m not.”
“You were certainly right about Miss Partle’s adoration of me.”
Agatha felt a lurch in her stomach. “You mean I was wrong about something else?”
“If there is one thing I hate, it is busy-body interfering women.”
The rain drummed against the windows and dripped from the thatch outside. The day was growing darker. Agatha switched on a lamp next to her. “That’s better,” she said with a lightness she did not feel. “At least you don’t go around killing them.”
There was a long silence while Binser studied her. Agatha broke it by saying sharply, “I have a feeling you came to tell me something.”
“Yes. You are so unbearably smug. You see, Miss Partle didn’t commit these murders. I did.”
Agatha goggled at him. “Why? How?”
“In all my life,” he said calmly, “no one has ever managed to put one over on me – except Tristan Delon. I suppose, in my way, I was as infatuated with that young man as Miss Partle was with me. I married for money, the daughter of a wealthy company director. I never had any real friends. I felt I could be honest with Tristan, I could relax with him. Then he cheated me. All he had ever wanted from me was money. I hated him. I have certain underworld contacts which come in useful from time to time. I arranged to have him beaten up. I got Miss Partle to tell him who had done it. He returned the money and I thought that was that. But the leech wouldn’t let go. He phoned Miss Partle and said he was going to tell my wife unless I paid up. I found he had gone to the country. I went down to Carsely. I had already studied ordnance survey maps of the area. I dressed as a rambler and left my car hidden some distance outside the village and crossed the fields so that I would get down to where he was living without being seen. I decided to give him one more chance. I had his mobile phone number. I phoned Miss Partle and told her to go out to the nearest phone-box and call him and tell him I was coming to kill him. I thought I would give him a chance to run for it.
“I hid behind one of the gravestones in the churchyard where I could watch the entrance to his cottage. The door is clearly illuminated by that one streetlight. I saw him slip out and head for the vicarage. I saw him enter by those French windows and followed him. There he stood in the moonlight like a fallen angel, rifling the contents of the church box. I saw that paper-knife. I was in such a blinding rage. I did not know it was so sharp. I drove it down into his neck.
“And then I ran. I told Miss Partle what I had done and she said that no one would ever suspect me. And then you came to see me. I thought I had shut you up with my statement to the police, and then I found myself being threatened by a village spinster called Jellop who Tristan had told about me. She said she felt she should go to the police with what she knew. She said Tristan had photographs of the pair of us in a gay bar. Now Tristan had taken me to one once. I said I would call and see her and she was not to go to the police until I explained things. So that was the end of her. When Peggy Slither told me she actually had the photographs, I thought the nightmare would never end. I said I would pay her two hundred thousand for the photos and she agreed. I didn’t trust her. She kept crowing about what a great detective she was. I felt she might take my money and tell the police all the same. After she had handed me the photographs and I had given her the money, she suddenly snatched back the photographs. ‘This isn’t right,’ she said. ‘I told someone I would go to the police and so I will.’ I found out that she had not mentioned my name. I said mildly, ‘All right, but what about a cup of tea?’ What a triumphant bully she was. I followed her quietly into her kitchen and slid a carving knife out of the drawer. She turned just as I was raising the knife and screamed.” He shrugged. “But it was too late.”
Agatha felt cold sweat trickling down the back of her neck.
“I made an arrangement with Miss Partle that should anything break, she was to take the blame.”
“But why should she do that?” demanded Agatha hoarsely while her frightened eyes roamed around the room looking for a weapon.
“I told her if she took the rap, with good behaviour she would be out in ten years’ time and I would marry her. I knew she would go through hell if only I married her.”
“Are you going to kill me?” asked Agatha.
“No, you silly cow, I am not. You have no proof. And poor Miss Partle is now stone-mad. You won’t get anything out of her. If it hadn’t been for you, she wouldn’t be in prison. I couldn’t bear the idea of you sitting smugly
