Agatha Raisin and The Murderous Marriage

'I am beginning to find you a trifle impertinent, Mr. Adder.'

'Forgive me. I was only trying to help.'

James rose and escaped upstairs, where he told Agatha, with a certain amount of relish, that he was now regarded as a sponger of the first order who was bullied by his wife.

To Agatha's high irritation, the blonde beauty who led the aerobics class came out to say goodbye to James. Agatha waited angrily in the car, wondering what they were talking about. She saw James take out his notebook and write something down. Her phone number? Agatha's jealousy flared up. James was no longer hers and therefore prey to every blonde harpy who wanted to get her painted claws into him. By the time James finished his conversation, Agatha was feeling quite weepy.

At last James climbed into the driving seat. 'What was that all about?' asked Agatha, trying to keep her voice light.

'Oh, chit-chat,' he said. 'I think we should head straight for London to that address in Charles Street.'

The journey was completed in almost total silence, Agatha wrestling with a jumble of unwanted emotions and James immersed in his own thoughts.

At Charles Street, off Berkeley Square, they drew a blank. No Mrs. Gore-Appleton had ever lived there.

'Didn't she pay by cheque or credit card?' asked Agatha.

'No, cash. It was on the records.'

'Damn. Now what?'

'Back to Carsely for the night. Then we'll try Sir Desmond Derrington tomorrow.'

Agatha could not sleep that night. She was determined to find out what James had written down in that notebook while he had been talking to the aerobics woman.

She waited until she was sure that James was asleep and then crept along to his room. It was brightly lit by moonlight and she could see his trousers hanging over the back of a chair, with the edge of that notebook sticking out of the back pocket.

Keeping a cautious eye on the sleeping figure on the bed, Agatha gently eased the notebook out and carried it back through to her room. She flicked it open and turned to the last entry. In James's cramped handwriting, which the eyes of love had taught her to decipher, 'Co-Dependency Anonymous,' Agatha read with amazement. There followed a London address and a 'contact' number.

The bitch, thought Agatha, forgetting for the moment that she was supposed to be a fickle and domineering woman whose husband was dependent on her cash.

'So now you've satisfied your curiosity, madam, do you think I could have my notebook back?' James's voice rang from the doorway.

Agatha flushed guiltily. 'I was only looking at those names you found in the office.'

'Wrong page,' he said. 'You're supposed to be a bullying rich woman and I'm supposed to be a wimp of a leech, remember? Hence the therapy suggestion.'

'I thought you were asleep,' was all Agatha could think of saying.

'I wake easily, as you should know.'

'Sorry, James,' mumbled Agatha. 'Go back to bed.'

FOUR

SIR Desmond Derrington lived in a pleasant Cotswold mansion a few miles outside Mircester on the Oxford road. As they approached it, Agatha saw a poster stuck on a tree-trunk beside the road which advertised the fact that Sir Desmond's gardens were open that day to the public.

'I hope he's there,' said James when it was pointed out to him. 'I hope he hasn't gone off and left the local village ladies to show people around.'

Agatha, desperate for anyone who looked like a murderer, felt disappointed when she first saw Sir Desmond. He was bending over an ornamental shrub and explaining its history and planting to a fat woman who was shifting her bulk uneasily and looking as if she wished she had never asked about it. Sir Desmond looked like a pillar of the community, middle-aged, greying, long-nosed, and married to a rangy loud-voiced wife who was holding forth in another part of the garden. Lady Derrington was wearing a short-sleeved cotton print dress despite the chill of the day and had a hard fiat bottom and a hard flat chest. Her brown hair was rigidly permed and her patrician nose looked down at each flower and plant with a faintly patronizing air, as if all had sprung from the earth without her permission.

The fat woman waddled away from Sir Desmond and James approached him. 'I was admiring that fine wisteria you've got on the wall over there,' he said.

'Oh, that.' Sir Desmond blinked myopically in the direction of the house wall. 'Very fine in the spring. Masses of blossom.'

'I'm experiencing a bit of difficulty with mine,' said James. 'I planted it two years ago but it hasn't grown very much and has very few blossoms.'

'Where did you get it from?'

'Brakeham's Nurseries.'

'Them!' Sir Demond gave a contemptuous snort. 'Wouldn't get anything from there. Hetty, my wife, got given a present of a hydrangea from there. Died after a week. And do you know why?' Sir Desmond poked James in the chest with a long finger. 'Wo roots.'

'How awful. I'll give them a clear berth in future.'

Agatha was approaching to join them. Then she heard Sir Desmond say, 'Lot of charlatans about. Where are you from?'

'Carsely.'

'Do you know I went to see the gardens there when they were open to the public and some woman had bought everything fully grown from a nursery and tried to pretend she had planted the lot from seed. Didn't even know the names of anything.'

Recognizing a description of herself, Agatha veered off, leaving the conversation to James.

She approached Lady Derrington instead. 'Nice garden,' said Agatha.

'Thank you,' said Lady Derrington. 'We have some plants for sale on tables over by the house. Very reasonable prices. And there are tea and cakes. Our housekeeper makes very good cakes. Just follow the crowd. Why, Angela, darling, how wonderful to see you!'

She turned away. Agatha looked back at James. He was now deep in conversation with Sir Desmond. Judging they had moved from the subject of that dreadful woman in Carsely, Agatha went to join them. They were swapping army stories. Agatha fidgeted and stifled a yawn.

'I was just about to take a break and have some tea,' said Sir Desmond finally. 'Do join us. The women from the village are quite capable of coping with this crowd.'

James introduced Agatha as his wife, Mrs. Perth. Agatha was surprised that he should maintain that bit of deception, but James did not want Sir Desmond to remember Agatha as the gardening cheat of Carsely.

Sir Desmond walked them over to his wife and introduced them. Lady Derrington seemed slightly displeased that two strangers should have been invited for tea. Agatha suspected that she would have been better pleased if they had paid for it.

They found themselves in a pleasant drawing-room. The green leaves of the wisteria fluttered and moved outside the windows, dappling the room in a mixture of sunlight and shadow. Two sleepy dogs rose at their entrance and yawned and stretched before curling down and going to sleep again. Lady Derrington threw a log on the fire and then poured tea. No cakes, noticed Agatha with a beady eye. Only some rather hard biscuits. She wanted a cigarette but there was no ashtray in sight.

They answered questions about Carsely and then James leaned back in his chair, stretched his long legs, and said with seeming casualness, 'My wife and I have just returned from a short stay at Hunters Fields.'

Sir Desmond was lifting a cup of tea to his lips. His hand holding the cup paused in mid-air. 'What's that?' he