Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

Hardy took the floor. Agatha moved over to the bar, where the publican, John Fletcher, was working, having left his wife and son to manage the pub. ‘Gin and tonic, John,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Right you are. How’s that murder investigation going? They caught anyone?’
    Agatha shook her head.
    ‘It’s odd, isn’t it? And then the murder of that poor woman in the cinema. Mind you, the police don’t think now that the two murders are related.’
    ‘Since when?’
    ‘I dunno. Fred Griggs was saying something like that the other day.’
    He turned away to serve someone else.
    Agatha found Mrs Bloxby next to her. ‘Mrs Hardy appears to have come out of her shell,’ said the vicar’s wife.
    Agatha turned round and surveyed the dance floor. Mrs Hardy was dancing with unexpected grace. She was laughing at something James was saying.
    ‘And if I am not mistaken, that’s quite a flirtatious look in her eyes. Not,’ added Mrs Bloxby hurriedly, ‘that she is any competition. You are looking remarkably trim and well these days.’
    ‘Must be James’s cooking,’ said Agatha. ‘We brought along Mrs Hardy to cheer her up. I only hope now she doesn’t cheer up too much or she will decide to stay.’
    ‘But you have your cottage back?’
    ‘Yes, everything’s signed and agreed on.’
    ‘In that case, she can do nothing about it.’
    ‘I hope James is not going to get carried away by my good Samaritan act,’ said Agatha. ‘If he asks her for the next dance, I’ll murder her . . . oh, dear, how easily one says things like that. I don’t think we’re ever going to find out who murdered Jimmy.’
    ‘Let’s sit over there in the corner, away from the noise of the band, and you can tell me about it,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    Agatha hesitated. The dance had finished. But James was asking Miss Simms for the next dance.
    ‘Okay,’ she said. They carried their drinks over to a couple of chairs in a corner of the hall.
    ‘I think a lot of it you already know,’ began Agatha. ‘Jimmy and possibly this Mrs Gore-Appleton, who ran a dicey charity, stayed at a health farm, found out what they could, and blackmailed some of the other guests. I believe one of them murdered him.’ She went on to describe all their investigations.
    Mrs Bloxby listened carefully and then she said, ‘I would think the most likely suspect would be Mrs Gore-Appleton herself.’
    ‘But they were in it together!’
    ‘Exactly. Jimmy went back on the booze and down to the gutter. But he surfaced for long enough to get cleaned up for your wedding. So, say, before that he had some stage where he was relatively sober and needed money. Why should he not seek out his old protector? And think of this. Let’s say she wants nothing more to do with him – her miraculous cured alcoholic isn’t cured. So she tries to send him packing. But Jimmy has a taste for blackmail, and as he was close to her at one time, he must have known about the fraudulent charity. He knows the police are looking for her. So he says something like, “Pay up or I’ll tell them where you are”? Wait a bit. It could be just before he came down here. He says he’s going to be in Carsely. She follows him and waits for the right moment, and what better moment is there than when he is hopelessly drunk and has just had a row with his wife?’
    Agatha looked at her open-mouthed and then said, ‘That’s all so very simple, it could well be what happened. But surely the police can find this woman, with all their resources.’
    ‘She could have changed her name.’
    ‘That might be an idea. I wonder if they’ve checked the Records Office to see if a Mrs Gore-Appleton changed her name to anything else. Damn, they’re bound to have done that.’
    ‘She was and still is a criminal, Agatha. She could easily get false papers. Apart from her, have you come across anyone during your investigations who might be a murderer or murderess?’
    ‘It could be any of them. Those men’s footprints near the body could be a blind. I have a gut feeling it’s some woman. That secretary, Helen Warwick, I don’t trust her at all.’
    ‘It would take some strength to strangle a man.’
    ‘Mrs Comfort said something odd about Mrs Gore-Appleton. She said she looked like a man.’
    ‘So she could be a he, pretending to be a woman?’
    ‘I suppose anything’s possible.’
    ‘There you are,’ said James. ‘Dance, Agatha?’
    ‘Sit down a moment,’ said Agatha. ‘Mrs Bloxby’s got some