The Witches' Tree--An Agatha Raisin Mystery Read online

  “I wonder how they found out so quickly,” said Agatha.

  “Edward Chumble?”

  “I don’t think so. He wants me to take on the case and let him have the glory. He didn’t say so but I am sure that’s what is behind it.”

  “Toni should be over there this morning with the contracts. Maybe he’ll change his mind,” said Agatha. “But just in case, I feel we should get over there and rescue her.”

  * * *

  At that moment, Edward Chumble was posing in front of the fireplace, smiling in an avuncular way at Toni Gilmour, Agatha’s attractive blonde detective. He was bragging about how he himself had played detective when he had been British ambassador in Carpet Bagger or somewhere. Couldn’t be Carpet Bagger, thought Toni. Edward had a chuffy sort of vowel-swallowing voice. He sounded like Boris Johnson on speed.

  He broke off in mid-pontification at the sound of the doorbell. “I’ll get rid of them,” he said with what he fancied was a roguish smile. Toni heaved a little sigh of relief when he returned with Agatha and Charles.

  “We came over because someone is threatening me to stop investigating,” said Agatha. “Did you tell a lot of people I was taking the case?”

  “No, only the wife. That’s her now.”

  He winced as a spray of gravel from a car making a vicious speedy turn hit the windows followed by a screech of brakes.

  Tiffany erupted into the room. She smelled of Miss Dior and recently drunk gin. Ignoring the company, she said, “Look, Edward, I can’t take much more of this rat hole.” She suddenly swung round, noticing Charles for the first time. “Who’s this?”

  “Sir Charles Fraith.”

  “Do you live around here?”

  “Got a place over in Warwickshire,” said Charles.

  “Must invite us, mustn’t you? What are the rest of you doing here?”

  “Agatha Raisin is going to solve these murders for me. Miss Toni Gilmour there is her assistant.”

  “Why bother?” jeered Tiffany. “I know who did it.”

  “Bet you don’t!” he raged.

  “I need sunshine. Take me to Venice and I’ll tell you.”

  “No. Miss Gilmour, I have signed the contracts, but I hope to see you again, my dear.”

  “Tcha!” snarled Tiffany and shot out of the room again. Screech of brakes, more gravel hitting the windows, great roar of engine, and … “Sound of witch going off on modern broomstick,” whispered Charles to Agatha.

  “I shall call at your office tomorrow for a report on your progress,” said Edward.

  Agatha wanted to say it was far too soon, but she guessed Tiffany had probably gone to the pub and she wanted to catch up with her so she said she would look forward to seeing him. Edward saw them out and kissed Toni on the cheek before she could escape.

  “How can you bear that horrible old man?” complained Toni when they were outside.

  Agatha winced. Although she guessed that Edward was about seventy years old and still a good way off from her own age of fifty-three, she was beginning to dread old age. People said, “The fifties are the new forties.” Rubbish, thought Agatha. You don’t have to deal with an incipient moustache at forty or a waistline that thickens at the very sight of a cream cake.

  “He’s paying,” said Agatha. “And this lot interests me and if he wants to pay to play the Great Detective, I don’t mind. I don’t think Tiffany is the first wife. I cannot see her as Madam Ambassadress. I would guess that the first missus hightailed it out of the marriage when she realised that the future was some backwater of the former Soviet Union. I wonder where he was before the last place.”

  “I looked it up,” said Toni. “Innocence, capital of Ugmu-Zoma.”

  “Where the hell’s that?”

  “Africa. Bang in the middle somewhere.”

  “Why on earth should the Foreign Office pay for an embassy there?”

  “Oil.”

  “Let’s track down Tiffany,” said Agatha. “I’ve a feeling we’ll find her in The Hanged Man.”

  Agatha was about to drive off when someone rapped on the car window. Agatha turned red with embarrassment. She had forgotten about Charles. “Alzheimer’s setting in?” asked Charles.

  “I was preoccupied,” said Agatha huffily.

  “Who is he?” demanded Charles.

  “There isn’t anybody.”

  “Funny that. When you are in the grip of an obsession about someone, Aggie, that’s when I become as wallpaper to be cast off with the dirty laundry.”

  Agatha giggled. “Idiot! I don’t throw wallpaper in the laundry basket.”

