The Case of the Curious Curate ar-13 Read online

Agatha grinned. “Maybe I’ll marry John Armitage after all.”

  “There’s not enough of a spark there.”

  “Does one need a spark at my age?”

  “At any age.”

  “I’ll think about it. I’ll go home and phone around some builders.”

  Agatha went to feed her cats because their bowls were empty and she couldn’t remember feeding them. I’m turning into a compulsive cat feeder, she thought as she poached fish for them and then set it aside to cool. She saw John’s keys lying on the kitchen counter and decided to go next door and pick up his mail from the doormat and put it on his desk.

  In his cottage, she scooped up the pile of post. She looked thoughtfully at his answering machine. Why all these trips to London? Feeling guilty, she laid down the post on his desk and crossed to the answering machine. There were several messages, and all from Charlotte Bellinge. He must have saved them, thought Agatha dismally. The first one was Charlotte apologizing for bringing some man called Giles to dinner. “Do forgive me, dear John,” she cooed. “Do let me take you out for dinner and make it up to you.” The second said, “What a wonderful time we had. Pippa is giving a party tomorrow night. Do say you’ll come.” And the third, “I’m running a bit late. Can you pick me up at nine instead of eight? Dying to see you.”

  So that’s that, thought Agatha. No heading into the sunset of middle age with John Armitage.

  She went home and arranged the cooled fish in bowls for the cats. The loneliness of the cottage seemed to press down on her.

  Agatha picked up the phone and dialled old Mr. Crinsted’s number. “Feel like coming out for dinner?” she asked.

  “Delighted,” said the old man.

  “I’ll pick you up in half an hour,” said Agatha.

  Agatha found she was enjoying herself in Mr. Crinsted’s company. They discussed plans for the old folks’ club and Mr. Crinsted promised to teach Agatha chess.

  “I am so glad you called, Mrs. Raisin,” he said. “I wanted to hear all about the murders.”

  “I would have called earlier,” lied Agatha, who had practically until that evening forgotten Mr. Crinsted’s existence, “but I’ve been settling down after the shock of it all.”

  “Tell me about it, Mrs. Raisin.”

  “Agatha.”

  “Right, my name is Ralph.”

  So Agatha did while Ralph Crinsted listened intently. When she had finished, he said, “It’s odd, all the same.”

  “What’s odd?”

  “This Miss Partle must have been so used to discussing everything with him, I’m surprised she decided to take matters into her own hands.”

  “I’ve met Binser. He’s a straightforward man. He probably never noticed much about her. Thought of her as a bit of office machinery.”

  “I think any man who had a secretary so much in love with him would have noticed something.”

  “Maybe he did and took it as his due. Men do, you know.”

  “Some men.”

  “I’m just glad it’s all over and Alf Bloxby is in the clear. Not that there was ever any evidence against him, but there was gossip, and gossip in a small village can be very dangerous.”

  “True. Have you ever played chess before?”

  “No, never.”

  “Like to learn?”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Then I’ll give you lessons.”

  After she had dropped Mr. Crinsted off at his home, Agatha reflected that it was a long time since she had enjoyed such a carefree evening.

  She had promised to call on Ralph Crinsted in a couple of days’ time and start her chess lessons. Then tomorrow, she would see what estimate the builders came up with for the roof. The ring on her finger sparkled. “Masquerade over,” said Agatha ruefully to her cats. She took off the ring and put it in the kitchen drawer. She wondered how John was getting on with Charlotte and realized with relief that his relationship didn’t bother her in the slightest. Or that was what she believed. Almost impossible to imagine John getting passionate about anyone. Like Miss Partle. Poor Miss Partle. Now why think that?

  This was a woman who was a stone-cold murderess and who was probably faking insanity.

  John Armitage was at another hot and noisy party in Chelsea with Charlotte flirting with a group of men across the room. But he could bear it. Tonight was going to be the night. Hadn’t she said they would just drop in for an hour and then go home together? He remembered fondly the seductive look in her eyes when she had said those words and the caress in her voice.

