'Who's the handsome fellow at the bottom of your garden, Agatha?' asked Charles. 'Not a fairy?'
'No, that's Barry Jones, who does the garden.'
'I wonder if he does any gardening up at the manor,' said Charles.
'I'll ask him.' Agatha opened the back door and called, 'Barry?'
The gardener walked up to the back door and entered the kitchen, doffing his cap to reveal a thick head of chestnut hair. He had the same bright blue eyes as Rosie Wilden. He was wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off and his bronzed and muscled arms were a miracle of human sculpture.
'We're talking about the murder of Tolly,' said Agatha. 'Do you garden up at the manor?'
'I did, missus, for a while. No flowers or vegetables, but he likes the lawns kept trim. Then, three weeks ago, he sacks me. I says to him, `Is my work unsatisfactory?' And he says, `I want a real gardener. Going to get the place landscaped.' '
'Do you know how he was killed?' asked Charles.
'No, but Mrs. Jackson is telling everyone that Mrs. Raisin and her boyfriend were the last to see him alive, so I reckon the police'll be calling on you soon enough.'
'Thanks, Barry. You can go back to work. I'd better get dressed. You, too, Charles.'
Agatha had only just finished dressing when the doorbell went again. She ran downstairs and opened the door to the man she remembered as Detective Inspector Percy Hand. He was accompanied by another detective.
'You are Mrs. Raisin?' he asked.
'Yes, come in. It's about this murder?'
She led both men into the sitting-room. The sun was shin ing again, streaming through the windows to light up the debris of Charles's night-time television viewing-coffee-cup, biscuit packet and TV Guide.
'Sit down,' said Agatha. 'Coffee?'
'Thank you.'
Agatha called up the stairs on her road to the kitchen, 'Hurry up, Charles. The police are here.'
As she plugged in the percolator, she suddenly remembered the manuscript of Death at the Manor lying on the desk in the sitting-room. The desk was in a dark corner. Surely he wouldn't prowl around looking at things.
The coffee seemed to take ages to percolate. Where was Charles? He should be doing this and giving her the opportunity to get that manuscript. At last she poured two mugs of coffee and put them on a tray along with milk and sugar and a plate of biscuits.
She walked into the sitting room, carrying the tray-and nearly dropped it. Hand was standing at the desk flicking through her manuscript.
'Aren't you supposed to have a search warrant before you go poking through my things?' asked Agatha harshly.
'We can get one,' said Hand, looking at her mildly. 'I find it interesting that your book is called Death at the Manor, and here we have a death at the manor.'
'Coincidence,' snapped Agatha, setting the tray down on the coffee-table.
'A lot of coincidence,' he murmured. 'This is Detective Sergeant Carey.' And to Agatha's rage, he handed Carey the manuscript, saying, 'Have a look at this.'
Charles came in at that moment and Agatha hailed him with a furious cry of 'Charles, they're reading my book and they don't have a search warrant.'
'I didn't know you were writing a book,' said Charles. 'Still, you lot are being a bit cheeky.'
'Mrs. Raisin's book is called Death at the Manor,' said Hand.
Charles laughed. 'Oh, Aggie, your first attempt at writing?'
Agatha nodded.
Charles turned to Hand. 'How was Tolly murdered?'
'His throat was cut with a razor.'
'You mean, one of those old-fashioned cutthroat razors?'
'Exactly. And in Mrs. Raisin's manuscript, the owner of the manor, Peregrine Pickle, is murdered when someone slits his throat.'
'You can't call him Peregrine Pickle,' said Charles, momentarily diverted.
'Why not?'
'It's the title of a book by Tobias Smollett. A classic, Aggie.'
'I can change the name.' Agatha turned red. She hated the gaps in her education being pointed out. 'But what on earth are we doing discussing literary points? They've got no right to look at anything of mine without my permission.'
'She is right, you know,' said Charles.
There was a ring at the doorbell. 'That'll be for us,' said Hand. He went to the door and came back waving a piece of paper. 'Now, this is a search warrant, Mrs. Raisin. Before I get my men in, I would like to ask you some questions.'
Agatha sat down on the sofa next to Charles, defeated. Her outrage at the detectives looking at her manuscript was not because she was furious at the intrusion, but because she was ashamed of her work.
She and Charles answered the preliminary questions: who they were, where they came from, what they were doing in Fryfam.
'So we get to what you were both doing at the manor yesterday,' said Hand. 'Mr. Trumpington-James said something about the pair of you being amateur detectives.'
Before Charles could stop her, Agatha, nervous, had launched into a full brag of all the cases she had solved. Charles saw the cynical glances the detectives exchanged and knew they were putting Agatha down as a slightly unbalanced eccentric.
'I think at the moment,' said Hand sarcastically, when Agatha's voice had finally trailed off under his stony stare, 'that we'll just settle for good old-fashioned police work. But should we find ourselves baffled, we will appeal to you for help. Can we go on? Right. Why did you visit Mr. Trumpington-James? Had either of you known him before you came here? You first, Mrs. Raisin.'
Agatha described how she had first been invited for tea. Then she hesitated a moment, wondering whether to tell Hand about Lucy's suspicions of her husband's infidelity. Then she thought angrily, why should I? Let him find out for himself if he's so damned clever.
'You hesitated there,' said Hand. 'Is there something you're holding back?'
'No,' said Agatha. 'Why should I hold anything back?'
Hand turned to Charles. 'You say you did not know Mr. Trumpington-James before and yet you called on him with Mrs. Raisin. Why? You only arrived yesterday.'
'Aggie told me about the theft of the Stubbs.'
'Aggie being Mrs. Raisin.'
'It's Agatha, actually,' said Agatha crossly.
'So, Sir Charles, you called. Why?'
Charles felt ashamed of saying they thought they might be able to find out who had stolen the Stubbs after all Agatha's bragging, but he shrugged and said, 'We thought we might get an idea of who had taken it.'
'How?' demanded Hand sharply. He should cut his fingernails, thought Agatha. They're like claws, all chalky and ridged.
'How, what?'
'How on earth did you think, Sir Charles, that you could find out something the police could not? You do not have forensic equipment or even a knowledge of the area.'
'I know you didn't believe Agatha when she was going on about the mysteries she solved,' said Charles patiently, 'but you can always check with the Mircester police. You see, people talk to us the way they wouldn't talk to a policeman, and I'll tell you why. Take you, for instance. By sneering at Aggie, you put her back up, so if by any chance she does hear a useful piece of gossip, she won't go running to you.'
'If I find either of you have been withholding useful evidence, then I shall charge you.'
'Just listen to yourself,' said Charles, unflustered. 'Now you've put my back up.'
'We will start our search now,' said Hand grimly. 'And we will be keeping this manuscript for the moment. You will get a receipt for it.'
