Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate (19 page)

‘He didn’t warn me off,’ John pointed out.

But Agatha didn’t like the idea of John playing detective when she herself was not allowed to.

‘Mind you,’ she said, ‘there would be no harm in continuing to ask around the village. Look at the news I got from Mrs Feathers. Might do no harm to go and talk to Mr Crinsted, the man Tristan used to play chess with.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said John. ‘We’ll try him in the morning.’

‘What do you know of Mark Brent?’ Agatha asked Mrs Bloxby.

‘Nothing bad. Nice man. Always willing to help out. Why?’

‘He was upset with Tristan. Seems his wife, Gladys, got a crush on Tristan and Brent warned him off.’

‘I cannot imagine for a moment that such as Mr Brent or his wife would resort to violence of any kind,’ said Mrs Bloxby.

‘Well, we’ll try Mr Crinsted. Oh, and the mobile library is due round on Monday. I’ll have a word with Mrs Brown.’

‘Do you think it will do any good?’ asked the vicar’s wife wearily.

Agatha could feel a resurgence of her old energy for investigation which had so recently deserted her. ‘I’ve blundered around asking questions before. Something’s got to break.’

Agatha and John drove to the council estate on Monday morning. ‘Do you think he’ll be at home?’ asked John.

‘He’s very old,’ replied Agatha. ‘Bound to be.’ Mr Crinsted answered the door to them. He was stooped and frail with a thin, lined face and mild eyes behind thick glasses. ‘Do come in,’ he said. ‘Dear me, how nice to have some company. The only company I usually have is the television set.’

His living-room was neat and clean. Agatha looked at photographs on the mantelpiece of couples with children.

‘How many children do you have?’ she asked.

‘A son and daughter and six grandchildren.’

‘Must be nice for you when they come on a visit.’

‘I’m afraid I only see them at Christmas. I think they find visits to me rather boring. The children are dreadfully spoilt.’

How awful, thought Agatha, to be trapped here, never seeing anyone. Her mind worked busily. She would suggest to Mrs Bloxby that they start an old folks’ club. Her stocks and shares had been doing very well. Maybe she could see about getting the church hall renovated, turn it into an old folks’ club.

‘The reason we called,’ said John, ‘is to ask you for your opinion of Tristan Delon.’

‘Oh dear. Do sit down. I’ll make some tea.’

Agatha glanced at her watch. ‘Don’t worry. It’s nearly lunchtime. Tell you what, we’ll chat for a bit and then we’ll go down to Moreton for some lunch. My treat.’

John stared at Agatha in surprise, but Mr Crinsted was obviously delighted. ‘Goodness me, it does seem an age since I’ve been out of the village. So what can I tell you about our late curate? Well, he called round one day when I was working out some chess moves and offered to play. I was so delighted to have a partner that I let him win on a couple of occasions. He was such good company. I thought he really liked me and that was very flattering to an old man like me. Then the last time, I became absorbed in the game and forgot to let him win. I have never in my life before seen anyone change personality so completely. He accused me of cheating. I patiently began to explain to him the moves I had made and he said, “You’re lying, you silly old fool,” and he upset the chessboard and sent the pieces flying and stalked out of the house. I was very disappointed. You see, I did think we might be friends.’

‘Before he became upset with you,’ said John, ‘did he let fall anything about his private life?’

‘Not really. Chess is such a
silent
game. He did say once that people were like chess pieces, easily moved around. I pointed out that people could be very unpredictable.’

‘Let’s continue this over lunch,’ said Agatha.

They went to a pub in Moreton and ate great helpings of steak-and-kidney pie. Agatha ordered wine. To John’s amazement, she sparkled for Mr Crinsted’s benefit, telling him stories about her public relations jobs. Warmed by the wine and food, Mr Crinsted talked in turn about his own life. He had been a nuclear physicist, working at Los Alamos, and then in Vienna. He had married an Austrian wife, Gerda, but she had died of breast cancer after their second child was born. ‘I spent a lot of money sending my son and daughter to the best schools and then university. Freda, my daughter, became a nurse and then married a doctor, and my son, Gerald, he became an accountant and married his secretary.’ Mr Crinsted sighed. ‘I never saved any money and I was lucky to get that council house. I have a comfortable pension and my needs are small. I am glad both my children are very comfortably off.’

