me know. I mean, Peterson typed the suicide note on his computer and printed it off. If anyone else had typed it for him, they’d have wiped the keys clean.”
“I watch all these forensic detectives stories on television,” said Roy. “The things they can find out.”
“I don’t think it actually works like that here,” said Agatha.
“I mean, the labs are backed up with cases. They aren’t going to look too hard when they’ve got a suicide note, an empty vodka bottle and an empty bottle of sleeping pills.”
“Who supplied the sleeping pills? The doctor’s name would be on the bottle.”
“Why should I bother?”
“It would be interesting to know a bit about Harrison.” “I didn’t think to look. I was so shocked. Maybe Patrick noticed.”
Agatha rang Patrick’s mobile and asked him. “You didn’t notice either,” Roy heard her say. “Any way of finding out? I know it seems odd but I’d just like to know. All right, thanks. I’ll see you in the office on Monday.”
“Don’t you work weekends?” asked Roy when she had rung off.
“Usually. But I told everyone to have a rest. We’ve all been working long hours.”
Emma watched from the side window of her cottage as Agatha and Roy drove up. She saw Roy lift a travel bag out of the boot and then follow Agatha indoors. To Emma’s old-fashioned mind, a man stayed overnight with a woman for only one reason. It was disgusting. He was obviously years younger than Agatha. She wondered if dear Charles knew of this liaison.
She went back downstairs and looked at the details she had copied out of the
The nights had turned blessedly cool, but the morning mists dispersed rapidly. Saturday promised to be yet another scorching day as Emma motored along the Fosseway into Warwickshire, her hands damp on the steering wheel with nerves, an ordnance survey map on the passenger seat beside her.
She turned off the Fosseway and down long narrow country lanes, searching for Barfield House. She nearly missed the entrance because there was not the name of the house on the gateposts but a sign saying “Private.” Emma drove a long way up a wooded, twisting drive. Perhaps she would have turned back if the road had not been too narrow to make a turn. Then she was out of the woods and the road ran through fields. She drew onto a grassy verge as a tractor approached. The tractor stopped alongside her and the driver asked, “What are you doing here? This is private property.”
“I am a friend of Sir Charles Fraith,” said Emma crossly. He nodded and touched his cap and drove on.
Emma headed onwards, round a stable block, and there, suddenly, was the house.
In her dreams and fantasies about Charles—and they were many—Emma had imagined a Georgian mansion with a pillared portico. Barfield House was one of those Victorian mistakes. It was not even Victorian Gothic but built in the fake medieval style beloved by the Pre-Raphaelites. It was a large building with mul-lioned windows which sparkled in the sunlight.
“Here goes,” muttered Emma.
She rang the bell set into the stone wall beside an enormous studded door.
A faded elderly lady answered the door, “Yes?” she asked, her pale grey eyes raking up and down Emma’s long figure. “I am here to see Charles.” “What’s your name?” “Emma Comfrey.”
“And he was expecting you? He’s gone abroad.” “No, but we’re friends and I happened to be working in the neighbourhood and—”
“Not collecting for something, are you?”
“NO!”
“Who is it?” she heard Charles calling. “Wait!” commanded the woman.
Emma waited. The woman retreated into the house and left the door open. Emma heard her calling, “Charles! Where are you? Eve got some creature on the doorstep asking for you.”
Emma, all newly blonded hair and new sky-blue linen suit, felt herself shrinking.
It was no use. She couldn’t go through with it. She turned away towards her car.
“Do you want to see me?” called Charles’s voice from the doorway.
Emma reluctantly turned.
“Good heavens! It’s Emma, isn’t it? And looking glamorous,” said Charles gallantly.
He was wearing a striped dressing-gown over a pair of blue silk pyjamas. His feet were bare. Emma stared at his feet as if mesmerized.
“Now you’re here, come in,” said Charles. “Have some coffee.”
“That woman called me a creature,” said Emma, still looking at his feet.
“That woman is my aunt and she calls everyone a creature.”
Mollified, Emma followed him in through a dark stone-flagged hall decorated with a few oil paintings badly in need of cleaning and a moth-eaten moose head.
“Gustav!” shouted Charles. “Coffee! In the study.”
“Can’t you get it?” came the reply. “Em cleaning the silver.”
“Coffee for two. Now!”
The study was as dark as the hall and lined from floor to ceiling with books. There were two comfortable armchairs with side tables by the fire. Charles lit a lamp and opened a window.
“Sit down, Emma,” said Charles. “Does Agatha know you’re here?”
“It’s silly of me but I was working nearby looking for a missing teenager and I suddenly decided to call on impulse. Do forgive me. I should have phoned first.”
“That would have been a good idea. Still, you’re here. How’s the shooting case going?”
“Oh, haven’t you seen the paper yet?”
“No, what’s been going on? Ah, Gustav. How do you take your coffee, Emma?”
“Two sugars and no milk, please.”
Gustav had grizzled hair, small black eyes and a long mobile mouth. He was dressed in black trousers and a white shirt open at the neck.
He deftly poured coffee for both of them.
His black eyes studied Emma for a long moment. Then he turned to Charles. “You really ought to be locked up,” he said. “Bugger off, Gustav,” said Charles amiably. “Who was that?” asked Emma.
“My butler. Of course no one, least of all me, can afford a full-time butler these days, so Gustav is a maid of all work.” “He should show more respect.”
“Did you come to criticize the staff?” Charles’s normally pleasant voice had an edge to it.
Emma’s hand holding the cup shook. “I’m so sorry,” she babbled.
“Oh, Emma, stop apologizing and tell me about this shooting case.”
So Emma rallied and told him the little she had heard and all she had read in the morning’s papers.
“Now, that is odd,” said Charles. “It’s all so neat and tidy. Is Agatha at the office?”
“No, we all have the weekend off.”
“But you said you were working.”
“I’m conscientious.”
“I’d better drop in on Aggie.”
Emma simpered. “Today might not be a good time. She has a young man staying with her.”
“That’ll be the dreadful Roy. I’d better get over there. If she had let me in on it, I’d never have let her leave it until the morning. Now look what’s happened. Nice to see you, Emma, but I’ll let you get on with your work. Gustav!”
The door opened. “What?”
“Show Mrs. Comfrey out.”
Emma followed Gustav out and through the shadowy hall. “Phone next time,” said Gustav and slammed the great door behind her.
She got into her car feeling very flat and diminished. She had better get home and look up the case files she