The Quiche of Death (6 page)

Agatha, although she still felt shaken by Mrs. Barr, patiently got out the car. "Stow-on-the-Wold," screamed Roy a quarter
of an hour later as Agatha was about to bypass that village. "We must see it." So Agatha turned round and went into the main
square, thrusting her car head first into the one remaining parking place, which a family car had been just about to reverse
into.

She had never seen so many morris dancers. They seemed to be all over the place and of a more energetic type than the ones
in Carsely as they waved their handkerchiefs and leaped in the air like so many Nijinskys.

"I think," said Roy, "that if you've seen one lot of morris dancers, you've seen the lot. Put away your notebook, Steve, for
God's sake."

"It is all very interesting," said Steve. "Some say that morris dancing was originally Moorish dancing. What do you think?"

"I think. . . yawn, yawn,
yawn"
said Roy pettishly. "Let's go and sample the cosmopolitan delights of Bourton-on-the-Water."

Bourton-on-the-Water is certainly one of the prettiest villages in the Cotswolds, with a glassy stream running through the
centre under stone bridges. The trouble is that it is a famous beauty spot and always full of tourists. That May Day they
were out in force and Agatha thought longingly of the peaceful streets of London. There were tourists everywhere: large family
parties, sticky crying children, busloads of pensioners from Wales, muscle-bound men with tattoos from Birmingham, young Lolitas
in white slit skirts and white high-heeled shoes, tottering along, eating ice cream and giggling at everything in sight. Steve
wanted to see all that was on offer, from the art galleries to the museums, which depressed Agatha, because a lot of the village
museum displays were items from her youth and she felt only really old things should go into museums. Then there was the motor
museum, also jammed with tourists, and then, unfortunately, someone had told Steve about Bird-land at the end of the village
and so they had to go there, and stare at the birds and admire the penguins. Agatha had often wondered what it would be like
to live in Hong Kong or Tokyo. Now she knew. People everywhere. People
eating
everywhere: ice cream, chocolate bars, hamburgers, chips, munch, munch, munch went all those English jaws. They seemed to
enjoy being in such a crowd, except the many small children who were getting tired and bawled lustily, dragged along by indifferent
parents.

The air was turning chilly when Steve with a sigh of pleasure at last closed his notebook. He looked at his watch. "It's only
half past three," he said. "We can make it to Stratford-on-Avon. I must see Shakespeare's birthplace."

Agatha groaned inwardly. But not so long ago Agatha Raisin would have told him to forget it, that she was bored and tired,
but the thought of Carsely and Mrs. Ban* made her meekly walk with them to the car-park and set out for Stratford.

She parked in the multi-storey Birthplace CarPark and plunged into the crowds of Stratford with Roy and Steve. So many, many
people, all nationalities this time. They shuffled along with the crowds through Shakespeare's home, a strangely soulless
place, thought Agatha again. It had been so restored, so
sanitized
that she could not help feeling that some of the old pubs in the Cotswolds had more of an air of antiquity.

Then down to look at the River Avon. Then a search by Steve for tickets to the evening's showing of
King Lear
by the Royal Shakespeare Company which, to Agatha's dismay, he managed to get.

In the darkness of the theatre with her stomach rumbling, for she had had nothing to eat since breakfast, Agatha's mind turned
back to the . . . murder? It would surely do no harm to find out a little more about Mr. Cummings-Browne. Then Mrs. Simpson
had found the body. How had Mrs. CummingsBrowne reacted? The first act passed unheeded before Agatha's eyes. Two large gins
at the interval made her feel quite tipsy. Once more, she imagined solving the case and earning the respect of the villagers.
By the last act, she was fast asleep and all the glory of Shakespeare fell on her deaf ears.

It was only as they were walking out—crowds, more crowds—that Agatha realized she had nothing at home for them to eat and
it was too late to find a restaurant. But Steve, who had, at one point of the day, been lugging a carrier bag, said he had
planned to cook them dinner and had bought fresh trout at Birdland.

