Agatha Raisin and The Potted Gardener (12 page)

“What are you getting at, Agatha? I didn’t dine with her.”

“But surely you had something to eat?”

“Let me see, coffee and home-made cakes, as I recall.”

Agatha’s eyes gleamed. “And then you were too ill afterwards to take me for dinner. I had told Mary you were taking me for dinner.”

“Wait a minute,” said Bill. “Just hold it there. Are you suggesting that Mary put something in the cakes so that James would be ill and would not be able to go?”

Agatha nodded.

“That’s ridiculous,” said James.

“Did she eat the cakes as well?”

James said slowly. “No, she didn’t. She said something about being on a diet.” In fact, what she had said was that she had no intention of becoming as frumpish as Agatha Raisin by letting her figure go.

Bill Wong’s eyes were suddenly shrewd. “I think you’re suggesting also that Mary Fortune might have been the one who ruined the gardens. Do you know something about Mrs Bloxby, say, that you’re not telling us, Agatha?”

“No,” mumbled Agatha.

He gave her a long look and then said, “Okay. Let’s start with you, James. Now the idea was that whoever ruined the gardens wanted to put competition out of the running. But let’s just give Agatha’s theory a whirl. Did you upset Mary before your garden was set alight?”

“As a matter of fact, it was shortly after I had told her the affair was over.”

“So let’s examine the rest. Mr and Mrs Boggle?”

“Forget them,” said Agatha. “They annoy everyone.”

“All right. Miss Simms, then, the unmarried mother who is secretary of the Ladies’ Society.”

“We’d need to ask her,” said Agatha. “She’s not the type to irritate anyone.”

“And Mrs Mason?”

“The same,” said Agatha gloomily. “Need to ask.”

“Mr Spott, he of the poisoned fish? I mean, if by some far-fetched chance Mary was out for petty revenge, then it need not be just plants.”

“Bernard Spott adored Mary,” said James. “He would never have said a word to annoy her.”

“We’re getting nowhere,” sighed Bill. “I don’t think your argument’s got a leg to stand on, Agatha. Say one of those maddened gardeners decided to get revenge on Mary, which one can you see doing it? Mrs Bloxby, Miss Simms, James here, Mrs Mason, or the Boggles or old Mr Spott?”

“Must be someone from her family or her past,” said Agatha. “Was the husband in America the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“But it must have been someone she knew,” said James suddenly.

“Why?”

“There was no forced entry. She opened the door to whoever. She was poisoned. Someone slipped weedkiller in her drink. What drink?” he demanded, looking at Bill.

“Hard to say, but from the contents of her stomach, brandy, I think. It was a strong measure of weedkiller.”

“And you’ve checked all the weedkiller suppliers?”

Bill groaned. “Do you know just how many places in the Cotswolds sell weedkiller? Legion. But yes, we are getting around to them all.” Agatha had taken a menu from the waitress and was studying it. “Never say you are going to order pudding, Agatha?”

“Icky-sticky pudding,” said Agatha firmly. “Anyone else?” They all ordered the sticky toffee-syrup-laced sponge. Why was it, thought Agatha gloomily when she had finished the last crumb, of pudding, that desserts like this, which could slip down her gullet in the old days without any effect, immediately made the waistband of her skirt as tight as a corset?

“I think the daughter is the best bet,” she said over coffee. “Surely it’s very simple. She inherits. She did it, or her boyfriend.”

“Her own mother?” protested James.

“She could have wanted it to look like the work of some maniac,” said Agatha.

“I tell you this,” said Bill, “if it was a maniac, it might just have been some fellow who called at the door.”

“And she let him in and offered him brandy! Not likely,” said Agatha firmly.

Bill heaved a sigh. “Thanks for lunch. I’ve got to be getting back. It might have been done by someone from her past and we’ll never find out who it is.”

“Makes you want to forget about the whole thing,” said James after Bill had left.

“I think people will start talking soon,” said Agatha. “We could start off by calling on Mrs Mason. She’s a sensible lady. All we can do is keep on asking questions until we get a lead.”

Seven

A
t first, that afternoon, as they sat over tea and scones in Mrs Mason’s living-room, it looked as if they weren’t going to get very far. Mrs Mason talked in a hushed voice about ‘poor Mary’. Both Agatha and James ferreted about in their minds for a way to find out what the chairwoman of the Carsely Ladies’ Society actually thought about the dear deceased.

