'Oh, pull the other one,' said Agatha rudely. 'I don't think you've ever taken a girl out in your life.'
That's all you know. The thing is that Mr. Wilson likes his execs to be married.'
'And who's the lucky girl?'
'Haven't found her yet. But some nice quiet girl will do. There are lots around. Someone to cook the meals and iron the shirts.' Really, thought Agatha crossly, under the exterior of every effeminate man beats the heart of a real chauvinist pig. He would find a young girl, meek, biddable, a bit common so as not to make him feel inferior.
She would be expected to learn to host little dinner parties and not complain when her husband only came home at weekends. They would learn to play golf. Roy would gradually become plump and stuffy. She had seen it all happen before.
'But as my partner, you could earn more,' she said.
'You've lost your clients to Pedmans. It would take ages to get them back. You know that, Aggie. You'd have to start small again and build up. Is that what you really want? Let's go in for dinner and talk some more. I'm famished.'
Agatha decided to leave the subject for the moment and began to tell him about the attack on her by John Cart-wright and how he had turned out to be a burglar.
'Honestly, Aggie, don't you see London would be tame by comparison.
Besides, a friend tells me you're never alone in the country. The neighbours care what happens to you.' 'Unless they're like Mrs. Barr,' said Agatha drily. 'She's selling up. The cow had the cheek to claim I had driven her off, but in fact she was left a bigger cottage by an aunt in Ancombe.' 'I thought she was an in comer said Roy. 'Now you tell me she's had at least one relative living close by.'
'If you haven't been born and brought up in Carsely itself, take it from me, you're an in comer reported Agatha. 'Oh, something else about her.' She told Roy about the play and he shrieked with laughter. 'Oh, it must be murder, Aggie,' he gasped.
'No, I don't think it was any more, and I don't care now. I visited Economides today and the reason he's glad to let the whole business blow over is that the quiche he sold me was actually baked on his cousin's premises down in Devon and the cousin has a new son-in-law working for him who doesn't have a work permit.'
'Ah, that explains that, and the bur glaring John Cart-wright explains his behaviour, but what of the women that Cummings-Browne was philandering with? What of the mad Maria?'
'I think she's just mad, and Barbara James is a toughie and Ella Cartwright is a slut and Mrs. Barr has a screw loose as well, but I don't think any of them murdered Cummings-Browne. Here I go again.
Bill Wong was right.'
'Which leaves Vera Cummings-Browne.'
'As for her, I was suddenly sure she had done it, that it was all very simple. She thought of the murder when I left my quiche. She went home and dumped mine and baked another.'
'Brilliant,' said Roy. 'And she wasn't found out because Economides was so frightened about work permits and things that he didn't look at or examine the quiche that was supposed to be his!'
'That's a good theory. But the police exploded that. They checked everything in her kitchen, her pots and pans, her dustbin and even her drains. She hadn't been baking or cooking anything at all on the day of the murder. Let it go, Roy. You've got me calling it murder and I had just put it all behind me. To get back to more interesting matters ... Are you determined to stay with Pedmans?'
'I'm afraid so, Aggie. It's all your fault in a way. If you hadn't arranged that publicity for me, I wouldn't have risen so fast. Tell you what I'll do, though. You get started and I'll drop a word in your ear when I know any client who's looking for a change ... not one of mine, of course. But that's all I can do.'
Agatha felt flat. The ambition which had fuelled her for so long seemed to be draining away. After she had said goodbye to Roy, she went out and walked restlessly about the night-time streets of London, as if searching for her old self. In Piccadilly Circus, a couple of white-faced drug addicts gazed at her with empty eyes and a beggar threatened her. Heat still seemed to be pulsing up from the pavements and out from the buildings.
For the rest of the week, she took walks in the parks, a boat trip down the Thames, and went to theatres and cinemas, moving through the stifling heat of London feeling like a ghost, or someone who had lost her cards of identity. For so long, her work had been her character, her personality, her identity.
By Friday evening, the thought of the village band concert began to loom large in her mind. The women of the Carsely Ladies' Society would be there, she could trot along to the Red Lion if she was lonely, and perhaps she could do something about her garden. Not that she was giving up her idea! A pleasant-looking garden would add to the sale price of the house.
She arose early in the morning and settled her bill and made her way to Paddington station. She had left her car at Oxford. Once more she was on her way back. 'Oxford. This is Oxford,' intoned the guard. With a strange feeling of being on home ground, she eased out of the car-park and drove up Worcester Street and then Beaumont Street and so along St. Giles and the Woodstock Road to the Woodstock Roundabout, where she took the A40 bypass to Burford, up over the hills to Stow-on-the-Wold, along to the A44 and so back down into Carsely.
As she drove along Lilac Lane to her cottage, she suddenly braked hard outside New Delhi. SOLD screamed a sticker across the estate agent's board.
Wonder how much she got, mused Agatha, driving on to her own cottage.
That was quick! But good riddance to bad rubbish anyway. Hope someone pleasant moves in. Not that it matters for I'm leaving myself, she reminded herself fiercely.
Urged by a superstitious feeling that the village was settling around her and claiming her for its own, she left her suitcase inside the door and drove off again to the estate agent's offices in Chipping Campden, the same estate agent who had sold Mrs. Barr's house.
brie introduced herself and said she was putting her house on the market. How much for? Well, the same amount as Mrs. Barr got for hers would probably do. The estate agent said he was not allowed to reveal how much Mrs. Barr had got but added diplomatically that she had been asking for 400,000 and was very pleased with the offer she had received.
'I want 450,000 for mine,' said Agatha. 'It's thatched and I'll bet it's in better nick than that tart's.'
the estate agent blinked, but a house for sale was a house for sale, and so he and Agatha got down to business.
I don't need to sell to just anyone, thought Agatha. After all, I owe it to Mrs. Bloxby and the rest to see that someone nice gets it.
The village band was playing outside the school hall. Before Agatha went to hear it, she carried a present she had bought for Doris Simpson along to the council estate. When she pushed open the gate of Doris's garden, she noticed to her surprise that all the gnomes had gone. But she rang the bell and when Doris answered, put a large brown paper parcel in her arms.
'Come in,' said Doris. 'Bert! Here's Agatha back from London with a present. It's ever so nice of you. You really shouldn't have bothered.' 'Open it, then,' said Bert, when the parcel was placed on the coffee-table in their living-room.
Doris pulled off the wrappings to reveal a large gnome with a scarlet tunic and green hat. 'You really shouldn't have done it,' said Doris with feeling. 'You really shouldn't.' y 'You deserve it,' said Agatha. 'No, I won't stay for coffee I'm going to hear the band.'
Inside the school hall, stalls had been set up. Agatha went in and wandered about, amused to notice that some of the items from her auction were being recycled And then she stopped short in front of a stall run by Mrs. Mason. It was covered in garden gnomes.
'Where did you get all these?' asked Agatha, filled with an awful suspicion.
'Oh, that was the Simpsons,' she said. The gnomes were there when they moved into that house and they've been meaning to get rid of them for ages. Can I interest you in buying one? What about this jolly little fellow with the fishing rod? Brighten up your garden.'
'No, thanks,' said Agatha, feeling like a fool. And yet how could she have known the Simpsons didn't like gnomes?
She wandered into the tea-room, which was off the main hall, to find Mrs. Bloxby helping Mrs. Mason. 'Welcome back!' cried Mrs. Bloxby.
'What can I get you?' 'I haven't had lunch,' said Agatha, ' I'll have a couple of those Cornish pasties and a cup
