Til begin with Freda. No, don't scowl. My motives are pure detection. You start by watching Mrs Parr'
'Oh, come on! That woman couldn't hurt a fly.'
'She's terrified of that husband of hers. Bladen might have known that. She may yet not be telling us all. He could have been blackmailing her. Give you something to do. You want your cats back, don't you?'
Agatha winced.
'Anyway, I'll get moving on my side and we'll meet up here, say, at six o'clock this evening. Nothing like action to beat the blues, Agatha'
Agatha went numbly about the kitchen after he had left, stacking away the various gifts in cupboards. Apart from cakes and pots of jam there was a large bunch of dried flowers, but they could hardly be from Miss Webster. Agatha shoved them in a vase and went upstairs to put on the make-up she had wept off.
She was on her way out when she stopped in the hall. The back of the front door was still covered in fingerprint dust. A gleam of sunlight lit up a tiny coloured object sticking among the coarse coconut matting of the doormat. She bent down and looked at it and then picked it out. Puzzled, she turned it this way and that. Then her face cleared. It was a tiny dried petal. It must have fallen off that bouquet of flowers that someone had brought. She flicked it from her fingers and then opened the door.
Then she froze.
Suddenly it was the night before and she was lifting the envelope from the doormat and opening it, taking out the letter, smoothing it out. Surely a flicker of something small and bright had drifted down.
Chapter Nine
Agatha felt weird and strange as she walked numbly out into the bright sunlight. Two police- | men were asking questions at the other cottages in Lilac Lane. People waved and called to her as she went past but she did not hear them. i
Agatha Raisin was no longer thinking about I who had murdered the vet or Mrs Josephs, all
As she approached Josephine Webster's shop, she saw a white hand twisting the card on the I door round from 'Open' to 'Closed'. Of course, half-day in the village. With such a search going on, if Miss Webster had the cats, then she wouldn't have them in the shop or in her flat above it.
Agatha returned home and got into her car. She parked a little way away from the shop and waited, not noticing people passing up and down the main street, intent only on Josephine Webster.
And then Miss Webster came out, neat and trim as ever, and got into her car, which was parked outside the shop. She drove off. Grimly, Agatha followed. Miss Webster drove down into Moreton-in-Marsh and turned along the Fosse. Agatha let a car get between her and her quarry and followed. Miss Webster headed for Mir-cester, her little red car sailing up and over the Cotswold hills on the old Roman road which ran straight as an arrow.
Agatha followed her into a multi-storey carpark, parked a little bit away and waited until Miss Webster got out and locked her car, then got out of her own.
Josephine Webster went first to Boots, the chemist's, tried various perfume samples, and then bought a bottle. From there, she went to a dress boutique. The day was unseasonably chilly and Agatha shivered as she waited outside. At last, she risked a peek through the shop window. Miss Webster was turning this way and that before a mirror, wearing a low-cut red dress. She said something to the assistant and disappeared back into a changing room. After ten minutes, she came out of the shop, carrying a carrier-bag. From there, she went to a lingerie shop and Agatha again froze and fidgeted outside until Miss Webster appeared carrying a carrier-bag with the lingerie shop's name on it.
When she walked on, followed by Agatha, and turned in at the tall Georgian portico of the public library, Agatha was beginning to despair. It was all so innocent. Fear for her cats had tricked her memory. That little petal had probably fallen off the bouquet that morning. But the dogged-ness, the single-mindedness, and the tenacity that had made her successful in business took over. She waited outside for half an hour and then cautiously walked inside. No sign of Miss Webster.
Had she seen her and escaped out of a back door? In her frantic search to find a way out of the back of the library, Agatha nearly ran into Josephine Webster, who was sitting in a leather chair in one of the bays, calmly reading, her shopping bags beside her.
Agatha picked the next bay, took a book at random from the shelves and pretended to read. Her stomach rumbled. She should eat something, but she dare not risk leaving the library.
After two hours, a rustle of bags in the next bay warned her that her quarry was about to depart.
She waited a few moments and then cautiously got up and poked her head round the bay. Josephine Webster was disappearing in the direction of the exit. Agatha followed, heart beating hard again now that the pursuit was back on.
Miss Webster tripped gaily along, as if she hadn't a care in the world. She turned in at the door of Mircester's Palace Hotel.
Agatha, hovering at the entrance, saw her head up a passage at the side of the reception under a sign which said 'Rest Rooms'.
She bought a newspaper from a kiosk in the foyer, sat down in an armchair and barricaded herself behind it, lowering it from time to time to make sure Miss Webster had not escaped.
After a full hour, Agatha saw Miss Webster emerge. She was wearing the new dress and was heavily made up. She had obviously left her bags and coat in the cloakroom. Agatha jerked up the newspaper as Miss Webster crossed the foyer in a cloud of scent and lowered it again in time to see her going into the bar.
Feeling stiff and hungry, Agatha threw aside the newspaper and looked cautiously round the door of the bar and then jerked her head back.
Miss Webster was sitting talking to Peter Rice, ugly red-haired Peter Rice, Bladen's partner. He must have entered the hotel and gone into the bar when Agatha's whole attention was focused on watching for Josephine Webster.
She sat down again in the foyer, her mind working furiously. It could be an innocent meeting. Yes, wait a bit. Miss Webster had a cat. She could have taken the cat for treatment to Mircester and struck up a friendship with Peter Rice. No harm in that. But. . . Greta Bladen had said something about Peter Rice being an old friend.
She looked about her. There was a sign pointing to the hotel restaurant. She walked along to it. The staff were just setting up the tables for the evening meal, but the maitre d'hotel was there. Agatha asked him if a Mr Rice had made a booking for dinner. He checked. Yes, Mr Rice had booked a table for two. For eight o'clock. Agatha glanced at her watch. Only six thirty. They wouldn't leave the hotel. Somehow, she had to see Greta Bladen before returning to the hotel to keep a watch on them.
She stopped at a phone-box on the road to the car-park and phoned James, but there was no reply. She drove off, praying that Greta would be at home.
Greta answered the door and frowned when she saw her visitor was Agatha.
T must speak to you' pleaded Agatha. 'You see, I've been threatened. Someone stole my cats to stop me investigating and I think I might know who that someone might be'
Greta sighed but held open the door. 'Come in. I don't quite grasp what you are saying. Do you mean someone is trying to stop you investigating Paul's death?'
'Yes'
'Well, I haven't got your cats'
'Could you tell me what you know about Peter Rice?'
'Peter? Oh, he can't have anything to do with it. I've known Peter for ages'
Tell me about him anyway'
'I don't know very much. He lived a couple of doors away from me in Leamington in the old days. We were friends, played tennis together, but never anything romantic. I mean, I never thought any man would look at me that way, and so I was glad of Peter's company. Then Paul came along.
'And you never saw him again?' prompted Agatha.
