Agatha Raisin & the Vicious Vet

business there and trick the ladies with his stories if he liked, but every penny was to come to me, and just in case anything happened to him, I got him to make out his will in my favour. I said unless he paid me back in full, I would go to the police'

Agatha stayed rigid, seeing out of the corner of her eye that her cats had slid into the room beside her.

1 still wouldn't have killed him. But one of the women he tricked was Miss Josephine Webster, whom I had come to love. She came to me, crying and sobbing, and told me the whole story. I knew he was up at Pendlebury's. I was going to curse him, sack him, punch him on the nose, that was all. The stables were empty apart from Paul. I saw him with the syringe, I knew what was in it, what the operation was and something took over and the next thing I knew he was dead. I slipped off without anyone seeing me. I thought I was safe. I was furious when I realized he had taken a double mortgage out on that house, so instead of gaining by his death, I lost. Josephine and I were going to announce our engagement after the fuss had died down. She knew what I had done. Then that Josephs woman came here. She said Paul had tricked her and she was going to tell the police the truth. She said Paul had told her that I had encouraged him to dupe the women out of money. I promised to pay her back. Then I panicked when Josephine phoned me and told me that you, you Nosy-Parking bitch, were about to hear all from Mrs Josephs. Josephine told me she suffered from diabetes. But still I didn't mean to do it if she saw sense. I tried to give her the money back, but the silly old bat wouldn't take it. She said she was going to the police after talking to you. I jabbed the Adrenalin into her. The minute she was dead, I went into a blind panic. I dragged her upstairs in the hope that when she was found dead in the bathroom, they would think it suicide or accident. I chucked the empty bottle out of the car window, as if by getting rid of it, I had got rid of the stain of murder. But you had to interfere again, you and that Lacey. 'Take her cats,' said Josephine. 'That'll shut her up.' What a mess. What a bloody mess. But I'm going to marry Josephine, and nothing's going to stop me.'

Hodge jumped up on the examining table and sat looking from one to the other.

Agatha could suddenly smell her own fear, rank and bitter, and so could the cat. Its tail puffed up like a squirrel's.

'So, Mrs Raisin, I need to get this over with. I advise you to stand still and take what's coming to you.'

His finger began to squeeze the trigger. Agatha dived under the table as a shot rang harmlessly above her head.

One beefy hand dragged her out from under the table. Panting, he threw her against the wall. Hodge flew straight into his face, clawing and spitting. In his panic, the vet tried to shoot the cat off his face but the shot went wild, smashing into a cabinet of bottles.

Agatha tried to drive the examining table into his stomach as he tore the cat from his face and flung it across the room. She had seen people in films doing that, but it was bolted to the floor. She dived to the side as he fired again, wrenched her ankle and fell on the floor.

She shut her eyes. This was it. Death at last. And suddenly Bill Wong's voice like a voice from heaven said, 'Give me the gun, Mr Rice'

There was another shot and a cry from Bill. Agatha screamed, 'Oh, no!' and then felt strong hands tugging at her and James Lacey's voice in her ear, saying, 'It's all right, Agatha. Don't look. Rice has shot himself. Don't look. Come with me. Keep your head turned away.'

Agatha rose, clinging to him, and buried her face in the rough tweed of his jacket.

Three hours later Agatha, bathed and wrapped in her dressing-gown, sat in her sitting-room with the cats on her lap, being fussed over by James.

'Bill Wong will be calling on us' he said. 'Is he grateful to us for having solved two murders for him? Not a bit of it'

'Us?' demanded Agatha. 'I was the one who found out about Rice'

1 had more or less come to the same conclusion' said James, 'although it took me some time to guess Josephine Webster was involved. What put you on to her?'

Agatha told him about finding that shred of dried petal on the doormat.

