up?”
“Before she even reached the Portuguese border. Joyce Wilson was determined not to suffer alone.”
“So what is she saying? Who killed who and why?”
“Burt Haviland had been laying both of them. They were both insane with jealousy of Jessica. Robert Smedley found his wife trying to bury the dagger with which she had killed Jessica in their garden. He told her unless she signed all her money and the business over to him, he would turn her in. So she gave Joyce the weedkiller and told her to get on with it. They killed Burt because he knew something and was threatening to go to the police. They both did that one.”
“But that neighbour only heard one set of footsteps leaving Burt’s flat.”
“That would be Joyce. Mabel’s flat shoes probably didn’t make a sound.”
“Agatha Raisin,” said Bill, “often gets results we can’t because she doesn’t go by the book.”
“Then it’s time she did,” said Wilkes. “It’s going to be all over the newspapers tomorrow about how she tracked them down. She’ll see to that.”
Agatha put down the phone. “Well, that’s that, Patrick. Every last British national newspaper. We’re to wait here. Their local stringers and photographers are coming here to interview us and take our pictures. We’d better get dressed up.”
“I am suitably dressed,” said Patrick.
He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt in a pattern of red and yellow, droopy khaki shorts, black ankle socks and open-toed leather sandals.
“It’s just that you look so much more the detective in your suit, Patrick, and I’ve got the air conditioning on. The rest should be here any moment.”
“What rest?”
“I told Phil, Harry and Mrs. Freedman to fly out and join us. Don’t you see what a good photograph it’ll make? The whole of the detective agency.”
Patrick sighed and went to change. He wondered where Agatha got all her energy from.
Sir Charles Fraith picked up his copy of the Daily Telegraph the following day. He found himself looking at a photograph of Agatha. “Full story pages six and seven,” he read. He opened to the relevant pages.
There they all were—Agatha, Patrick, Harry, Phil and even Mrs. Freedman. There were long quotes from Agatha praising the detective abilities of her staff in solving three murders.
Charles felt left out. After all, he had done a lot of unpaid work. But he had to admit that he had left Agatha in the lurch when he went chasing after Laura. And where was Laura? Gone back to her fiance, that’s where. “You didn’t even tell me you had a fiance,” he had raged.
“He was abroad,” Laura had said. “Don’t make a fuss, Charles. We had a nice little fling.”
The night before their departure for England, Agatha and her staff celebrated with a lavish dinner in the hotel restaurant. Agatha did not mind the money she was spending. All that publicity would pay dividends. She had carefully told the British press which flight they would all be on when their plane landed at Heathrow. With luck, there would be even more publicity. Of course, now that there was a trial in the offing once the pair were extradited, she hadn’t been able to go into all the details.
“Here’s to us,” said Agatha, raising her glass. “Many more cases, I hope.”
“But no more murders,” said Mrs. Freedman with a shudder.
“Amen to that,” said Phil.
But at first it looked as if there was to be no triumphal homecoming. They were taken from the plane before the other passengers got off and herded into a side room where an angry Wilkes was waiting.
“How did you know they were in Marbella?” he asked Agatha.
“I interviewed a friend of Joyce’s who said Joyce had once been in Marbella. It was a long shot.”
“You should have phoned me! I could have alerted the police in Marbella and both of them might have been picked up earlier.”
“I don’t think you would have listened to me,” said Agatha. “You would have said something like, ‘Run along. We’ve alerted Interpol.’” Agatha was suddenly very tired. A tear ran down her cheek.
Wilkes was alarmed. If Agatha collapsed on him, the police would be accused of bullying a heroine.
“That’s not the case. Run along. We’ll contact you later.”
He regretted his burst of sympathy when Agatha Raisin produced a large hand mirror from her capacious handbag and began to repair her make-up, ready for any photographers who might be waiting.
EPILOGUE
BACK in Carsely two weeks later on a rainy weekend. Agatha felt very flat. Business was pouring into the agency, but it seemed to be nothing more than the usual lost cats, dogs and teenagers and divorce cases. No kidnapped heiresses and aristocrats wanting their jewels found. Nothing, she thought bitterly, but plod, plod, plod.
Her hip was aching more and more. She phoned up her masseur, Richard Rasdall, and made an appointment for that Saturday afternoon. She felt lonely and deflated after all the excitement. The newspaper interviews and television interviews had dried up.
She looked at the clock and realized she’d forgotten she was supposed to pick Roy Silver up from the train. He had phoned the evening before, asking if he could come on a visit.
She drove down to Moreton-in-Marsh station to find him waiting impatiently in the car park.
“I was just about to phone you,” he said.
“Sorry, Roy. I’ll leave the car and we’ll walk round the corner for a pub lunch. The boss treating you well?”
“With kid gloves, especially considering I am a friend of the famous Agatha Raisin.”
“I’m yesterday’s news now. I want comfort food. Steak and kidney pie would go down a treat.”
Over lunch, she told Roy in detail about solving the murder cases, but she seemed to have told the story so many times that she felt she was beginning to bore herself.
“Did this Mabel Smedley ever say why she employed you to find out who murdered her husband?”
Agatha scowled. “Evidently she told the police I was such an amateur I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of finding out anything and employing me would make her look innocent.”
“I was surprised not to see Charles in any of the photos.”
“Oh, he cleared off well before the end to chase after some floozy. I’ve got to go to the masseur in Stow. I’ll leave you at the cottage. Won’t be long.”
“I told you before, it does seem to me like a bit of arthritis,” said Richard. “I’m not a doctor. Take my advice and get that hip x-rayed.”
“It can’t be arthritis,” raged Agatha. “What do you know?”
“Enough,” he said calmly. “But suit yourself.”
Once the massage was over, Agatha felt much better. The masseur’s treatment room was situated above his chocolate shop, The Honey Pot. Agatha had a sudden sharp longing to reward herself with a big box of handmade chocolates, but marched determinedly out into the square. She stood in the square, irresolute. She felt fine. But why not prove Richard wrong? Agatha had a private doctor, but it was Saturday. Nonetheless, she had his home phone number.
She phoned him and he said he could see her. Hoping for reassurance, her face fell when he said she’d better get the hip x-rayed. Agatha said she wanted to go private, no longer in her worry prepared to wait for the slow- grinding machinery of the National Health Service. He phoned the Cheltenham and Nuffield Hospital and booked her for an appointment with a specialist for Monday evening.
“Where on earth have you been, sweetie?” demanded Roy.
“I had a massage and looked around the shops,” lied Agatha.
“Well, you’ve missed all the excitement. It’s on the news. Mabel Smedley’s escaped.”
“What? From a Spanish jail? How did she do that?”
“She seemed to be having a heart attack and then fell unconscious. They took her to a hospital. The ambulance had to stop for some horrendous crash in front of them on the road there. The ambulance driver and guard got out because to all intents and purposes Mabel was unconscious. She removed all the straps from the
