Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

checked all the hospitals. He took his passport with him, but there is no record of him having left the country.’
    ‘Which hospital was he being treated at?’
    Agatha looked at her and frowned. ‘I don’t think he had started his treatment.’
    ‘But he knew he had a tumour, so he would need to be diagnosed.’
    ‘It would be Mircester General Hospital.’
    ‘Perhaps if you ask there, you can find out just how bad the tumour was, or if he let slip any of his plans. A lot of people are terrified at the idea of chemotherapy. He may have said something to his doctor.’
    ‘I never thought of that,’ said Agatha eagerly. ‘We can try there.’
    They said goodbye to Mrs Ellersby. ‘I’m hungry,’ complained Charles, ‘and I’m not dashing off to Mircester and neither are you. Let’s leave the car where it is and walk up to Brown’s on Saint Giles and eat hamburgers.’
    ‘All right,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m suddenly weary.’
    Brown’s, as usual, was very busy, but they got a table in the smoking section after only a ten-minute wait. ‘So many young people,’ said Charles when they were seated. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel old, Aggie?’
    The honest answer to that was that she had been feeling old all day, but Agatha only grunted by way of reply.
    Charles ordered two hamburgers and a bottle of wine. ‘I’m driving,’ said Agatha.
    ‘So you are. All the more for me.’
    ‘I would have thought something plebeian like beer would go better with hamburger and chips.’
    ‘You’re only saying that because you can’t have any.’
    ‘I can have a glass. That’s below the limit.’
    ‘Cripes! Look over there. No, don’t stare. Do it casually. The table over in the corner on your left.’
    Agatha took a covert look.
    Then she turned back and hissed, ‘By all that’s holy, it’s Sheppard and his would-be child bride.’
    ‘Wonder what they’re doing back in Oxford?’
    ‘Probably just in for a meal,’ said Agatha. ‘James and I often drove into Oxford for a meal. Do you think he likes her dressed like that?’
    Megan Sheppard was wearing a short black dress with a white Peter Pan collar.
    ‘She looks quite fetching, Aggie. She can get away with the girlish look.’
    ‘Humph!’
    ‘Oh, oh, he’s seen us and he doesn’t look too happy. He’s coming over.’
    Sheppard loomed above them, clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘Are you following me?’ he demanded.
    ‘Why on earth should we do that?’ said Charles mildly. ‘We’re having a meal here, just like you.’
    He stood staring at them, his face dark with anger. Then he strode away. Agatha swivelled round to see what was happening. He bent over his wife, and then jerked her up by the elbow. He threw some money down on the table and then strode out of the restaurant, practically pulling his small wife after him.
    ‘Now there’s a man with a guilty conscience,’ said Agatha, turning back, her eyes gleaming.
    ‘Have you ever thought that he might be perfectly innocent,’ said Charles, ‘and that we frighten him?’
    ‘Us? Why?’
    ‘If you were questioned and then apparently pursued by two people, one of whom is married to the prime suspect and she herself is suspect number two, wouldn’t you get nervous?’
    ‘Only if I had done the deed myself,’ said Agatha stubbornly. ‘I swear that man’s a killer.’
    ‘You had Dewey down as number-one suspect yesterday.’
    ‘Oh, well, I mean, that was different.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘He was scary, telling us about threatening to take her eyes out. But I mean, striking someone with such a savage blow, like what happened to Melissa, is just the sort of thing Luke Sheppard would have done.’
    ‘Don’t let your imagination keep running away with you. We have to dig up some hard facts. All we’ve got at the moment is speculation. We set out to find out all we could about Melissa. We felt sure if we really got to know her character, that would lead us to the murderer. But what have we got? A shifting, changing, manipulative woman who, quite frankly, could have been killed by anyone. And the main piece of the jigsaw is James. Without James, we haven’t a clue.’
    ‘We’ll just need to go on, however,’ said Agatha, ‘as if we’re never going to find James. You say, maybe if we clear his name and wherever he is, he reads it in the newspapers, he may come back.’
    ‘To you, Aggie? Not still hoping for a happy marriage?’
    ‘I just want to know that he is still alive,’