'Why not?' he said with a grin. 'I'm off duty.'
Agatha poured two glasses of sherry, threw some imitation logs on the fire and lit them. 'What now?' she asked. 'And what do I call you?'
'My name is Bill Wong. You may call me Bill.'
'An appropriate name. If you were older, I could call you the Old Bill. Now, what about the quiche?' 'You're off the hook,' said Bill. 'We checked out your story. Mr. Economides, the owner of The Quicherie, remembers selling you that quiche. He cannot understand what happened. He buys his vegetables from the greengrocer's across the road. Greengrocer goes to the market at Nine Elms every morning to buy his stock. Stuff comes from all over the country and abroad. Cowbane must have got in with the spinach.
It's a tragic accident. Of course, we had to tell Mrs. Cummings-Browne where the quiche came from.'
Agatha groaned.
'She might have accused you of murder otherwise.'
'But look here,' protested Agatha, ' could have killed her husband by putting cow bane in my quiche.'
'Like most of the British population, I'd swear she couldn't tell a piece of cow bane from a palm tree,' said Bill. 'Also, it couldn't have been you. When you left that quiche, you had no idea it would be taken home and eaten by Cummings-Browne. So it couldn't have been you.
And it couldn't have been Mrs. Cummings-Browne. Poisoning like that would need to be a cold-blooded, premeditated act. No, it was a horrible accident. Cowbane was only in part of the quiche.'
'I feel sorry for Mr. Economides,' said Agatha. 'Mrs. Cummings-Browne could sue him.' 'She has generously said she will not press charges. She is a very rich woman in her own right. She has the money. She had nothing to gain from his death.'
'But why did Cummings-Browne not drop dead at the tasting when he had a slice of it? Perhaps someone substituted another quiche. Or ... let me think ... wouldn't there have been some cow bane in that wedge, the juice, for instance?' 'Yes, we wondered about that,' said Bill. 'Mrs. Cummings-Browne said her husband did feel a bit queasy after the tasting but she put that down to the amount of pre competition drinks he had been knocking back.' Agatha asked all about the case, all the details she had not asked before. He had been found dead in the morning. Then why, asked Agatha, had Mrs. Cummings-Browne gone straight up to bed?
'Oh, that was because her husband was usually late, drinking at the Red Lion.'
'But that precious pair or rather, it was Mrs. Cummings-Browne told me they wouldn't be seen dead in the Red Lion. Mind you, that was before they socked me for a disgracefully expensive load of rubbish at the Feathers.'
'He drinks at the Red Lion, all right, but Mrs. Cummings-Browne owns twenty-five percent of the Feathers.'
The cow! I'll be damned. Anyway, how did you guess I never cooked that quiche? For you did, you know, even before I baked one.'
'The minute I saw there wasn't a single baking ingredient in the kitchen I was sure.' He laughed. 'I asked you to make one to be absolutely sure. You should have seen your face!'
'Oh, very funny.'
He looked at her curiously. What an odd woman she was, he thought. Her shiny brown, well-groomed hair was not per med but cut in a sort of Dutch bob that somehow suited her square, rather truculent face. Her body was square and stocky and her legs surprisingly good. 'What,' asked Bill, ' so special to a recently ex-high-powered businesswoman like yourself about winning a village competition?'
'I felt out of place,' said Agatha bleakly. 'I wanted to make my mark on the village.'
He laughed happily, his eyes closing into slits. 'You've done just that. Mrs. Cummings-Browne knows now you cheated and so does Fred Griggs, the local bobby, and he's a prize gossip.'
Agatha felt too humiliated to speak. So much for her dream home. She would need to sell up. How could she face anyone in the village?
He looked at her sympathetically. 'If you want to make your mark on the village, Mrs. Raisin, you could try becoming popular.'
Agatha looked at him in amazement. Fame, money and power were surely the only things needed to make one's mark on the world.
