'Oh, he's not in London. He's at police headquarters in Mircester. He left me a note.'
'That's odd. He phoned me and told me to look after you. I did the one-four-seven-one dialling thing as soon as he had hung up. It was a London number.'
'Maybe he decided to go on from there,' said Agatha.
The phone in the living room rang out. 'Excuse me.' Mrs. Hardy went to answer it. Agatha heard her say, 'No, I haven't seen her today.' The phone was replaced. It promptly rang again. Agatha realised with surprise that Mrs. Hardy must have answered it for in the quiet of the cottage she could hear a little tinny voice yapping from the other end and yet Mrs. Hardy said nothing in reply. When Mrs. Hardy came into the kitchen, Agatha said, 'There's someone on the line. I can hear the voice from here.'
'Oh, it's one of those nuisance calls. Heavy breathing and all.' Mrs. Hardy went back and slammed down the receiver and then took the phone off the hook.
'I've just remembered,' said Mrs. Hardy. 'I have to go out. But stay there and finish your coffee while I go upstairs and get some things.'
Agatha nodded and sipped her coffee. Finally, feeling bored, she got up and looked in the kitchen cupboards in a nosy sort of way. Then she slid open the drawers. In one were some photographs. She flipped through them idly and then stared at amazement. She was looking down at the face of her husband, sitting next to a hard-faced blonde woman, somewhere in France at an outdoor cafe.
And then as she looked closer she remembered something about this Mrs. Gore-Appleton having taken Jimmy to the south of France. The face looked familiar. Those eyes with the mocking look, that hard mouth.
She slowly closed the drawer and stood hanging on to the kitchen counter. What fools they had all been. It was so dreadfully simple. Mrs. Hardy was Mrs. Gore-Appleton. It must have been she who recognized Miss Purvey in the cinema that day, even though she had said she was going to London. The mercenary Helen Warwick must somehow have decided to call on James and had spotted Mrs. Gore-Appleton and recognized her. They must have spoken.
Mrs. Gore-Appleton was so changed in appearance that Helen might have said something like, 'Aren't you that woman I met at the health farm?' Something like that. And did Mrs. Gore-Appleton try to bribe her? Say she would call on her in London? What was the address? That sort of thing. And Helen might have gone along with it, hoping to make some money.
The sound of Mrs. Gore-Appleton coming down the stairs made Agatha's blood freeze.
Had Agatha not been so disoriented by the fever, which was rising again, she would have done the sensible thing and left immediately and called the police. But a sort of dizzy outrage took hold of her and she said, 'Mrs. Gore-Appleton, I presume.' She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. 'I saw the photo of you and Jimmy in that drawer.'
'You truly are a village person, poking your nose into things.' Mrs. Gore-Appleton was standing, her bulk blocking the doorway.
Agatha could have asked her why she had murdered three people, but instead she heard herself saying stupidly, 'Why Carsely? And why this cottage?'
'I wanted out of London,' said Mrs. Gore-Appleton. 'I'd tried living in Spain, but it didn't suit. I'd asked a house agent to look for a place in the Cotswolds. I was sent several brochures and decided to come down and have a look around. I heard your name mentioned as one of the sellers. I didn't know you had been married to Jimmy, he never mentioned your name or that he had been married, but the name amused me, and so I bought this.'
'And Jimmy came back and recognized you and tried to put the screws on?'
'Exactly. I'd changed my name to Gore-Appleton with some false papers. When I wound up the charity, I just reverted to my old name.'
'Why didn't you kill me?' asked Agatha, her eyes darting this way and that, looking for a weapon.
'Well, do you know, I did try by setting fire to Lacey's cottage but in case some villager saw me at the scene, I had to look as if I was trying to put it out. Then I took rather a liking to you, and I saw a further way to remove any suspicion from myself and so hired someone to play the part of the gunman. That kick of mine was very well rehearsed.'
'Who was that on the phone just now?' demanded Agatha. 'The police?'
'No, it was the interfering vicar's wife, demanding to know where you were for some suspicious reason.'
Agatha braced her shoulders. Mrs. Gore-Appleton had no weapon. 'I am going to walk past you and phone the police,' she said.
Mrs. Gore-Appleton stood aside. 'I am not going to stop you, I am tired of running. At least they don't have the death penalty any more.'
She stood aside.
Agatha marched past her and into the living-room. She put the receiver back on the hook and lifted it again and began to dial Mircester Police Headquarters.
Mrs. Gore-Appleton, who had crept up behind her, brought a brass poker down hard on Agatha's head.
With a groan, Agatha slumped to the floor.
'Silly woman.' Mrs. Gore-Appleton gave her a kick and replaced the receiver.
She went out into the back garden and into the potting-shed at the end and found a spade. She tore out some of Agatha's finest shrubs and tossed them on the lawn and then began to dig a grave, thankful that the soil was loose and easily dug.
Then she returned to the living-room and felt the unconscious Agatha's pulse. She was still alive, but burying would soon solve that problem, thought Mrs. Gore-Appleton. She seized Agatha by the ankles and dragged her through the kitchen and out into the garden, Agatha's wounded head leaving a trail of blood across the paving- stones just outside the door. Then across the lawn she was dragged and tipped face-down into the grave.
'RIP, Agatha dear,' she said, and threw the first shovelful of earth into the grave. She was so intent on her job, with her back to the house, that she was not aware of anyone arriving until Fred Griggs seized her and threw her to the ground while Bill Wong jumped into the grave and frantically began shovelling the earth from Agatha with his bare hands.
Agatha regained consciousness in hospital to find Bill Wong sitting beside the bed. 'You're all right,' said Bill. 'But take it easy. I'll get a statement from you later.'
Agatha looked around in a dazed way. She was in a private room. There were flowers everywhere. Then her eyes widened. 'It was Mrs. Gore-Appleton all along. What happened?'
'You had a narrow escape,' said Bill. 'She hit you hard with the poker, dug a grave in the garden, and then tried to bury you alive. Are you up to all this? I'll go if you want to.'
'No, stay,' said Agatha weakly, but her eyes began to close and she fell asleep. When she awoke again, she felt much stronger and found out from a doctor that part of her hair had been shaved off and stitches put in her head. After more checks, she was told she would do very well provided she rested quietly. Agatha's next visitor was Mrs. Bloxby.
'I am so glad to see you alive,' said the vicar's wife, arranging a bunch of grapes in a bowl. 'Do you know, it was quite a coincidence. I thought and thought what Mrs. Hardy - I think I'll call her that because that is her real name - well, I thought what she had said and then I began to think of the fire and the gunman and I began to get a bad feeling. I phoned her to see if you were there, for I had called your cottage first. She said you weren't there and somehow, I cannot explain why, I thought you were. I phoned again and demanded if she had seen you and then I realized she had walked away from the phone. Then I thought I heard your voice in the background before the receiver was replaced. I put on my coat and hurried along to Lilac Lane and saw the police car outside. She tried to bury you alive. Such wickedness.'
Bill Wong came in. 'I brought you some chocolate,' he said.
'Sit down,' urged Agatha, 'and tell me all about it.'
'She talked and talked,' said Bill. 'I think she's a bit mad. She had been running her bent charity when she came across Jimmy. He must have been a wreck, but I tell you something. She actually fell in love with him, hence the slim figure and blonded hair and holiday in the south of France. The blackmailing after the health-farm stay was Jimmy's idea, but she went along with it.
'And then, by coincidence, Jimmy saw her the day of your wedding and decided to blackmail her. She gave him her address and told him to call on her early in the morning. She witnessed his row with you, but she was