  But the fact was that Agatha longed to fall in love again. Not with Charles. Before she knew it, he would be announcing his engagement to some bit of rich totty. Love, or obsession in Agatha’s case, came like a welcome drug, wrapping her in a warm protective glow.

  Tiffany was already seated in a corner of The Hanged Man when Agatha and Charles arrived, Toni having said she would return to the office. She was talking animatedly to a young couple.

  “Trolley dolly,” said Charles.

  “Keep your voice down,” said Agatha. “You never know when the politically correct police will pounce. Do you know that any man in Nottinghamshire who lets out a wolf whistle can be charged with a hate crime? If you mean air stewardess, say so.”

  “I think that’s politically incorrect as well,” said Charles. “Shouldn’t it be stewardperson?”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve had a few,” sang Charles. “I did it my way.”

  “Shut up. Tiffany’s waving us over.”

  “Sit down,” said Tiffany, “and settle an argument. What is a baronet doing playing detective? Bengy says it’s because you two are an item which I think is ridiculous. Brenda says he’s one of the county do-gooder lot, and I say he’s short of a bob and is earning his keep in more ways than one.”

  “Calm down, Agatha,” said Charles sharply, seeing that an angry Agatha was about to stalk out. “I shall pour a gin and T down on the flames.”

  When Charles went to the bar, Agatha smiled her most charming smile except it looked more like a crocodile seeing easy prey. “Tell me,” she said sweetly to Tiffany, “are you an old trolley dolly? Charles says you are. I say, surely not.”

  Brenda and Bengy shrieked with laughter and clutched each other.

  “I was a cabin attendant on PanWorld Airlines.”

  “And that is where you met Sir Edward?”

  “No. I was staying at the Supreme Hotel in Cairo. Look, you are being damned cheeky. The fact that you are working for my husband does not give you licence to be impertinent.”

  Charles put Agatha’s drink down in front of her and then began to entertain the company with a fund of lighthearted gossip, while Agatha studied them. Bengy and Brenda. They must be the brother and sister who were at that dinner party on the night Margaret’s body was found. They did not look alike. Brenda was of the kind described as “horsey.” She had a thin anxious face and large hands and feet. Her brother was slim with heavy fair hair and wide blue eyes. Two quite deep lines on either side of his mouth and a wariness about the eyes betrayed the fact he was older than he looked.

  They can make everything look young these days, thought Agatha, except the eyes. Tiffany’s had one of those wind tunnel face-lifts but her eyes are old. She’s watching Charles and pretending to be listening but she looks sad.

  Tiffany was remembering when she was at the Supreme Hotel in Cairo and the airline went bust, leaving her stranded. Edward, on leave, had tried to chat her up the evening before and she had snubbed him because she had just snared a paying client, her first foray into the world of prostitution. But Tiffany’s introduction to that world had been brutal and nasty. Now Edward looked like a lifeline. When she learned he was an ambassador on leave from some unpronounceable place in the middle of Africa, she set herself out to be as classy as possible, inventing a family mansion, gone along with the horses and hounds because “poor
Daddy” had lost all on Lloyd’s. Edward’s previous wife had been small and dumpy. He knew he was due for a new posting. Tiffany with her greyhound figure, her masses of blonde hair and her pouting lips was more the image of a wife he wanted. He dreamed of a capital city, Paris or Rome.

  So they got married and Tiffany endured the hell of a backwater in Africa, full of flies and flat-eyed feral children, brutalised since the day they were born.

  Then came the news of the posting. It was a crashing blow. “Where is it?” Tiffany had demanded.

  “Another place no one’s heard of,” Edward replied.

  Tiffany jerked her mind back to the present. Charles was asking, “Why did you move to the Cotswolds?”

  “We heard it was pretty. Edward is an Agatha Christie fan and he thinks village life is like it was in the nineteen thirties with bobbing parlour maids and tea at the vicarage. He doesn’t want to know anything about the present day.”

  “Maybe something nasty happened to him in Africa,” said Agatha.