"You really ought to dig in your heels and stay here," said Roy, as he got out of the car in front of Agatha's cottage. "No
people. Quiet. Calm. You're lucky you don't live in a tourist village. Do any tourists come at all?"

"The Red Lion's got rooms, I believe," said Agatha. "A few let out their cottages. But not many come."

"Let's have a drink while Steve does the cooking," said Roy. He looked around Agatha's living-room. "If I were you, I would
junk all those cutesy mugs and fake horse brasses and farm machinery, and get some paintings and bowls of flowers. It's not
the thing to have a fire-basket, particularly a fake medieval one. You're supposed to burn the logs on the stone hearth."

"I dig my heels in over the fire-basket," said Agatha, "but I might get rid of the other stuff." She thought, They collect
a lot for charity in this village. I could load up the car with the stuff on Tuesday and take it along to the vicarage. Ingratiate
myself a bit there.

Dinner was excellent. I must learn to cook, thought Agatha. I've got little else to do. Steve opened his notebook. "Tomorrow,
if you do not think it too much, Agatha, I would like to visit Warwick Castle."

Agatha groaned. "Warwick Castle's like Bourton-on-the-Water, wall-to-wall tourists from one year's end to the other."

"But it says here," said Steve, fishing out a guidebook, "that it is one of the finest medieval castles in England."

"Well, I suppose that's true but—"

"I would very much like to go."

"All right! But be prepared for an early start. See if we can get in there before the crowds."

Warwick Castle is a tourist's dream. It has everything from battlements and towers to a torture chamber and dungeon. It has
rooms peopled by Madame Tussaud's waxworks depicting a Victorian house party. It has signs in the drive saying: DRIVE SLOWLY,
PEACOCKS CROSSING. It has a rose garden and a peacock garden. It takes a considerable amount of time to see everything and
Steve wanted to see everything. With unflagging energy and interest, he climbed up the towers and along the battlements and
down to the dungeons. Oblivious to the tourists crowding behind, he lingered in the staterooms, writing busily in his notebook.
"Are you going to write about all this?" asked Agatha impatiently.

Steve said only in letters. He wrote a long letter home each week to his mother in Sydney. Agatha hoped they could finally
escape, but the tyranny of the notebook was replaced by the tyranny of the video camera. Steve insisted they all climb back
up to the top of one of the towers and he filmed Agatha and Roy standing at the edge leaning against the crenellated parapet.

Agatha's feet were aching by the time she climbed back in her car. They had lunch at a pub in Warwick and Agatha, numb with
fatigue, found herself agreeing to take them round the Cotswold villages they had not seen, the ones whose names intrigued
Steve, like Upper and Lower Slaughter, Aston Magna, Chipping Campden, and so on. Steve found shops open in Chipping Campden
and bought groceries, saying he would cook them dinner that evening.

She was so tired when dinner was over that all Agatha wanted to do was go to bed, but it turned out that Steve's camera was
the type you could plug in to the TV and show the film taken.

Agatha leaned back and half-closed her eyes. She hated seeing herself on film anyway. Then she heard Roy exclaim, "Wait a
minute. At Warwick Castle. On top of the tower. That woman. Look, Aggie. Run it again, Steve."

The film flickered back and then began to roll again. There she was with Roy on top of the tower. Roy was giggling and clowning.
The camera then slowly panned over the surrounding countryside, inch, it seemed, by inch, Steve obviously trying to avoid
the amateur's failing of camera swing. And then suddenly it focused on a woman, standing a little way from Agatha and Roy.
She was a spinsterish creature in a tweed jacket, drooping tweed skirt and sensible shoes. But she was glaring at Agatha with
naked venom in her eyes and her fingers were curled like claws. The film moved back to Agatha and Roy.

