Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (18 page)

He turned to Agatha and gently questioned her again, taking notes of his own while she confirmed James’s story.

James ambled off to the kitchen and made some coffee. Men were dusting Agatha’s front door for fingerprints, examining the road outside for tyre tracks, picking over the front garden. He sat down at the kitchen table, listening to the murmur of voices in the other room and reflecting that he had initially retired to the country for peace and quiet.

At last he rose and went back to his own house and dug out a sleeping-bag, put his pyjamas, toothbrush, and shaving-kit in a bag and returned to Agatha’s cottage.

Bill and the others were just leaving. ‘I’ll sleep downstairs here tonight,’ said James, and Bill nodded.

Mrs Bloxby, the vicar’s wife, was sitting with Agatha when he went into the sitting-room. ‘That nice Mr Wong phoned me,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘What a terrible business. Agatha should not be left alone.’

‘She won’t be,’ said James. ‘I’m sleeping down here. Don’t cry, Agatha. Cats are great survivors.’

‘If they’re still alive,’ sobbed Agatha.

‘I’m glad you are staying, Mr Lacey,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘But phone me if you need any help.’

James saw her out and then returned to Agatha. ‘Off to bed with you,’ he said gently, ‘and I’ll bring you something to make you sleep.’

Agatha scrubbed her eyes and trailed up the stairs. Part of her mind told her that such a short time ago she would have believed any sacrifice was worth getting James to stay under her roof and look after her, but the rest of her mind cried out for her lost pets.

After she was in bed, the door opened and James came in carrying a tray. ‘Whisky and hot water and a couple of aspirin,’ he said. ‘I’ll be downstairs. Drink up.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and held the glass to her lips and waited until she had swallowed the aspirin.

After he had left, Agatha lay awake, tears trickling out of the corners of her eyes. Everyone seemed sinister to her now, even James. What did she know of him? A man arrived in a village and claimed to be a retired colonel and everyone took him at face value. And yet, Bunty knew his family, and she, Agatha, had met his sister a year ago. But how formidable, how terrifying he had been when he had been slapping the miserable Jerry around. Ruthless, that was the word for it.

Slowly she drifted off to sleep, plagued with nightmares. Freda was torturing the cats and laughing while James looked on; Bill Wong invited her to dinner and served up the cats, roasted on a tray; and Miss Webster was sitting efficiently at her desk, with Agatha’s two cats, stuffed and mounted, in front of her.

Agatha awoke in the morning. Sunlight was streaming into the room, there was a smell of coffee and the hum of voices from downstairs. She looked at the clock beside the bed. Ten in the morning!

She washed and dressed and went downstairs. Her kitchen was full of women: most of them members of the Carsely Ladies’ Society, Mrs Harvey from the general store, and Mrs Dunbridge, the butcher’s wife, all being served coffee by James.

They surrounded her as she came in, murmuring sympathy. Her kitchen counter was loaded with gifts of cake and jam and flowers. Even Miss Simms was there. ‘Took the day off from work,’ she said.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Agatha, ‘but I don’t know what you can do.’

‘Mr Lacey has had a very good idea,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘We’re organizing a search. Your cats may have been dumped off somewhere in the village, so we are all going out on a house-to-house hunt. You sit quietly here with Mr Lacey and we’ll report if we find anything.’

Agatha abruptly left the room and went up to the bathroom and cried her eyes out. All her life she had forged on, pushy and determined to get to the top of the public relations profession, all her life she had been alone. All this friendship and help made her feel weak.

When she went back downstairs, red-eyed but composed, only James and Mrs Parr were left.

‘Mrs Parr has just been telling me much the same story as Miss Simms,’ said James. ‘Bladen told her about the veterinary hospital and said he would name it after her. Her husband found out about the missing money and hit the roof.’

‘I suppose I might have done the same thing,’ said Agatha slowly, remembering that dinner at the Greek restaurant. ‘He told me about his plans and I said I would contribute something, but I was thinking of a cheque for twenty pounds. And he was all ready to go to bed with me but I panicked and ran away. Did you have an affair with him, Mrs Parr?’

