How many eyes had been watching her from the house opposite? She could say he had given her the keys before he collapsed. Oh, God, his staff would say he had done no such thing. But she was here and so she may as well get on with it.
She walked through the silent, dark, over-furnished rooms. No desk, no filing cabinet. She went upstairs. Two bedrooms showing no signs of recent occupation and then a large double bedroom, obviously his. She searched the bedside table and then the pockets of his jackets in the wardrobe.
Reluctant now to give up the search, she went slowly downstairs. And then, at the bottom of the stairs, she saw a door she had missed before. It was padlocked. A cellar door?
She tried all the keys until she had found the right one. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
She switched on the light inside the door and made her way down steep stone steps to a basement room. She was just reaching for the switch to illuminate the basement when she heard a noise above her head. She switched off the light on the stairs and stood in the darkness, panting like a hunted animal. The police must have arrived.
Agatha had a little torch in her handbag. If only she could find another way out of the basement! Her heart slowed down its pounding race. She cocked her head and listened hard. There were furtive noises from above. She frowned. The police would surely make more noise. Then a sinister gurgling sound. She had shut the door behind her at the top but the padlock was hanging open on the other side of the door.
Then there was a tremendous whoosh and she heard the upstairs street door close.
In one horrified split second she knew what had happened. Someone had set the house alight!
She switched on the basement light. A dusty room with exercise machines and weights and a desk in the corner-a desk that was under a dirty window.
Later Agatha was to reflect that a cool detective would have seized papers from that desk, but all she could think of was the horror of burning to death.
She climbed on the desk and tugged at the window. It was firmly shut. She climbed down and heaved up one of the heaviest of the weights and hurled it at the window, which broke leaving a jagged hole. She smashed away the rest of the glass round the hole and with her gloved hands dragged herself up and through onto a patch of weedy earth outside.
She was in the garden at the side of the house, between the house and garage.
She crouched on her hands and knees behind a bush. How to get away unobserved? She took the keys from her pocket and threw them back in through the window.
Overhead came a great crack of thunder and the rain came down in sheets, so heavy it blotted out the view of the houses around.
A woman ran past down the street. Agatha had an excuse to be seen running hard.
She belted through the torrent, not stopping until she had reached her car.
Gasping and sobbing with fright, she drove off. She nearly ran into another car on the Four Pools Industrial Estate and realized she had not switched the windscreen wipers on.
She swung out onto the by-pass and made her way slowly and carefully home, through Broadway, up Fish Hill and along the escarpment past the Chipping Camden road, until she turned left and down through the tunnels of trees to Carsely.
She let herself into her cottage just as the rain began to slacken. She slammed the door shut behind her and slumped down onto the hall floor and took the phone onto her lap. She phoned Charles and said in a shaky voice, “Come over. Something dreadful’s happened.”
She found she was still wearing those gloves. She tore them off and carried them into the living room. She put a whole packet of fire-lighters in the fireplace, then a bunch of kindling and lit the lot. When the flames were roaring up the chimney, she threw the gloves onto the fire. Her shoes! If there was anything left of the house, they would scan the carpets and find her footprints. She took off her shoes and threw them on the fire as well and then sat in front of the blaze, hugging herself and rocking to and fro.
When the doorbell rang, she gave a gulp of relief and went to open it. Charles stood there, as neat and immaculate as ever. She threw herself into his arms and began to cry.
“There now,” he said, shoving her inside. “What have you been up to? What’s that dreadful smell? Have you been burning old boots?”
He propelled her into the living-room. “Sit down. I’ll get us a brandy. You’re all smoky and smelly and soaking wet.”
He poured two brandies and handed one to Agatha. “Now drink that and tell Uncle Charlie what happened. Did he rape you? No, you might have a smile on your face.”
“Don’t be coarse. Are you one of those fools who think women like being raped?”
“Oh my God. You poor thing. It was rape. Look, Agatha. It’s no longer the Dark Ages. We’ll phone the police right now and-”
“IT WASN’T RAPE!” screamed Agatha.
“Well, what was it?”
“Sit down. Listen. I’ll tell you. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”
Charles listened while Agatha told of the collapse of Mr. John and how she had stolen his keys, about the house being set on fire.
“God, you’re idiotic, Aggie,” he remarked. “Someone’s bound to have seen you. You might have got away with it if the house hadn’t been torched. Police, forensics, experts from the insurance company, God, they’ll be crawling over what’s left inch by inch.”
“What am I to do?” wailed Agatha.
“Pray.”
“I mean, what am I really to do?”
“Well, if he was sick to the point of collapse and then someone torched his house, it looks to me as if someone tried to murder him. As they got him to the hospital, he’ll probably be all right, and when he recovers he can maybe tell the police who he thinks did it.”
“Now it’s you who are being stupid,” said Agatha. “If he was a blackmailer, then he won’t want to give the police the names of any suspects in case one of his victims tells all.”
“I know, we could pay him a visit, or rather you pay him a visit and tell him about taking his keys. Throw yourself on his mercy.”
“He might think I torched the house.”
“He probably knows who did it.”
“But what if he’s not a blackmailer, but just an innocent philanderer?”
“I’ve a feeling he’s a crook. But let’s go to the hospital anyway.”
When they got to Evesham Hospital, it was to find that John had been transferred to the Mircester General Hospital.
“May as well go,” said Charles.
They drove in silence to Mircester.
“What’s his second name?” asked Charles when he parked in front of the hospital.
“Shawpart.”
“Okay, here we go.”
They got out of the car.
“Oh, Aggie.”
“What?”
“How stupid we’ve been. You visited him twice, legitimately, so that will explain any fingerprint and footprints or loose hair. And how will they know they’re your fingerprints anyway?”
“I got fingerprinted on one of the earlier cases.”
“Still, it’s not too bad when you think about it. If they find the keys, they’ll think the arsonist left them. Wait, that’s odd.”
“What’s odd?”
“You heard someone come in. You didn’t hear anyone break in.”
Agatha stared at him in amazement. “That’s right.”
“So unless one of the neighbours saw you, you shouldn’t be in any trouble at all. And if it’s food poisoning, there
