Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

becoming increasingly irritated. Among other things, the childlike Megan with her doll’s house, and doll’s china, was beginning to make her feel old and huge and lumbering.
    ‘Well, for a start, I thought Melissa, knowing he was leaving her for you, might have called on you.’
    ‘Oh, no. More coffee, Charles?’
    ‘Thank you. It’s excellent.’
    She refilled his cup.
    Agatha was suddenly anxious to leave. Megan could not help them. They should be on their way to Mircester to interview the husband. She realized they would really need to know what kind of person Melissa had been. They would need to find out if there had been anything in her behaviour or character to promote murder. In her heart of hearts, Agatha could not believe James had had anything to do with it. Whoever had attacked him had surely gone on to kill Melissa. She looked impatiently at Charles, but he was smiling and relaxed in the sunshine.
    ‘How did you meet your husband?’ Charles asked.
    ‘I was working in the shop, as an assistant. We started going out for a drink together after work, and one thing led to another. He wasn’t happy with her.’
    ‘Why?’ demanded Agatha.
    ‘Oh, you’ll need to ask him and see if he wants to tell you anything.’
    ‘We’ll do that,’ said Agatha. ‘Come along, Charles.’
    ‘Come back any time,’ said Megan, but she addressed the invitation to Charles. ‘Can you see your way out?’
    ‘Little bitch,’ said Agatha as they drove off.
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Charles. ‘Seemed very charming to me.’
    ‘For heaven’s sake! There’s something wrong with a woman who wears ankle socks and her hair tied up like a child.’
    ‘It suited her.’
    ‘Anyway, we’d better go to Mircester. You know, Charles, I was thinking in there that we don’t really know what Melissa was like. I mean, what sort of person was she?’
    ‘Then we should call on Mrs Bloxby first. Melissa went to that ladies’ society thing, didn’t she?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So let’s ask Mrs Bloxby’s opinion of her. She must have formed some sort of opinion.’
    Agatha felt an irrational stab of jealousy. She prided herself on being a great judge of character. What could Mrs Bloxby tell them? If she, Agatha, had not sussed out anything strange or odd about Melissa, how could the vicar’s wife manage to do so?
    More coffee in the vicarage garden. With scones, this time, light as feathers. Being a city mouse down to her bones, Agatha often envied the skill of the country mice. Not for them the quick-fix dinner in the microwave. Not for them the instant garden with plants bought fully grown from the nursery.
    ‘You were asking me about Mrs Sheppard,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘Do have some of my cherry jam on your scone, Sir Charles.’
    I wish I could produce homemade jam, thought Agatha. Of course, I could buy the good stuff, steam off the labels, and put my own on, and who would know the difference? Yes, I might do that.
    ‘I thought, you see,’ said Charles, spooning jam on to a scone, ‘that with Melissa being such a regular member of the ladies’ society, not like Aggie here, you might have formed some sort of opinion.’
    ‘I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘I suppose that’s silly, now I come to think of it. Surely much worse to speak ill of them when they are alive. I suppose it comes from some old superstition that one might spoil their chances of getting to heaven.’
    ‘If she’s got there, she’s there by now,’ said Agatha, shifting impatiently on her garden chair.
    ‘I hope so.’ And only Mrs Bloxby, thought Charles, could say something like that and really mean it.
    ‘Your garden is lovely,’ he said, looking about him with pleasure.
    ‘Thank you. The wisteria was a bit disappointing this year, however. Usually, we have a great show but a wicked frost blighted the blooms.’
    ‘Melissa,’ prompted Agatha. ‘The reason we want to know what you think is because we want to know if there was anything in her character that would make her what Scotland Yard calls a murderee – you know, someone who would incite people to violence.’
    ‘Having an affair with someone else’s husband is an incitement,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘Yes, but that would mean Aggie would have to have done it,’ said Charles, ‘and she didn’t, and I don’t believe for a moment it was the absent James. Besides, married women have affairs the whole time and no one bumps them off.’
    ‘I