Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison

Agatha dropped the shoe she was holding and hurried out to join Roy. “She’s dead,” she gasped.

“Murder?”

“Looks like suicide. Outside now, while I call the police.”

Toni and Harry emerged from the gloom of the church and stood blinking in the sunlight. Police cars were racing past and police and detectives were tumbling out of the mobile police unit. Villagers were standing outside their doors.

The vicar came panting up. “What’s happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s the manor house they’re going to,” said Arthur Chance.

Toni and Harry followed the vicar up to the manor house. But a policeman was already on guard at the gate and they were not allowed to pass.

“That’s Agatha’s car parked outside,” said Toni, looking up the drive. “I hope she’s all right.”

Roy and Agatha sat on the stone steps of the terrace. They had been told not to move until the police were ready for them.

Agatha puffed at a cigarette.

“What are you going to do when the smoking ban comes in July?” asked Roy.

“Smoke, of course. Unless the bastards bring in a law that says you can’t smoke in your own home.”

“But the countryside’s such a healthy place.”

“No, it’s not. I just read that a farting cow produces more damage to the ozone layer that a four-wheel-drive. Oh, here’s Wilkes, but without Collins. I hope she’s finally left. Bill said she was going to Scotland Yard.”

“Right, Mrs. Raisin,” said Wilkes. “While the forensic team are busy, I want you to come to the police unit and make a statement.”

Agatha saw Toni’s anxious face as she drove past.

“That was Harry Beam with Toni,” said Agatha. “I wonder what he’s doing here?”

“I wish I could wash and brush up,” said Roy.

“Why?”

“There will be press here shortly.”

“I think the police will keep this quiet as long as possible. Wait a minute! When you said you were going down the garden for a pee, did you phone anyone?”

“What do you take me for?”

“I take you for someone who loves getting his picture in the papers.”

“Agatha! Really!” Roy suddenly felt his mobile phone burning a hole in his pocket. Would the police check it? Would they find out he had phoned two of the nationals? He eased it out of his pocket and let it slide to the floor of the car.

When they got out of the car, Roy looked up at the sky. “There you are. I knew a storm was coming.”

Great black clouds were building up to the west.

They got out of the car. “You first, Mrs. Raisin,” said Wilkes.

The inside of the police unit was like an oven.

Wilkes left the door open and switched on an electric fan. Bill Wong was there. He put a tape in the recorder, stated the time, day, and who was interviewing whom, and the questioning started.

Agatha was beginning to suffer from delayed shock, so she made just a brief statement of how she had come to discover Sybilla.

“Why did you go to see her?” asked Wilkes.

Agatha hesitated. She had really wanted to know if there was any way in which Sybilla could have killed George’s wife, but she didn’t want to think about George and had no proof at all, so she said instead, “I just wondered if she had heard any gossip around the village, any feuds or competition in the jam-making business. Stuff like that. Was it suicide? Did she leave a note?”

“Yes. It’s a straightforward case of suicide.”

“Was the note typewritten?” asked Agatha eagerly.

“This is not Morse. This is real life,” said Wilkes. “The letter was in her own handwriting as far as we can judge at the moment.”

“And what did it say?” asked Agatha.

Wilkes hesitated. He hated giving Agatha any information at all. Then he said reluctantly, “It said, ‘I cannot continue to live with a death on my conscience.’ And it is signed.”

“A death? One death? But there were two deaths. Could she have been ref—Never mind.”

“But we do mind,” put in Bill Wong, his almond-shaped eyes shrewd. “Did you have another death in mind?”

“No, no, I don’t know what I meant,” said Agatha hurriedly.

The questioning went on. At last she was glad to escape and dragged Roy away from a group of reporters and