'It comes slowly,' he said. 'All you have to do is start to like people. If they like you back, regard it as a bonus.'
Really, what odd types they had in the police force these days, thought Agatha, surprised. Did she dislike people? Of course she didn't.
Well, so far the only people she had taken a dislike to in Yokel Country, she thought savagely, were old fart- face next door and Mrs. Cummings-Browne and the dear deceased.
'How old are you?' she asked.
'Twenty-three,' said Bill.
'Chinese?'
'Half. Father is Hong Kong Chinese and Mother is from Evesham. I was brought up in Gloucestershire.' He rose to go but for some reason Agatha wanted him to stay.
'Are you married?' she asked.
'No, Mrs. Raisin.' 'Well, sit down for a moment,' said Agatha urgently, ' tell me about yourself.'
Again a flicker of sympathy appeared in his eyes. He sat down and began to talk about his short career in the police force and Agatha listened, soothed by his air of certainty and calm. Unknown to her, it was the start of an odd friendship. 'So,' he said at last, 'I really must go. Case finished. Case solved. Nasty accident. Life goes on.'
The next day, to escape from the eyes of the villagers, eyes that would accuse her of being a cheat, Agatha drove to London. She was anxious about Mr. Economides. Agatha, a regular take-away eater, had frequented Mr. Economides's shop over the years. Perhaps some of Bill Wong's remarks had struck home, but Agatha had realized Mr. Economides, although their relationship had been that of customer and salesman, was as near a friend as she had got. The shop contained two small tables and chairs for customers who liked to have coffee, and when the shop was quiet, Mr. Economides had often treated Agatha to a coffee and told her tales of his numerous family.
But when she arrived, the shop was busy and Mr. Economides was guarded in his answers as his competent hairy hands packed quiche and cold cuts for the customers. Yes, Mrs. Cummings-Browne had called in person to assure him that she would not be suing him. Yes, it had been a tragic accident. And now, if Mrs. Raisin would excuse him ... Agatha left, feeling rather flat. London, which had so recently enclosed her like a many-coloured coat, now stretched out in lonely streets full of strangers all about her. She went to Foyle's bookshop in the Charing Cross Road and looked up a book on poisonous plants. She studied a picture of cow bane It was an innocuous-looking plant with a ridged stem and flower heads composed of groups of small white flowers.
She was about to buy the book when she suddenly thought, why bother?
It had been an accident, a sad accident.
She pottered around a few other shops before returning to her car and joining the long line of traffic that was belching its way out of London. Reluctant to return to the village before dark, she cut off the motorway and headed for Oxford, where she parked her car in St. Giles and made her way to the Randolph Hotel for tea. She was the only customer, odd in that most popular of hotels. She settled back in a huge sofa and drank tea and ate crumpets served to her by a young maiden with a Pre-Raphaelite face. Faintly from outside came the roar of traffic ploughing up Beaumont Street past the Ashmolean Museum. The hotel had a dim ecclesiastical air, as if haunted by the damp souls of dead deans. She pushed the last crumpet around on her plate. She did not feel like eating it. She needed a purpose in life, she thought, an aim. Would it not be marvelous if Cummings-Browne turned out to have been murdered after all? And she, Agatha Raisin, solved the case? She would become known throughout the Cots-wolds. People would come to her. She would be respected. Had it been an accident? What sort of marriage had the Cummings-Brownes really had where she could come home and trot off to bed while her husband lay dead behind the sofa? Why separate bedrooms? Bill Wong had told her that. Why should Mr. Economides's excellent and famous quiche suddenly contain cow bane when over the years he had not had one complaint? Perhaps she could ask around. Just a few questions. No harm in that.
Feeling more cheerful than she had for a long time, she paid the bill and tipped the gentle waitress lavishly. The sun was sinking low behind the trees as she motored through the village and turned off at Lilac Lane. She fished out the spare door key and then she heard her phone ringing, sharp and insistent.
