'Ah,' said Timothy, 'I read about that.'
'The thing is,' said James, 'we're just blundering about, finding out what we can about the characters of all the people close to Mary Fortune. What do you think of John Deny?'
'The college,' said Timothy, 'started to discriminate against the public schools, you know, Eton, Marlborough, Westminster, some time ago. Help the underprivileged and all that stuff. Down with elitism. The sad fact is that we have quite a lot of John Derrys, beer-swilling, loud-mouthed, at a loss at university, diligent enough swot at his comprehensive school, but not university material. Sort of chap who gets a bad degree if he gets one at all and then blames the capitalist system. Subsequently can't get a job and refuses to believe that turning up for interviews in torn jeans and a boorish manner has anything to do with failure. He latched on to Beth in their first year.
'Beth, on the other hand, is a highly intelligent girl.'
'So why get tied up with John Deny?' asked Agatha.
'The brighter the girl, the more sexually naive. They think they are being feminist and liberated when they enter into a sexual relationship with some man at college, not aware that by funding him, washing his socks and making his meals, they are more in chains than their mothers. It's all sex.'
He pressed his knee harder against Agatha's. It was a small table. She moved her legs away and found them pressed against James's, apologized and moved them away again, where Timothy's insistent knee was waiting under the table to welcome her leg back.
The food arrived, solid English food. 'Do you think either of them could have committed a murder?' asked Agatha.
He held up a hand ornamented with dirty fingernails for silence and then attacked his food. He ate very rapidly, washing the meal down with great gulps of wine. 'Perhaps another bottle?' he said, breaking his silence at last.
James ordered another bottle and poured a glass for Agatha and himself before serving Timothy. 'Now,' said James, 'as I am sure you don't want to drink claret with the pudding, perhaps we can talk.'
But Timothy, it transpired, could eat apple pie and ice cream and double cream washed down with claret.
Agatha waited in silence and then said sharply, 'Let's get down to it. We brought you out for lunch to get a few facts.'
Timothy smiled dreamily at Agatha's pugnacious face. 'Dear lady,' he crooned. 'So forceful. I am but jelly in the hands of a forceful woman.'
He seized hold of Agatha's hand and kissed it. She snatched it away. 'Come on,' she snapped. 'Tell us more about John Deny.'
He drained the last of the claret and signalled the waitress. 'Perhaps a brandy with the coffee...' he was beginning but Agatha waved the waitress away. 'We'll call you when we need you. No brandy, Timothy, until you talk to us. Tell us more about John Derry. Any incidents in college involving him? He and Beth are in their final year when the term starts, are they not?'
He sighed and leaned back and lit a cigarette. 'There was an incident in John's first year. He beat up a fellow student in a drunken brawl. It never got to court. He was disciplined by the college,'
'What caused the brawl?'
'He said the student he had attacked had made a pass at Beth. Some witnesses said Beth had encouraged the advances and seemed delighted at the subsequent punch-up, egging John on to greater efforts. But I find that hard to believe. She is such a sweet girl. She'll get a good degree.'
He began to talk about college life, and time after time Agatha steered him back to the characters of John and Beth, but without much success. Reluctantly James ordered brandy for Timothy - 'A double, my dear,' called Timothy to the waitress - and said, 'The one thing we have got out of this is that report that Beth had incited John to fight.'
'Beth Fortune is no Lady Macbeth,' exclaimed Timothy, waving one hand expansively so that cigarette ash dropped into Agatha's coffee cup. He focused his tipsy eyes on James and nodded in Agatha's direction. 'What's she like in bed? Feisty, I'll bet.'
James sighed. 'I have not had that pleasure.'
'Why?' asked Timothy.
'Can we stick to the subject?' Agatha's voice was beginning to get a nasty edge to it. 'On the night of the murder, John and Beth claim they were in Bern's rooms. But the police say there are no witnesses to give them an alibi.'
'But there is a witness.' He tapped his nose and then stubbed his cigarette out in the remains of his pudding.
They both leaned forward. 'Who?'
'Me,' he said triumphantly. 'Of course, it should be 'I', but I always feel one can appear a trifle pedantic if - '
'What are you talking about?' howled Agatha. 'What did you see?'
'I was crossing the quad below Beth's rooms on the evening of the murder. I looked up and distinctly saw John Deny and Beth Fortune standing by the window, talking.'
'At what time?'
'At about eight thirty.'
'Did you tell the police this?'
'They didn't ask me.'
'But you must have known that they were looking for witnesses,' said Agatha impatiently.
'I saw no reason for my evidence, dear lady. Such as Beth Fortune does not kill her own mother, and in such a gruesome way. Nor, for that matter, would John Deny. The manner in which she was killed suggests a brooding hatred. A real village murder.'
'What do you mean - village murder?'
'We don't go in for such colourful deaths in the city. Lots of inbreeding still in these old Cotswold villages, and witchcraft and all that sort of thing. Take my word for it, it's a village murder.'
His eye roved round the restaurant for the waitress and James, guessing correctly that Timothy meant to ask for another brandy, forestalled him by asking for the bill.
Agatha was glad to escape and take a deep breath of fresh air when they got outside. 'I thought we would be meeting a scholarly old gentleman,' she said bitterly. 'Do you think he meant all that, about being a witness?'
'Yes, I think he was telling the truth. Why should he lie?'
'Sing for his supper? Get more free booze out of you? When was the time of death exactly? Did we ask Bill Wong? We found her at eight o'clock.'
'I asked. They estimate she was killed about an hour before we arrived.'
'Why didn't I think of asking Bill?' demanded Agatha fretfully.
'Because we weren't exactly looking for alibis for people but more for reasons for killing Mary. Oh, God, think of the time it took to kill her and then to string up the body. He or she could have left only minutes before we arrived. And if John and Beth were seen at eight thirty, they could have had time to get back to Oxford, so they haven't really got an alibi, now I come to think of it,'
'Thank you for lunch, James. I should give you my share.'
'That's all right. Take me out for dinner next week and we'll call it quits. Are you going to give away the money Mary left you, Agatha?'
'No, I think I'll keep it.'
'Then you can afford to buy me dinner. Where now?'
'Back to Carsely, I suppose,' said Agatha. 'We might think of some ideas on the road.'
But nothing occurred to either of them, although they swapped various theories.
'Mrs Bloxby was right,' said Agatha with a shiver as they approached the village. 'The murder seems more awful the further one gets away from it. I think the shock of the whole thing has kept reality at bay.'
'There's the boy scouts' fete,' said James, slowing the car outside a field above Carsely. 'Want to have a look? They've got stalls and things, and I could do with some home-made jam. Mary used to keep me supplied. Damn it! Why did I have to think of that?'
'May as well have a look,' agreed Agatha.
