“Mrs. Barley got away with that because Katisha is meant to be ugly and her voice threatening.”
“Dear me. Do you know where we could find Miss Emery?”
“I don’t think she could have had anything to do with it,” said Mr. Potter.
“But she might know someone or something,” Paul pointed out.
“I do not know her address, but I know she works at the Midlands and Cotswolds Bank in Mircester.”
“Back to Mircester,” groaned Paul, as they set out again. “We’re clutching at straws.”
“It’s better than sitting around doing nothing,” said Agatha. She looked out of the car window as they cruised down Fish Hill. Black clouds were covering the Malvern Hills. “Rats! I think it’s going to rain.”
“Never mind,” said Paul, who was driving. “I’ve got a couple of umbrellas in the back.”
“Quite the Boy Scout, aren’t you? Prepared for everything. It’s getting late. Think she’ll still be at the bank?”
“They close at four-thirty, but they stay at work until around five-thirty to do the books or whatever bank people do.”
They arrived outside the bank just before five-thirty. “There are lights on inside,” said Agatha. “Wait and see who comes out.”
They waited by the door. Exactly at five-thirty, several women came out. “Miss Emery?” Agatha asked them.
“Maisie’ll be out in a moment,” said one.
A thin girl with a rabbity face appeared a few minutes later. “Miss Emery?” asked Agatha.
“Yes, what do you want? The bank’s closed.”
“It’s nothing to do with banking,” said Agatha. “It’s about the murder of Mrs. Robin Barley.”
Her mouth dropped farther open, exposing long irregular teeth. “Robin! Murdered!”
“Yes, last night. In her dressing-room. Didn’t you know? Weren’t you at the theatre?”
“No, there wasn’t a part for me. They wanted to put me in a gas mask to play one of the soldiers, but I knew Robin had suggested that to humiliate me, so I told them to stuff it.”
“But surely one of the customers said something. It must be all over the town.”
“No. One of them, mind, said she’d heard there been an accident at the theatre, that’s all.”
Paul said, “Would you like to come for a drink with us? We’d like to ask you about Robin.”
She looked at them suspiciously. In that moment, Agatha felt the loss of her one-time friend, Sir Charles Fraith. She had only to mention his title and people always talked to them.
“Let me introduce ourselves,” said Agatha. “I am Mrs. Agatha Raisin and this is Mr. Paul Chatterton. We are helping the police with their inquiries.” And that was true enough, thought Agatha.
Paul smiled charmingly at Maisie and she visibly thawed. “All right, then,” she said. “But I don’t like going into common pubs. There’s a cocktail bar in the George Hotel.”
The cocktail bar in the George was more like a fusty little over-furnished ante-room with a small bar manned by an ancient barman. Maisie said she would like a vodka and Red Bull and showed a tendency to sulk when the barman informed them with a gleam of surly pleasure that he did not stock Red Bull. Paul quickly suggested she try something more exotic and ordered a cocktail for her called a Sunrise Special. Maisie looked pleased with the choice when she was served a tall blue drink with dusty little paper umbrellas sticking out of the top. Agatha privately thought those umbrellas had done the rounds more than once.
“So what can you tell us about Robin?” asked Paul.
“How did she die?”
“Cyanide poisoning. Someone gave her a bouquet of flowers and slipped cyanide pellets into a vase of water. The gas that came off killed her.”
Maisie’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Well, I never! Where was this? At that studio of hers?”
“No, in her dressing-room after the dress rehearsal. Did she have any enemies?”
Agatha was happy for once to let Paul take over the questioning. Maisie was already casting flirtatious little looks at him.
“She had loads of people who hated her. The audience was mostly made up of friends and relatives. She was turning us into a joke. Some of the gay boys in this town would turn up, mind you, just for a laugh. I tried to tell the producer that we wouldn’t need her money if we could put on decent shows, but she paid an awful lot for costumes and scenery and she owned the theatre.”
“Where did she get her money from?” asked Paul.
“The late Mr. Barley owned a chain of supermarkets. When he died, she sold them all for millions.”
“Did anyone dislike her more than the others?”
“Reckon we were all pretty much the same. But I mean, none of us would have poisoned her. We wouldn’t know how.”
“Was Harry Witherspoon at the dress rehearsal?” asked Agatha.
“I dunno. I don’t see why he should have been. He’d just have been one of the clansmen or soldiers, you see.”
“Wasn’t he usually in a small part anyway?” asked Agatha.
“Well, it was his asthma and hay fever, you see. First, he didn’t want to wear a gas mask. He said he couldn’t breathe properly. Then this idiot of a producer, well, when Birnam wood’s supposed to come to Dunsinane, instead of carrying tree branches, the soldiers were to carry bouquets of flowers. Someone asked him why. He said it was to highlight the atrocities of war. Prick!” she added with venom. “Any chance of another of these?” She held up her empty glass.
“I’ll get it,” said Agatha.
The barman was sitting reading a newspaper and showed no signs of paying any attention to Agatha Raisin until she thumped her fist on the bar and shouted, “Service!”
“And this producer, what’s his name?”
“Brian Welch.”
“And what’s his history?” Paul asked as Agatha returned, triumphant, having made the barman decorate Maisie’s cocktail with fresh paper umbrellas.
“Who are we talking about?” asked Agatha.
“The producer, Brian Welch. I was just asking what his background was.”
“He said he used to produce for the Royal Shakespeare Company,” said Maisie, “but someone said he was only the producer for some amateur production in Stratford. He loathed Robin.”
“You don’t know where he’s living, do you?” asked Paul.
“No, but when he’s not in the theatre, he spends his time in the Crown.”
“And what does he look like?”
“Small and fat. Wears tacky clothes. Got a lot of fair hair.”
They asked her more questions but without gaining much of importance, and then said good night to her and set out for the Crown, which Agatha remembered was one of Mircester’s seedier hostelries.
The first person they saw in the nearly deserted pub was a man answering Maisie’s description.
They went up to him and Paul asked, “Mr. Welch?”
“Yes. Who wants to know?”
Paul performed the introductions and explained what they were doing.
“Can’t you leave that sort of thing to the police?” he demanded, glaring at his empty glass.
“What are you drinking?” asked Agatha quickly.
“Whisky.”
“A double?”
He suddenly smiled. “Sure.” Agatha went to the bar thinking that at one time that pudgy face would not have been swollen and covered in broken veins and he might have been an attractive man.
She returned with his drink, and soft drinks for herself and Paul, in time to hear Paul saying, “But it couldn’t have been suicide.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. Cheers! That bitch seemed out to wreck the show.” He viciously mimicked Robin’s voice. “‘You have no conception of history.’ Pah! Silly cow. I gave her a dressing-down in front of the cast to try to
