Agatha fed her cats, microwaved herself a shepherd’s pie and then microwaved some chips to go with it. Then she went upstairs for a long soak in the bathtub before tackling her hair. It would be better, she thought, to have a hairdresser do the tinting, so she compromised by using a “brunette” shampoo, colour guaranteed to last through three washes.
She studied her face closely in the “fright” mirror, one of those magnifying ones, and seizing the tweezers, plucked two hairs from her upper lip.
Agatha was just wrapping herself in her dressing-gown when she heard someone moving about downstairs. She looked around for a weapon and then picked up a can of hair lacquer to spray in the intruder’s eyes. It was only when she reached the bottom of the stairs that she realized she could have phoned the police from the extension in the bedroom.
The bottom stair creaked beneath her feet.
“That you, Aggie?” called a lazy voice from the sitting-room.
Charles Fraith.
“You might have knocked!” raged Agatha. “You gave me a fright.”
“And you gave me the keys, remember?”
“No, I don’t. I’d forgotten you still had them.”
“I must say, you do look a picture, Aggie.”
Agatha realized her face was covered in cream and her hair wrapped up in a towel. She made to retreat and then shrugged. “You’ll just need to put up with it, Charles. Drink?”
Emma watched hungrily from the side window. She had seen Charles drive up. She waited and waited for him to leave. He couldn’t surely be staying the night, could he?
At last, tiredness drove her off to bed. Emma resolved to call on Mrs. Bloxby in the morning. Agatha would assume she was out on one of the cases when she didn’t turn up at the office. Mrs. Bloxby would know what was going on.
Mrs. Bloxby wondered why Emma had called. She served her coffee while Emma chatted aimlessly about the weather. At last Mrs. Bloxby said, “Aren’t you due at work?”
“I don’t go into the office much,” said Emma. “So many little cases to work on.”
Mrs. Bloxby let a long silence form between them, hoping Emma would take the hint and go.
“Sir Charles Fraith stayed at Agatha’s last night,” said Emma, breaking the silence.
“Oh, he’s back, is he? They’re old friends.”
Emma let out a false giggle. “Just friends, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“All the same,” said Emma, putting her cup down on the saucer with a clatter, “Agatha doesn’t seem to care much for her reputation, having a man to stay overnight.”
“A lot of the villagers have friends to stay overnight,” said Mrs. Bloxby, looking curiously at Emma’s flushed face, “and nobody thinks anything of it.”
“Charles is a very attractive man. He took me to lunch yesterday.”
“And Mrs. Raisin is a very attractive woman. But I assure you, nobody is gossiping about her relation with Sir Charles.” “Agatha, attractive?”
“I believe men find her sexy. Now, I hate to rush you, but I have parish duties to attend to.”
“Of course. I’ll be on my way.”
Oh dear, thought Mrs. Bloxby. I do believe poor Mrs. Comfrey has fallen in love. Isn’t it odd, all those women’s magazines going on about sex the whole time and they never seem to realize that there’s a silent majority of women who crave romance and find talk about the tricks of the brothel and vibrators and so on disgusting and humiliating. No warnings against romantic obsession, and the later in life it hits, the more dangerous.
Mrs. Bloxby placed a straw had on her head and set out to make parish calls. She never even considered warning Agatha simply because she received so many confidences that she had trained herself over the years to forget them immediately. The idea that remaining silent might put Agatha’s life in danger never crossed her mind.
FOUR
“WHO does this Jeremy Laggat-Brown work for?” asked Charles over breakfast.
“Think it was something like Chater’s.”
“Good firm. Lombard Street. I know someone there. I’ll give them a ring.”
When Charles went to the phone, Agatha sipped her coffee and smoked a cigarette, wishing it were like the old days when she hadn’t set up as a professional detective and had only the one case to bother about.
Charles came back, grinning. “Now here’s a thing. Laggat-Brown isn’t with them any more. He’s set up his own business— import/export.”
“Importing and exporting what?”
“Electronic bits and pieces. Got an office up a dingy stair inFetter Lane, according to my old school pal. Our Jeremy travels a lot. Seems to be a one-man operation, with a secretary to look after things when he’s not there.”
“Why did he leave Chater’s?”
“Evidently said he was tired of stockbroking.”
“No leaving under a cloud, anything like that?”
“I’ll push further.”
“I should really put you on the books,” began Agatha, then added hurriedly as she saw a mercenary gleam in Charles’s eyes, “but I’m overstretched as it is.”
He sighed. “To think Cassandra won the lottery. Doesn’t seem fair. Only poor people should win the lottery.”
“Like you?”
“Like me.”
“Charles, one of your suits would feed a family for a year.”
“Which reminds me, I haven’t paid my tailor’s bill. You said something about the Felliets who used to own the manor. I know George. Was at school with him. Why are you interested in the Felliets?”
“I thought they might be able to tell us more about the Laggat-Browns than the Laggat-Browns have been telling me. Do you know where they live?”
“Let me think. I know. Ancombe. They’ll be in the phone book. By the way, I took your assistant, Emma, out for lunch yesterday.”
“Did you? That’s nice. Should we go and visit the Felliets?”
“All right. Like old times. What about the detective agency?”
“They don’t need me at the moment. Runs itself. Emma and a retired detective I’ve hired can deal with everything.”
The Felliets turned out to live in a small cottage on the outskirts of Ancombe. Even small cottages in the Cotswolds now cost quite a lot of money, but as Charles held open the garden gate for her, Agatha reflected that it must have been a sore climb-down for the Felliets to have to give up their manor-house for this.
A small rotund man in his mid-forties wearing stone-washed jeans and an open-necked striped shirt answered the door. “Why, Charles,” he exclaimed, “what brings you here? Haven’t seen you in yonks. Come in.”
They followed him into a little living-room. Agatha glanced around. It was as if a country-house drawing-room had been scaled right down. There were pretty pieces of antique furniture, and family portraits crowded the walls.
“My wife’s out,” said George Felliet, “but I’ve got a pot of coffee in the kitchen. That do?”
“Fine,” said Charles. “Agatha, George. George, Agatha.”
“We don’t have a sit-in kitchen,” said George. “Wait there and I’ll fetch the coffee.”
“His old man was a bit of a gambler,” said Charles while they waited. “Then the death duties took a lot of what they had.”
