Agatha looked at her in sudden dislike. 'You destroyed Mary's dreams,' she said furiously. 'You've hung on to her like a leech for years. What chance did she ever have to make other friends with you around?'
'How dare you? Who nursed her back to health after her parents' death? Who steered her into a profitable occupation?'
'You did. So much easier than doing anything about your own life. You're not angry, Jennifer. You're frightened. As long as Mary had the dream of Joseph coming back, you were safe. Without her dream, she's going to look back on a wasted life.'
Jennifer turned an ugly muddy colour. 'Just keep out of her life or it'll be the worse for you.'
She strode out and slammed the door. Agatha sat down, her legs shaking. Now there was surely someone who could have committed murder. She tried to have a nap that afternoon but could not sleep. She was torn between leaving Wyckhadden and escaping from what looked like an ugly situation with Jennifer and staying and finding out more about the murder. And then there was Jimmy. After Charles's fickle unfaithfulness and James Lacey's coldness, it was wonderful to have some man really keen on her. Perhaps they could get married.
Agatha phoned Mrs. Bloxby at the vicarage in Carsely. 'How nice to hear from you,' cried Mrs. Bloxby. 'We're all wondering when you're coming back. Not getting too much involved in this nasty murder?'
Agatha settled down to tell her all about the murder, the residents at the hotel, her growing friendship with Jimmy, and the row with Jennifer.
'I wouldn't blame Jennifer too much,' said Mrs. Bloxby when Agatha had finished. 'I have met many women like Mary. If it hadn't been Jennifer, it would have been someone very like her. Or it could have been a bullying man. You will probably find that her parents were rather domineering. And this Jimmy of yours sounds hopeful.'
'How's James?' asked Agatha abruptly.
'He seems very well.' Mrs. Bloxby was not going to tell Agatha that James had been asking about her. Let Agatha progress with Jimmy.
'And my cats?'
'Doris Simpson is looking after them very well. We're all missing you.'
'Just a few more days and then I'll probably be home.'
When Agatha rang off, she suddenly remembered Janine's grim remark that she would never have sex again. 'We'll see about that,' thought Agatha as she shaved her legs, and then rubbed Lancome's Poeme body lotion into her skin.
The evening began as a success. Jimmy told stories about his job in Wyckhadden and Agatha replied with tales of Carsely and the residents, although she did not mention James.
He drove her back to the hotel and then turned and gathered her in his arms. 'Oh, Agatha,' he said huskily and kissed her. Agatha replied with a passion that surprised her. Damn that witch. She would prove her wrong. 'Can't we go to your place for a nightcap?' she whispered.
'Right,' he said in a choked voice. He drove up to the back part of the town and parked outside a trim bungalow. Like two people squaring up for a fight, they walked up the path side by side, the tension rising between them. It shouldn't be like this, thought Agatha. We should still be laughing and giggling.
He led her into the bungalow, neat, sparse and brightly lit. 'The bathroom's there,' he said. 'I'll use the other one.'
'Two bathrooms,' said Agatha, striving for a light note. 'How posh.'
'I took in lodgers at one time. Now I can't be bothered.'
Agatha went into the sparkling-clean bathroom with its Nile-green bath and loo. She undressed and ran a bath. She wished she had a night-gown or dressing-gown. She finally emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing more than a black lacy slip.
'Where are you?' she called.
'Here!'
She followed the sound of his voice and found herself in a bedroom. Jimmy was lying in a double bed, the duvet up to his chin, his face grim. Oh, well, here goes, thought Agatha. At least I'm about to prove Janine wrong.
She climbed into the bed beside him. The sheets were slippery and cold and his body was cold. She began to kiss him.
At last he turned away from her. 'I'm sorry, Agatha. I can't. Not yet. I thought I could but I can't.'
'I'll go, then,' said Agatha in a small voice. He did not reply. She climbed out of bed and looked back from the doorway. He was scrunched up on his side, his eyes tight closed.
Agatha found her way back to the bathroom. She put on her clothes and went into the hall, where she had seen a phone and phone books. She looked up taxis in the Yellow Pages and phoned for a cab. They asked for the address. Fortunately for Agatha, it was stamped on one of the phone books because she did not have the slightest idea where she was.
As she waited for the cab, she wondered whether she should go in and console Jimmy. But she felt rejected, felt a failure. What a rotten day.
She heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the cab pulling up. As it cruised through the silent night-time streets of Wyckhadden, she felt small and grubby and unwanted. Stay for the seance and then go home, home to Carsely.
Agatha went down for breakfast the following morning. They all, with the exception of Jennifer and Mary, greeted her amiably enough. Mary's eyes looked puffy with weeping.
I'm too upset about myself to worry about her, thought Agatha, angry with herself for still feeling guilty about Mary. I'm the dream murderer, she said to herself. First Mary then Jimmy, and all in one day. Damn that Janine. That's what made me rush Jimmy.
She ate a light breakfast of poached eggs on toast. Again, as she sipped her coffee, she thought longingly of how good a cigarette would taste. There was no cigarette machine in the hotel--nothing so vulgar. But there was one on the pier which had, remarkably enough in these wicked days, not been vandalized.
A good walk would take her mind off things. She walked miles that day along the beach by the restless sea. Then she returned to the hotel to tell the manager that she would be checking out on Saturday, in two days' time, and to get her bill ready. The sudden relief that she had made a definite decision to go home brightened her up.
As she was getting ready to go out for the seance that evening, there was a knock at the door. Agatha looked round the room for something to use as a weapon, decided she was paranoid, and opened the door and backed away from it quickly when she saw Jennifer standing there.
'I came to apologize,' said Jennifer gruffly. 'You only did it to help Mary. She had to know.'
'That's all right, then,' said Agatha, relieved. 'Looking forward to the seance this evening?'
'Not particularly. Though I wouldn't mind exposing her as a fraud.'
'But I thought you believed in her mother's medicines!'
'There's a lot to be said for old country remedies. But when it comes to fortune-telling and seances, I've never believed in that tommy-rot.'
'Neither do I,' said Agatha, who had no intention of telling Jennifer she'd had her palm read. 'But that's why I think it will be quite fun--I mean, to see what tricks she gets up to. Daisy believes in seances, I gather.'
'She did for a bit, but then she decided that Francie was a charlatan.'
'How did she come to that conclusion? I wonder. It was she who sent me to Francie in the first place.'
'Oh, I think she believed in her potions. I'd better go and get ready. What are you wearing?'
'I don't feel like dressing up tonight,' said Agatha. 'The weather's turned awfully cold. I wish I still had my fur coat.'
'A lot of people don't approve of the wearing of fur,' said Jennifer. 'It could happen again if you got another.'
'You're right,' said Agatha ruefully. 'They'll soon be stoning us in restaurants for eating meat, and all the animals will be killed off and we'll be left with only token species in zoos.'
'Samuel Butler said if you carried that sort of argument to its logical conclusion, we'll all end up eating