"Enter First Murderer," said Roy. "Anyone you know, Aggie?"

Agatha shook her head. "I've never seen her before, not in the village anyway. Run it again."

Again those hate-filled eyes loomed up. "Perhaps it wasn't me she was glaring at," said Agatha. "Perhaps her husband had just
come up the stairs." Steve shook his head. "There was no one else there. I remember seeing just that woman when I was filming.
Then, just as I'd finished, a whole lot of tourists ap­peared."

"How odd." Roy stared blankly at the television screen. "How could she know you enough to hate you? What were we saying?"

"Roy was clowning," said Agatha slowly. "It's a pity you haven't any sound on that film, Steve."

"I forgot. There is. Usually I don't bother about it and tape some music to go with the English travelogue and then send it
home to my mother." "Turn the sound up," said Roy eagerly.

Into the room came the sound of the wind on the top of the battlements. Then Roy's voice. "Do you want Aggie to throw herself
off the battlements like Tosca?" And Agatha saying, "Oh, do give over, Roy. Gosh, it's cold here."

And then, in sepulchral tones, Roy said, "As cold as the grave into which you drove Mr. CummingsBrowne with your quiche, Agatha."

Agatha's voice was replying testily, "He's not in a grave. He's scattered to the four winds on Salisbury Plain. Are you finished
yet, Steve?"

Then Steve's voice saying, "Just a bit longer," and then the shot of the glaring woman.

"And you said nobody hated you!" mocked Roy. "That one looked as if she wanted to kill you. Wonder who she is?"

"I'll photograph her from the screen," said Steve, "and send you a print. Might be an idea to find out. She must have known
about the death of CummingsBrowne."

Agatha sat silent for a few moments. She thought she would never forget that spinsterish face and those glaring eyes.

"Beddy-byes," said Roy. "Which train should we catch tomorrow?"

Agatha roused herself. "Trains might not be very good on a holiday Monday. I'll run you to Oxford and take you both for lunch
and you can get the train from there."

She had thought she would be glad to see the last of the pair of them, but when she finally stood with them on Oxford Station
to say goodbye, she suddenly wished they weren't going.

"Come again," she said. "Any time."

Roy planted a wet kiss on her cheek. "We'll be back, Aggie. Super weekend."

The guard blew his whistle, Roy jumped aboard to join Steve, and the train moved out of the station.

Agatha stood forlornly for several minutes, watching the train disappearing round the curve, before trailing out to the car-park.
She felt slightly frightened and wished she had been able to go to London with them. Why had she ever left her job?

But home was waiting for her in Carsely, down in a fold of the Cotswold Hills, Carsely where she had disgraced herself, where
she did not belong and never would.

FIVE

Mrs. Simpson was busy cleaning the cottage. Agatha planned to talk to her over lunch. Perhaps it was because of the poisoning,
but Mrs. Simpson called Agatha Mrs. Raisin and Agatha felt compelled to call her Mrs. Simpson, not Doris. The cleaner was
efficient and correct but exuded a certain atmosphere of wariness. At least she had not brought her own lunch.

Mrs. Bloxby, the vicar's wife, answered the door herself. Frightened of a rebuff, Agatha gabbled out that she had brought
some items she hoped the church might be able to sell to benefit some charity.

"How very good of you," said Mrs. Bloxby. "Alf," she called over her shoulder, "Mrs. Raisin has brought us some items for
charity. Come and lend a hand." Agatha was startled. Vicars should not be called plain Alf but something like Peregrine, Hilary,
or Aloysius. The vicar appeared wearing an old gardening shirt and corduroy trousers.

All three carried the boxes into the vicarage living-room. Agatha took out a few of the items. "My dear Mrs. Raisin," exclaimed
Mrs. Bloxby, "are you sure? You could sell this stuff yourself for quite a bit of money. I don't mean the horse brasses, but
the jugs are good and the farm-machinery pieces are genuine. This"—she held up a shiny instrument of torture—"is a genuine
mole trap. You don't see many of those around today."

