“No, I want to go now and look.”
Charles yawned. “Good hunting!”
“You are coming with me!”
“Oh, Aggie.” He twisted his head and looked at the bedside clock. “It’s three in the bloody morning.”
“Please.”
“Oh, very well.” He threw back the blankets and eased his naked body out of bed. He stretched and walked over and stared out of the open window. Mrs. Davenport drew back into the shrubbery across the road, gazing avidly at the lamplit tableau under the thatched roof. Agatha Raisin in a see-through black nightie. She could not see Charles’s head because the low window only afforded her a view of his naked torso.
As Charles turned away, Mrs. Davenport scuttled off down the lane, her conscience eased. After she had written to Juanita, she had been frightened that she had exaggerated. But now she had just seen proof positive of Agatha’s affair with Paul. She was so determined to find Agatha guilty that she discounted the fact that Charles was staying with Agatha. Charles, she decided, must have left. Hadn’t Mrs. Bloxby told her the other day that Sir Charles Fraith was simply an old friend?
If she had waited, she would have seen Charles and Agatha emerge from the house and drive off.
“All this because you had a nightmare,” grumbled Charles. “I assume we can get to the damned passage from the garden. I don’t feel like housebreaking.”
“Yes, we can. I hope the police haven’t sealed off the trapdoor.”
“No reason why they should. It’s not their property.”
“Drive right up to the house,” ordered Agatha. “I don’t care if anyone sees us.”
“We’re trespassing, even if it is only the garden.”
“Harry’s the owner and I’ve got his permission to investigate the case. That’s what I’ll say if we’re caught. Turn up here.”
“It’s certainly isolated,” said Charles, switching off the engine. “I wonder what the landlord was doing skulking around.”
“Let’s go and get it over with.” Agatha got out of the car. The night was very still. A small moon riding overhead silvered a mackerel sky and a breeze sent the ivy which covered the old cottage rippling and whispering.
“Creepy,” muttered Charles. “Are you really sure you want to go through with this?”
“May as well. We’re here now. Better put our gloves on.”
They made their way round the side of the house and into the garden. “Right down at the end,” said Agatha. “It’s in that clump of shrubbery.”
An owl sailed overhead, making them jump. They crept into the shrubbery. Agatha took out a small torch and shone it on the ground.
“There’s the trapdoor,” she said.
“If we have to go down there, we’ll leave footprints,” cautioned Charles.
“So? I mean, if there’s no body, we don’t have to worry.”
Charles heaved open the trapdoor. “Shine the torch down,” said Charles. “It’s so dark I can’t even see the stairs.”
Agatha shone the thin beam of the torch down the stairs, let out a squawk and dropped the torch and clutched at Charles so hard he fell back with a crash into the bushes.
“Aggie,” he complained. “What the hell…?”
“Eyes,” stammered Agatha. “Eyes. Down there.”
“Where’s the damned torch?” demanded Charles, struggling to his feet. He felt around the ground until he located it.
“Get out of my way and I’ll have a look.”
Charles shone the torch down. He gave a muttered exclamation and went down a few steps. Then he retreated back up.
“It’s a dead body.”
“Is it Barry Briar?”
“I don’t know. Never met the man. Have a look.”
“No, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Leave everything as it is. I’m calling the police.”
“Must we? I mean, they’ll be awfully angry.”
“Aggie, someone’s dead down there. We can’t just walk away.”
“How do you know he’s dead?”
“If a man’s lying with his neck twisted and his lifeless eyes glaring up at you, it’s ten to one he’s dead. Let’s get out of this shrubbery.”
They emerged into the garden and sat down on the grass. Charles took out his mobile phone and called the police while Agatha hugged her knees and shivered.
“Gloves,” she said when Charles rang off. “It looks criminal, us wearing gloves.”
“I’m not going back there to put fingerprints on the trapdoor. I am wearing an ordinary pair of gloves. Sort of thing a man would wear to lift a dirty trapdoor lid. Stop worrying.”
“They’ll wonder how I knew where the entrance was.”
“It said in the newspapers that a secret passage led from the house to the garden. You had this brainwave, so we searched the garden and found it. Don’t you want to go back and have a peek and make sure it’s the missing landlord?”
“I can’t.”
“Well, we’ll soon know. You’re getting soft in the country, Aggie. I’m sure the city mouse wouldn’t be in such a shake.”
“Charles, I’ve often wondered if you’ve any feelings at all.”
“Oh, lots and lots. But I didn’t know this landlord and he sounds no end of a creep. I can hear sirens. Won’t be long. I’d better get my lawyer out of bed.”
“Why? We didn’t murder him.”
“Try telling Runcorn that. ‘Oh, officer,’ says Aggie, ‘I had a dream.’ He’s not going to buy that.”
It was a long night. Agatha and Charles and Charles’s sleepy lawyer waited and waited after being taken to police headquarters for their interviews.
Agatha was to be interviewed first. At last she was summoned and the lawyer rose to join her.
The lawyer, a Mr. Jellicoe, was an imposing figure and Agatha was sure that without his steely interruptions, Runcorn would have grilled her to the point where she would almost feel like confessing to murder just to have the interview over.
Then it was Charles’s turn.
The noon sunshine was streaming in through the dusty windows of police headquarters when he came out to join her. “They’re giving us a lift back to Hebberdon.” They both thanked the lawyer and went out to where the police car was waiting. Haley was at the wheel.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Agatha, sliding into the back seat with Charles.
“How’s Paul?” asked Haley as she drove off.
“Fine,” said Agatha. “I gather from the horrible Runcorn that the body we found was the landlord’s.”
“I’m not allowed to discuss the case.”
“Oh, really?” snapped Agatha. “Then how come you flapped your mouth off to Paul?”
The back of Haley’s neck turned pink. “That was private.”
“Aggie,” said Charles warningly, “we’re too tired for a fight.”
Agatha relapsed into a resentful silence, only waking when Haley drew up at Ivy Cottage.
“Thank you,” said Charles politely and Haley flashed him a smile.
“Trollop,” muttered Agatha as they walked to their car.
“Now, Aggie, that’s nothing but jealousy.”
Agatha ignored the remark and slid into the passenger seat. “God, I’m tired. I only hope for Harry’s sake that
