Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryham

At last Framp shovelled the mess out of the frying pan on to a chipped and cracked plate and sat down opposite her.
    ‘So,’ began Agatha impatiently, ‘what about these lights?’
    ‘Some kids playing pranks.’
    ‘So you know that for a fact?’
    ‘Educated guess.’ He stabbed the corner of a piece of fried bread into the yolk of an egg and shoved it in his mouth.
    ‘So you don’t really know?’
    He chomped steadily, filled a mug with tea, took a great swallow, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then said, ‘Nothing important’s ever taken. Just bits and pieces. A worthless picture, a cream jug, three forks, things like that.’
    ‘Why don’t you come round to my cottage and fingerprint the place?’
    ‘I don’t fingerprint things. CID does that and they ain’t going to come running over with their kit and the forensic boys over a load of junk.’
    ‘It doesn’t seem to bother you that someone is frightening the village with their antics. They won’t talk about it.’
    ‘Well, no, they wouldn’t. Not to you.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘They think it’s fairies.’
    Agatha stared at him and then said, ‘Oh, come on. Fairies at the bottom of the garden!’
    ‘Fact.’
    ‘Fairies are not fact! And you’ve got egg on your chin. Look, the women I’ve met are not inbred peasants. They wouldn’t believe in fairies.’
    ‘That they do. Some have been putting salt round their houses to keep the fairies away, others are leaving gifts like saucers of milk and things like that.’
    Agatha looked at him, puzzled, and then her face cleared ‘Oh, I know what it is. You’re pulling my leg.’
    ‘No. I’m telling you, Mrs Raisin. This is a very old part of Britain and strange things do happen here.’
    ‘I don’t believe in fairies and I don’t think you do either.’ Agatha got to her feet. ‘I won’t waste any more of your time. I’ll solve the mystery myself. I am by way of being a detective.’
    She turned at the kitchen door and looked back, but he was dunking the last of his fried bread in the remaining egg.
    Agatha got in her car in a bad temper. She drove slowly along until she came to a lodge-gate. This then must be the manor. She checked her watch. Three-thirty. Too early. She lowered the windows. The village of Fryfam nestled in pine woods and the air was sweet with the scent. A lazy bee blundered into the car, as if bewildered by all this late sunshine and warmth. Agatha wondered whether to swat it, but then realized she could not. She shrank back in her seat until it blundered out again.
    Fairies, indeed! She decided furiously that the lazy policeman was probably trying to take the mickey out of a tourist.
    Her thoughts turned to the vicar’s wife, Mrs Bloxby. Agatha knew that Mrs Bloxby did not approve of her ongoing love for James Lacey and felt irritated. She should be sympathetic, understanding and supportive. Still, surely the whole reason for her flight to Norfolk, apart from the fortune-teller’s prophecy, was to get James out of her hair. Not for a moment would she admit to herself that the real reason was because she wanted him to return to Carsely, find her gone and miss her.
    She tried to jerk her thoughts back to the mystery of the dancing lights, but they kept returning to the way she would behave when she saw him again and what she would say. So immersed was she in her thoughts that it was with a start of surprise she realized the clock on the dashboard was registering five minutes past four. She started the car and turned into the drive. The pine trees were thick on either side. She was just wondering if she would ever reach the house when she turned a bend in the drive, and there it was, a square eighteenth-century building like a hunting-box, with a Victorian servants’ wing stuck on one side. It had a small porticoed entrance with a very new coat of arms stuck on top. Two heraldic beasts supported a shield. Agatha squinted up as she got out of the car but could not make out the details. What had the Trumpington-Jameses put on their shield? Bathroom showers rampant?
    She rang the bell at the side of the door. Lucy Trumpington-James answered the door wearing a gold silk Armani suit and a quantity of gold jewellery, chains round the neck and bracelets on her thin wrists.
    ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Tolly’s in the drawing-room.’
    Agatha followed her across a dark hall with console tables topped with Chinese vases of autumn leaves. Harriet’s work?
    The