"No, I'll be happy if you get some money. But try to choose some charity which won't spend it all on cocktail parties or politics."

"Yes, of course. We're very keen on supporting Cancer Research and Save the Children," said the vicar. "Perhaps you would
like a cup of coffee, Mrs. Raisin?"

"That would be nice."

"I'll leave my wife to look after you. I have Sunday's sermons to prepare."

"Sermons?"

"I preach in three churches."

"Why not use the same sermon for all?"

"Tempting, but it would hardly show a sign of caring for the parishioners."

The vicar retreated to the nether regions and his wife went off to the kitchen to make coffee. Agatha looked about her. The
vicarage must be very old indeed, she thought. The window-frames sloped and the floor sloped. Here was no fitted carpet such
as she had in her own cottage but oldfloor-boards polished like black glass and covered in the centre by a brightly coloured
Persian rug. Logs smouldered in the cavernous fireplace. There was a bowl of potpourri on one small table. A vase offlowers
stood on another, and there was a bowl of hyacinths at the low window. The chairs were worn, with—Agatha shifted her bottom
experimentally—feather cushions. In front of her was a new coffee-table of the kind you buy in Do-It-Yourself stores and put
together, and yet, covered as it was with newspapers and magazines, and the beginnings of a tapestry cushion-cover, it blended
in with the rest of the room. Above her head were low beams black with age and centuries of smoke. There was a faint smell
of lavender and wood-smoke mixed with the smells of hyacinths and potpourri.

Also, there was an air of comfort and
goodness
about the place. Agatha decided that the Reverend Bloxby was a rare bird in the much-maligned aviary of the Church of England—a
man who believed what he preached. For the first time since she had arrived in Carsely, she felt unthreatened and, as the
door opened, and the vicar's wife appeared, filled with a desire to please.

"I've toasted some teacakes as well," said Mrs. Bloxby. "It's still so cold. I do get tired of keeping the fires burning.
But of course you have central heating, so you don't have that problem."

"You have a beautiful home," said Agatha.

"Thank you. Milk and sugar?" Mrs. Bloxby had a small, delicate, lined face and brown hair threaded with grey. She was slim
and fragile with long, delicate hands, the sort of hands that portrait painters used to love to give their subjects.

"And how are you settling in, Mrs. Raisin?"

"Not very well," said Agatha. "I may have to settle
out?"

"Oh, because of your quiche," said Mrs. Bloxby tranquilly. "Do try a teacake. I make them myself and it is one of the few
things I do well. Yes, a horrible affair. Poor Mr. Cummings-Browne."

"People must think I am a dreadful person," said Agatha.

"Well, it was unfortunate that wretched quiche should have cowbane in it. But a lot of cheating goes on in these village affairs.
You're not the first."

Agatha sat with a teacake dripping butter and stared at the vicar's wife. "I'm not?"

"No, no. Let me see, there was Miss Tenby five years ago. An incomer. Set her heart on winning the flower-arranging competition.
She ordered a basket of flowers from the florist over at St. Anne's. Quite blatant about it. It was a very pretty display
but the neighbours had seen the florist's van arriving and so she was found out. Then there was old Mrs. Carter.
She
bought her strawberry jam and put her own label on it and won. No one would ever have known if she had not got drunk in the
Red Lion and bragged about it. Yes, your deception would have occasioned quite a lot of comment in the village, Mrs. Raisin,
had it not all happened before, or, for that matter, if the judging had been fair."

"Do you mean Mr. Cummings-Browne cheated?"

Mrs. Bloxby smiled. "Let us say he was apt to give prizes to favourites."

"But if this was generally known, why do the villagers bother to enter anything at all?"

