“Yes, you must have seen her before, Mrs. Raisin, but maybe you didn’t notice her. She does a lot of work for the Ancombe Ladies’ Society. She’s small and thin with sandy hair. I think she’s about fourteen years younger than her husband. Very quiet. What… ?”
“Tell you later,” said Agatha and rang off. “That’s her, all right,” she said to Phil. “Wonder where she’s going?”
They followed her along Worcester Street and then along Walton Street. At last, Mrs. Smedley stopped outside the Phoenix Cinema and went in.
“Don’t get too caught up in the film,” hissed Agatha.
They bought tickets. The cinema was nearly empty. They took seats three rows behind her. The film was a Russian one called The Steppes of Freedom. It was beautifully photographed, but to Agatha’s jaundiced eyes, nothing seemed to happen apart from the heroine either bursting into tears or staring out across the steppes. Obviously Mrs. Smedley was as bored as Agatha because, before the end, she got up. They gave her a few minutes before following. Back along Walton Street and so down to the station.
Back on the train to Moreton and from there they followed her home.
“Maybe she hoped to meet someone,” said Phil, “and he didn’t turn up. I mean, it seems odd to go all that way to sit through a dreary film.”
“You got photos of her going into the cinema?”
“Of course.”
“I know,” said Agatha. “Let’s go and see Mrs. Bloxby. She seems to know all about Mrs. Smedley.”
They drove to the vicarage. Alf Bloxby, the vicar, answered the door and his face hardened into displeasure when he saw Agatha.
“If you’ve come to see my wife, she’s busy,” he said.
Mrs. Bloxby appeared behind him. “What are you talking about, Alf? Do come in, Mrs. Raisin. And Mr. Witherspoon, too.”
The vicar muttered something like pah under his breath and strode off to his study.
“Let’s go into the garden,” said Mrs. Bloxby. “Such a fine day. It won’t last, of course. As soon as Wimbledon comes around, then the rain comes down again.”
They sat at a table in the garden. “I see you’ve employed Mr. Witherspoon,” said Mrs. Bloxby brightly.
“For the moment,” retorted Agatha. “He’s on trial. The case we’re on involves Mrs. Mabel Smedley. Her husband thinks she’s having an affair.”
“That doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, a small place like Ancombe. Such news would soon get out.”
“What’s she like?”
“Hard to tell. Have you forgotten, Mrs. Raisin? The Ancombe Ladies’ Society is having a sale of work the day after tomorrow and some of us are going over to help. You could come along and see for yourself. Mrs. Smedley works very hard for good causes, but she is quiet and self-effacing. They’ve only been married for two years.”
“Any children?”
“No, and none by Mr. Smedley’s first marriage either.”
“What happened to the first Mrs. Smedley?”
“Poor thing. She was subject to bouts of depression. She committed suicide.”
“I’m not surprised. Married to a creature like that.” Agatha described him in trenchant terms, ending up with that description of his mouth.
“Mrs. Raisin! Really.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Agatha.
Phil stifled a laugh by pretending he had a sneezing fit.
“I think Mr. Smedley is just unnaturally jealous,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“Oh dear,” sighed Agatha. “It all seems such a waste of time. We’ll leave it for today, Phil, and you can drive me back to the office so I can collect my car. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow. I’ve a few things to work on.”
Just as Agatha was setting down to a dinner of microwaved chips and microwaved lasagne that evening, the telephone rang. “Don’t dare touch my food,” she warned her cats, Hodge and Boswell.
She answered the phone and heard the slightly camp voice of her former assistant, Roy Silver.
“I haven’t heard from you in ages,” he said. “No more killings down there?”
“No, nothing. Just a divorce case and I hate divorce cases.”
“Stands to reason, sweetie. You being such a reluctantly divorced woman yourself.”
“That is not the reason! I just find them distasteful.”
“Divorce cases are surely the bread and butter of any detective agency. Why I’m phoning is to ask you if I can come down for the weekend.”
“Next weekend? All right. Let me know which train you’ll be on and I’ll meet you at Moreton.”
When Agatha rang off, she felt cheerful at the thought of having company. She had endured a brief unhappy marriage to James Lacey. They hadn’t even lived in the same house. But after it was over, she found herself getting lonely when she wasn’t working full out.
Then Agatha realized she hadn’t tackled Mrs. Bloxby over manipulating her into employing Phil. She rang up the vicar’s wife.
“Mrs. Bloxby,” began Agatha, “I feel you forced me into employing Phil.”
“Mr. Witherspoon. I suppose I did push you in that direction.”
“Why? You’re not a pushy woman.”
Mrs. Bloxby sighed. “I happened to learn that he has only a small pension. He made some bad investments with his capital. He is desperately in need of money and was ready to sell off some of his precious cameras. You needed a photographer, he needed work. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Oh, well,” muttered Agatha, somewhat mollified. “We’ll see how he works out.”
“Going to Ancombe?”
“Of course. I forgot to ask you what time it begins.”
“Two in the afternoon.”
“I’ll be there.”
Agatha returned to the kitchen to find her cats up on the table, tucking in to her dinner. “You little bastards,” she howled. She opened the kitchen door and shooed them both out into the garden. She scraped her dinner into the rubbish bin and suddenly burst into tears.
She finally mopped her eyes on a dishcloth and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. Agatha was in her early fifties, but recently had been assailed with a fear of getting old and living alone. On damp days, she had a stabbing pain in her hip but stoically ignored it. She couldn’t possibly have arthritis. She was too young!
“Pull yourself together,” she said aloud. Was this the menopause at last? She had been secretly proud of the fact that she had not yet reached that borderline.
The phone rang again. Agatha wearily went to answer it.
“Charles, here.”
Agatha’s friend, Sir Charles Fraith.
“Oh, hullo, Charles. Where have you been lately?” Agatha gave a gulping sob.
“Have you been crying, Aggie?”
“Don’t call me Aggie. Bit of an allergy, that’s all.”
“Have you eaten?”
“I was about to but the cats got to it.”
“I’ll be right over. I was to entertain some luscious girl to a picnic and she never showed. I’ll bring it right over and we’ll have a picnic in your garden.”
“Oh, thanks, Charles.”
“So dry your eyes.”
“I haven’t been crying!” But Charles had rung off.
He turned up half an hour later, which had given Agatha time to bathe her face in cold water and put on fresh make-up.
She was glad to see Charles, even though she occasionally found him irritating. He had fair hair and neat features and was as self-contained and independent as a cat.
He carried a large hamper into the garden and began to set things out on the garden table.