‘Don’t they help you out?’ asked John.

‘I never ask them. I don’t have any expensive needs. Perhaps I did too much for them and taught them to be selfish.’

‘You know the church hall?’ asked Agatha.

‘I know where it is, but that’s all.’

‘I thought I might see about getting it repaired. The roof needs doing. I could start an old folks’ club – films, bingo, stuff like that. You could give chess lessons. We’d need a minibus, too, to take people to the shops in Stratford, maybe the theatre.’

‘That would be wonderful. I would love to give chess lessons.’

Again John looked at Agatha in surprise. He had recently come to think of her as a bossy, occasionally grumpy woman. But her eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm and old Mr Crinsted looked positively rejuvenated.

He had to remind her after two hours of conversation that if they didn’t hurry up, they would miss the mobile library.

After they had left Mr Crinsted, John said, ‘Are you really going ahead with this old folks’ club?’

‘Yes, it’ll be fun to have something to do.’

‘You surprise me.’

‘I can believe that. You have me down as a pushy, selfish woman.’

‘I have not,’ said John, reddening.

‘There’s the mobile library. Let’s see what Mrs Brown has to say.’

They had to wait patiently while various villagers returned books, took out more books, and discussed books. At last they were left alone with Mrs Brown.

‘Mr Delon?’ Mrs Brown looked at them thoughtfully over her half-moon glasses. ‘Now there was a young man just waiting to be murdered.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked John.

The plump little librarian picked a book off her desk and put it back on the shelves. ‘I’ve often thought about the way he humiliated me, jeering at my choice of books. There was no reason for it. It was an exercise in spite. I thought after I’d heard he had been murdered that if he could be bothered to go out of his way to be nasty to a country librarian, then he had probably been extremely nasty to someone who was prepared to retaliate.’

‘And you can think of no reason why he should suddenly have sounded off at you?’ asked Agatha.

‘There was one silly little thing. Mrs Feathers likes romances, so I always choose one of the more innocent ones and keep it for her. She doesn’t like the ones with explicit sex. We got talking one day and she said that Mr Delon wanted to invest her savings for her. I told her that she should hang on to them, Mr Delon was not a stockbroker. Perhaps that was what made him angry. But when Mrs Feathers thanked me for my advice, I asked her not to tell Mr Delon it came from me and she promised me she wouldn’t tell him. That is why I thought his malice was unprompted.’

‘I think she probably did tell him,’ said Agatha. ‘What’s the gossip about these murders?’

‘I’m afraid a lot of people still suspect the vicar. They say Mr Delon was murdered in the vicarage and that Miss Jellop and Mrs Slither may have known something incriminating and Mr Bloxby might have silenced them. It’s ridiculous, I know, but frightened people do talk such rubbish and people
are
frightened. I see the duck races made the front page of the
Daily Bugle
.’

‘I haven’t seen the papers today,’ said Agatha. ‘Have you got a copy?’

‘Yes, I’ve one in my desk.’ Mrs Brown pulled open a drawer. ‘Here it is.’

There was a coloured photograph of the Morris men fighting. The headline read: THE PEACE OF THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE. ‘Oh dear,’ said Agatha. ‘Never mind. We raised quite bit of money.’

There was nothing more about Tristan to be got from Mrs Brown. ‘Two more dead ends,’ said John when he dropped Agatha off at her cottage. ‘Now what?’

‘I’m going back to see Mrs Bloxby,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m going to put forward my idea for the old folks’ club.’

‘You’re on your own, then. Maybe see you tomorrow.’

‘Yes, maybe,’ said Agatha vaguely, her mind full of plans.

‘It really is too generous of you, Mrs Raisin,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘But what about all that wine? We’ll need to find a new home for it.’

‘I’ve had an idea about that,’ said Agatha. ‘The wine is very heavy and sweet. We could relabel it and call it Cotswold Liqueur. I could ask John Fletcher if he would buy the wine. He could sell it by the glass as a liqueur. I could get a write-up on it in the local paper, do a bit of promotion in return. Tell him the proceeds will go to the old folks’ home.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea. I don’t think all your money should go into the repairs. Now we have done so well for Save the Children, I think we should organize the next fund-raising venture to go to repairing the hall.’