  He had been disappointed that she had still shown no interest in the murders except to laugh and say that Agatha Raisin was a formidable woman.

  John looked at his watch, only half listening to the woman next to him, who was telling him that she was sure she could sit down and write a book if she only had the time. They had been there two hours and Charlotte showed no signs of leaving. Time to take charge. He crossed the room and took her arm in a possessive grip. “Time we were leaving.”

  “Oh, darling.” Charlotte pouted prettily. “We’re all going on to Jilly’s party.”

  John did not know who this Jilly was and he did not care.

  He said stiffly, “Either we leave now or I’m going home.”

  “Then you’d better go. But why not come with us? It’ll be fun.”

  “Good night,” snapped John.

  As he strode to the door, he heard one of the men with Charlotte laugh and say, “There goes another of Charlotte’s walkers.”

  His face flamed. That had been all she had really wanted from him, an escort to walk her to the endless social functions she loved.

  His thoughts turned to Agatha on the road home. He had been neglecting her along with his work. He would get going on the book for a couple of days and then take her out for dinner. But, damn Charlotte Bellinge. She had really led him a fine dance.

  Agatha was busy with the builders next day and with looking around the church hall. Old people like comfort and dignity. The floor would need a carpet and she would need to supply comfortable chairs and tables. Bookshelves along one wall for books, games and jigsaws. What else? The walls painted, of course, but not in those dreadful pink and pale-blue pastel colours do-gooders liked to inflict on the old as if catering for a second childhood. Plain white would do, with pictures. It should really be called the Agatha Raisin Club, considering all the work and money she was putting into it. But Mrs. Bloxby would think she was being grandiose. Of course, she had promised to think up some fund-raising venture so that she would not have to bear all the cost herself. Agatha’s mind worked busily. An auction would be a good idea. She had raised a lot of money for one of those before by going around the country houses and getting them to contribute. Or what about getting some well-known pop group to put on a concert? No, scrub that. It would bring in too much mess and probably drugs as well. She must think of something.

  She walked back to her cottage in the pouring rain, trying to avoid the puddles gathering amongst the fallen leaves.

  In her cottage, there was a note lying on the kitchen table from Doris Simpson, one of the few women in Carsely to use Agatha’s first name. “Dear Agatha,” she read, “Have taken poor Scrabble home to feed. Cat looks half-starved. Be round to clean as usual next week. Doris.”

  “Bloody cat ate like a horse,” muttered Agatha.

  The doorbell rang. Agatha answered it. John stood there. He had suddenly decided he wanted to see Agatha.

  “Yes?” asked Agatha coldly.

  “Can I come in? It’s bucketing with rain.”

  He followed her into the kitchen.

  “So what were you doing in London?” asked Agatha.

  “This and that. Bookshops, agent, publisher, the usual round. Are you free for dinner this evening?”

  “I think I’ve got a date,” lied Agatha. “I’ll check.”

  She dialled Mr. Crinsted’s number. “Is our date for tonight, Ralph, sweetie?” asked Agatha in a husky voic
e.

  “I thought we’d arranged to play chess tomorrow,” came the surprised voice at the other end. “But tonight, any time is fine.”

  “Look forward to it,” said Agatha. “See you then.” She put down the receiver and turned to John.

  “Sorry, I’ve got a date.”

  “Well, what about tomorrow?”

  “Sorry, going to be busy for some time.” And I am not interested in Charlotte Bellinge’s leavings, thought Agatha. She must have ditched him.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” John marched out, feeling doubly rejected. The rain poured down. What am I doing stuck in this village? thought John angrily. It doesn’t help a bit with the writing. I was better off in London.

  After he had gone, Agatha took the ring he had given her out of the drawer and put it in an envelope. On her way out that evening, she popped it through his letter-box. Not that she was jealous of Charlotte Bellinge.

