'Why don't you come into my place,' he said. 'I'll light up the computer and we could start putting down some ideas.'
How much I would have enjoyed this only a few days ago, thought Agatha, after she had agreed and followed him into his book-lined living-room, before the fact of his affair with Mary destroyed silly hopeful innocence.
He got them mugs of coffee and switched on the computer.
'Right,' he said. 'Let's start with the attacks on the gardens and list all those whose gardens were destroyed. You didn't suffer.'
'No, but I've got the gates to the back, the one at the side of the house, padlocked.'
'Okay.' He tapped the keys. 'We have the Boggles, Miss Simms, Mrs Mason...What is it?' For Agatha had put a hand on his arm.
'What if Mary did it? What if some maddened gardener took his revenge?'
They both looked at each other, both thinking of smooth, cool and plastic Mary creeping around the gardens of Carsely.
'No, I suppose not,' said Agatha.
'I'm afraid we're going to have to adopt your idea and start asking questions. But there's not much we can do until the press thin out.'
'We could go to the pub this evening,' said Agatha hopefully. 'Perhaps when the locals have had a drink or two, they'll open up. I mean, the conversation will be about nothing else.'
'Good idea.' He switched off the computer and smiled at Agatha. 'We'll leave it for the moment.'
To his surprise, Agatha said, 'Right you are. See you later.' She picked up her handbag and left. Before, she would have stayed for as long as possible, ignoring any hints that it was time to go. Agatha returned to her own home, feeling she had scored a victory over her own juvenile emotions. But her elation was short-lived. For on the doorstep was Bill Wong with a group of men.
'I'm sorry about this, Mrs Raisin,' said Bill formally. 'But we are searching the houses in the village for anyone who knew Mary Fortune, and I'm afraid you can't be excluded.'
'Do you have a search warrant?' asked Agatha feebly.
'Come on, now. You know we can get one. What have you got to hide?'
'Joke,' said Agatha miserably.
It was not the search of the house that troubled her but the dread moment when they moved out into the garden. The small group of men surveyed the neat lawn bordered by well-weeded empty flowerbeds. One scratched his head and said, 'You're a woman after my heart, Mrs Raisin. Can't stand gardening myself. But why such a high fence? I see it's got a top section which could be lifted off and let some of the sun in.'
'I don't like nosy neighbours,' said Agatha defiantly.
'But the only person who could see into your garden is that Mr Lacey next door,' said another. 'Doesn't look the nosy type to me.'
'Just get on with what you have to do,' snapped Agatha and turned on her heel and walked back into the kitchen.
The case simply had to be solved before Open Day or these coppers would still be around and would know she had created an instant garden, that she had cheated.
At last the search was over. Bill Wong stayed behind.
'Has the daughter arrived?' asked Agatha, setting a mug of coffee down in front of him.
'Yes, her name is Beth Fortune and she is studying history at Oxford. She has brought a boyfriend with her who turns out to be the stranger you saw in the pub the day she was killed.'
Agatha's eyes gleamed. 'There's the motive. Beth inherits the lot and gets him to do the dirty work. Does he explain what he was doing in the village?'
'His name is John Deny. He said he had been visiting friends in Warwick, and on the road home he decided to call in at Carsely. He had heard about it from Beth, he said, and was curious to see the village. He had not called on Mary because he had met her once with Beth for a lunch in Oxford and she had taken a dislike to him. We checked with his friends in Warwick and they swear he was there until seven in the evening.'
'And when was Mary killed?'
'They're still finding out when and how.'
'Will you let me know?'
'Agatha, whoever killed Mary Fortune is mad and dangerous. Leave it alone.'
'Okay,' said Agatha meekly, and Bill looked at her suspiciously.
Six
It had been a week since the murder, and the national press had exhausted every angle. Just when it looked as if interest was dying, some reporter found out that Mrs Josephs, the librarian, had been murdered in that very cottage, and that brought down the feature writers from the noisier tabloids to describe the 'house of death', and the more respectable heavies kept it going by sneering at the Grub Street tabloids and repeating paragraphs out of the 'house of death' stories to prove their point, which was their traditional way of seeming to avoid sensationalism while indulging in it.
But a week is a long time in journalism, and so it was left to the local papers and news agencies to keep tabs on developments while the television people packed up their cameras and sound equipment and satellite dishes and went back to town.
Agatha and James had had a non-productive evernng in the Red Lion and so had decided to let the dust settle before they started on their inquiries. It was James who reported at last to Agatha that the daughter, Beth, and her boyfriend were in residence at Mary's cottage, that the press had gone from the gate and the policeman from the door. It was time to make a move.
There was to be no funeral in the village. The body, when finally released by the pathologist, was to be cremated in Oxford and the ashes scattered out to sea at some point within the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. That much, said James, as he sat in Agatha's kitchen, he had gleaned from Mrs Bloxby. He had asked if there was to be a memorial service in the church, and Mrs Bloxby, he said, had been strangely cold and had said that was a matter for Mrs Fortune's family and the villagers to decide.
'It seems,' said Agatha, 'that the villagers will not really say what they thought of Mary until they've been given some time. I think the same applies to you. Mary was nasty to me on several occasions, so it follows she must have been nasty to other people. From what you said, or more from what you did not say, I think she was particularly poisonous to you in a highly personal way when you ended the affair, and yet you continued to see her on a friendly basis. Why?'
He hesitated for a long moment, looking down into his coffee cup as if seeking inspiration. Then he looked up with a wry smile and said, 'Shame and guilt. Guilt because I felt I had really hurt her. Shame because I felt I should never have had an affair with such as Mary. Also arrogance. I wanted to persuade myself that she was really all right and that we could be friends. As if any kind of emotional involvement can ever turn into friendship.'
Too right, thought Agatha gloomily, wondering if she would ever get over a feeling of wistfulness when she looked at him.
'There was something else,' he said quietly, 'something I have only realized now. I think that somewhere inside Mary was a capacity for violence.'
'Interesting, but it doesn't get us anywhere,' Agatha pointed out. 'Someone laid violent hands on
'But don't you see,' he said eagerly, 'violence can beget violence. And it's usually in the family. We must try to find out where her ex-husband is and whether he is in this country. I gathered she was married in America, in Los Angeles.'
'She said she lived in New York!'
'Well, she may have moved there after the divorce.'
Agatha rose to her feet. 'I think we should get on with making a call on the daughter. Does the daughter
