“Don’t be ridiculous. He was devoted to me—so much so that he employed you to spy on me.”
“And that didn’t make you angry?”
“I thought it was rather sweet. Do you know there’s smoke pouring out of your oven?”
“Blast!” Agatha shot to her feet and switched it off and then opened the back door to dispel the smoke. She normally microwaved her meals but had found that the lasagne she had bought for dinner was of the kind that needs to be cooked in the oven.
“Mrs. Smedley …”
“Mabel, please.”
“Right, then, Mabel. My assistant noticed you had a bad bruise on your arm.”
She gave a merry little laugh. Agatha was suddenly sure that merry little laugh had been well rehearsed. “I’m very clumsy. I’m always banging into things.”
“We’ll leave that for a moment. How do you wish me to start?”
“I own the company. I shall sell it, of course. I have told the staff to be prepared to be interviewed by you.”
“I’ll start with Joyce. Surely she is under suspicion since she gave him the coffee.”
“No, she says she took a new jar out of the cupboard. It was instant coffee. He always took four lumps of sugar in his coffee and I think that must have been what masked the taste of the poison.”
“I’ll try to start tomorrow, but the police will be swarming all over the place.”
Mabel rose to her feet. “I will leave you to it. Do your best. Robert’s murderer must not go unpunished.”
“Have you got Joyce’s address?”
She opened her handbag and took out a notebook. “I’ll write it down for you.” Agatha gave her a piece of paper and a pen.
“I might try her home tomorrow,” said Agatha. “She might decide to stay away from work.”
Agatha saw Mabel out and then went into the sitting room where Charles was sprawled in front of the television.
“This lack of curiosity is not like you.”
“She made a bit of a fool of me, so I’m prejudiced. I listened at the door. She did it. Must have. All this business of ‘Find the murderer of my husband’ is just a blind.”
“I don’t know. I’ll be interested to see what this Joyce has to say for herself.”
“I’ll come with you. I’m bored.”
“I won’t need photos. I’ll phone Phil now and tell him to hitch up with Harry.”
She dialled Phil’s mobile. When he answered, she could hear thudding music in the background.
“Where are you?”
“At the disco with Harry.”
“You’ll stick out like a sore thumb!”
“They don’t know I’m with him. I said I was taking photos for the local paper. The faces might come in handy.”
“Can you go outside? I can barely hear you.”
“Right.”
She told Phil about Mrs. Smedley’s visit, ending up by saying, “You and Harry work on the other cases tomorrow and tell Patrick to keep on the Jessica case and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She rang off.
“What’s that terrible smell?” asked Charles.
“That was dinner.”
“I’ll phone out for a pizza. Don’t feel like going anywhere.”
“Me neither,” said Agatha. “I can hardly wait to see what Joyce has to say for herself.”
SIX
THE following morning, Charles and Agatha set out. “What kind of car is this?” grumbled Charles. “Here we are in the middle of global warming and you’ve bought a heap without air conditioning.”
“It’s a sturdy little car. Nobody’s going to steal it or scratch it. It doesn’t even have a CD, so they won’t smash the windows to pinch the radio.”
“I wonder if Joyce lives alone or with her parents?” mused Agatha. “Easier if she’s on her own.”
“Is she that young?”
“No, maybe getting on for thirty.”
”That old,” said Charles with a sideways malicious look at Agatha. He felt she was letting herself go these days, and although they did not have a romantic involvement, he thought she might have spruced herself up a bit. Her waistline had thickened and she had forgotten to put on any make-up. He couldn’t remember Agatha ever forgetting to put on make-up before.
“Here we are,” said Agatha at last. “Cherry Road. Quite near Jessica’s home. I can’t see a secretary affording a house even in this modest neighbourhood. Rats! She must be staying with her parents.”
She stopped outside the house. “Here goes.”
They walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Joyce Wilson answered the door. Her eyes were almost as red as her hair with recent weeping.
Agatha introduced them and said, “May we talk to you for a little?”
Joyce ushered them in. The living room was neat and tidy but strangely devoid of personality. New three- piece suite, low coffee table, television, mushroom-coloured carpet, mushroom-coloured curtains, and that was all.
“Have you lived here long?” asked Agatha and they all sat down.
“Not long,” said Joyce, clasping and unclasping her thin fingers. “I rent it.”
Wonder if the horrible Smedley paid the rent, thought Agatha.
“We were interested to know if you had any idea how the poison got into Mr. Smedley’s coffee?” asked Charles.
She shook her head. “I opened a new jar and tore off the foil at the top.”
“Did he take it black?”
“No, milk and a lot of sugar.”
“What about the sugar? Lumps?”
“Yes. He always had four lumps in his coffee.”
“Have the police suggested the poison might have been in the sugar?”
“They don’t think so. Evidently it was a lot of poison and they don’t think it could possibly have been inserted into the sugar lumps.”
“What about the milk?”
“It’s possible. There was just enough left in a bottle in the fridge. There was also a full bottle there. I used the little left and then I washed out the bottle with hot water and put it in the rubbish. The police tried to say that maybe the milk was poisoned and that I’d washed out the bottle to hide the evidence. But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t!”
Agatha took a chance. “How will you be able to afford going on living here now that Mr. Smedley isn’t around the pay the rent?”
“I don’t… he didn’t…” She gasped and then burst into tears.
Charles saw a box of tissues on the coffee table and handed it to her. She sobbed and gulped and then blew her nose.
“I saw you in Bath with Mr. Smedley,” said Agatha. “You were having an affair.”
“It was just until he got a divorce,” she said in a low voice.
“But he seemed devoted to his wife,” Charles pointed out
“He hated her,” said Joyce with sudden venom. “I hated her. She was always turning up at the office and making catty little remarks in that sugary voice of hers. ‘Not married yet, Joyce? We’ll need to find you a husband. Won’t we, Robert?’ That sort of thing. Everyone thinks she’s so perfect, but she’s rotten underneath.”
“How long had you been having an affair with him?” asked Agatha.
“Six months.”
