mournfully.
'Look, tell me exactly what happened between you and Mrs. Cummings-Browne when she called on you.'
'Can't we forget the whole thing?' he pleaded. 'All ended well. No bad publicity in the London papers.'
'A man was poisoned,' said Agatha. 'Don't worry your head about immigration. I'll keep you out of it. Just tell me.'
'All right. She came in in the morning. I forget what day it was. But mid-morning. She started shouting that I had poisoned her husband and that she would sue me for every penny I'd got. She told me about the quiche you had bought. I cried and pleaded innocence. I threw myself on her mercy. I told her the quiche was not one of mine but had come down from Devon. I told her my cousin grew all the vegetables for his shop in his own market garden. Some of that cow bane must have got mixed in with the spinach. I told her about my cousin's son-in-law.
She went very quiet. Then she said she was overwrought. She said she hardly knew what she was saying. She was a different woman, calm and sad. No action would be taken against me or my cousin, she said.
'But the next day, she came back.'
'What!'
Agatha leaned forward, clenching her hands in excitement.
'She said that if I ever told anyone that the quiche had come from Devon, then she would change her mind and sue and she would also report my relative to the Home Office and get him deported.'
'Goodness!' Agatha looked at him in bewilderment. 'She must be mad.'
Two people came into the shop. Mr. Economides rose to his feet. 'You will not tell? I only told you before because I thought the whole thing was over.'
'No, no,' gabbled Agatha.
She went out into the heat and drove off, heading automatically back to the Cotswolds, her brain in a turmoil. Vera Cummings-Browne didn't want the police to know that the quiche had come from Devon. Why?
And then the light dawned. A phrase from the book on poisonous plants leaped into her mind. 'Cowbane is to be found in marshy parts of Britain ... East Anglia, West Midlands, and southern Scotland.' But not Devon.
But, wait a bit. The police had been thorough. They had searched her kitchen and even her drains for traces of cow bane And they had said that Vera Cummings-Browne probably didn't know cow bane from a palm tree. But couldn't she just have looked up a book, as she, Agatha, had done? If she had, she would not only know what it looked like and where to get it, she would know it did not grow in Devon.
When she got home, Agatha wondered whether to phone Bill Wong but then decided against it. He would have all the answers. There had been no trace of cow bane in Vera's house. Her brain had been unhinged by the death and that was why she had gone to see Economides.
She put the estate agent's display board back in place and then tried to get a good night's sleep, but the days and days of heat had made the old stone walls of her cottage radiate like a furnace.
Agatha awoke, tired and listless, but dutifully got out her notes again and added what she had found out.
Cowbane. What about the local library? she thought with a jolt. Would they know whether Vera Cummings- Browne had taken out a book on poisonous plants? Would there be a record? Of course there must be!
How else could they write to people who had failed to return books?
As she trudged along to the library, Agatha reflected that her standard of dressing was slipping. In London, she had favoured power dressing and always wore crisp dresses and business suits. Now her loose print dress flopped about her and her bare feet were thrust into sandals.
The library was a low stone building. A plaque above the door stated it had originally been the village workhouse. Agatha pushed open the door and went in. She recognized the lady behind the desk as being Mrs. Josephs, one of the members of the Carsely Ladies' Society.
Mrs. Josephs smiled brightly. 'Were you looking for anything in particular, Mrs. Raisin? We've got the latest Dick Francis.'
Agatha plunged in. 'I was upset by Mr. Cummings-Browne's death,' she said.
'As were we all,' murmured Mrs. Josephs.
'I'd hate a mistake like that to happen again,' said Agatha. 'Have you a book on poisonous plants?'
'Now, let me see.' Mrs. Josephs extracted a microfiche nervously from a pile and slotted it into the viewing screen. 'Yes, Jerome on Poisonous Plants of the British Isles. Number K-543. Over to your left by the window, Mrs. Raisin.'
Agatha searched the shelves until she found the book. She opened it at the front and studied the dates stamped there. It had last been taken out a whole ten days before the death. Still ... 'Could you tell me who was the last to take this out, Mrs. Josephs?'
'Why?' The librarian looked anxious. 'I hope it wasn't Mrs. Boggle.
She will leave the pages stuck together with marmalade.'
'I was thinking of getting up a lecture on local poisonous plants,' said Agatha, improvising. 'Whoever had it out before might show equal interest,' she continued, looking at the illustrations in the book as she spoke.
'Oh, well, let me see. We still have the old-fashioned card system.'
She drew out long drawers and flicked through the listed book cards until she drew out the one on poisonous plants. That was last taken out by card holder number 27. We don't have many members. I fear this is a television village. Let me see. Number 27. Why, that's Mrs. Cummings-Browne!' Her mouth fell a little open and she stared through her glasses at Agatha.
And at that moment, the library door opened and Vera Cummings-Browne walked in. Agatha seized the book and returned it to the shelves and then said brightly to Mrs. Josephs, 'I'll let you know about the Dick Francis.'
'You'll need to join the library first, Mrs. Raisin. Would you like a card?'
'Later,' muttered Agatha. She looked over her shoulder. Vera was standing some distance away, looking through the returned books. 'Not a word,' hissed Agatha and shot out.
So she did know about cow bane thought Agatha triumphantly. And she certainly knew what it looked like. She saw clearly in her mind's eye the coloured illustration in the book. Then she stopped in the middle of the main street, too shocked to notice that a handsome middle-aged man had come out of the butcher's and was looking at her curiously.
She had seen cow bane recently, but in black and white. What? Where?
She began to walk home, cudgelling her brains.
And then, just at her garden gate, she had it. The slide show. Mr. Jones's slide show. Mrs. Cummings-Browne getting the prize for the best flower arrangement, an arty thing of wild flowers and garden flowers and, snakes and bastards, with a piece of cow bane right in the middle of it.
The handsome middle-aged man was turning in at the gate of what had so recently been Mrs. Barr's cottage. He was the new tenant, James Lacey.
'Mr. Jones,' said Agatha aloud. 'Must find Mr. Jones.' Batty, thought James Lacey. I don't know that I like having a neighbour like that.
Into Harvey's went Agatha. 'Where do I find Mr. Jones, the one who takes the photographs?'
'That'll be the second cottage along Mill Pond Edge,' said the woman behind the till. 'Do be uncommon hot, Mrs. Raisin.' 'Sod the weather,' said Agatha furiously. 'Where's Mill Pond Edge?'
'Second lane on your right as you go out the door.'
'I know the heat's getting us down,' said the woman in Harvey's to Mrs. Cummings-Browne later, ' there was no need for Mrs. Raisin to be so rude. I was only trying to tell her where Mr. Jones lives.'
Agatha was fortunate in finding Mr. Jones at home because he was also a keen gardener and liked to spend most of the day touring the local nurseries. He had all his photographs neatly filed and found the one Agatha asked for without any trouble.
She looked greedily at the flower arrangement. 'Mind if I keep this for a few days?'
'No, not at all,' said Mr. Jones.
And Agatha shot off without warning him not to say anything to Mrs. Cummings-Browne.
She went to the Red Lion, clutching the photo in a brown manila envelope, her brain buzzing with thoughts.
She ordered a double gin and tonic. 'Someone said as how he'd seen that detective, the Chinese one, heading