‘I’ll think of something good,’ said Agatha confidently.

‘I am so glad to see you looking like your old self,’ said Mrs Bloxby.

‘I think I’ve finally got fed up with suffering over James. I’m going to have fun.’

Agatha was hungry when she got home. Once more she scrabbled in the deep-freeze, scraping frost off labels in her search for something to eat. She was so tired, she did not notice that the tray of faggots she placed in the microwave was on a foil dish. She had not read the instructions properly and so did not know that foil was deemed unsuitable for microwaves. She had only read the time by dint of screwing up her eyes. Agatha should have realized that forty-five minutes in a microwave is a long time. While the dish spun round, she went into the garden and took a deep breath of the cold night air.

Was the murderer somewhere in the village? Was it possible to sleep easy at night after having committed three murders? As she stood there, lost in thought, she finally became aware of the frantic mewing of her cats and turned round. Black smoke was billowing out through the open kitchen door.

She rushed in. Flames were beginning to lick around the inside of the microwave. She switched it off and unplugged it and opened the door, coughing and waving her arms to try to clear the smoke. The foil tray had melted under a congealed black heap of food. Agatha lifted up the microwave and put it outside the kitchen door.

She found some slightly hard bread and cut two slices and toasted them with cheese under the grill. A film of black was lying over all the surfaces in the kitchen. When she had finished eating, she began to clean the kitchen. It was nearly midnight by the time she had finished.

Agatha went upstairs and had a hot bath and then changed into a long cotton night-dress. She climbed into bed and settled down with a weary sigh. What a day! At least the duck races had raised a lot of money. Pity about the bad publicity. So Bunty was married. She had achieved the dream of many secretaries by marrying the boss. Agatha’s thoughts drifted back to the days when she herself had been a secretary. Her boss, an advertising manager, had been tall and blond and charming. Agatha had slavishly spent some of her small pay packet on buying special brands of coffee to please him. But he had never seemed to pay any more attention to her than if she were some sort of piece of office machinery. Mr Crinsted’s son had married his secretary.

She sat up, her mind racing. Miss Partle, Binser’s secretary. What if she was so in love with her boss that she would defend him every way she could?

Without even bothering to put on a dressing-gown, Agatha fled down the stairs, out into the night, straight to John’s cottage and rang the bell and then hammered on the door.

‘I’m coming,’ she heard John’s cross voice shouting. He opened the door and stared at Agatha in her night-gown.

‘Why, Agatha, this is so sudden.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ve just got to talk to you.’

He stood back and she walked into his living-room. John was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of blue silk pyjama trousers. His smooth chest was strong and muscled. Agatha wondered briefly what he did to keep so fit before plunging in. ‘Secretaries,’ she gasped.

‘Sit down. Calm down. Begin at the beginning.’

‘I met my former secretary, Bunty, at the duck races. She’d married her boss. Mad about him.’

‘That’s nice,’ said John soothingly. ‘But why come dashing in here in the middle of the night?’

‘I just remembered how secretaries can obsess about their bosses. What about Miss Partle?’

‘Binser’s secretary?’

‘Yes, her. Do you remember it was because of her that Binser met Tristan in the first place?’

‘I think I do.’

‘Well, think of this. She could have been charmed by Tristan, enough to effect the introduction, but her real passion was for her boss. When Tristan conned Binser out of ten thousand, she must have been determined to get it back. She may have arranged to get him beaten up. So the ten thousand is returned. Still, Tristan tried a bit of blackmail. He loved money. He was desperate for money and more money. Miss Partle thought it was all over. But somehow Tristan gets his hands on a real piece of blackmail material concerning Binser. He phones Miss Partle. Say he speaks to her because Binser is away. She decides to silence him. She phones him when she gets to Carsely. Maybe she reminds Tristan of the beating in New Cross. He decides to make a break for it. He leaves the house and goes to the vicarage. She follows him quietly, not wanting to attack him in the street. Let’s say he doesn’t use his key to the vicarage but goes through the French windows. She sees him open the church box and take the money. She suddenly sees it would be to her advantage to get rid of him in such circumstances. She seizes the paper-knife, and bingo!’

‘And what about Peggy Slither and Miss Jellop?’