Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

kitchen and put two slices of quiche in the microwave and opened a bottle of claret and poured himself a glass. Then, putting quiche and wine on a tray, he carried the lot through to the living-room and settled down again in front of the television.
    It was two hours later and just before the promised gang rape in a movie called Deep in the Heart that his mouth began to burn as if it were on fire. He felt deathly ill. He fell out of his chair and writhed in convulsions on the floor and was dreadfully sick. He lost consciousness as he was fighting his way toward the phone, ending up stretched out behind the sofa.
    Mrs Cummings-Browne arrived home sometime after midnight. She did not see her husband because he was lying behind the sofa, nor did she notice any of the pools of vomit because only one dim lamp was burning. She muttered in irritation to see the lamp still lit and the television still on. She switched both off.
    Then she went up to her bedroom – it had been some time since she had shared one with her husband – removed her make-up, undressed and soon was fast asleep.
    Mrs Simpson arrived early the next morning, grumbling under her breath. Her work schedule had been disrupted. First the change-over to cleaning Mrs Raisin’s place, and now Mrs Cummings-Browne had asked her to clean on Sunday morning because the Cummings-Brownes were going off on holiday to Tuscany on the Monday and Vera Cummings-Browne had wanted the place cleaned before they left. But if she worked hard, she could still make it to her Sunday job in Evesham by ten.
    She let herself in with the spare key which was kept under the doormat, made a cup of coffee for herself, drank it at the kitchen table and then got to work, starting with the kitchen. She would have liked to do the bedrooms first but she knew the Cummings-Brownes slept late. If they were not up by the time she had finished the living-room, then she would need to rouse them. She finished cleaning the kitchen in record time and then went into the living-room, wrinkling her nose at the sour smell. She went round behind the sofa to open the window and let some fresh air in and her foot struck the dead body of Mr Cummings-Browne. His face was contorted and bluish. He was lying doubled up. Mrs Simpson backed away, both hands to her mouth. She thought vaguely that Mrs Cummings-Browne must be out. The phone was on the window-ledge. Plucking up her courage, she leaned across the dead body and dialled 999 and asked for the police and an ambulance. She then shut herself in the kitchen to await their arrival. It never occurred to her to check if he was really dead or to go out and get immediate help. She sat at the kitchen table, hands tightly clasped as though in prayer, frozen with shock.
    The local policeman was the first to arrive. Police Constable Fred Griggs was a fat, jolly man, unused to coping with much more than looking for stolen cars in the tourist season and charging the odd drunken driver.
    He was bending over the body when the ambulance men arrived.
    In the middle of all the commotion, Mrs Cummings-Browne descended the stairs, holding a quilted dressing-gown tightly about her.
    When it was explained to her that her husband was dead, she clutched hold of the newel-post at the foot of the stairs and said in a stunned voice, ‘But he can’t be. He wasn’t even here when I got home. He had high blood pressure. It must have been a stroke.’
    But Fred Griggs had noticed the pools of dried vomit and the distorted bluish face of the corpse. ‘We can’t touch anything,’ he said to the ambulance men. ‘I’m pretty damn sure it’s poisoning.’
    Agatha Raisin went to church that Sunday morning. She could not remember having been inside a church before, but going to church, she believed, was one of those things one did in a village. The service was early, eight thirty, the vicar having to go on afterwards to preach at two other churches in the neighbourhood of Carsely.
    She saw P.C. Griggs’s car standing outside the Cummings-Brownes’ and an ambulance. ‘I wonder what happened,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘Mr Griggs is not saying anything. I hope nothing has happened to poor Mr Cummings-Browne.’
    ‘I hope something has,’ said Agatha. ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow,’ and she marched on into the gloom of the church of St Jude and left the vicar’s wife staring after her. Agatha collected a prayer-book and a hymn-book and took a pew at the back of the