Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body

Scotland Yard and the River Thames Police and the Coast Guard.'

'But the names he called you!' exclaimed Toni.

'You will note, he says, 'In my opinion. . . .' Can't sue someone over an opinion.'

'What did you ever do to him?' asked Charles. 'No. Don't turn your head away. Out with it!'

'Okay. It's like this. When I was doing PR for a swimwear company, I invited the press to the launch of the new line. For swimwear you get male reporters as well as female for obvious reasons. He was one of them. I caught him hiding behind a screen in the dressing rooms, holding a camera over the top and taking pictures of the models undressing. I knocked back the screen and got one of my own photographers to snap him. I sent the photo with a complaint to his editor. He was on the Express at the time and lost his job.'

'Was he supposed to take pictures like that?' asked Toni.

'No, it was for his own salacious amusement. He had a good photographer in the audience whose job was to get some pretty pictures for the paper's colour supplement. This could ruin me.'

'He seems like a perv,' said Toni. 'I know. Let's get something on him.'

'How?'

'We're detectives, aren't we?' said Toni eagerly. 'Give me a few days in London, Agatha.'

'He'd recognise you,' said Agatha.

'I could go in disguise.'

'I'll go,' said Charles.

'But you're not a detective!' exclaimed Toni.

'I'm hurt. His photo's on the article. I'll recognise him. Anyway, I know more about the underside of London than can be dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.'

'Why are you calling her Horatio?' asked Agatha.

_______

Charles went up to London on the following day, left his bag at his club and went to a less salubrious club in Beecham Place. The club for gentlemen was actually a cross between a hard-drinking club and a brothel.

He asked the barman if his friend, Tuppy, had been in. 'He usually calls in around now,' said the barman. Charles ordered a drink and waited. After ten minutes, Lord Patrick Dinovan, who was known to his friends as Tuppy, came in. He was a small grey man with a crumpled face. Charles always thought that Tuppy had the most forgettable appearance of anyone he knew.

He hailed Charles with delight. 'Take a pew, Tuppy,' said Charles. 'I want you to do something criminal for me.'

'Why not do it yourself?'

'I might be recognised.'

'What's in it for me?'

'Free shooting. The pheasant season will be here before you know it.'

Dan Palmer was drinking alone in the Horse Tavern, a riverside pub frequented by the staff of the Cable. He had a bad reputation of turning nasty after a few drinks and so his colleagues were giving him a wide berth. At last the fact that no one wanted to speak to him seeped into his drunken brain and with a snarl he tossed off his drink and walked outside. He had only lurched a few steps when he bumped into a small man.

'I say, I am sorry,' said the man. 'Let me make it up to you. Drink?'

'Not in there,' said Dan, jerking a thumb back at the pub.

'I've a room in a hotel near here and a good bottle of malt if you care to join me,' said Tuppy.

Dan's little eyes narrowed into slits. 'Not gay, are you?'

'Bite your tongue. Oh, forget it.'

But Dan thought of a free drink. He longed for more. 'Okay,' he said. 'What's your name?'

'John Danver.'

'Lead on.'

The hotel was small but expensive looking. Dan sank down in an armchair in Tuppy's suite and gratefully accepted a large glass of malt.

'You're that famous reporter Dan Palmer, aren't you?' asked Tuppy.

'That's me.'

'Tell me some of your best stories. I'm fascinated.'

Dan almost forgot to drink in his eagerness to brag. When he had finished, Tuppy said, 'Is that detective female, Raisin, really that stupid?'

Dan made to tap the side of his nose but drunkenly stuck his finger in his eye by mistake. 'Ouch!' he yelped. 'Oh, her, Aggie Raisin. No, that one's as cunning as a fox.'

'So why wreck her reputation?'

'I had an old score to pay back. Did that hatchet job pretty nicely, hey? There's nothing in there she can sue me about.'

'So she really is good?'

'Sure she is. That's what makes it funnier.'

'I don't understand . . . Your glass is empty, let me top it up. Do you mean if one of you reporters on the Cable wants revenge, they can write a piece to get it?'

'Only if they're as clever as me.'

'So your editor never guessed you were paying off an old score?'

'Him? He wouldn't know his arse from a hole in the ground.'

'He must be pretty good at his job to become editor, don't you think?'

'Hopeless. I could do the job better with both hands tied behind my back. He married the proprietor's niece. Shee! Thash how he got the post. You have to be as shmart as me to keep on top. Ish a jungle out there. Jungle.'

Dan rambled on and then suddenly fell asleep.

Tuppy removed the whisky glass from his hand. He switched off the powerful little tape recorder he had hidden behind a bowl of flowers on the table between them.

He made his way downstairs, pulling a baseball cap with a long peak out of his pocket and jamming it down on his head so that the peak shielded his face. He had sent a messenger to book the room under the name of Dan Palmer and pay cash in advance, plus a deposit. The foyer was still busy with a party of guests who had just entered. When he had arrived with Dan, the desk clerk had been on the phone and had not taken any particular notice of either Tuppy or Dan, and Tuppy had taken the precaution of keeping his room key with him.

Dan awoke at six in the morning with a blinding hangover. He struggled to his feet and made his way downstairs and out into the street and hailed a taxi to take him to his digs, thanking his stars it was his day off.

He set out for the office on the following day, stopping at the local newsagent's to buy a copy of the Cable. A square box outlined in black and with the headline APOLOGY caught his eye.

He read, 'The Cable offers a full and complete apology to private detective Miss Agatha Raisin of the Raisin Detective Agency in Mircester over a recently published and misleading article, and wishes to assure readers that Miss Raisin is one of the country's foremost private detectives.'

What on earth . . . ? He hailed a cab, got to the office and rushed up to the editorial floor, to be met by the editor's secretary. 'Mr. Dixon would like a word with you.'

He trailed after her to the editor's office. Dixon was a thickset man with thinning hair and a pugnacious face. His office was flooded with the sunlight that was sparkling on the waters of the Thames outside the window.

'Listen to this,' said Dixon, and switched on a tape recorder on his desk.

Dan listened in horror to that conversation he had with that man who had called himself John Danver.

'I was set up!' He gasped.

'We were lucky to get away with only an apology. That Raisin woman could have sued our socks off. Now, in the past we've allowed you to write the occasional feature, but I've checked back on your work. Your few features always seem to skim this side of libellous. You can go and clear your desk. You're finished.'