'Not exactly a friend' said Agatha, 'but I felt I should pay my respects. You must have been very sorry to lose him'
'On the contrary' said Miss Webster, 1 went to make sure he was really dead. Now, if you will excuse me, Miss . . .?'
'Mrs Raisin.'
'Mrs Raisin. I find all these chattering women give me a headache.'
She got up abruptly and left the room. Curi-ouser and curiouser, thought Agatha. Damn James. All this was interesting stuff, hints here, hints there. She would call on him before she went to see Mrs Josephs.
James heard his doorbell at quarter to ten the following morning. Feeling like an old spinster, he twitched the front-room curtain and looked out. There was Agatha Raisin. That old feeling of being hunted came back again. He went through to his kitchen and sat there. The bell went on and on and then there was blessed silence.
Agatha stumped grumpily through the village. A car slid to a stop beside her and Bill Wong's cheerful face looked out. 'What's the matter, Agatha? Where's James?'
'Nothing's the matter, and where James Lacey is I neither know nor care.'
'Which means you've scared him off again' commented Bill cheerfully.
'I have done nothing of the kind, and for your information I am on my way to see Mrs Josephs, the librarian. She has something important to tell me about Paul Bladen's death.'
Bill gave a little sigh. 'Agatha, when there actually has been a murder, a lot of distasteful scandal usually comes to light which has nothing to do with the case. A lot of people get hurt. Now if you're going to dig around an English village trying to make an accident look like murder it will have the same effect, and without any justification. Drop it. Do good works. Go abroad again. Let Paul Bladen rest in peace.'
He drove off. Well, I may as well go, thought Agatha stubbornly. She'll be expecting me.
Mrs Josephs lived at the end of a terrace of what were once workers' cottages. Hers was neat and trim, with a pocket-sized garden where for-sythia spilled over the hedge into the road in a burst of golden glory. A blackbird sang on the roof. From a field above the village came the sound of a hunting horn, and as Agatha turned and looked up the hill, she saw the hunt streaming across a meadow, looking oddly out of perspective from her angle of vision.
If Lord Pendlebury was part of the hunt, she hoped he broke his neck. And with that pious thought, she pushed open the small wrought-iron gate and walked up to the door and rang the bell. There was no reply. The sound of the hunt disappeared into the distance. A jet screamed above, tearing the pale spring sky apart with sound.
Agatha tried again, feeling almost weepy, wondering dismally if all the inhabitants of Carsely were going to hide behind their sofas when they saw her on the doorstep.
But Mrs Josephs had asked her to call. Mrs Josephs had no right to snub her. Agatha turned the handle of the front door. It opened easily. A small hall with a narrow stair leading straight up from it.
'Mrs Josephs!' called Agatha.
The little house had thick walls, and silence pressed in on Agatha. She looked in the downstairs rooms, small parlour, small dining-room, and tiny cubicle of a kitchen at the back.
Agatha stood at the bottom of the stairs and shifted from foot to foot.
How sinister that dim staircase looked. Perhaps Mrs Josephs was ill. Emboldened by that thought, Agatha climbed the stairs. Bedroom on the right at the top, bed made, everything tidy. Box-room full of pathetic pieces of broken china and old furniture and dusty suitcases. No drama here. May as well use the bathroom while I'm here, thought Agatha. Oh, I know! She probably meant me to go to the library. What a fool I am! But how crazy to go out and leave the house unlocked. This must be the bathroom. She pushed open a door which had a pane of frosted glass.
Mrs Josephs was lying on the bathroom floor, her eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. Agatha let out a whimper. She forced herself to bend down, pick up an arm and feel the pulse. Nothing.
She turned and ran down the stairs, looking for the phone. She found one in the parlour and dialled police and ambulance.
The first to arrive was PC Fred Griggs, the village policeman. He looked like a village policeman in a children's story, large and red-faced.
'She's dead' said Agatha. 'Upstairs. Bathroom.'
She followed the bulk of the policeman up the stairs. Fred looked sadly down at the body. 'You're right,' he said. 'Can tell by just looking at her. Mrs Josephs was a diabetic.'
'So it wasn't murder,' said Agatha.
'Now what put such an idea into your head?' His small eyes were shrewd.
'She said last night in front of everyone at the Carsely Ladies' Society that she had something to tell me about Paul Bladen.'
'The vet what died! What's that got to do with the poor woman's death?'
'Nothing' muttered Agatha. 'I think I'll wait outside'
As she went out into the garden again, she could hear the wail of sirens; and then an ambulance, followed by two police cars, came racing up. She recognized Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes and Bill Wong. There were two other detectives she did not know and a policewoman.
Bill said, 'Did you find her?' Agatha nodded dumbly. 'What time?'
'Ten o'clock' said Agatha. 'I told you I was going to see her.'
'Go home' said Bill. 'We'll be around to take a statement'
James Lacey stood on his doorstep, peering down the lane. He had heard the sirens. Ever since he had failed to answer the door to Agatha's ring, he had been staring at that heading 'Chapter Two' on his computer screen. Then he saw Agatha trailing along the lane. Her face was very white.
'What's happened?' he called, but she flapped a hand at him and said, 'Later.'
He felt frustrated. He felt that Agatha held the key to some excuse to take him away from writing for the day. He should not have run away from her lunch like a schoolboy.
He returned to his machine and glared at it. Then he heard the sound of a car turning into the lane and dashed outside again. It was a police car. He watched eagerly as it drove up to Agatha's cottage and stopped. He recognized Bill Wong with another detective and a policewoman. They went inside.
He had brought it on himself, he thought gloomily. The wretched Raisin woman was on to something and he was excluded.
Inside her home, Agatha answered all questions put to her. How long had she been in Mrs Josephs's cottage? Just a few minutes? Had anyone seen her just before she arrived? Detective Wong. The Chief Inspector nodded, as though Bill had already confirmed that.
'What did she die of?' asked Agatha.
'We'll need to wait for the pathologist's report' said Wilkes. 'Now, I gather this arrangement to see her was made at the vicarage last night. What exactly did she say?'
Agatha replied promptly, 'She said, 'Call on me at ten tomorrow and I'll tell you all about Paul Bladen.''
'Anything else?'
'Let me see. I think I remarked she was looking better and she said an odd thing, she said, 'Revenge is mine''
'You're sure of that?'
'Absolutely. She added .. ' Agatha screwed up her eyes in an effort of memory. 'She added, 'I am to get what is rightfully mine.' '
'Indeed' commented Wilkes. 'Very cryptic. Quite like a novel'
'I am not making it up' snapped Agatha. 'I have a very good memory'
'Now, Mrs Josephs said, 'Call me at ten,' yet you went to her Chouse. Wouldn't you think she meant you to phone her?'
'No' said Agatha, 'we don't use the phone much in this village to talk to each other. We call in person'
'Mrs Josephs was due on duty at the library. Why didn't you go there?'
'Because I didn't
'Odd you should think that, when I gather from Detective Sergeant Wong here that you are very ready to