"Because they are proud of what they make and like to show it off to their friends. Besides, Mr. Cummings-Browne judged competitions
in neighbouring villages and it is estimated he had only one favourite in each. Also, there is no disgrace in losing. Alf
often wanted to change the judge, but the Cummings-Brownes did give quite a lot to charity and the one year Alf was successful
and got someone else to judge, the judge gave the prize to his sister, who did not even live in the village."

Agatha let out a long slow breath. "You make me feel less of a villain."

"It was all very sad. You must have had a frightful time."

To Agatha's horror, her eyes filled with tears and she dabbed at them fiercely while the vicar's wife looked tactfully away.

"But be assured"—the vicar's wife addressed the coffeepot—"that your deception did not occasion all that much comment. Besides,
Mr. CummingsBrowne was not popular."

"Why?"

The vicar's wife looked evasive. "Some people are not, you know."

Agatha leaned forward. "Do you think it was an accident?"

"Oh, yes, for if it were not, then one would naturally suspect the wife, but Vera Cummings-Browne was a most devoted wife,
in her way. She has a great deal of money and he had very little. They have no children. She could have walked off and left
him any time at all. I had to help comfort her on the day of her husband's death. I have never seen a woman more grief-stricken.
It is best to put the whole matter behind you, Mrs. Raisin. The Carsely Ladies' Society meets tonight here at the vicarage
at eight o'clock. Do come along."

"Thank you," said Agatha humbly.

"Have you got rid of that dreadful woman?" asked the vicar ten minutes later when his wife walked into his study.

"Yes. I don't think she's really so bad and she is genunely suffering about the quiche business. I've invited her to the women's
get-together tonight."

"Then thank goodness I won't be here," said the vicar and bent over his sermon.

Agatha felt cleansed of sin as she drove back to her cottage. She would go to church on Sunday and she would try to be a good
person. She put a Linda Mc­Cartney's frozen Ploughman's Pie in the microwave for Mrs. Simpson's lunch, hoping the ex-Beatle's
wife knew about cooking but wondering whether she had just sold her name to be used on the product.

Mrs. Simpson picked at the hot mess tentatively with her fork and all Agatha's saintliness evaporated. "It's not poisoned,"
she snapped.

"It's just I don't much care for frozen stuff," said Mrs. Simpson.

"Well, I'll get you something better next time. Was Mrs. Cummings-Browne very upset about the death of her husband?"

"Oh, dreadful it was," said Doris Simpson. "Real shook, her were. Numb with shock at first and then crying and crying. Had
to fetch the vicar's wife to help."

Guilt once more settled on Agatha's soul. She felt she had to get out. She walked to the Red Lion and ordered a glass of red
wine and sausage and chips.

Then she remembered her intention of calling on Mrs. Cartwright. It all seemed a bit pointless now but it was something to
do.

Judd's Cottage where the Cartwrights lived was a broken-down sort of place. The garden gate was hanging on its hinges and
in the weedy front garden was parked a rusting car. Agatha looked this way and that, wondering how the car had got in but
could see no way it could have been achieved short of lifting it bodily over the fence.

The glass pane on the front door was cracked and stuck in place with brown paper tape. She rang the bell and nothing happened.
She rapped at the side of the door. Mrs. Cartwright's blurred figure loomed up on the other side of the glass.

"Oh, it's you," she said when she opened the door. "Come in."

Agatha followed her into a sour-smelling cluttered living-room. The furniture was soiled and shiny with wear. There was a
two-bar electric fire in the grate with imitation plastic coals on the top. A bunch of plastic daffodils hung over a chipped
vase on the window. There was a cocktail cabinet in one corner ornamented with pink glass and strips of pink fluorescent lighting.

"Drink?" asked Mrs. Cartwright. Her coarse hair was wound up in pink foam rollers and she was wearing a pink wrap-over dress
which gaped when she moved to reveal a dirty petticoat.

"Thank you," said Agatha, wishing she had not come.

