Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

from Agatha with his bare hands.
    Agatha regained consciousness in hospital to find Bill Wong sitting beside the bed. ‘You’re all right,’ said Bill. ‘But take it easy. I’ll get a statement from you later.’
    Agatha looked around in a dazed way. She was in a private room. There were flowers everywhere. Then her eyes widened. ‘It was Mrs Gore-Appleton all along. What happened?’
    ‘You had a narrow escape,’ said Bill. ‘She hit you hard with the poker, dug a grave in the garden, and then tried to bury you alive. Are you up to all this? I’ll go if you want to.’
    ‘No, stay,’ said Agatha weakly, but her eyes began to close and she fell asleep. When she awoke again, she felt much stronger and found out from a doctor that part of her hair had been shaved off and stitches put in her head. After more checks, she was told she would do very well provided she rested quietly. Agatha’s next visitor was Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘I am so glad to see you alive,’ said the vicar’s wife, arranging a bunch of grapes in a bowl. ‘Do you know, it was quite a coincidence. I thought and thought what Mrs Hardy – I think I’ll call her that because that is her real name – well, I thought what she had said and then I began to think of the fire and the gunman and I began to get a bad feeling. I phoned her to see if you were there, for I had called your cottage first. She said you weren’t there and somehow, I cannot explain why, I thought you were. I phoned again and demanded if she had seen you and then I realized she had walked away from the phone. Then I thought I heard your voice in the background before the receiver was replaced. I put on my coat and hurried along to Lilac Lane and saw the police car outside. She tried to bury you alive. Such wickedness.’
    Bill Wong came in. ‘I brought you some chocolate,’ he said.
    ‘Sit down,’ urged Agatha, ‘and tell me all about it.’
    ‘She talked and talked,’ said Bill. ‘I think she’s a bit mad. She had been running her bent charity when she came across Jimmy. He must have been a wreck, but I tell you something. She actually fell in love with him, hence the slim figure and blonded hair and holiday in the south of France. The blackmailing after the health-farm stay was Jimmy’s idea, but she went along with it.
    ‘And then, by coincidence, Jimmy saw her the day of your wedding and decided to blackmail her. She gave him her address and told him to call on her early in the morning. She witnessed his row with you, but she was already waiting for him, dressed as a man. We found the size-nine shoes in her wardrobe. She strangled him and thought her worries were over. Then she strangled poor Miss Purvey. She says that Helen Warwick spotted her when she was trying to call on James Lacey. Mrs Gore-Appleton –’
    ‘Easier to call her Mrs Hardy,’ prompted Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘Mrs Hardy, then. She had persuaded Helen Warwick that she had nothing to do with the murders, and that if she kept quiet, she would call on her with “a gift”. If the silly woman had gone straight to the police, she would be alive today. And you are lucky to be alive, Agatha. She hit you on the back of the head. Did you know who she really was?’
    ‘Yes, I found a photo of her and Jimmy in the kitchen drawer. I had such a cold – that seems to have been beaten out of me – that nothing seemed quite real and like a fool I confronted her and said I was going to phone the police. She seemed so resigned to it all. The one thing that infuriates me is that Roy Silver of all people was sure Mrs Hardy was the culprit. He’ll crow over me until the end of time. But what about Mrs Comfort? Why on earth did she suddenly run off to Spain?’
    ‘Plain and simple. She’s back and explained she didn’t want to be mixed up in a murder inquiry. She was frightened of her ex-husband. Said she dreamed of having him back but then she fell for Basil and found her ex had grown irrationally bad-tempered and violent and was hitting the bottle. Geoffrey has grown eccentric to say the least and the neighbours are complaining about his drunken threats.’
    ‘Silly woman,’ said Agatha bitterly. ‘What a lot of our time she wasted.’ She suddenly looked anxiously at them. ‘Where is James? Has he called?’
    Bill and Mrs Bloxby exchanged looks.
    ‘Where is he?’ demanded Agatha.
    ‘We’d best tell her the truth,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘She didn’t murder him? Oh, God, is he all right?’
    Mrs Bloxby