  “Actually, I think it did. I mean it was enough to traumatise anyone what with so many people with limbs cut off and fear of rebels. We were just a temporary home for all the oil wheeler-dealers. He went AWOL for two days and what a panic there was. They found him in the jungle. He was feverish and gabbling nonsense and since then, he’s moved back in time. Sometimes he talks about what he did in the war, but he was too young for the Second World War. I suggested a psychiatrist, but he won’t hear of it. If I were you, sweetie, I’d run a mile.”

  Agatha felt a sudden flash of sympathy for Tiffany. She must once have been a pretty girl, the sort of pretty girl who thought looks were enough.

  “Is it hard being a private detective?” she realised Bengy was asking. “I mean, in these days of high-tech forensics and DNA, you don’t have any of the advantages of the police.”

  “We don’t have the paperwork, the top-heavy bureaucracy and if we don’t solve cases, we go broke while P.C. Plod keeps his job no matter what. And talking about P.C. Plod, what happened to that policeman, Turret? Any ideas? Evidently, he was snooping around Margaret’s cottage and someone biffed him, covered his head with tape and strung him up in that tree, all while some other policeman was down on the motorway, stuffing his face with burgers. Now, Lady Edward, you said you knew who the murderer was. Who is it?”

  Tiffany was about to reply that she hadn’t the faintest idea when the pub door swung open and a clutch of press came in, headed by Morning Britain reporter, Jerry Leech. His sharp ears picked up Agatha’s question and he sailed forward. “It’s the beautiful Lady Edward,” he said. “Just the one. Think of our readers, crouched over the usual morning’s doom and gloom in the news only to have their hearts lifted by a shot of a glamorous blonde.”

  He should bottle his compliments and make a fortune, thought Agatha, as Tiffany seemed to lose years. She tossed back her hair and smiled. “Just the one.”

  “Outside,” urged Jerry. “Only take a minute.”

  “Let’s follow her out,” whispered Agatha to Charles. “She might tell the press if she knows something, but I’m sure she just made it up.”

  Tiffany was posed beside the pond, her long leather coat opened and one long leg thrust out.

  “If Jerry’s thinking about a headline along the lines that she knows the identity of the murderer, then he should stop her grinning like a Cheshire cat.”

  The rest of the press had followed Jerry over to the tree. Cameras clicked, television cameras whirred while a delighted and rejuvenated Tiffany twisted and turned like a fashion model.

  “I’m not going to say anything until I consult my husband,” said Tiffany. “Talk to me tomorrow.”

  “Wouldn’t you say Sir Edward was an old snob?” asked Charles.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “So he must have been told by intelligence about Tiffany’s real background.”

  “I should think Tiffany would know that and got the ring on her finger fast.”

  Nonetheless, Sir Edward had enough of his marbles left to learn that his wife planned to unmask the murderer in a day’s time. He ranted and raged at her until Tiffany said sulkily that she was going to visit an old friend in London.

  As she had not returned to the pub, Agatha and Charles decided to call at the vicarage.

  Molly ushered them into the kitchen. “I’m glad you’ve called. You see, I don’t know much about Margaret Darby to help you. But the old vicar’s wife is still alive. She’s in a nursing home in Broadway. I mean all I know about Margaret is that she did the flowers and cleaned the brass.”

  “What’s the old vicar’s wife’s name?” asked Agatha.

  “Dolly Smellie. I think Dolly’s for Dorothy, but it is hard to tell these days. A lot of people get christened using nicknames. At least I was christened Mary. You’ll find her in Dunmore Nursing Home. It’s not right in Broadway but out on the Cheltenham road.”

  “Right, we’ll be on our way.”

  “Must you go so soon?” pleaded Molly. “I’m a bit scared.”

  “I’ll stay,” volunteered Charles happily. “Off you go, Aggie.”

  Agatha looked from Charles’s catlike face to Molly’s beautiful one. “Where is Rory?” she asked.

  “He’s over in Ancombe, calling on a sick old lady.”

  Agatha left, feeling diminished. Beauty would always win. She decided to call in at her office first and find out what everyone was doing.

  * * *

  Her small staff were all there and looked up in dismay as Agatha walked through the door. Apart from Toni, her staff consisted of Patrick Mulligan, ex-copper; Phil Marshall, elderly and gentle; Simon Black, young and usually in love; and secretary, Mrs. Freedman. They were sitting in the area reserved for visitors and on the coffee table was a large box of sugar-coated doughnuts.

