Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

laughter.
    ‘Shall we go in, ladies?’ suggested the vicar’s wife.
    The revue consisted of songs and sketches. In the way of amateur productions, the singer most on stage was the one with the weakest voice and had chosen to sing a selection from the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber, petering out in the high notes and dying in the low notes and shrill in the middle. The rendering of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ was, Agatha reflected sourly, music to stun pigs by.
    Usually when she was out at some event that bored her, she looked forward to returning home to her cottage and cats. But there was only James’s cottage to return to, where she seemed to exist by sufferance on the periphery of his well-ordered life.
    Damn that Hardy woman, she thought. And then she stifled a little gasp. Mrs Hardy, that could be it! Come from God knows where. Who knew anything about her? And her arrival in the village had been coincidental with the death of Jimmy Raisin. Agatha barely heard the rest of the concert. She wanted to rush home and tell James about her suspicions, but there was tea to take afterwards and the grumbling Boggles to run home.
    By the time she was free, her splendid idea had been replaced by doubts. But none the less she told James of her suspicions. To her relief, he listened to her seriously and said, ‘I’ve been wondering about that woman myself. There doesn’t seem much point in trying to talk to her, she doesn’t seem the chatty sort, to say the least.’
    There was a ring at the doorbell and Agatha went to answer it. Mrs Bloxby stood there. ‘Come in,’ said Agatha.
    ‘I can’t. I brought your scarf. You left it at the hall. I’m just going to pick up the keys from Mrs Hardy. For some reason she wants me to keep the spares while she’s in London. I told her to leave them with our policeman, Fred Griggs, but she said she didn’t want to.’
    ‘When does she leave?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘About now, I think. I had better go.’
    Agatha thanked her for the scarf and went thoughtfully back indoors.
    ‘There’s a thing,’ she said, sitting down opposite James. ‘The Hardy woman’s off to London. Left her spare keys with Mrs Bloxby. Wouldn’t it be interesting to get a look in there?’
    ‘Can’t very well ask Mrs Bloxby for the keys. And I wouldn’t like to try lock-picking in broad daylight.’
    ‘But I’ve got another set to the cottage. I found them in my case.’
    ‘Won’t she have changed the locks?’
    ‘I’ve a feeling that one would not go to any expense if she could do otherwise. Oh, just think, James, what if she proves to be Mrs Gore-Appleton?’
    ‘Too much to hope for. But I’d like to find out more about her. How do we get in there without anyone seeing us? There always seems to be someone about in this village when you don’t want them to be, and we can’t wait until the middle of the night. Did Mrs Bloxby say anything about when she planned to return?’
    ‘No. But I have the key to the back door. All we need to do is to go out and over the fence of your garden and then over the fence and into mine – I mean hers.’
    ‘Okay. I’ll go outside and weed the front garden so I can see her leaving.’
    James, bent double over a flowerbed, thought after half an hour that Mrs Hardy might have changed her mind, but then, as he straightened up, he was rewarded by the sight of her truculent face behind the wheel of her car, heading off down Lilac Lane. He stood and craned his neck, hearing the sound of the car retreating through the village, and then seeing it climbing up the hill out of Carsely.
    He went back indoors. ‘Right, Agatha,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
    Agatha shinned over James’s garden fence, thinking that detective work might prove too energetic a business for a middle-aged woman. James had gone over lightly and had crossed the narrow alley between his garden and that of Mrs Hardy and was already climbing over her fence.
    That James should expect her to scramble after him without an offer of help riled Agatha. She felt she was being treated like a man. She suddenly wanted James to notice her again, really look at her as a man ought to look at a woman. She thought that when she reached the top of Mrs Hardy’s fence, she would call to him for help. He would stretch his arms up to her and she would drop down into them, her eyes closed, and she would whisper, ‘James, oh James.’
    ‘Help!’ she called softly. She dropped down the other side of the