  For Ralph Crinsted’s sake, Agatha tried to concentrate on her chess lesson while privately wondering what could be the fun in playing such a boring game. There seemed to be so much to memorize. “I don’t think you’re going to make a chess player,” said Ralph finally. “You’re not enjoying this one bit.”

  “I will, I will,” said Agatha. And with a rare burst of honesty, she added, “You see, I’m not used to concentrating on anything other than people – what motivates them, why they commit murder, that sort of thing. Let’s try again another night. I’ll buy some sort of book, Chess Made Easy, or something like that, so I’ll be geared-up next time.”

  “If you say so. Do you play cards?”

  “Don’t know many games. Poker. I once played poker.”

  “Like a game?”

  “Sure.”

  Agatha actually won the first game and began to enjoy herself. It had reached midnight when she finally put down the cards and said ruefully, “I’m keeping you up late.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t sleep much. The old don’t, you know.”

  As Agatha drove home, she thought with a shiver of impending old age and loneliness, would she endure white nights and long days? Would her joints seize up with arthritis?

  Tomorrow, she thought gloomily, I’ll draft out my will. I’m not immortal.

  Had the weather cleared up, Agatha might have put off thoughts of making out a will, but another day of rain blurred the windows of her cottage and thudded down on the already rain-soaked garden.

  She went into the sitting-room, carrying her cigarettes and a mug of coffee and sat down at her desk. She took a small tape recorder out of her drawer and had got as far as “This is the last will and testament of Mrs. Agatha Raisin” when there was a ring at the doorbell.

  “Blast,” muttered Agatha and went to answer it.

  Mr. Binser stood there. “Good heavens,” said Agatha. “Come in out of this dreadful rain. What brings you?”

  “I just came to see you and thank you for clearing up those dreadful murders,” said the tycoon. “I’m curious. How did you arrive at the truth?”

  Agatha took his coat and ushered him into the sitting-room. “Coffee?”

  “No,” he said, sitting down on the sofa. “I haven’t much time. So how did you guess it was my Miss Partle?”

  Agatha, glad of an opportunity to brag, told him how she had managed to leap to the conclusion that the culprit was Miss Partle.

  “Interesting,” he said when she had finished. “You seem such a confident lady. Are you never wrong?”

  “I pride myself I’m not.”

  “You were certainly right about Miss Partle’s adoration of me.”

  Agatha felt a lurch in her stomach. “You mean I was wrong about something else?”

  “If there is one thing I hate, it is busy-body interfering women.”

  The rain drummed against the windows and dripped from the thatch outside. The day was growing darker. Agatha switched on a lamp next to her. “That’s better,” she said with a lightness she did not feel. “At least you don’t go around killing them.”

  There was a long silence while Binser studied her. Agatha broke it by saying sharply, “I have a feeling you came to tell me something.”

  “Yes. You are so unbearably smug. You see, Miss Partle didn’t commit these murders. I did.”

  Agatha goggled at him. “Why? How?”

  “In all my life,” he said calmly, “no one has ever managed to put one over on me – except Tristan Delon. I suppose, in my way, I was as infatuated with that young man as Miss Partle was with me. I married for money, the daughter of a wealthy company director. I never had any real friends. I felt I could be honest with Tristan, I could relax with him. Then he cheated me. All he had ever wanted from me was money. I hated him. I have certain underworld contacts which come in useful from time to time. I arranged to have him beaten up. I got Miss Partle to tell him who had done it. He returned the money and I thought that was that. But the leech wouldn’t let go. He phoned Miss Partle and said he was going to tell my wife unless I paid up. I found he had gone to the country. I went down to Carsely. I had already studied ordnance survey maps of the area. I dressed as a rambler and left my car hidden some distance outside the village and crossed the fields so that I would get down to where he was living without being seen. I decided to give him one more chance. I had his mobile phone number. I phoned Miss Partle and told her to go out to the nearest phone-box and call him and tell him I was coming to kill him. I thought I would give him a chance to run for it.

