thought it was all just not worth the effort. Because she's a cold bitch. There are gold-diggers and career-diggers, and your precious Maddie is a career-digger. Aloud she said, 'A lot of women are surprisingly terrified of marriage, particularly if they are interested in their jobs. But I don't suppose that makes you feel any better. Rejection is a pain in the bum. Have another drink, something stronger.'
'I'm driving.'
'And I feel like getting drunk,' said Agatha. 'We'll take a cab back. James can drive you back to Mircester and then take a cab home.'
'Hadn't you better phone him and ask him?'
'No, he'll do it. Let's drink. Change over to the hard stuff.'
James Lacey was none too pleased to find a tipsy Agatha and Bill weaving on his doorstep at half past eleven at night and to learn that he had to drive Bill to Mircester and then pay for a cab back. Nor was he pleased that Agatha and Bill travelled in the back seat with their arms around each other, roaring out raucous songs.
His face stiff with disapproval, he drove Bill home in Bill's car, which he had picked up outside the White Hart. Bill phoned for a cab. James planned to give Agatha a piece of his mind on the road home, but she promptly fell asleep and snored, with her head lolling against his shoulder.
After having paid the cab, driven his own car from More-ton, and helped Agatha indoors and upstairs to her bedroom, he went down to the living-room, feeling angry and left out. Why should Wong want to discuss the case with Agatha and leave him out in the cold? What was going on there?
SIX
IN the morning, a hung-over Agatha Raisin crept downstairs to receive a taste of what marriage to James might have been like.
'That was incredibly selfish behaviour last night, Agatha. You should be ashamed of yourself!'
'James, can't you wait till I get a cup of coffee?'
'Selfish!' James paced up and down the small kitchen. 'I thought we were in this investigation together, and yet you pair go off. I went to the Red Lion but you hadn't gone there. The next thing I know, you are both back here drunk at closing time. I have to run you back to Moreton, leave my car, run Bill home, get a cab back to Moreton to pick up my own car - well, it's just too much.'
Agatha poured a cup of coffee with a shaking hand and then lit a cigarette. James angrily jerked open the kitchen window, letting in a blast of cold autumn air. 'And that's a filthy habit, Agatha. This whole house is beginning to stink of cigarette smoke.'
'Leave me alone,' wailed Agatha, slumping down at the kitchen table.
There was a ring at the bell. James stumped off to answer it. Soon he was back. 'It's that Mrs. Hardy for you. I didn't invite her in.'
Curiosity momentarily banishing her pounding hangover, Agatha went to the door.
'Good morning,' said Mrs. Hardy. 'I am reconsidering your offer.'
Hope shone in Agatha's eyes. 'You mean I can buy my cottage back?'
'If you wish.'
'I'll get dressed and come along and see you,' said Agatha eagerly.
'Don't take all day about it. I'm going out.'
Agatha went upstairs and hurriedly washed and dressed. 'Going next door,' she called to James. 'The Hardy woman's prepared to sell.'
Seated a few minutes later in Mrs. Hardy's kitchen and studying her covertly, Agatha wondered if she herself in the not-so-far-off days had been a bit like this Mrs. Hardy, blunt and abrasive.
'Why do you want to sell?' asked Agatha.
'Does it matter? Carsely does not suit.' She poured herself a cup of coffee but did not offer Agatha any.
So they got down to business. Agatha at last rose at the I end of it, feeling weak and not only with hangover. Mrs. Hardy drove a hard bargain. Agatha would have to pay a lot more to get her cottage back than Mrs. Hardy had given her for it. Later, Agatha was to Wonder why she had not tried to hold off a little, to drive the price down, but she was so eager to have her old home back and get from living with James that she had agreed to the price Mrs. Hardy had named.
'Great news,' she said to James when she returned. 'The Hardy creature is selling me back my cottage.'
'How much?'
'A lot'. 'Is it worth it, Agatha? You can stay here as long as you like.'
Agatha threw him a frustrated look. She could not be herself, living with James. He did most of the cooking and cleaning. She realized that even if they had married, it would probably have been just the same. She lived as if in a hotel, carefully keeping her clothes and belongings to the spare room; trying to remember to scrub out the bath every time, realizing that she was quite a messy person. Housekeepers, thought Agatha, were born, not made. Being a good housekeeper was a separate talent, like being a ballet dancer or opera singer. Being brought up in a slum, where food came out of cans and cleaning was sporadic and clothes often were not washed from one week to the other, didn't help one in future life. While she had had her own house, James had only seen the best of her. Had she suffered then from this hangover, she would have stayed indoors until she got rid of it, and then emerged, made up and dressed to kill. She ran an exploratory finger over her upper lip. A stiff, little couple of hairs were sprouting there. She felt they were waving their antennae at James like insects. She made a hurried excuse and went up to the bathroom, waxed her upper lip clean, opened the bathroom window and tossed the wax out into the bushes, planning to retrieve it later and hide it in the kitchen garbage where James would not spot it. It's such hard work being middle-aged, thought Agatha bleakly, and it will get much worse when I'm old, what with farting and incontinence and falling hair and teeth. God, I wish I were dead. And on that cheerful thought she went back downstairs.
'Bill and I weren't talking about the case,' she said to James's rigid back as he stood over the cooker scrambling eggs. 'Maddie's rejected him and he is deeply hurt.'
'Oh.' James's back relaxed. 'And you didn't tell him about our visit to Gloria Comfort?'
'No,' said Agatha. 'We got drunk to comfort him. Stupid, I know, and you were really good to take him home. Maddie may be a pill, but he's mourning her all the same.'
James slid a plate of fluffy scrambled eggs under Agatha's nose. 'Eat that and you'll feel better.'
'Nothing will make me feel better but the passing of time and the first stiff Scotch,' said Agatha, but she managed to eat some of the egg and a piece of toast.
The doorbell went again and she clutched her head and groaned. 'If that's anyone for me, get rid of them, James. I can't even bear to see Mrs. Bloxby.'
But James returned with Bill, Maddie, and Wilkes. Agatha felt her stomach lurch.
'Now,' said Wilkes severely, 'I gather from descriptions received that you and Mr. Lacey here called on a Mrs. Gloria Comfort yesterday.'
Agatha bleakly marvelled at the life of the English village. It had seemed completely deserted when they had called on Mrs. Comfort, but hidden eyes had probably taken in every detail of their appearance.
'She's not
'Mrs. Gloria Comfort packed up after you left, deposited her keyes at the local police station, and said she was going on holiday to Spain. She took a flight to Madrid from Heathrow, hired a car at the Madrid airport and took off for God knows where. Now what we want to know is what did you say to her?'
'And why,' said Maddie in a flat voice, 'were you calling on any suspect when you had been told not to?'
'It's a free country,' said Agatha. 'Anyway, she hadn't much to say. She said she wasn't being blackmailed by Jimmy, even after we told her the police would probably examine her bank accounts to make sure. She said nothing about going to Spain.'
The questioning began in earnest. They told them everything, except the bit about Mrs. Comfort spending the night with Jimmy.
