'Do you think I suffer from low self-esteem?' she asked James abruptly, interrupting his discourse on pot- holes.
'What's that?'
'Feeling lower than whale shit.'
'I think you're miserable because you tried to commit bigamy and got found out and then found yourself accused of your husband's murder. There's too much psychobabble these days. It leads to self-dramatization.'
'Any woman ever struck you, James?'
'Don't even think about it, Agatha.'
Mrs. Bloxby blinked at them in surprise when she opened the vicarage door. 'Both of you? That's nice. Come in. What a terrible thing.'
They followed her into the vicarage living-room, which as usual enfolded them in its atmosphere of peace. The vicar, on seeing Agatha, hurriedly put down the newspaper he had been reading, mumbled something about a sermon to write, and fled to his study.
'Sit down,' said Mrs. Bloxby. 'I'll get some tea.'
She always looks like a lady, thought Agatha wistfully. Even in that old Liberty dress and with not a scrap of make-up on, she looks like a lady.
James leaned back in a comfortable leather armchair and closed his eyes. Agatha realized as she looked at him that she had not stopped to think for a minute how he had felt over the aborted marriage and the wretched murder. He looked tired and older, the lines running down either side of his mouth more prominent.
Mrs. Bloxby came back in carrying the tea-tray. 'I have some excellent fruit-cake, a present from the Mircester Ladies' Society. And some ham sandwiches. I suppose neither of you has had much time to eat.'
James opened his eyes and said wearily, 'We have both been suspected of this murder, it's been a long day, and yes, I would love some sandwiches. According to Agatha, we are regarded by the village as murder suspects.'
'Are you sure, Agatha?' asked Mrs. Bloxby.
Agatha told her story of trying to find a room at the Red Lion.
'Oh, how sad. We could put you up here. We could...'
There was a warning cough from the doorway. The vicar stood there with a distinctly un-Christian light in his eyes.
'That won't be necessary,' said James quickly. 'Agatha's moving in with me.'
'What did you want to say, Alf?' Mrs. Bloxby asked her husband.
'Er...nothing,' he said and disappeared again.
'You found the body, didn't you?' said James. 'Tell us about it, if it isn't too painful.'
'It was a shock at the time. I did not recognize him,' said Mrs. Bloxby, pouring tea into thin china cups. 'Dead people look quite different when the spirit has left. Then he had been strangled, so his face was not pretty. I had gone out for a walk. I was worried about you, Agatha, and I could not sleep.'
Agatha's eyes suddenly filled with weak tears. The idea that anyone could actually lose sleep over her was a novelty.
'At first I thought it was a bundle of old clothes in the ditch, but then, when I took a good look, I saw him. I felt for his pulse and finding none, I ran to the nearest cottage and phoned the police.'
'Was there anyone else about?' asked Agatha.
'No, and it must have happened after you reached home, Agatha, or I would have met you on the road or seen whoever killed him. Of course the murderer could have cut across the fields.'
'We'll just need to find out who did it ourselves,' said Agatha.
'Oh, you're been through so much. Why not leave it to the police?'
'Because we want to know who did it,' said James. 'I've been thinking - what is the etiquette about wedding presents? I suppose we return them.'
'I would just keep them,' said the vicar's wife, 'and then when you do get married, no one needs to bother giving you anything else.'
'We will not be getting married,' said James in a flat voice.
There was a heavy silence. Then Mrs. Bloxby said brightly, 'More tea?'
Roy Silver had had a sleepless night. Not usually plagued with an uneasy conscience, he found he was actually suffering. The story of the wedding-that-never-was, spiced up by the murder of Agatha's husband, was all over the newspapers, and some enterprising reporter had found out that he, Roy Silver, had been the one who had alerted Jimmy Raisin to his wife's attempt to marry someone else. As soon as he got to bis office, he phoned Iris Harris, the detective, and asked her to call on him as soon as possible.
He fretted and fidgeted until she arrived. Ms. Harris had read the newspapers and listened calmly as Roy said she must find out more about Jimmy Raisin. If Agatha did not kill him, someone did, and that someone might have some connection with his London background. He could not have spent all those years drinking methylated spirits and stayed alive.
Only when Iris Harris had agreed to work for him again and had left did Roy feel more comfortable with himself.
Agatha and James stayed indoors most of the day during the following week, only venturing out at night for dinner. The press besieged James's cottage at all hours of the day. It would have been normal, Agatha thought, for them to have discussed their relationship, discussed what had happened, but James discussed only the murder, politics, and the weather. He worked away steadily at his military history while Agatha played with her cats in the garden and read books.
At night, she slept in the spare room, strangely undisturbed by any longing for the body asleep along the narrow corridor. The shocks of the wedding and the murder had driven passion from Agatha's mind. She was itching to get started on the murder investigation. Bill Wong had not called and she felt desperate for news. But soon the press would give up and go away to fresh woods and murders new and leave them in peace.
On the morning the doorbell finally stopped ringing and the telephone at last was silent, Agatha decided to go to Mircester to try to see Bill Wong. James said he would stay and work at his writing.
On arriving at police headquarters, Agatha found out it was Bill's day off. She wondered whether to call at his home, but decided against it. He lived with his parents and Agatha found them rather intimidating. So she shopped for a new dress, although she did not need one, and for a new lipstick to add to the twenty or so already cluttering up the shelf in James's bathroom. The lipstick promised to make 'lips full and luscious as never before'. Agatha, who never believed a word of most advertisements, was a sucker for any cosmetic promotion. Hope sprang eternal and she believed every word until she tried it out. She decided to treat herself to a bar lunch in The George, but she would put on that lipstick first.
She went into the pub toilet, read all the claims of the lipstick as if reading her horoscope, unscrewed it and decided to apply it.
She had it half-way to her mouth when a familiar voice said, 'But Agatha's my friend. It makes it difficult.'
Agatha turned round, startled. Then she remembered the odd acoustics of The George. There was a fanlight window above the door, usually open, as it was that day, so that any diners sitting at a table on the other side of the door almost sounded as if they were in the toilet itself.
That's Bill Wong, thought Agatha with a smile. She tucked the lipstick away in her handbag, unapplied, and made for the door.
Then she heard a female voice saying, 'As far as I am concerned, Bill, Agatha Raisin is still a murder suspect. She could easily have put on a pair of men's shoes to baffle forensic, and she's strong enough to strangle a man. Beefy sort of woman.'
Agatha, stood stock-still, her mouth a little open, her hand stretched out to the handle of the door.
'Look, Maddie' - Bill's voice again - 'I know Agatha, and she would not murder anyone. She's a lady.'
'Oh, come on, Bill, the way you go on about the old trout, one would think you were her toy-boy. And ladies don't go around belting chaps over the face.'
'What you are asking me to do is spy on Agatha,' said Bill, 'and I don't like it.'