'But you should have come to me' exclaimed James, 'or told Bill Wong'

'I only thought of the cats' said Agatha. 'Funny, isn't it? I thought my heart would break when they were taken, but here they are, purring away, two animals to be cared for and fed, and now they just seem like an everyday nuisance'

'Though from what you say, Hodge saved your life' James pointed out. 'I wonder if they got Josephine Webster. I wonder if she was still sitting there in the hotel restaurant waiting. Bill and his boss went right there while we had to go to the police station and make endless statements'

'So you had worked it all out yourself?' said Agatha.

He threw another log on the fire and sat down. 'Once I had written down what everyone had done and said, Peter Rice seemed the obvious suspect. He was strong enough to have dragged Mrs Josephs up the stairs, he knew where Bladen would be on the day he was murdered, he knew about the operation on that horse. One always thinks of murderers as planning everything scientifically, but in Rice's case it was all panic and then luck. All he had to do was sit tight and let Mrs Josephs make her accusations to the police. The police wouldn't have thought the philandering and conning tactics of Paul Bladen had anything to do with Peter Rice. I think it was our nosing around that rattled him so badly'

'Don't say that,' pleaded Agatha. 'That means we are both directly responsible for Mrs Josephs's death.'

'Well, he would probably have panicked anyway'

The doorbell rang. 'That'll be Bill,' said James, 'come to read us the riot act'

Bill was on his own. 'An off-duty call' he said, sinking down wearily on the sofa beside Agatha. 'Yes, we got Webster. It must have seemed a lifetime to you, Agatha, when he was trying to kill you, but there she was, drinking martinis, just where he had left her.

'She denied the whole thing, but when we took her to the station and then told her that Rice had confessed everything to you, she broke down. Cruel thing to say, but we hadn't yet told her he was dead.

'She had been having an affair with Rice for a few months, up until Paul Bladen arrived in Carsely. Before her affair with Rice, she had been a virgin. Think of that, in this day and age. I think her affair with Rice made her feel like a femme fatale, and so, when it seemed that Bladen was courting her as well, it went right to her silly head. That snowy evening you were supposed to meet him in Evesham, that was the evening she went to his house and gave him the cheque. So the grateful Bladen took her to bed. Even if it hadn't been snowing, he probably wouldn't have turned up to meet you, Agatha. She was the one who answered the phone to you.

'But Bladen was up to his old tricks. He asked her for more money and she grew alarmed and said she could not afford any more. So he lost interest in her, and the repentant Miss Webster went back to the arms of Peter Rice and told him all about Bladen. So, to Rice, history was repeating itself. He had, I gather from what you said in your statement, Agatha, been deeply in love with Greta. Paul had taken her away. Now Paul was doing the same thing with Josephine. But what put you on to them?'

'I found a dried-up flower petal on the doormat,' said Agatha proudly, 'and realized it had probably fallen out of the note about the cats, and so I knew dried flowers meant Josephine Webster.'

Bill looked puzzled. 'We wouldn't have missed anything like that.'

'That's what I thought' said James. 'Someone brought you a bouquet of dried flowers, Agatha, the morning after, so it probably fell from that'

'Why should you be looking closely at the doormat?' exclaimed Agatha, exasperated. 'Your men were searching outside, where whoever delivered the letter had stood, as well as all over the back garden, because whoever took the cats must have got into the garden by the lane which runs between mine and James's garden. They wouldn't bother about the doormat'

'I think you'll find it came from the bouquet after all, Agatha. You made a lucky guess, and a near-fatal one for you. I'm not going to lecture you tonight on the folly of amateurs interfering. Goodness' he laughed, 'I suppose it's a case of rank amateurs setting out to catch a rank amateur'

Agatha glared.

'Anyway, I'm glad it's all over. I'm off on a special training course, so I won't see you for a few weeks' Bill stood up. 'Has the doctor seen you, Agatha?'

She shook her head.

'You'd best see him tomorrow. You're going to be a wreck when reaction sets in'

Til be all right' said Agatha, giving James an adoring look.