She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t have done. That wasn’t how he tricked me. I was so flattered by him because he said I was the only woman who understood him. I am not very happy in my marriage and he made me feel attractive. I should have told you before, but I felt such a fool. I was still a bit in love with him when he died, but after the funeral my mind cleared up and I could see what he had done.’

‘Mrs Mason was telling me the same thing while you were upstairs, Agatha,’ said James, ‘He was a compulsive gambler, Mrs Parr, and that’s why he needed the money.’

‘That’s odd,’ said Agatha. ‘He didn’t spend any of it. I mean, what he got out of the ladies of Carsely was still in his account.’

‘I’ll go off and join the search,’ said Mrs Parr. ‘The least I can do.’

‘Thanks for all this, James,’ said Agatha, when they were alone. Her eyes filled with tears again.

‘Now, now, the time for crying is over. Let’s sit down and discuss what we know. Instead of thinking that, say, Freda must have done it because she paid out the most money, what we should be looking for is someone with the
character
to do such a thing.’

‘Who can say what anyone will do when they’re goaded?’

‘You wouldn’t kill anyone, Agatha, now would you?’

Except Freda, thought Agatha.

‘What we should do,’ he went on, ‘is make a list of suspects and then divide it up and follow each one and see what she does during the day and who she sees and if there is anything suspicious about her behaviour. Now, the women who gave money to Bladen were Mrs Parr, Mrs Mason, Freda, Miss Webster, Mrs Josephs and Miss Simms. Then we have to take into account Paul’s ex-wife, Greta. Also, there is one side of the case we have not been looking at. Bladen was killed up at Lord Pendlebury’s stables. Bob Arthur found the body and came running out, saying, “Looks like someone’s done fer him.” Why should he say that? Why not think it a heart attack or something? There’s another interesting thing I noticed about Bladen’s bank statements. There were no major withdrawals, so he must have had cash to pay for all his food and entertaining. How did he pay the bill at the Greek restaurant?’

‘Cash.’

‘Right. So what about Mrs Arthur? There’s a thought.’

‘It gets worse and worse,’ said Agatha. ‘Where do we begin?’

‘I’ll begin with Freda. No, don’t scowl. My motives are pure detection. You start by watching Mrs Parr.’

‘Oh, come on! That woman couldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘She’s terrified of that husband of hers. Bladen might have known that. She may yet not be telling us all. He could have been blackmailing her. Give you something to do. You want your cats back, don’t you?’

Agatha winced.

‘Anyway, I’ll get moving on my side and we’ll meet up here, say, at six o’clock this evening. Nothing like action to beat the blues, Agatha.’

Agatha went numbly about the kitchen after he had left, stacking away the various gifts in cupboards. Apart from cakes and pots of jam there was a large bunch of dried flowers, but they could hardly be from Miss Webster. Agatha shoved them in a vase and went upstairs to put on the make-up she had wept off.

She was on her way out when she stopped in the hall. The back of the front door was still covered in fingerprint dust. A gleam of sunlight lit up a tiny coloured object sticking among the coarse coconut matting of the doormat. She bent down and looked at it and then picked it out. Puzzled, she turned it this way and that. Then her face cleared. It was a tiny dried petal. It must have fallen off that bouquet of flowers that someone had brought. She flicked it from her fingers and then opened the door.

Then she froze.

Suddenly it was the night before and she was lifting the envelope from the doormat and opening it, taking out the letter, smoothing it out. Surely a flicker of something small and bright had drifted down.

Agatha felt weird and strange as she walked numbly out into the bright sunlight. Two policemen were asking questions at the other cottages in Lilac Lane. People waved and called to her as she went past but she did not hear them.

Agatha Raisin was no longer thinking about who had murdered the vet or Mrs Josephs, all she wanted was her cats back.

As she approached Josephine Webster’s shop, she saw a white hand twisting the card on the door round from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. Of course, half-day in the village. With such a search going on, if Miss Webster had the cats, then she wouldn’t have them in the shop or in her flat above it.

Agatha returned home and got into her car. She parked a little way away from the shop and waited, not noticing people passing up and down the main street, intent only on Josephine Webster.