  “I hid behind one of the gravestones in the churchyard where I could watch the entrance to his cottage. The door is clearly illuminated by that one streetlight. I saw him slip out and head for the vicarage. I saw him enter by those French windows and followed him. There he stood in the moonlight like a fallen angel, rifling the contents of the church box. I saw that paper-knife. I was in such a blinding rage. I did not know it was so sharp. I drove it down into his neck.

  “And then I ran. I told Miss Partle what I had done and she said that no one would ever suspect me. And then you came to see me. I thought I had shut you up with my statement to the police, and then I found myself being threatened by a village spinster called Jellop who Tristan had told about me. She said she felt she should go to the police with what she knew. She said Tristan had photographs of the pair of us in a gay bar. Now Tristan had taken me to one once. I said I would call and see her and she was not to go to the police until I explained things. So that was the end of her. When Peggy Slither told me she actually had the photographs, I thought the nightmare would never end. I said I would pay her two hundred thousand for the photos and she agreed. I didn’t trust her. She kept crowing about what a great detective she was. I felt she might take my money and tell the police all the same. After she had handed me the photographs and I had given her the money, she suddenly snatched back the photographs. ‘This isn’t right,’ she said. ‘I told someone I would go to the police and so I will.’ I found out that she had not mentioned my name. I said mildly, ‘All right, but what about a cup of tea?’ What a triumphant bully she was. I followed her quietly into her kitchen and slid a carving knife out of the drawer. She turned just as I was raising the knife and screamed.” He shrugged. “But it was too late.”

  Agatha felt cold sweat trickling down the back of her neck.

  “I made an arrangement with Miss Partle that should anything break, she was to take the blame.”

  “But why should she do that?” demanded Agatha hoarsely while her frightened eyes roamed around the room looking for a weapon.

  “I told her if she took the rap, with good behaviour she would be out in ten years’ time and I would marry her. I knew she would go through hell if only I married her.”

  “Are you going to kill me?” asked Agatha.

  “No, you silly cow, I am not. You have no proof. And poor Miss Partle is now stone-mad. You won’t get anything out of her. If it hadn’t been for you, she wouldn’t be in prison. I couldn’t bear the idea of you sitting smugly i
n your cottage thinking what a great detective you are.”

  “I’ll tell the police!” panted Agatha.

  “And what proof will they find? Nothing. You will find that the police, having got her confession, will not thank you for trying to re-open the case. I have powerful friends. Goodbye, Mrs. Raisin.”

  Agatha sat very still. She heard the door slam. She heard him driving off. She tried to stand up but her legs were trembling so much, she collapsed back into her chair.

  And then she saw her tape recorder sitting on the desk.

  She had forgotten to turn it off.

  Now a burst of rage and energy flooded her body. She went to the desk and re-ran the tape and switched it on. It was all there.

  Agatha picked up the phone and dialled Mircester police headquarters and explained she had the real murderer. She got put straight through to Wilkes, who listened in astonished silence and then began to rap out questions: When had he left; what car was he driving?

  When Agatha replaced the phone, she wondered whether to call John and then decided against it. Although she would never admit it to herself, she viewed his pursuit of Charlotte Bellinge as a rejection of herself. She phoned the vicarage instead, only to learn that Mrs. Bloxby was out. The doorbell went. It couldn’t be the police already. Agatha went into the kitchen and slid a knife out of the drawer and approached the door. She peered through the peep-hole in the door and saw, with a flood of relief, the elderly face of Ralph Crinsted under a dripping hat.

  “You’ll never guess what’s happened!” she cried, brandishing the kitchen knife in her excitement.

  “Be careful with that knife, Agatha,” he said nervously.

  “Oh, what? Gosh, I was frightened. The police are on their way.”

  “May I come in? It’s awfully wet.”

  “Yes, come along.”

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you; I thought up a few ideas for the old folks’ club. You seem to be in the middle of a drama.”

  Agatha led him into the sitting-room. “I don’t know about you, but I would like a large brandy. Care to join me?”

  “Why not.”

  Once the drinks were poured, Agatha got half-way through the story when Bill Wong arrived with another detective.