“As you wish, but it’s hopeless. You drive, I’ll direct you.”
Agatha finally pulled up outside a giant shopping mall. “How big would you say Timmin’s Field was?” she asked.
“Six acres, I guess.”
“Well, that monstrosity is over six acres. You’re right. With all that building and digging, the treasure’s long gone.”
“And we’re left with a valuable record of the Civil War and we can’t tell anyone how we got it,” said Paul. “Let’s have something to eat and decide what to do next.”
“I want comfort food, junk food,” said Agatha.
“Then turn around and go back a bit. I saw one of those all-day breakfast places.”
Agatha, having demolished a plate of egg, sausage, bacon and chips, sat back in her chair with a sigh. “Now, I can think. First of all, we’ll need to figure out what to do with that book of Lamont’s.”
“I only glanced through it. It’s closely written and full of detail, as far as I could judge. We’ll need to find out if there are any descendants of Sir Geoffrey Lamont, and if we find even one, just post the book to them anonymously.”
“There’s something that is really worrying,” said Agatha.
“What’s that?”
“The secret passage. You noticed that the stairs had been repaired. I think Harry and Carol knew about the passage. They certainly didn’t want us to look for it. We can’t tell the police or we’ll need to explain what we were doing in the house. Even if we found a way of tipping Bill off and the forensic team got down there, they’d find our fingerprints all over the place. We didn’t wear gloves.”
“If either Harry or Carol knew about it, why would they want us to find the murderer for them? I mean, if one or both of them murdered their mother?”
Agatha scowled horribly. Then her face cleared. “What if,” she said, “just what if neither of them committed murder at all, but had been using the passage to try to frighten their mother to death?”
Paul shook his head. “Won’t do. They both knew their mother would not be easily frightened.”
“Wait a minute! I’ve just thought of something. Why was Harry offering her house for sale to that hotel chain before she died?”
“I think we’d better go and ask him, don’t you?”
They called at the shop first but it was Saturday afternoon and there was a CLOSED sign on the door.
“Funny, that,” said Agatha. “A lot of tourists come to Mircester. You would think he’d stay open on Saturdays.”
“Better try his home,” said Paul.
At that moment, Mrs. Bloxby was studying Mrs. Davenport. “You say you want Mrs. Chatterton’s address in Madrid? Why don’t you ask Mr. Chatterton?”
“I would do,” said Mrs. Davenport crossly, “if he were ever at home, but he’s always out with that Raisin woman. Disgraceful, I call it, a woman of her years, and with a married man, too.”
In an even voice, the vicar’s wife said, “Mrs. Raisin and Mr. Chatterton are of the same age. They are investigating this murder. That is all. I hope you will keep this in mind and not go around the village spreading malicious gossip.”
Thwarted, Mrs. Davenport left the vicarage. How could she get that address? Who else might have it? Then she thought of Miss Simms, the secretary of the ladies’ society. She had a list of addresses. Juanita had attended one meeting. Perhaps Miss Simms had taken a note of the address. She headed for the council house estate. She could not understand why such a respectable body as the ladies’ society should have a secretary who was an unmarried mother and lived on a council estate. Definitely Not One of Us, thought Mrs. Davenport grimly as she walked up the neat garden path leading to Miss Simms’s home and rang the bell.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Miss Simms. “I’m just going out.”
“I wondered if you had Mrs. Chatterton’s address in Madrid.”
“I dunno. I’ll have a look. Come in. Hey, wait a bit. Why not ask her husband?”
“He is never at home.”
“Then just shove a note through his door.”
Mrs. Davenport’s bosom swelled. “Be a good little girl and see if you can get me that address. Chop- chop.”
“Shan’t.”
“I beg your pardon?” declared Mrs. Davenport in the tones of Edith Evans saying, “In a handbag?”
“I said I won’t give it to you, so shove off, you old trout. I’ve got a feeling you’re out to make trouble.”
“Well, really!”
Mrs. Davenport stormed off.
She’s out to make life hell for our Mrs. Raisin, thought Miss Simms. Better warn her.
But at that moment the doorbell rang again and it was Miss Simms’s new gentleman friend who travelled in soft furnishings, and somehow the whole scene with Mrs. Davenport was forgotten.
Harry opened the door of his home to Agatha and Paul. “It’s you,” he said. “Find out anything?”
“Not yet, but we want to ask you something.”
“Come in.”
He turned round to face them. “What is it?”
“Why did you try to sell your mother’s house to a hotel chain before she was murdered?”
He had been scowling, but his face cleared. “Oh, that’s easy. My business was failing and I wanted to see if Mother would bail me out. She told me, calm as anything, that she had invested unwisely and she had no spare cash. I pointed out that the house was too big for one person. She could sell it, move into sheltered accommodations and live off the interest on the money she could bank from the sale of the house.”
“Mother said she wouldn’t get enough to make her want to move. I said I would prove to her how much she would get. I approached the hotel company. At first they were interested, but then they found that to make the necessary alterations would need planning permission and they were pretty sure they wouldn’t get it. Mother seemed delighted at my failure. But then, she always loved me to fail,” he added bitterly.
“Have you thought of any enemies she might have had?” asked Paul.
“She must have made scores. She delighted in making people’s lives a misery. There’s Barry Briar, for one.”
“The landlord?”
“Yes, him. Mother was teetotal and disapproved of drinking. She was always trying to find ways to get him closed down. Then she was always rowing with people in the village.”
“And you don’t know of any secret passage into the house?”
“There is no secret passage. I would have known about it.”
“What about Peter Frampton?”
“Who’s he?”
“He runs a historical society in Towdey. He was trying to buy the house.”
“Never heard of him.”
Agatha and Paul couldn’t think of any more questions. They left after promising to let him know if they found out anything about the identity of the murderer.
“I still think of him as prime suspect,” said Agatha. “I think we should contact that amateur theatrical group and find out if there was any way he could have got over to Hebberdon that evening.”
“It’s that passage that’s bothering me,” said Paul. “The police must have gone over the whole house, even before her murder.”
“Before the murder, they probably didn’t take her seriously enough to do any real search.”
“But after the murder?”
“Everything in that cellar was very dusty. Runcorn didn’t impress me as the brain of Britain. Anyway, they’d
