A Spoonful of Poison (13 page)

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 …
ever
… speak to me like that again,” said Agatha in a level voice. “You are neither my husband nor my father. Would you like me to leave?”

“No. Look—let’s start again. I’m still upset at Arnold’s death. Have the police any idea who broke into your cottage? It must be the same person who killed Arnold and stole the money.”

Agatha sighed. “If it were a television programme, some forensics scientist would hold up one bit of hair and say, ‘Aha! This matches the DNA of Arthur Chance or whoever.’ But the police are probably sitting on their hands because it’s me and it’s only a burglary where
nothing was stolen. Have you any idea at all who could have killed Arnold? You said you’d fill me in.”

Suddenly in Agatha’s mind that last sentence seemed to have a sexual connotation. She flushed and studied her glass of Merlot.

“I know that Arthur phoned Arnold on the day he was murdered and said they should both go to the bank that afternoon. Then he got a phone call from a Mrs. Wilmington, who was once a parishioner, pleading for his spiritual help and saying that she was close to death. So Arthur phoned Arnold and put the appointment off until the following day, because Mrs. Wilmington had given him an address in Warwick.

“When he got to the address in Warwick, he found it was a betting shop and no one in the flats above had ever heard of Mrs. Wilmington. He returned to the vicarage and looked up her last address, which was in Ancombe. He phoned. Mrs. Wilmington answered the phone, claimed she was fit and well and had never phoned him.”

“Didn’t he immediately call the police?”

“No, he thought it was someone playing a tiresome joke.”

“So there’s now a woman in the case. Probably a woman working in partnership with some man.” Agatha silently cursed the police. They had held back all this from her.

“Let’s talk about something else. Ah, here’s our food. Tell me how you came to start a detective agency?”

In between eating and drinking, Agatha gave him a highly embroidered version of the cases she had solved and how she had at last decided to turn professional.

Then she realized that George had ordered another bottle of wine for her. “I’ll need to take a taxi,” said Agatha. “Oh, well, tell me about yourself. I’ve done all the talking.”

George began. He was an architect and had settled in the Cotswolds because there were so many demands for house extensions and garage conversions. He was kept very busy. Of course, in a couple of cases, his clients had declared bankruptcy and he had not received any money for months of work. “I hadn’t realized until I moved to the Cotswolds that bankruptcy had become a sort of growth industry. I mean, I knew there were a lot around, but I thought it was from people who had used too many shop credit cards charging high interest.”

“You must miss your wife very much,” said Agatha, mellowed with wine.

He heaved a sigh. “Sarah was such a homebody. She made all the curtains herself when we moved in, and loose covers for the chairs. Her cooking was plain but delicious. She never had any ambition. When we were in financial difficulties, I suggested she might like to get a job to help out. But she cried and said our home was her job.”

“What about Fred Corrie?” asked Agatha, thinking
that perhaps George was attracted to the useless clinging type.

“What about her?”

“Does she work?”

“She paints. Watercolours. Don’t sell very well, but she’s got an income from a family trust. Did anyone ever tell you that you are a very sexy woman”?

Agatha blinked. Then she said, “Maybe.”

He laughed and called for the bill. “I’ll take you home in a taxi. We can pick up our cars tomorrow.”

In the darkness of the taxi, he reached out and took her hand. He said softly, “I think our evening is not over yet.”

Agatha took rapid inventory of her body. Legs—yes, shaved. Armpits, ditto. Was she ready for this?
Yes
, screamed her hormones.

As the cab drew up outside her cottage, she saw all the lights were on inside. “That’s odd,” said Agatha. “I think someone’s in there.”

George curtly told the taxi to wait. Agatha unlocked the door and marched straight into the sitting room. Charles was lying on the sofa, one leg in plaster propped up on a cushion.

“What happened to you?” raged Agatha.

“I fell down your stairs and broke my leg,” said Charles plaintively. “I called the ambulance and got fixed up.”

“Why didn’t you go home?”

“Aunt’s away and Gustav is on a break, so I decided you’d be the best person to look after me, light of my life.”

“I’d better go,” said George.

Agatha saw him to the door. “Charles is just a friend,” she said.

“Oh, really? ’Night.”

After he had gone, Agatha marched back inside. Charles was sitting upright on the sofa. Beside him on the floor was the discarded plaster cast, looking like a white umbrella stand.

“What in hell’s name were you playing at?” raged Agatha.

“Calm down. No, don’t shout. Listen. George Selby is a suspect, or had you forgotten? Ever since you’ve got over James, you’ve been desperate for a replacement. Think about it. Were you really going to fall into bed with a man who might have organized the death of his wife? A man who may even have killed poor Arnold?”

Agatha sat down beside him on the sofa. “How did you know I might come back with him?” she asked sulkily.

“Because it’s just the sort of dangerous thing you’ve done in the past.”

“Where did you get the cast?”

“I got it from Mrs. Bloxby’s theatrical costume basket.”

“You
told
Mrs. Bloxby.”

“No, I said I needed something to make me look as if I had been injured because I wanted to get out of doing something. That excellent lady did not ask any questions. The amateur dramatic society put on a show of
Carry On Doctor
about five years ago. Want a drink?”

“I’ve had enough. Do you really think George is involved in any of this?”

“Not sure. Does he spend a lot of time at the vicarage?”

“He does seem to be there a lot.”

“Why? Does he strike you as having the character of a do-gooder?”

“He could be. He organized all those marquees for the fête.”

“I can’t see a successful architect having much time for anything else other than work. Where’s his office?”

“I don’t know.”