  “Why is no one working?” demanded Agatha.

  “We all finished our jobs by coincidence at the same time and Mrs. Freedman brought in these doughnuts so we decided to enjoy a coffee and some of them before we got on to the next jobs,” said Toni. “Have a doughnut.”

  Isn’t it odd, thought Agatha, that I have reached that age when the very sight of a sugary doughnut makes my waistline suddenly tighten as if in the grip of a giant high blood pressure machine. Oh, the hell with it. She selected a particularly fattening one and sank down onto the sofa with a sigh.

  “Where’s Charles?” asked Toni.

  “Right behind you,” said Charles. “Move over, Aggie. Those doughnuts look delicious.”

  “Why did you abandon Molly?” asked Agatha.

  “She had to go out on a call. Just like a doctor.”

  Molly had in fact said, “Now you have tried to make Agatha jealous and it hasn’t worked, you can go. I don’t like it. You’re like a cat playing with a mouse.”

  Charles had denied it. I mean, he did not care for Agatha so strongly that he would give up the chance to stay and talk to a beautiful woman. Would he? He gave her a puzzled look.

  “What’s up?” demanded Agatha. “Have I a smut on my nose?”

  “Nothing,” said Charles. “If you’ve finished putting on a kilo, let’s go.”

  Chapter Four

  Charles insisted they take his car, an ancient Bentley, although Agatha complained a drive in his car made her feel as if she were going to a funeral.

  “And nursing homes make me feel as if I’ll soon be at my own funeral,” said Charles as he parked outside the Dunmore Nursing Home. “I wonder how they thought up that name? Someone sarcastic? Could have done more in life? Or memories of Scotland. I envisage a grim matron. ‘Now, you be taking your medicine, Charles, or I weel get verra angry.’”

  “Charles,” said Agatha plaintively, “are we going in or not? Or are you going to sit here wittering all day?”

  They climbed out of the car. A blast of wind whistled through the thick shrubbery bordering the short drive. “Hear that, Aggie? said Charles. “That’s the souls of the old folk who were so
bad in life that their punishment is to live around this place for ever and ever, amen.”

  Agatha marched ahead of him, the spindly heels of her shoes digging holes in the gravel. She had begun to obsess about marriage rather than romance. How dreadful would it be to face the years of decrepitude alone? But what if one’s partner or husband was the more decrepit? A low branch of a monkey puzzle, blown by the wind, caught at her sleeve and Agatha let out a yell of fright.

  Charles caught her round the waist and kissed her firmly on the mouth. She looked at him in a dazed way. “Come on,” he urged. “People to detect.”

  The door was opened before they could reach it. “Amazing,” whispered Charles. “My matron to the life.”

  “I saw yiz canoodling in the drive. I am Mrs. Bentley, nurse in charge. Still. It iss grand to see a married couple still in love.”

  “We aren’t married,” said Agatha. She hurriedly made the introductions and said they wished to speak to Mrs. Smellie.

  “A ‘sir,’” said Mrs. Bentley. “Och, that explains it. Take a seat. I’ll see if Mrs. Smellie can see you.”

  “Explains what?” asked Agatha when she had hurried off.

  “In the pocket of her highly starched uniform is copy of The Buck’s Revenge which portrays—I only saw the top of the book—a Regency buck glaring savagely down at a quivering heroine. She no doubts thinks I am going to ravish you under the laurels in the drive.”

  “You smell that?” asked Agatha. “It’s old folks’ pee, barely disguised by lavender air freshener.”

  “All I can smell,” said Charles, “is a waft of institutional meals.”

  Back came Mrs. Bentley. “Mrs. Smellie will see you now. Follow me.”

  Mrs. Smellie was seated with others watching an episode of Coronation Street on television.

  The volume was high. “We’ll chust be having that rubbish off.” Mrs. Bentley switched off the television to howls of dismay from the elderly viewers.

  “No, put it on again,” said Agatha. “Can’t we talk to Mrs. Smellie somewhere else?”

  Mrs. Smellie, who had looked like a bundle of shawls topped with grey hair, came to life, throwing back her wrappings and revealing a wrinkled face and clever black eyes.