Mrs. Cartwright poured two large glasses of gin and then tinged them pink with Angostura. Agatha looked nervously at her own
glass, which was smeared with lipstick at the rim.

Mrs. Cartwright sat down and crossed her legs. Her feet were encased in dirty pink slippers. All this pink, thought Agatha
nervously. She looks like some sort of debauched Barbara Cartland.

"Did you know Mr. Cummings-Browne well?" asked Agatha.

Mrs. Cartwright lit a cigarette and studied Agatha through the smoke. "A bit," she said.

"Did you like him?"

"Some. Can't think straight at the moment."

"Because of the death?"

"Because of the bingo over at Evesham. John, that's my husband, he's cut off my money on account he doesn't want me to go
there. Men are right bastards. I brought up four kids and now they've left home and I want a bit o' fun, all he does is grumble.
Yes, give me a bit o' money for the bingo and I can 'member most things."

Agatha fished in her handbag. "Would twenty pounds help?"

"Would it ever!"

Agatha passed the money over. Then there came the sound of the front door being opened. Mrs. Cartwright thrust the note down
into her bosom, grabbed Agatha's glass and ran with that and her own to the kitchen.

"Ella?" called a man's voice.

The door opened and a strongly built apelike man walked in just as his wife came back from the kitchen. "Who's she?" he demanded,
jerking a thumb at Agatha. "I told you not to let them Jehovahs in."

"This is Mrs. Raisin from down Lilac Lane, called social-like."

"What do you want?" he snarled.

Agatha stood up. Mrs. Cartwright's large dark eyes flashed a warning. "I am collecting for charity," said Agatha.

"Then you can bugger off. Haven't got a penny to spare.
She's
seen to that."

"Sit down, John, and shut up. I'll see Mrs. Raisin out."

Agatha nervously edged past John Cartwright. Mrs. Cartwright opened the front door. "Come to­morrow," she whispered. "Three
in the afternoon."

Was there some sinister mystery or had she just been conned out of twenty pounds? Agatha walked thoughtfully down the road.

When she got back to her cottage, Mrs. Simpson was hard at work in the bedrooms. Agatha washed a load of clothes and carried
them out to the back garden where there was one of those whirligig devices for hanging clothes. Feeling more relaxed than
she had for some time and quite domesticated, Agatha pinned out the clothes. As she moved around to the other side of the
whirligig, she saw Mrs. Barr. She was leaning on her garden fence, staring straight at Agatha with a look of cold dislike
on her face. Agatha finished pinning the clothes, raised two fingers at Mrs. Barr and went indoors.

"Post came," shouted Mrs. Simpson from upstairs. "I put it on the kitchen table."

Agatha noticed a flat brown envelope for the first time. She tore it open. There was a large print of the woman on the tower
at Warwick Castle. Agatha shuddered. Those staring eyes, that hatred reminded her of Mrs. Barr. Pinned to the enlargement
was a note: "Thank you for a splendid weekend, Steve."

She put the photograph away in the kitchen drawer, feeling even after she had closed the drawer that those eyes were still
staring at her.

Overcome by the need for some escapist literature, she drove down to Moreton-in-Marsh, swearing under her breath as she remembered
it was market day. By driving round and round the car-park, she was able to secure a place when some shopper drove off.

Walking through the Old Market Place, as the new mini shopping arcade was called, she crossed the road and walked between
the crowded stalls to the row of shops on the far side where she knew there was a second-hand bookshop. In the back room were
rows and rows of paperbacks. She bought three detective stories—one Ruth Rendell, one Colin Dexter, and one Colin Watson—and
then returned to her car. She flipped open the Colin Watson one and was caught by the first page. Oh, the joys of detective
fiction. Time rolled past as Agatha sat in the car-park and read steadily. Finally it dawned on her that it was ridiculous
to sit reading in a car-park when she had the comfort of her own home and so drove back to Carsely just in time to meet Bill
Wong, who was standing on her doorstep.