“You’ll get an awful grilling from Runcorn,” Paul pointed out. “I’ll get less of a grilling if I volunteer the information,” said Agatha.
She went into the other room to phone.
Agatha came back after a few minutes. “I got Bill. He’s on the case at last. I’ve to go in right away to headquarters.”
Paul drove Agatha to police headquarters. They were told to wait and then Agatha was taken away to an interviewing room. She sat for almost a quarter of an hour looking down at the scarred table, at the institution- green walls, and at the small frosted glass window until the door opened and Bill walked in, followed by Evans.
He went through the ritual of switching on the tape before sitting down with Evans and facing Agatha.
“Now, Mrs. Raisin,” he said formally, “you phoned me to say that you had seen the deceased, Mrs. Robin Barley, yesterday.”
“That is correct.”
“At what time?”
“I think it was just before lunch-time. I can’t be sure. Say about twelve o’clock.”
“Had you known Mrs. Barley before?”
“No.”
“How did you happen to be visiting her?”
“I wondered if it might have been possible for Harry Witherspoon to leave the performance and go to Hebberdon on the night of his mother’s murder. Mrs. Bloxby-” “That is the wife of the vicar of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Carsely?”
“You know that, Bill.”
“For the tape,” snapped Evans.
“Yes. Anyway, I wanted to get in touch with a member of the cast of The Mikado. Mrs. Bloxby said she had a friend, Mrs. Robin Barley, who might be able to help me. She phoned her and gave me her address. So I went to her studio.”
“And did she have any information?”
“No, I found her a rather silly woman. She said she would phone around other members of the cast to find out if Harry could have slipped away. I was fed up with her because she had been rude to me. I was only there a very short time. I gave her my card and told her to phone me if she found out anything, and then I left.”
“And after that?” asked Evans.
“I treated myself to lunch at Pam’s Kitchen in the main street. Then I walked around the shops. I got back home and was interviewed by you detectives. After you had left, Paul-Mr. Chatterton-and I went out for dinner.”
“Where?”
“The Churchill over at Paxford.”
“And how long did that take?”
“Let me think. We booked the table for eight o’clock. We didn’t leave until ten-thirty. We went to my cottage and had a nightcap and then Mr. Chatterton went to his cottage at around midnight.”
Evans spoke. “You have got to stop interfering, Mrs. Raisin. You will not leave the country. You will be prepared for further questioning.”
“Okay.”
Bill stood up. “That will be all for the moment.”
“Bill…?” Agatha started.
He shook his head briefly and Evans escorted Agatha out.
“So how did it go?” asked Paul as they walked away from police headquarters.
“Not as awful as I expected, because Bill himself interviewed me. But, oh Paul, he looked so hard-faced and disapproving.”
“Having a friend like you must be a serious embarrassment for a police detective at times.”
“I hope he hasn’t gone off me,” fretted Agatha. “He was my first friend-since I moved down here,” she added hurriedly, not wanting Paul to know that the prickly Agatha Raisin hadn’t had any friends before that.
“He’d come around if we could do anything to solve this case,” said Paul.
“Fat chance of that.” Agatha’s mobile phone began to ring. She pulled it out of her handbag.
She listened intently and then said excitedly, “Keep him there. We’ll be as fast as we can.”
Agatha rang off and said to Paul, “That was Mrs. Bloxby. She’s got that rector with her, the one that found the body.”
Together, they sprinted to the car.
Mrs. Bloxby ushered them through the vicarage and into the garden, where a thin white-haired man was drinking tea.
“Mrs. Raisin, may I introduce Mr. Potter, rector of Saint Ethelburgh’s? Mr. Potter, Mrs. Raisin and Mr. Chatterton.”
They all sat down. Agatha studied the rector. He had a thin, gentle face and mild eyes. His shoulders were stooped and his fingers deformed with arthritis.
“I agreed to see you,” he said in a beautiful voice, the old Oxford English rarely heard these days. “I would normally shrink from the idea of any amateur detection, but that man Runcorn annoyed me. He is brutal and stupid. Mrs. Bloxby speaks highly of your powers of detection.”
“Tell us what happened,” urged Agatha.
“I should not speak ill of the dead, but I did find Mrs. Barley a rather exhausting and overpowering woman. But, as Mrs. Bloxby will agree, she was a first-class fund-raiser for the church. She was going to put on a play in the church hall in Wormstone.” He gave a little smile. “She was, of course, going to play the lead.”
“What was the play going to be?” asked Agatha with a sudden feeling of foreboding.
“The Importance of Being Earnest.”
“In Edwardian costume?”
“Yes, indeed.” Agatha shot a miserable glance at Paul. So they had muddied the waters of the investigation even further. The police would assume that Robin had been the woman in the tea-gown.
“In any case,” the vicar went on, “I had agreed to see her in her dressing-room. There was absolutely no reason why we could not have met the following morning, but Mrs. Barley liked receiving visitors in her dressing- room. As I told Mrs. Bloxby, I knocked at the dressing-room door, and getting no reply, I walked in.” He went on to describe what he had told Mrs. Bloxby earlier.
“The police say it was cyanide poisoning. Someone took her a bouquet of flowers, put them in a vase of water and slipped the pellets of hydrogen cyanide into the water.”
“I wonder whether her death has anything to do with Mrs. Witherspoon’s murder,” said Agatha.
“Why not?” asked Paul.
“Just suppose it isn’t Harry who’s guilty,” said Agatha. “Then what possible reason could anyone have for murdering Robin? Did she have any enemies, Mr. Potter?”
“Not that I know of. But amateur theatrical companies can be amateur in everything but temperament. There are as many feuds and jealousies as there are in the real theatre. You see, poor Mrs. Barley could not act.”
“Good heavens,” said Agatha. “Then why did she have a major part in Macbeth?”
“She was a very rich woman. Most of the funding for the Mircester Players came from her. In return, she demanded lead roles. I remember once there was a dreadful scene when they were rehearsing a Christmas production of Oklahoma. As usual, Mrs. Barley insisted on playing the lead.”
“You mean the young girl in the surrey with the fringe on top?”
“The same. The female members of the cast confronted her. Mrs. Barley had a dreadful singing voice. They told her she was too old for the part and could not sing. She would not back down until one of them played a recording of her singing. Even Mrs. Barley had to admit it was awful.”
“Who led the protest?” asked Agatha.
“A Miss Emery. Miss Maisie Emery. She got the part and was very good in it, too.”
“But Robin told me Robin was playing Katisha in The Mikado!”
