Agatha Raisin and The Murderous Marriage

'Jimmy started to flirt with me and then he said he'd been down to the village that afternoon and he had a couple of Cornish pasties in his room. I went along to have one because I was so hungry and we were giggling like schoolchildren at a midnight feast. One thing led to another and we ended up j spending the night together. We were very civilized about it j the next day. As far as I was concerned, it was a one-night j stand. I was married, and happily married, too, but those Cornish pasties had seduced me in the same way as vintage I champagne would have done on another occasion.'

She paused to drink more whisky thirstily.

'Do you know, I almost forgot about the whole episode? j It meant that little. Then one day, when my husband had just gone off to work - we were living in Mircester then - Jimmy I turned up. He said that unless I paid him, he would tell my j husband about our night together. I told him to get lost. It was his word against mine, and I would deny the whole thing. But j he wrote to my husband and described certain details about me and...and...my husband divorced me.'

There was a long silence.

Agatha said quietly, 'Why did you tell us this? You paid him nothing, so there would be no way anyone could find out I anything from your bank statements.'

She shrugged wearily. 'I've never told anyone. Can you imagine the shame? Thirty years of married life down the; tubes, just like that. I hated Jimmy Raisin, but I didn't kill him. I'm too much of a wimp. I was shattered. All those years of marriage, and Geoffrey, my husband, wouldn't forgive me. He rushed the divorce through. I was amazed at the generous settlement, and then I found out why. I found out why after the divorce because that's when your best friends come forward and tell you what they should have told you before. He'd been having an affair with a woman in his office and all I did was hand him a big golden opportunity on a plate.'

'This Mrs. Gore-Appleton,' said James. 'Didn't Jimmy talk about her, explain to you why he was there with her?'

'He said she was some sort of do-gooder who was paying for his treatment, but that was all. We didn't talk much except about the health farm and joked about the awful exercises and the food.'

She began to cry quietly. 'We're sorry,' said Agatha. 'We're just trying to find out who murdered Jimmy.'

She dried her eyes and blew her nose. 'Why? Who cares?'

'Until we find out who murdered him, we're all suspects, even you.'

Her eyes widened in alarm. 'I shouldn't have told you about sleeping with Jimmy. You won't tell the police?'

And the two amateur detectives, who were still smarting over having been told to keep out of the investigations, both nodded their heads. 'We won't tell,' said Agatha. She fished in her handbag and found one of her cards. 'Here's my address and number. If you can think of any little thing that might help, please let me know.'

'All right. I'm thinking already.'

'You see,' said James, 'if we could find this Mrs. Gore-Appleton, I feel we could get somewhere. There's no evidence that she was in on this blackmailing lark. Jimmy was taking only five hundred pounds a month from Sir Desmond Der-rington. Mrs. Gore-Appleton gave an address in Mayfair to the health farm. Mind you, it seems to have been a false address, but believe me, if she had been in on the act, I feel the demand would have been higher. I don't know why. Just an idea. What was she like?'

Mrs. Comfort frowned. 'Let me see...blonde, good figure, bit muscular, loud laugh, sort of plummy voice, was very close to Jimmy but more like a mother looking after her child.'

James remembered Miss Purvey saying that she had seen Jimmy going into Mrs. Gore-Appleton's bedroom one night but kept silent. 'She didn't speak to me much or to anyone else, for that matter,' Mrs. Comfort went on. 'Apart from Jimmy, that is.' Her watery eyes suddenly focused sharply on Agatha. 'Why did you marry him?'

Agatha remembered Jimmy when they had first married - reckless, handsome, full of fun. Then Jimmy slowly sinking into alcoholic stupors while she worked hard as a waitress, Jimmy surfacing occasionally from an alcoholic coma to beat her. Their marriage had been short and violent and she could still remember that feeling of glorious freedom when she had walked out on him for the last time, never to return.

'I was very young,' she said. 'Jimmy began to drink heavily soon after we were married and so I left him. End of story.'

James said suddenly, 'Be careful, Mrs. Comfort.'

'Why?'

'There's a murderer at large and it's someone who was at that health farm, I'm sure of it. Someone recognized Miss Purvey and decided to shut her up. It could be that Jimmy had something on Miss Purvey and was blackmailing her. That someone could be carrying on the blackmail where Jimmy left off. Are you sure there is nothing else you can remember, however small and insignificant it might seem, which might help?'

'There was only one stupid thing,' she said. 'It's about Mrs. Gore-Appleton.'

'What's that?' asked Agatha eagerly.

'Well, there were times when I thought she would have made a very good man.'

James and Agatha stared at her in surprise.

'It's just a feeling. She had a very muscular body. She wasn't exactly mannish. It was just something about her. Have you checked out everyone else who was there at the same time as me?'

James shook his head. 'Just the ones who lived near Mircester. There was Sir Desmond. Then there was Miss Purvey, and then yourself.'

'But why did you assume the murderer was someone from near Mircester?'

'Because Jimmy Raisin was murdered in Carsely. It must have been someone who lives locally'. 'But if you're dealing with a blackmailer, or maybe a couple of blackmailers,' protested Mrs. Comfort, 'then they could have followed their victims to London or Manchester or wherever! Then Jimmy Raisin could have let slip that he was going to your wedding.'

'I don't like that idea,' said Agatha. 'A friend of ours got a detective to find Jimmy Raisin and he was living in a packing-case at Waterloo. He was hardly in a state to go around blackmailing anyone.'

'But when he heard you were getting married, he managed to get down to Mircester all right. He could have sobered up enough to go out from his packing-case to try one of his old victims and then said something like, oh, 'I'm going to Mircester.''

Agatha groaned. 'How many people were there at the same time as you?'

'Not many. It's so expensive. Only about thirty of us.'

'Thirty,' echoed Agatha in a hollow voice.

'It's got to be someone local,' insisted James.

'But who?' demanded Agatha. 'It's obviously not Mrs. Comfort here. Miss Purvey is dead. Sir Desmond is dead. Who's left?'

'Both of you,' suggested Mrs. Comfort with a tinge of malice in her voice.

'Or Lady Derrington,' said James. 'What about Lady Derrington? She may have known about the blackmail all along and decided to get rid of Jimmy herself.'

'Or what about Sir Desmond?' put in Agatha. 'He could have killed Jimmy and then committed suicide in a fit of remorse.'

'So who killed Miss Purvey?'

'That could have been Lady Derrington,' said Agatha eagerly. 'Miss Purvey said she was going to do some detecting. What if she knew something about the Derringtons?'

'Or,' said Mrs. Comfort, 'it could have been that woman Derrington was having an affair with.'

They both looked at her in surprise. Then James said slowly, 'We never thought of her.'

Mrs. Comfort suddenly stood up. 'Well, if that's all...?'

They got to their feet as well, thanked her for her hospitality, put their glasses on the horrible bar, and left.

Mrs. Comfort watched them go, watched them get into James's car, watched them drive off. Then she picked up the phone.

Maddie was seated that evening at the Wongs' family dining table and wondering how soon she could