“It might be worthwhile finding out and sending someone from your office he doesn’t know to suss out the place.”

“I’ll think about it. I’m going to bed.”

Agatha hesitated in the doorway. “Thanks,” she said gruffly. “I could have made an awful fool of myself.”

“Oh, dear Agatha,” said Charles, “don’t start growing up. It alarms me. You should be throwing things at my head.”

Before Agatha left for the office the next morning, Patrick phoned her. “I thought I’d better tell you this before you come in,” he said. “You asked me to find out about Jimmy Wilson. Yes, he did have bowel cancer, but that wasn’t the reason he retired. He was cured and back at work. He was sent out to cover a case. A woman had been raped in her home. Jimmy was accompanied by another detective, Miriam Wells. Miriam escorted the woman down to the rape unit while the forensic team went over her flat. Jimmy stayed behind. The rapist was caught through his DNA, which was on file, but before his arrest, the woman claimed that five thousand pounds she kept in a drawer in her bedroom had been taken. She was told the rapist must have taken it. She said no. While she was waiting for the police, she had looked into the drawer and had seen the money was still there.

“After a long investigation, it was suggested to Jimmy that he should take early retirement.”

“Why did they think it was him? It could have been one of the forensic team or that Miriam detective.”

“The fact is that there had been a couple of cases Jimmy had been on before in which money had gone missing. In each case, Jimmy was suspected, but nothing was proved.”

“Tell Jimmy to follow up on that factory case, the one with the missing goods, and the rest of you come over here.”

Agatha knew Charles was asleep upstairs in the spare bedroom. She decided to let him sleep. She still felt ashamed of the fact that she had been so ready to leap into bed with George and didn’t want to be reminded of the fact first thing in the morning.

She hurried along to the village shop and bought a large bag of croissants. Back home, she put on a pot of coffee and then set the kitchen table with strawberry jam, butter and sugar, plates and knives, cream and milk.

Agatha opened the garden door and let her cats out and then lit a cigarette. Her mind seemed to be leaping all over the place.

When her staff, minus Jimmy, arrived, she waited until they were all seated around the table with plates of croissant and mugs of coffee before she began.

“I have learned something upsetting about Jimmy. Tell them, Patrick.”

They all listened carefully. When Patrick had finished, Toni exclaimed, “I knew there was something awful about him.”

“The fact is this,” said Agatha. “I’m worried now that Jimmy might have been the one who stole the church money and murdered poor old Arnold. If that turns out to be the case, it’s going to look bad for the agency. Who’s going to trust us in the future?”

“I can’t see Jimmy going as far as murder,” said Patrick.

“I’d like a watch kept on his house,” said Agatha. “The trouble is, he knows all of us.”

Charles ambled in wearing his dressing gown.

“What sort of place does he live in?” asked Toni. “Is it a house or a flat? Is it on a busy road?”

“Wait a minute,” said Agatha. “His address is on my computer. I’ll check.”

She came back after a few minutes. “He lives in Evesham. Port Street.”

“Wasn’t that flooded out?” said Phil.

“He didn’t mention it or take time off, so it must be the top end. He probably lives over a shop.”

“I could do it,” said Toni.

“He knows you.”

“He only knows me like this. Believe me, he won’t recognize me.”

“I don’t want you running into any danger,” said Agatha.

“I could park my car outside,” said Phil. “With glasses and a tweed cap pulled down, he wouldn’t know me. He’s always sneering at me and calling me ‘grandad.’ Patrick can scrunch down in the back seat. Then, when Jimmy goes out, Patrick can break into his flat. It’s no use protesting, Patrick. I know you’ve got a set of skeleton keys.”

“Going to be right difficult,” said Patrick. “The long-light nights are here. Say he lives up at the top end of
Port Street, well, it’s pretty deserted at night. Then, if it’s just the one flat above a shop, I’ll look conspicuous standing there fiddling with the lock.”

“Can’t you send him away somewhere?” suggested Charles.

“You might have something there. He’s also got the Tropper case. Mrs. Tropper suggests her husband might be taking his totty to a hotel in Brighton. That’s it. I’ll send him off tomorrow.”

“What if I take Mrs. Freedman with me for the break-in?” said Patrick. “Jimmy’s some relative of hers.”

“She’d be too shocked and she might say something to him.”

“Right. We’ll just send him on his way tomorrow and then decide what to do about it.”

Agatha could not believe her luck the next morning when she found Jimmy, stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep. The office was full of stale beer fumes. His jacket was hanging over the back of a chair. She felt in the pockets and extracted his keys. Quietly she let herself out and rushed to the nearest key cutters. She looked at her watch. Ten to nine. The shop door was closed. She impatiently rattled the handle. The blind on the door was raised and the shopkeeper mouthed, “Closed,” and pointed to his watch.

Agatha opened her handbag and took a twenty-pound note out of her wallet and waved it. The door opened. “I need an extra set of house keys,” said Agatha. “Twenty pounds over the price if you do it now.”

Soon she had the keys copied and hurried back to the office. Jimmy was sitting up, staring blearily around.

Agatha walked towards her desk and knocked his jacket to the floor as she did so. She slipped Jimmy’s keys on top of the jacket and then rounded on him.

“What where you doing sleeping in the office?”

“I had a bit of a bevvy last night,” said Jimmy. “Too many coppers around, so I decided to sleep it off here.”

“You’d better go home and get a bath and then take yourself off to Brighton. It’s the Tropper case. Mrs. Tropper thinks he’s taking his bit of stuff to Brighton. He told her he was there on a sales conference. Check and see.”