The Dead Ringer Read online

  At last what sounded like a higher official came into the room and barked orders. Agatha sighed with relief when they had all left.

  * * *

  The higher official that Agatha thought she’d heard was in fact the chief inspector who was at that moment in the kitchen, questioning Charles about finding the money and demanding that a doctor examine Sarah.

  “I searched her handbag for drugs and found these,” said Charles, handing over the bottle of sleeping draught. “People do get addicted to these things.”

  Agatha entered the room. “Where have you been?” demanded the inspector.

  “In the lavatory.”

  “You will both need to be searched to make sure you have not taken any of the money.”

  “Before you do that,” said Agatha, “I want you to listen to this and I want you to agree that the quicker you return our passports and get us back home, the better for you.”

  She took out her powerful little tape recorder and switched it on.

  “That’s enough!” shouted the inspector. “Give me that.”

  “Passports first.”

  He grabbed Agatha’s wrist and gave it a painful twist. The recorder went flying up in the air. Charles seized it and fled out of the house and they could hear him driving off a few minutes later.

  * * *

  Agatha was wondering whether crying would relieve the rage and misery she felt as she sat in a smelly village police station. She was shivering with cold and very hungry. Was she always going to go mad when she thought of any man? Marry Charles? That faithless man was probably back in Britain by now.

  She had shouted for the British consul, for a lawyer, for anyone to help, but there was only a desk sergeant left to guard her and he appeared deaf to her every request.

  She had fallen into a shivering sleep when the cell door was opened and there was Charles, shaking her awake and shouting, “Get a move on! I’ve got our passports.”

  * * *

  They parted at dawn at Heathrow Airport and went to get their respective cars. Charles had explained the delay in getting her freedom by saying he had gone to the main newspaper offices. From there, he had phoned the police. Meetings had gone on for ages, until it was agreed the newspaper would only do a story about the money being found but nothing about the police theft of some of it. The passports were handed over but he was told firmly that no money had been taken by the police. Charles kept Agatha’s tape recorder as insurance that they would be allowed the leave the country. Sarah Jinks swore she did not know anything about any money and as there was no proof to contradict this, she was not charged.

  “Charles!” called Agatha to his retreating back.

  He slowly walked back towards her, but his face had the shuttered look he put on when he did not want to hear anything at all.

  “Hurry up, Aggie,” he said. “I just want to get home.”

  “Nothing,” said Agatha sadly.

  As he walked away from her again, she turned to lift her two heavy suitcases off the luggage trolley because she always believed in travelling as heavy as possible.

  “Let me help you with that,” said a male voice. Agatha swung round. A tall man stood there, smiling down at her. She had a quick impression of an attractive face and thick brown hair.

  She suddenly smiled that radiant smile of hers, a smile that Charles saw as he began to drive off.

  He stopped beside them. “See you soon!” he called.

  “Who was that?” asked Agatha’s new friend.

  “Just some chap who works for me. I’m a detective,” said Agatha.

  “I would love to hear about your work. Dinner sometime? Here is my card.”

  * * *

  Inspector Wilkes received statements from the police in Sofia along with a signed confession written by Harry Bury as to his help in the murders which Sarah had found and had concealed up in the rafters. It nailed the responsibility for all the murders squarely on Mavis Dupin’s thin shoulders.

  “It’s that Raisin woman,” he grumbled to Bill Wong. “There’s also a long report from her about finding those women on Phuket.”

  “Considering how she was pilloried in the newspapers about her affair with that reporter, it might be a nice gesture to give her credit for something. She is a good detective.”

  “Wash your mouth out with soap. She’s an interfering busybody who got lucky.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, Charles thought he should rouse himself and go and see Agatha. But there had been so much work to be done on the estate, so much to catch up on. Also, he had uneasily sensed that Agatha was beginning to look on him as a prospective husband.

  But that must have been his imagination because she had not tried to get in touch with him, forgetting that when she did, Gustav often blocked the calls.

  It was a fine late spring evening when he set out. How dreary the Cotswolds were in winter, he thought, and how staggeringly beautiful in the spring when all the blossoms came out.

  To his surprise, Lilac Lane, where Agatha lived, was blocked with parked cars. He could see lights streaming out from all the windows of Agatha’s thatched cottage. A gentle voice behind him said, “Going to the party, Sir Charles?”

  “Mrs. Bloxby! Agatha didn’t invite me.”

  “Perhaps your man forgot to give it to you. We must hope she will be happy this time.”

  “This time what?”

  Mrs. Bloxby suddenly wished herself elsewhere. “Marriage. It is her engagement party to some man she only met at the airport a few weeks ago.”

  “You go ahead, Mrs. Bloxby. I’ll follow you.”

  He stood under the sweet blossoms of the lilac trees for about ten minutes and then he went slowly forwards. He stood outside the sitting room. Agatha was standing next to that man he had seen her with in the car park. He began to back away although she surely could not see him in the darkness.

  But the streetlamp above his head came on and Agatha looked straight at him. All the memories of all the times they had had together flashed through Charles’s mind. He turned slowly away and walked off into the night.

  Also by M. C. Beaton

  AGATHA RAISIN

  The Witches’ Tree: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Pushing Up Daisies: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Dishing the Dirt: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Blood of an Englishman: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Something Borrowed, Someone Dead: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Hiss and Hers: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  As the Pig Turns: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Busy Body: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  There Goes the Bride: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  A Spoonful of Poison: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Kissing Christmas Goodbye: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Love, Lies and Liquor: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Perfect Paragon: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Deadly Dance: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House

  Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate

  Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

  Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

  Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfram

  Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

  Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

  Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

  Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

  Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

  The Walkers of Dembley: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Potted Gardener: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Vicious Vet: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Quiche of Death: An Agatha Raisin Mystery

  The Skeleton in the Closet

  EDWARDIAN MYSTERY SERIES

  Our Lady of Pain

  Sick of Shadows

  Hasty Death

  Snobbery with Violence

  About the Author


  M. C. Beaton has been hailed as the “Queen of Crime” by The Globe and Mail. In addition to her New York Times and USA Today bestselling Agatha Raisin novels, Beaton is the author of the Hamish Macbeth series and four Edwardian mysteries. Born in Scotland, she currently divides her time between the English Cotswolds and Paris. Visit her on Facebook or at www.mcbeaton.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Also by M. C. Beaton

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE DEAD RINGER. Copyright © 2018 by M. C. Beaton. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Cover design by Sara Wood and David Baldeosingh Rotstein

  Cover art: church © bioraven / Shutterstock.com; church texture © F. Vorobyov / Shutterstock.com; villages © Keng Merry Paper Art / Shutterstock.com

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-15769-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-15771-3 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250157713

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].

  First edition: October 2018