“Is there a Mr. Friendly?”
“Yes, he’s a building contractor.”
“Do you think this hairdresser could have got his leg over, or maybe he’s indulging in a spot of blackmail?”
Agatha’s eyes gleamed. “I thought of blackmail. The way women talk to their hairdressers! You should hear them.”
“Let’s go and see this Mrs. Friendly.”
Agatha shifted uneasily. “What? Now?”
“Why not? Don’t beat about the bush. Ask her why she was so frightened.”
“Shouldn’t I phone first?”
“Let’s surprise her.”
“All right,” said Agatha reluctantly. “I’ll put the cats out in the garden and lock up.”
Mrs. Friendly’s cottage was small and neat, two-storied, with no garden at the front.
They rang the bell. The door was opened by a very hairy man. He was wearing a tank top and shorts and grizzled hair sprouted all over his body. He had tufts of hair in his ears and hair sprouting out of his nose. His eyes were surprisingly weak and pale, peering at them from out of all this hairy virility. He must have been nearly sixty and Agatha thought he looked thoroughly unpleasant.
Agatha introduced herself and Charles and said they had called to see Mrs. Friendly.
“Why?” His voice was thin and high.
“Ladies’ Society.”
“Come in,” he said reluctantly.
The little cottage was dark and stifling. It had the original leaded windows, which looked so quaint and pretty from outside but allowed very little light to penetrate the inside. Mr. Friendly ushered them into a hot, dark living room and said, “I’ll get Liza.”
“I didn’t know he was retired,” whispered Agatha. “Looks as if he must be.” Fierce whispers were coming from the nether regions, then Mr. Friendly’s voice, sharp and angry: “Just get rid of them.”
“Oh, dear,” muttered Agatha.
Liza Friendly came in. She had a round pleasant face, pretty even in middle age.
“Is it about the concert?” she asked.
“Not really,” said Agatha. “I was at that French restaurant in Blockley last night with Mr. John and you saw us and I thought you look frightened.”
For one brief moment, Liza looked every bit as frightened as she had been the night before, but then she said brightly, “Oh, I must have looked odd. It was the heat. I had to get out of there. I thought I was going to faint. Anything else?”
“Well, no,” said Agatha.
Liza had remained standing. She moved towards the door. “In that case, I won’t keep you.”
There was nothing else they could do but leave. “I haven’t introduced my friend,” said Agatha. “Sir Charles Fraith.”
But Liza had reached the front door and was holding it open.
“Goodbye,” she said formally. “How kind of you to call.”
“Well, that was a wash-out,” said Charles. “Let’s go back to your place and talk.”
They returned to the kitchen of Agatha’s cottage. Agatha switched on the fan and poured two more cups of coffee.
“Now,” said Charles, “if he’s a blackmailer, there is one way to find out.”
“How?”
“You think of some truly awful secret, Aggie, and take him out for dinner and cry on his shoulder. Then we’ll wait and see.”
“I could do that,” said Agatha slowly. “You know, we could be imagining things. Maybe she’s just frightened of her hairy husband. Wait a bit. At the ladies’ society meeting, I said I was going to Mr. John in Evesham and she said something like, ‘I wouldn’t go there.’ Oh, and there’s something else. I did ask Mr. John about those voices I overheard when I was in the toilet, but he said it was a husband and wife who owned the shop next door and who were always quarelling. Should we watch Mrs. Friendly’s cottage and see if her husband goes out?”
“I think we should try my way first,” said Charles. “Let’s go somewhere for lunch and then I’ll take a look at this hairdresser’s in Evesham. You could make another appointment. Your hair looks nice like that.”
“Thank you. Where shall we have lunch?”
“Your choice.”
“I don’t lunch in Evesham, but there’s bound to be somewhere.”
They got into Charles’s car and drove up through the hot countryside to the A-44. “You’d best cut off at the top of Fish Hill and go through Willersley,” said Agatha.
“Why?”
“It’s the new Broadway by-pass they’re building. There’re traffic lights at the bottom of Fish Hill and you can get stuck there for ages.”
“Right you are.”
In Evesham and following Agatha’s directions, Charles parked at the top of the multi-storey car-park next to the river Avon. They left the car and walked to Bridge Street. “That looks all right.” Agatha pointed to a restaurant called the Lantern.
“I hope they do good chips,” said Charles, holding the door open for her. “I like chips.”
The chips turned out to be real ones and not the frozen variety. “Now what am I going to tell Mr. John?” asked Agatha.
“Don’t rush it. Wait till you get him out for dinner. I’ll bet you told him about James.”
Agatha blushed guiltily.
“Ah, I thought so. Let me see. I know, James is due back but you’ve been having an affair with me.”
Agatha stared at the table.
“Oho, you gabby thing. You told him about me, too. He does have a way of winkling out secrets.”
“I didn’t tell him that James had found out about us,” mumbled Agatha.
“There we have it. You want to marry James. He’s a violently jealous man. He’s written to say he loves you. You are terrified he finds out about me because I am violent and jealous.”
“I could do that,” said Agatha. “I’m not normally so gossipy. It’s just I seemed to have drunk quite a lot.”
“Did he try to go to bed with you?”
“He did expect to be asked in. No, Charles. I am not amoral like you. I shall tell him I am keeping myself pure for James.”
“Good girl.”
They finished their meal and walked up Bridge Street and turned into the High Street.
“Look at that beautiful house,” said Charles, pointing across the road.
“It’s a Chinese restaurant,” said Agatha. “The Evesham Diner. Pretty good.”
“I don’t care if it’s pretty good. What kind of barbarians are there in this town not to preserve that lovely building properly? Look, here’s a newsagent’s. I’m going to buy a guidebook.”
Agatha sighed. The sun was beating down and the humidity had made her make-up melt.
Charles emerged with a small guidebook. “Here we are. Dresden House. Built in 1692-see, I was right about William and Mary-by a Worcester man, Robert Cookes.”
“Why Dresden?”
“Ah, one owner of the house, Dr. William Baylies, ran into financial trouble and went to live in Dresden, becoming physician to Frederick the Great of Prussia.”
“Never mind history. Here’s the hairdresser. Oh, rats!”
“What rats?”
“I forgot, it’s Wednesday. Half day. They’re closed and I was all geared up with my story.”
“Come on, Aggie, you can’t have been. Were you meaning to go in and make an appointment and then say, ‘Oh, by the way, James is coming home and I’m having an affair with Charles here’?”
“I only meant I was all geared up to ask him out for dinner.”