It was James, spurred to his own defence by Mrs Mason’s murmur of “You, above all others, must be grief-stricken, Mr Lacey,” who found an opening. “I regret to tell you, Mrs Mason,” he said, leaning back in one of her velveteen-covered armchairs and stretching his long legs out in front of him, “that although I am shocked and saddened by the murder, I am not grieving. I did not know Mary very well.” Mrs Mason looked startled. “But I thought…”

“I had an affair with Mary Fortune. Most people in the village seem to have known that. It finished a while ago. But despite that, I repeat, I did not know her very well and I am beginning to believe that she had a knack of putting people’s backs up.”

“I think,” said Agatha quickly, remembering what Mrs Bloxby had said, “that she had a way of making people ashamed of themselves and so nobody confided in anyone else what she had said or done.” James gave her a sharp look.

“Well, of course, put like that…” Mrs Mason adjusted her glasses and peered at Agatha. “I thought I was making too much of it.”

“Too much of what?”

“She said, in the nicest way possible, that she wondered why no elections were held for the posts in the Ladies’ Society. ‘Whatever can you mean, Mrs Fortune?’ I asked. She smiled and said that she gathered that I had been chairwoman for several years and Miss Simms had been secretary. I pointed out that nobody had complained. ‘They wouldn’t complain to you, dear,’ she said. ‘But there have been certain
murmurings
,’ yes, that’s what she said, murmurings. ‘About what?’ says I, getting sharpish. ‘Oh,’ says she as sweet as pie, ‘some of the ladies would like to see new blood at the helm.’ I found myself getting angry. ‘Like yourself?’ I says, irritated-like. And she says, ‘Why not? Would you have any objections?’

‘Not me,’ says I, ‘but it’s up to the group.’”

Mrs Mason paused for breath. A red tide of colour rose up her neck. “It would have been all right if she had left it at that. But she went on to say that the Ladies’ Society over at Little Raddington had a very
presentable
chairwoman who was quite
young
.”

Her voice was a bad imitation of Mary’s rather drawling accent. “I bought myself a new pale blue twin set – you remember, Mrs Raisin, you admired it – and I wore it with my pearls to one of the last meetings. Mrs Fortune looked at it and gave a little smile and I suddenly wished I hadn’t wasted the money. She had a way of smiling, she had, that seemed to say, ‘It doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll never look like a lady.’

“I spoke to Mrs Bloxby, who told me that no one had been complaining about me being chairwoman. It was the opposite. She heard a lot of praise for me. She told me to think no more about it. But I said I thought Mrs Fortune would make a better chairwoman and Mrs Bloxby said, ‘No, that would not do at all.’ I was that riled up with Mrs Fortune that when I met her in the village shop, I says to her, I says, ‘I asked Mrs Bloxby if anyone had been unhappy with me being chairwoman and she said quite the opposite, so there!’ And she looks at me steady-like and then says quietly, ‘Mrs Bloxby is such a
kind
woman,’ and o’ course that made me feel bad all over again.”

“And how soon after that was your garden attacked?” asked Agatha eagerly.

“Wait a minute, I’ll need to look at my diary.” She went to a veneered sideboard and drew, a leather-bound book out from the back of a knife drawer. “Let me see.” She rummaged through the pages. “Ah, here’s the bit about meeting her in the post office part of the village shop.” She flicked over more pages. “Three days after that, it would be.”

Agatha flashed a triumphant look at James. “But what’s all this to do with that business about the gardens?” asked Mrs Mason.

“We’re following up every lead,” said Agatha obscurely.

“So you’re playing detective again?”

“I’m not playing,” snapped Agatha. “I’m deadly serious.”

“You’ll find it was one of those hooligans down from Birmingham,” said Mrs Mason. “No one here would murder anyone for a few nasty remarks. Another scone?”

“The Boggles next?” suggested Agatha reluctantly. “I mean, someone sprayed their roses black.”

“Must we?” asked James. “It would be more a case of the Boggles putting Mary’s back up than the other way round.”

“I can’t stand the Boggles either,” said Agatha, “but it would be interesting to find out if their roses were attacked shortly after some sort of confrontation with Mary.”

“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, Agatha. All these attacks on the gardens were within days of each other. If they had been more spaced out, there would have been more of a chance to catch the culprit, but they all happened so quickly.”

“Let’s try the Boggles anyway. Don’t leave me, James. Boggle-interviewing means I need support.”

