in your cottage thinking what a great detective you are.”
“I’ll tell the police!” panted Agatha.
“And what proof will they find? Nothing. You will find that the police, having got her confession, will not thank you for trying to re-open the case. I have powerful friends. Goodbye, Mrs. Raisin.”
Agatha sat very still. She heard the door slam. She heard him driving off. She tried to stand up but her legs were trembling so much, she collapsed back into her chair.
And then she saw her tape recorder sitting on the desk.
She had forgotten to turn it off.
Now a burst of rage and energy flooded her body. She went to the desk and re-ran the tape and switched it on. It was all there.
Agatha picked up the phone and dialled Mircester police headquarters and explained she had the real murderer. She got put straight through to Wilkes, who listened in astonished silence and then began to rap out questions: When had he left; what car was he driving?
When Agatha replaced the phone, she wondered whether to call John and then decided against it. Although she would never admit it to herself, she viewed his pursuit of Charlotte Bellinge as a rejection of herself. She phoned the vicarage instead, only to learn that Mrs. Bloxby was out. The doorbell went. It couldn’t be the police already. Agatha went into the kitchen and slid a knife out of the drawer and approached the door. She peered through the peep-hole in the door and saw, with a flood of relief, the elderly face of Ralph Crinsted under a dripping hat.
“You’ll never guess what’s happened!” she cried, brandishing the kitchen knife in her excitement.
“Be careful with that knife, Agatha,” he said nervously.
“Oh, what? Gosh, I was frightened. The police are on their way.”
“May I come in? It’s awfully wet.”
“Yes, come along.”
“I hope I’m not disturbing you; I thought up a few ideas for the old folks’ club. You seem to be in the middle of a drama.”
Agatha led him into the sitting-room. “I don’t know about you, but I would like a large brandy. Care to join me?”
“Why not.”
Once the drinks were poured, Agatha got half-way through the story when Bill Wong arrived with another detective.
He asked to hear the tape. Agatha switched it on, wincing at the earlier bit, which included the start of her will, and then all her bragging. But then Binser’s dry precise voice describing the murders sounded in the room.
“We’ll get him,” said Bill. “We have his registration number. He’ll be stopped before he reaches London. I think we’d better start ferreting in his background. He was up for a knighthood, you know.”
“You’d better come back with us to Mircester, Agatha, and make a full statement.”
Agatha was taken over her statement again and again until she was gratefully able to sign it. She then had a long talk with Bill which depressed her. He was doubtful whether the tape alone would be enough to convict Binser.
Poor Miss Partle. Had Binser said something to her during his prison visit that had finally tipped her over the edge? Had he always been respectable?
John Armitage watched her climbing out of a police car that evening. He hurried round to her cottage and listened amazed to the story that Agatha was now heartily tired of telling.
“Did they get Binser?” John asked when she had finished.
“He was stopped on the road to London. He’s denying everything. He’s got a team of lawyers. Bill says they are digging into his past. He says Binser seems always to have been a pretty ruthless person.”
“And you thought he was straightforward and decent.”
“I got there in the end,” said Agatha crossly. “Get your ring all right?”
“Thank you. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of moving back to London.”
“Not a good time to sell. The house market’s in a slump at the moment.”
“I’ll take what I can get, and,” John added with a tinge of malice, “I shall think of you down here busy at work on your old folks’ club. So Miss Partle’s off the hook?”
“If she ever recovers her sanity, she’ll probably be charged with aiding and abetting a murderer and attempting to murder me. I’m glad it’s all over. It’s up to the police now to prove he did it.”
“They’ve got that taped confession.”
“Bill told me after I’d made my statement that he might get away with it. He’s saying he only told me a load of rubbish because he thought I was so smug. He’s insisting it was a joke at my expense. Also, I don’t know if that tape would stand up in court. There was no one in authority here, he wasn’t cautioned and he wasn’t on oath.”
“You should be worried. If he gets away with it, he’ll come looking for you.”
“No, he won’t,” said Agatha. “I’m no threat to him. He seemed pretty confident I couldn’t find out anything. And if they don’t get him this time, then they can’t charge him with the same crime twice.”
“Well, I can’t share your confidence. I’d best be off. I’ve got enough in the bank to rent somewhere in London until this place is sold.”
Agatha wanted to say, “Will you miss me? Did you care anything for me at all?” But fear of rejection kept her silent.
Instead, she said, “I suppose you’ll be seeing a lot of Charlotte Bellinge.”
“That silly woman,” he said viciously. “No. She turned out to be a terrible bore. I shall be glad to return to all the fun and lights of London. The thought of being buried down here in the winter is an awful prospect. I don’t know how you cope with it.”
“Some people would think three murders was enough excitement for anyone.”
“Anyway. See you around, maybe.”
John went back to his cottage and stood looking around. May as well think of packing some things up. He’d be glad to get away. And whoever it was that Agatha was romancing, he wished her the joy of him.
? The Case of the Curious Curate ?
EPILOGUE
Despite Agatha’s assurances to John that she was not worried that Binser would come looking for her, she felt edgy and nervous.
She tried to call Bill several times only to be told that he was not available, and her heart sank. She really should have apologized to him about her remarks about Alice.
So when she opened the door to him a week after Binser had been arrested, she flew at him, crying, “Oh, Bill, I’m so sorry about those dreadful things I said about Alice.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “Let’s go in. I’ve some good news for you. Never mind about coffee,” he said, walking with her into the kitchen to a glad welcome from the cats, “I want to tell you right away.”
“What?”
“We’ve got Binser all sewn up.”
“How? What happened?”
“Well, I phoned the top psychiatrist at that psychiatric prison she’s in and asked how Miss Partle was getting on. He said he was just drafting a report. He said he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that she was faking madness. Maybe she was tired of keeping up the act, but he said twice he had surprised her reading a book with all the appearance of intelligent enjoyment. I talked to my superiors and arranged an interview. She sat drooling in front of me, all blank-eyed. I told her that Binser had confessed. I didn’t tell her he might get away with it.
“She looked at me, startled, and then she began to cry. She switched the mad act right off. She said when he had visited her in prison, she had asked him whether he had told his wife yet that they were going to get married.
