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Agatha told Charles that she had to go back to the office to catch up on work. “Don’t you want to go home and get some dry shoes?” asked Charles.
“I’ve got a change of clothes in the office, Charles. Are you staying tonight? I have to warn you I might be late.”
“Don’t sound so frantic, Agatha. Has George asked you out?”
Mulish silence.
“Aha. Okay, I’ll clear off. What’s he after?”
“He’s going to give me everything he can think of that might give me a clue as to who murdered Arnold.”
“And you don’t want me along because at one point in the dinner, he will reach across the table and take your hand and say he thought he could never find anyone to replace his wife, but now—”
“Oh, do shut up!”
Agatha really wanted to go home and spend a leisurely time getting ready for the evening, but Charles might hang around making sarcastic comments up until she left. The only reason she had said she was going to the office was to get rid of him.
She dropped him off at her cottage, turned the car around and sped back to Mircester.
Agatha was determined to buy something dazzling to wear. But the weather was a problem. It was actually cold. If the lowering sky sent down any more torrents, it might be better not to wear anything too filmy and seductive.
She settled on buying a black wool trouser suit, black court shoes with a modest heel, and a scarlet silk blouse.
With a flutter of anticipation she had not felt in ages, Agatha began to dream about the evening to come.
Chapter Seven
THE RESTAURANT was called the Moulmein Pagoda. Agatha wondered whether the owner was a Kipling fan. She remembered how she and her school friends had found an old wind-up gramophone in a skip. It had one record on the turntable, “The Road to Mandalay.” They had wound it up and played the record. Agatha had thought it romantic, but as soon as the record had finished, her companions had gleefully set about stomping on the record and gramophone until nothing was left but little pieces. She remembered the line, “By the old Moulmein Pagoda/Looking lazy at the sea,” because in later years, she had looked up the poem in the library and had memorized it. But the pagoda had been in Burma and the sailor had been looking to China across the bay.
George was late. She ordered herself a mineral water and lit up a cigarette. Soon the smoking ban would be in force. The police were setting up a hotline where you could report anyone smoking on a free phone line. Of course, if you wanted to report a real crime, it would cost you fifty pee a minute. The powers that be were also going to send out undercover agents to restaurants and pubs. Soon it will be the obesity police, thought Agatha, snatching cream cakes from the jaws of ladies in tea shops.
After half an hour, Agatha decided to leave. She was just getting to her feet when George hurried in.
“Sorry I’m a bit late,” he said.
“Half an hour, to be exact,” Agatha pointed out.
“Sorry, sorry. Busy, busy.”
He called the waiter over and said, “We’ll have the number-two menu please. Would you like some wine, Agatha?”
“Do you think I might be allowed to choose it?” asked Agatha sarcastically.
“Of course. They do a very nice house white here.”
“Where is the wine list?”
“On the back of the menu.”
“I always think white wine goes better with Chinese food,” said George.
“I like red,” said Agatha firmly. “I’ll have a half bottle of Merlot. What do you want?”
“I’ll have a small carafe of the house white.”
He shouldn’t have ordered the meal for me, thought Agatha angrily. Why do I always get to know cheapskates? Probably frightened I would start choosing from the a la carte.
Aloud, she said, “I was wondering if the owner was a fan of Kipling.”
“Why?”
“The restaurant’s called the Moulmein Pagoda. That’s from ‘The Road to Mandalay’.”
“Don’t know it.”
“It goes like this …”
To George’s horror, Agatha began to sing in a loud alto soprano. A group at the other end of the restaurant joined in. There was a round of applause when Agatha finished and she stood up and bowed.
“Oh, do sit down and stop making a spectacle of yourself,” snapped George.
But Agatha didn’t care what he thought. He had left her waiting for half an hour and then had chosen her dinner.
“Do not …