Mr and Mrs Boggle lived on the council estate at the end of the village. They had bought their council house and named it Culloden, not because either had any interest in the famous Scottish battlefield but because it was a name that had taken their fancy at the local nursery which sold signs for houses.

Usually people in villages have a soft spot for the elderly, and Mr and Mrs Boggle milked this sympathy for all it was worth. They did not go in for subtle blackmail; they demanded days out and trips to town from various people as their right.

“Now remember,” cautioned Agatha, “if they want an outing, say both our cars are off the road. Go in for blatant lying, or they’ll have us driving them to Bath or Bristol or somewhere. I took them to Bath once and it was a nightmare of a day.”

“I think this is a waste of time,” said James uneasily.

“I don’t like them either,” said Agatha, “but they’re so blunt, they might turn out to be more useful than anyone nicer.”

James rang the doorbell, which gave a brisk rendering of the ‘Post Horn Gallop’. Odd shuffling noises came from inside as of elderly animals shifting in their lair.

After what seemed an age, there were the sounds of bolts being drawn back and locks being unlocked and then the door was opened on a chain and Mrs Boggle peered at them.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “What do you want?”

“We want to talk to you about Mary Fortune,” said Agatha.

Mrs Boggle’s elderly eyes gleamed with malice. “Why not ask him?” she said. “He must have known her better’n anybody.”

“Can we come in?” asked Agatha patiently.

“Soap’s on. You’ll need to wait till it’s finished.”

The chain was dropped, the door was opened, and Agatha and James followed her dumpy figure into a fusty living-room where a television set blared from one corner. Mrs Boggle was layered in clothes topped with a woolly cardigan and print apron. Her husband, wearing an old shirt, a sweater and a cardigan and thick trousers, was staring avidly at an Australian soap. The room was full of the smell of old Boggle, a strange smell, not of the unwashed but of the decaying.

Agatha and James waited patiently until the soap ground to its syrupy end. It was one of those irritating episodes where a well-loved character has died and so there were seemingly endless close-ups of Australian faces swimming in tears. And why were the women all so tiny? wondered Agatha. What of all those goddesses one saw in films of Bondi Beach? Maybe the undersized female in Australia went in for acting.

When it was finally over, Mrs Boggle reluctantly switched it off. “Well?” she demanded.

“What did you think of Mrs Fortune?” asked Agatha.

“Tart!”

Agatha stifled a sigh. “I mean, did she upset you in any way?”

“Bitch!” muttered Mr Boggle.

“Perhaps you could tell us what happened.” James’s voice was patient.

“Her had told Mrs Bloxby she wanted to help in the community…and it’s no use you two expecting tea or coffee. I’ve got more to do with my savings,”

Agatha ignored this. “Go on,” she said. “Mary asked Mrs Bloxby how she could help out in the community?”

“Yes, so she told that Mrs Fortune to take us out for the day. The painted hussy called round here, mutton dressed as lamb, if you ask me.

“I said we wanted to go to Bristol to look at the ships. Didn’t I, Boggle?”

“Yurse,” said Mr Boggle morosely.

“Her said, ‘Oh, come now, that’s too far. What about Evesham?’

“I said, didn’t I, Boggle, that it was her duty to help the old get about? I told her that not all of us had money to go gallivanting around in large cars. Yes, and I told her that the way she was going on with Mr Lacey here was a fair scandal. In my day, we got married, that’s what I told her. I was never one to mince my words, was I, Boggle?”

“No,” said Mr Boggle, staring at the blank television screen.

“To which Mary replied?” prompted Agatha.

“That Mrs Fortune then had the cheek to say that we would be better off in the old folks’ home than leeching off people. Can you imagine? Did you ever hear the like? I told her to get out and take her trollopy ways with her.”

“Have you any idea who damaged your roses?” asked James.

“Never had any doubt,” said Mrs Boggle. “It was her, Mary Fortune. Did it out of spite. Knew we would take first prize with them roses.”

“But you didn’t get a prize,” said Agatha.

“Cause we didn’t have nothing left for the show to match them roses,” said Mr Boggle suddenly and violently. He leaned forward and switched on a large electric fire and a blast of heat scorched into the already hot room. Outside, the sun was blazing down out of a clear sky. The temperature must have been in the high seventies. The room was suffocating. The windows were covered in thick white net, and curtains which looked as if they had been made out of red felt blocked out what was left of the light. The very stifling air seemed to be full of years of shared marital venom.