“It’s all right,” said Charles. “You’ve obviously got a lot to do with all these leaks.”
“That was so like my sister,” complained Cassandra Unwin as she led the way into the sitting room. “Never had any repairs done.”
“Will you sell this place?” asked Charles.
“I’ll need to fix it up. Mind you, a builder would pay a lot for it. Knock down the house and put a housing estate on the land.”
“Wasn’t this your family home?” asked Agatha.
“We grew up here, but I don’t have any happy memories. If Sybilla hadn’t insisted on hanging on to the place, she might have made a better life for herself. But suicide! I can’t take it in. She can’t have been responsible for anything like putting LSD in the jam. Where would she get it?”
“Your sister only referred to one death in her note,” said Agatha, “and yet there were two caused by the LSD.”
“Well, I don’t suppose she was sane when she wrote that.”
“I believe she was very fond of a Mr. George Selby,” said Agatha, cautiously feeling her way through what she saw as a minefield of difficult questions.
“She talked a lot about him. I think she even had a sort of schoolgirl crush on him. Why do you ask?”
Charles saw that Agatha was going to jump in with both metaphorical hobnailed boots, and said hurriedly, “We wondered whether he had called on you. Perhaps he might have a better idea as to your sister’s state of mind.”
“Then why don’t you ask him? Really! I have a lot to do and I cannot see the point of all these questions.”
Charles thanked her and, taking a reluctant Agatha by the arm, propelled her outside. “It’s no use,” he said. “You’re not going to get anywhere. You can’t come right out and ask her if Sybilla murdered George’s wife. She won’t have a clue anyway.”
“Let’s go and see Maggie Tubby and Phyllis Tolling. They’re the ones who put the idea in my head.”
The rain was still pouring down and they stood under an umbrella on the porch of the cottage in the main street, which seemed to be rapidly turning into a river behind them.
Phyllis opened the door. “You again. I thought the case was closed.”
“Not quite,” said Agatha.
“Come in.”
Maggie was reading a book in the front parlour. “Who’s your friend?” she asked.
“This is Sir Charles Fraith, who is helping me in the investigation.”
“A ‘sir,’” mocked Maggie. “How too terribly Dorothy Sayers. What do you want now?”
“Why did you suggest that Sybilla killed Sarah Selby?”
“We’re sure she did. She was so unbalanced when it came to George. Now it looks as if she went even battier and tried to poison the village.”
“But in her suicide note, she said she was sorry about a death. A death. Not two.”
“You don’t think she would be in exactly a sane state of mind,” said Phyllis. “What’s the matter with you? Trying to drum up some business? I tell you, the sooner that accountant gets to the bank and you give him that safe deposit key and he starts sending some money to the Andrews and Jessop families, the better it will be.”
“How do you know about the safe deposit key?” demanded Agatha.
“It’s all over the village. Everyone’s been trying to get their hands on some of the money. Some claim that the visitors trampled over their gardens and ruined them—that sort of thing.”
“So the only reason you think Sybilla killed Sarah Selby was a hunch?”
“Of course it was a hunch, you thickheaded creature. If we’d had any proof, we’d have gone to the police.”
“Come along,” said Charles. “The two witches haven’t got anything important to say.”
Maggie’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “You don’t like us, do you?”
“Who would?” said Charles.
_____________
Two days later, as the monsoon-like rain still continued to pour down, Agatha phoned her office. “I’ll be a bit late,” she said to Mrs. Freedman. “I’m going into Evesham to get my hair done.”
“You can’t, in this rain. Evesham’ll be drowned.”
“That’s down in the town. My hairdresser is in Bridge Street and it never gets flooded. I’ll go in by the ring road.”
“You’d better watch your village doesn’t flood.”
“Carsely
“It might this time.”
Agatha noticed as she drove over the Simon de Montfort Bridge on the ring road that the river Avon had already flooded and was spreading rapidly out over the farmland on either side.
Although the traffic was moving easily on her side of the road, the other side seemed to be grid-locked.
