Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

join him. ‘I planted those,’ she said proudly. ‘Mrs Comfort – Gloria – really doesn’t know a thing about gardening.’
    Agatha took the scarf from her pocket and thrust it down between the cushions of the sofa.
    ‘I’ve found it,’ she cried, fishing it out as Jane turned round. ‘It must have slipped between the cushions.’
    James was still at the window. ‘Some of those roses could do with being cut back.’
    ‘What? Where?’ demanded Jane angrily. ‘Those are the best-tended roses in the Cotswolds. I’ll show you.’
    ‘You go ahead,’ said Agatha. ‘I’ll just powder my nose.’
    Jane wasn’t even listening to her. She was too angry at this slur on her gardening capabilities.
    When they both walked out, Agatha quickly crossed to the phone and dialled 1471. She made a rapid note of the last caller’s number and then went out to the garden, where James was saying plaintively, ‘Well, bless me, what a splendid job you’ve done. Forgive me, Miss Barclay. It’s my damned eyesight. Not as good as it was.’
    Jane was mollified enough to talk for what seemed to Agatha an unconscionable time about gardening.
    At last they thanked Jane and went back to their car. As soon as they were out of earshot, Agatha said excitedly, ‘I got the number.’
    ‘It may not be this mysterious Basil’s number.’ James drove a little way along the road and then stopped. ‘Let me see it.’
    Agatha gave him the slip of paper with the number on it. ‘It’s a Mircester number,’ said James, ‘but it could also belong to any of the villages just outside Mircester. How are we going to find out the address that goes with it?’
    Agatha sat scowling horribly. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said at last. ‘Any time I’ve been to police headquarters in Mircester to talk to Bill Wong or someone about a case, I’ve been put in an interview room and had to wait ages. The interview room has a phone. I could phone the operator and say I was a police detective, and before they get suspicious say something like, “Phone me back immediately at police headquarters on this extension.”’
    ‘Agatha, I forbid you to do anything so insane!’
    ‘You what? Who the hell do you think you are to order me around?’
    ‘See sense, woman. The one time someone will come to see you immediately is just when you don’t want it. The phone will ring and someone like the dreadful Maddie will pick it up and promptly charge you with trying to impersonate a police officer.’
    ‘One has,’ said Agatha Raisin haughtily, ‘to take risks in this business.’
    ‘Oh, don’t get carried away. All we’ve done so far is create mayhem. I’ll drop you off home. I’m going to the market in Moreton to get fish for dinner. If time lies heavy on your hands, you might try a little weeding, dear. It has not escaped my notice that you treat my place like a hotel.’
    ‘That’s because it is your place,’ said Agatha, deeply hurt. ‘I can’t wait to get my own home back.’
    ‘Can’t wait either,’ said James, and they completed the drive home in bitter silence.
    James went off to Moreton-in-Marsh and Agatha let herself in, smarting with hurt and fury. So this is what marriage would have been like? Being ordered about? How dare he. Well, she’d show him.
    She went back out and got into her own car and drove as fast as she could to Mircester.
    Feeling a bit nervous now, she approached the desk sergeant at Mircester police headquarters and said sweetly, ‘I would like to see someone in connection with the murder of Jimmy Raisin.’
    ‘It’s Mrs Raisin, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He lifted the flap, came round the desk and ushered her into an interview room off the entrance hall.
    ‘Shouldn’t be long,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Like a cup of tea?’
    ‘No, thank you.’
    He left and shut the door. Agatha seized the phone and dialled the operator. Nothing happened. Then she realized she probably had to dial 9 for an outside line and, hoping it was 9, tried again. The operator came on the line.
    ‘This is Detective Sergeant Crumb,’ said Agatha, quickly taking her alias from the remains of a biscuit on a plate on the desk. She gave the operator the number she had culled from Mrs Comfort’s phone, asked for the name and address that went with it, and then gave her the number of the extension on the desk.
    ‘We’ll call you back,’ said the operator.
    And Agatha waited and waited.
    Then panic took over. She lifted the phone