Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

'Yes, very much. Jolly kind of Daisy to ask me.'

'She's good company,' said Agatha, determined to put in a good word for Daisy.

The colonel laughed. 'Daisy agrees with anything I say, which a lot of men would like, but my wife was a woman of very independent mind, rather like you, Agatha. I prefer the company of that sort.'

Damn, thought Agatha. Poor Daisy.

'I think Daisy is actually very shy and unsure of herself. I think she probably has a strong mind.'

'But clinging. She leaned on me all through the performance and she was wearing one of those sort of cloying perfumes. Quite claustrophobic.'

Agatha wondered if she could let Daisy have some of that love potion,

'I'm very fond of Gilbert and Sullivan,' said the colonel. 'They're doing the Pirates of Penzance tonight. Care to go?'

'Just you and me?'

'Yes, if you would care to.'

Agatha hesitated. Then she said, 'Me being the visitor and outsider might upset some of the others. They might feel, well, excluded.'

'So they don't need to know.' The colonel buttered another scone.

'So how do we manage it?'

'I get the tickets ... you want more of this cream?' Agatha shook her head. 'The show's at eight o'clock. You drive there. I take a cab and meet you outside.'

Agatha thought of another evening in the hotel. 'Okay, you're on,' she said.

Agatha put on a warm sweater, wool skirt and boots that evening. She felt that to really dress up for the colonel would, in a way, be another treacherous knife in Daisy's bosom.

Scrabble, the cat, had demolished two cans of cat food and was lying on he bed, purring sleepily.

'Be a good cat until I get back,' said Agatha. Scrabble opened one green eye and stared at her and then closed it again.

Agatha picked up her coat and went downstairs. Daisy was pacing up and down the reception area.

'Where are you going, Agatha?' she asked sharply.

'Out to meet Jimmy,' lied Agatha.

'The colonel has just gone out,' fretted Daisy. 'I asked him where he was going and he said he was going for a walk. I offered to accompany him but he said he was meeting an old army friend.'

'Nice for him,' said Agatha casually and made her escape.

She got in her car, switched on the engine and let in the clutch. She saw to her irritation that Daisy had come out on the hotel steps and was watching her. Agatha drove off as if she were going into town, then she circled back and drove past the hotel. She swore under her breath. Daisy was still standing on the steps, and she stared at the car.

The colonel was waiting outside the theatre. They went in together. 'I got good seats. I think the cold has kept most people away,' he said.

The performance began. Agatha forgot about Daisy, forgot about murder and settled back to enjoy herself. But at the second interval, she turned and looked around the theatre. As she looked up at the dress circle, her eye was caught by the flash of blonde hair but the woman moved her head behind one of the gilt pillars. That's Daisy, thought Agatha, all her enjoyment in the evening leaving her. I'm sure that was Daisy.

During the last act, she turned and looked up but the seat next to the pillar was empty.

I must have imagined it. And why should I feel guilty? thought Agatha angrily.

When the colonel suggested they go for a drink after the performance, she agreed.

'This is fun,' said the colonel. 'Nice to have different company for a change.'

Agatha would have liked to discuss the murders but knew she would not get anything out of the colonel, so she told him about her life in the village and he told her army stories and they sat there amicably chatting until after closing time.

There are men in this world who find me good company, thought Agatha rebelliously. To hell with James Lacey.

She drove the colonel back and dropped him off before they got to the hotel. Before she went up to her room, she said to the night porter, 'I'm tired. I do not want any calls whatsoever put through to my room, not even calls from the residents of this hotel.'

The night porter made a note. Agatha scuttled up to the sanctuary of her room.

After ten minutes, there came a knocking at the door, followed by Daisy's voice, shouting, 'Agatha!'

Agatha pulled a pillow over her head, feeling guilty and threatened. After several more furious bouts of knocking, Agatha was at last left in peace.

In the morning, she breakfasted in her room, fed the cat, and then wondered if she could get out of the hotel without going through the main entrance. She phoned Jimmy and told him she would pick him up along the promenade outside the cinema.

'When?' he asked.

'About fifteen minutes.'

'Why? Press bothering you again?'

'No, I'll tell you about it when I see you.'

Agatha put on her coat and then opened her door and looked cautiously up and down the corridor. There must surely be a fire-escape somewhere.

She walked along silently round the corner, quickly past Daisy's room, past other rooms to the end. There it was, clearly marked. FIRE-ESCAPE. She pushed down the bar and opened the door. An iron fire-escape led down to the hotel gardens at the side. She could not shut the door from the outside. She would just need to leave it, closed as much as possible, but not locked, until she returned.

It was even colder than the day before and a chill wind whipped at the skirts of her coat as she made her way down. She scuttled around the side of the hotel and into her car and drove off without looking up at the hotel windows, frightened that she would see Daisy glaring out at her.

Jimmy's tall figure could be seen waiting outside the cinema. He got in the car. 'This is a very small car,' said Agatha apologetically. 'You'd better push that seat back a bit. Now, where do you want to go?'

'If you drive straight ahead, we can go along the coast a bit. I'd like to talk. What have you been up to?'

'Not behaving very well. No, I've been behaving all right, I think. No, I haven't.'

'Out with it, Agatha.'

'It's like this. If it weren't for you, Jimmy, I would sign off at the police station and go home.'

'What! You! The great amateur detective of the Cotswolds.'

'I'm not the great amateur detective of anywhere. Inspector Wilkes, you know the one at Mircester, he was right when he said I didn't solve crimes, I just blundered about in people's lives until something happened.' She told him about Daisy and the colonel. She ended by saying, 'So you see, I was disloyal to Daisy. The colonel's not the slightest bit interested in her, but she doesn't know that. First I shatter Mary's dream and now I'm well on the way to shattering Daisy's. It was selfish of me. I was restless and bored and the colonel is good company.'

'Better than me?'

'No, nothing like that, Jimmy. He's a polite, elderly gentleman, that's all.'

There was a little silence and then Jimmy said, 'You are a very attractive woman, Agatha. You should be very careful. Don't let Colonel Lyche fall in love with you.'

'I think that's highly unlikely, but it's nice of you to say I'm attractive, Jimmy.' Agatha privately did not think she was attractive at all. Attractive women were the anorexic ones you saw in the magazines with the glossy pouting lips. They were not stocky middle-aged women with small eyes.

'Now how do I make my peace with Daisy?' she asked.

'You could say you wanted to get the colonel alone to find out what he really thought of Daisy?'

'That might be raising false hopes. He actually doesn't rate Daisy very highly. I would need to lie.'

'Why don't you move out of that hotel and move in with me?'

Here was an opportunity to find out what life would be like with Jimmy. But she thought of that bright sterile