And then Miss Webster came out, neat and trim as ever, and got into her car, which was parked outside the shop. She drove off. Grimly, Agatha followed. Miss Webster drove down into Moreton-in-Marsh and turned along the Fosse. Agatha let a car get between her and her quarry and followed. Miss Webster headed for Mircester, her little red car sailing up and over the Cotswold hills on the old Roman road which ran straight as an arrow.

Agatha followed her into a multi-storey carpark, parked a little bit away and waited until Miss Webster got out and locked her car, then got out of her own.

Josephine Webster went first to Boots, the chemist’s, tried various perfume samples, and then bought a bottle. From there, she went to a dress boutique. The day was unseasonably chilly and Agatha shivered as she waited outside. At last, she risked a peek through the shop window. Miss Webster was turning this way and that before a mirror, wearing a low-cut red dress. She said something to the assistant and disappeared back into a changing room. After ten minutes, she came out of the shop, carrying a carrier-bag. From there, she went to a lingerie shop and Agatha again froze and fidgeted outside until Miss Webster appeared carrying a carrier-bag with the lingerie shop’s name on it.

When she walked on, followed by Agatha, and turned in at the tall Georgian portico of the public library, Agatha was beginning to despair. It was all so innocent. Fear for her cats had tricked her memory. That little petal had probably fallen off the bouquet that morning. But the doggedness, the single-mindedness, and the tenacity that had made her successful in business took over. She waited outside for half an hour and then cautiously walked inside. No sign of Miss Webster.

Had she seen her and escaped out of a back door? In her frantic search to find a way out of the back of the library, Agatha nearly ran into Josephine Webster, who was sitting in a leather chair in one of the bays, calmly reading, her shopping bags beside her.

Agatha picked the next bay, took a book at random from the shelves and pretended to read. Her stomach rumbled. She should eat something, but she dare not risk leaving the library.

After two hours, a rustle of bags in the next bay warned her that her quarry was about to depart.

She waited a few moments and then cautiously got up and poked her head round the bay. Josephine Webster was disappearing in the direction of the exit. Agatha followed, heart beating hard again now that the pursuit was back on.

Miss Webster tripped gaily along, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She turned in at the door of Mircester’s Palace Hotel.

Agatha, hovering at the entrance, saw her head up a passage at the side of the reception under a sign which said ‘Rest Rooms’.

She bought a newspaper from a kiosk in the foyer, sat down in an armchair and barricaded herself behind it, lowering it from time to time to make sure Miss Webster had not escaped.

After a full hour, Agatha saw Miss Webster emerge. She was wearing the new dress and was heavily made up. She had obviously left her bags and coat in the cloakroom. Agatha jerked up the newspaper as Miss Webster crossed the foyer in a cloud of scent and lowered it again in time to see her going into the bar.

Feeling stiff and hungry, Agatha threw aside the newspaper and looked cautiously round the door of the bar and then jerked her head back.

Miss Webster was sitting talking to Peter Rice, ugly red-haired Peter Rice, Bladen’s partner. He must have entered the hotel and gone into the bar when Agatha’s whole attention was focused on watching for Josephine Webster.

She sat down again in the foyer, her mind working furiously. It could be an innocent meeting. Yes, wait a bit. Miss Webster had a cat. She could have taken the cat for treatment to Mircester and struck up a friendship with Peter Rice. No harm in that. But . . . Greta Bladen had said something about Peter Rice being an old friend.

She looked about her. There was a sign pointing to the hotel restaurant. She walked along to it. The staff were just setting up the tables for the evening meal, but the maître d’hôtel was there. Agatha asked him if a Mr Rice had made a booking for dinner. He checked. Yes, Mr Rice had booked a table for two. For eight o’clock. Agatha glanced at her watch. Only six thirty. They wouldn’t leave the hotel. Somehow, she had to see Greta Bladen before returning to the hotel to keep a watch on them.

She stopped at a phone-box on the road to the car-park and phoned James, but there was no reply. She drove off, praying that Greta would be at home.

Greta answered the door and frowned when she saw her visitor was Agatha.

‘I must speak to you,’ pleaded Agatha. ‘You see, I’ve been threatened. Someone stole my cats to stop me investigating and I think I might know who that someone might be.’

Greta sighed but held open the door. ‘Come in. I don’t quite grasp what you are saying. Do you mean someone is trying to stop you investigating Paul’s death?’