Agatha Raisin and The Murderous Marriage

'Go on,' said Agatha, momentarily diverted from her troubles. 'Who?'

'Maddie Hurd.'

'That hatchet-faced creature.'

'Now, you are not to talk about her like that, Agatha. Maddie's bright and clever and...and...I think she cares for me.'

'Oh, well, chacun a son gout, as we say back at the buildings. Or everyone to their own bag. But if they think James did it, they're wasting time. Look, Harry Symes saw me. Didn't he see anyone else on the road?'

Bill shook his head. 'I've got to be getting back. I'll call on you as soon as I hear anything more.'

Agatha thought of asking him for a lift back to Carsely but then decided she had endured enough of the police for one day and went off to get a cab at the rank in the square. Bill went back to police headquarters. Maddie was waiting for him.

'Get anything out of her about Lacey?' asked Maddie eagerly.

Bill told her what Agatha had said, feeling treacherous because Maddie had sent him to find out what he could from Agatha.

'She trusts you,' said Maddie. 'Keep close to her.'

'Are you doing anything tonight?' asked Bill eagerly. 'I thought we could take in a movie.'

'Not tonight, Bill,' said Maddie. 'Too much to do. And don't you want to be around when they pull Lacey in?'

'Of course,' said Bill, banishing romantic pictures of the back row of the cinema and his arm around Maddie's shoulders.

There was only one good thing, thought Agatha wearily as she paid off the taxi outside her cottage - nothing else could possibly happen that day. That was until she turned around and saw a large, tweedy woman standing by the gate.

'Have you forgotten me, Mrs. Raisin?' demanded the woman. 'I am Mrs. Hardy, to whom you sold this cottage, and I am appalled to see your stuff is still here.'

'I know we signed the papers and everything, but I told the estate agents it was now not for sale,' said Agatha desperately.

'You took my money. This cottage is mine!'

'Mrs. Hardy,' pleaded Agatha, 'cannot we come to some arrangement? I will buy it back from you and you will make a profit.'

'No, this place suits me. I am moving in tomorrow evening. Get all your stuff out or I will take you to court.'

Agatha pushed past her, put her key in the door, let herself in and went wearily through to the kitchen. How could she, who prided herself on her business sense, have assumed that because she had told the estate agents the house was no longer on the market, all she would have to do was to transfer the money for the sale back to Mrs. Hardy?

She glanced at the clock. She phoned the removal company and told them to call the following morning and take her stuff into storage. She then went along to the Red Lion, where she knew they often let out rooms to holiday-makers. But the landlord, John Fletcher, mumbled that he did not have anything to spare and would not meet her eyes. No one else in the pub seemed to want to talk to her.

Agatha left her drink untouched in the bar and walked out. There was now nothing left for her in Carsely. The only thing left for her was to move back to the anonymity of London with her cats and wait for death. She was comforting her battered soul with equally gloomy thoughts when she turned into Lilac Lane. Her heart began to thud.

James Lacey was getting out of his car outside his cottage. He went round to the boot, unlocked it and took out two large suitcases. Then, as if aware of beingjwatched, his shoulders stiffened. He put down the suitcases and turned around.

A weary Agatha came towards him. The rash had gone from her face, leaving it unnaturally white, and there were purple bruises under her eyes.

'Where did they find you?' asked Agatha.

'I hadn't gone far,' he said. 'I stayed the night at the Wold Hotel in Mircester and had nearly reached Oxford when a police car flagged me down. They couldn't hold me. Too many witnesses to the fact that I was far from Carsely at the time of the murder. How's Mrs. Bloxby?'

'All right, I suppose.' Agatha looked surprised. 'Why?'

'Well, she found the body.'

'What?'

'They didn't tell you?'

'They didn't tell me a damn thing. They charged me with the murder and then asked me the same questions over and over again, but they didn't tell me how he was killed or who had found him. The bastards let me go on thinking that it was all my fault, that I had pushed him and he had broken his neck or something. Then they said they were dropping the charges because Jimmy had been strangled with a man's silk tie and that there were masculine footprints found near the body.'

There was a silence and then James asked, 'Have the press been bothering you?'

'By some miracle, no.'

'I suppose they'll be all over the village by tomorrow.'

'It won't bother me,' sighed Agatha. 'I've got to leave. I sold my cottage to a Mrs. Hardy and, like a fool, I thought I could cancel the sale. But she's moving in tomorrow and I'm out. I went to the Red Lion to see if I could take a room there, but it seems I am still number-one suspect in the village. John Fletcher said he hadn't a room, he wouldn't even look me in the eye, and neither would anyone else.'

'But, Agatha, you told me all about the Hardy woman and that you didn't like her much but she had offered a good price. How on earth could you expect her to change her mind?'

'I don't find myself disgraced in a registry office every day and then accused of murder. I wasn't thinking straight. I just want to get away, from you, from everyone.'

He picked up his suitcases and then put them down again. 'I really don't think that's the answer, Agatha.'

'And what is?'

'I assume we both still want to stay here?'

Agatha shook her head.

'You do what you like,' said James, 'but until I find out who killed your husband, despite every proof to the contrary, we are both going to be suspected of his murder.'

'I don't know,' said Agatha wretchedly. 'I've got to get all that stuff of mine moved out and into storage again and then I have to think where I will live.'

'You can move into my spare room if you. like.'

'What? I thought you never wanted to see me again.'

'The situation has somewhat changed. I think I will always be too sore at you, Agatha, to ever want to marry you. But the hard fact is that we have worked well together in the past and together we might clear this up.'

Agatha looked at him in wonder. 'I don't think I ever really knew you.' She thought that if he had entertained any feelings for her at all, he would not ask her now to move in on such a businesslike basis. It would have been more human to have been totally spurned and totally rejected.

But she felt she no longer loved him and what he was offering was a very practical solution.

'Okay. Thanks,' she said. 'I think I'll call on Mrs. Bloxby. She must be feeling awful.'

'Good idea. Wait a minute until I put these bags inside and I'll come with you.'

When they walked along together in the twilight, Agatha thought that the women's magazines who wrote all that crap about low self-esteem might have something after all. She was walking along beside a man with whom she had shared passion and listening to him complain about the pot-holes in the road and suggesting that they both attend the next parish council meeting to protest about them. Women of low self-esteem, she had read recently, often loved men who were incapable of returning love and affection.