Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

A vase of flowers stood on another, and there was a bowl of hyacinths at the low window. The chairs were worn, with – Agatha shifted her bottom experimentally – feather cushions. In front of her was a new coffee-table of the kind you buy in Do-It-Yourself stores and put together, and yet, covered as it was with newspapers and magazines, and the beginnings of a tapestry cushion-cover, it blended in with the rest of the room. Above her head were low beams black with age and centuries of smoke. There was a faint smell of lavender and wood-smoke mixed with the smells of hyacinths and pot-pourri.
    Also, there was an air of comfort and goodness about the place. Agatha decided that the Reverend Bloxby was a rare bird in the much-maligned aviary of the Church of England – a man who believed what he preached. For the first time since she had arrived in Carsely, she felt unthreatened and, as the door opened, and the vicar’s wife appeared, filled with a desire to please.
    ‘I’ve toasted some teacakes as well,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘It’s still so cold. I do get tired of keeping the fires burning. But of course you have central heating, so you don’t have that problem.’
    ‘You have a beautiful home,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Thank you. Milk and sugar?’ Mrs Bloxby had a small, delicate, lined face and brown hair threaded with grey. She was slim and fragile with long, delicate hands, the sort of hands that portrait painters used to love to give their subjects.
    ‘And how are you settling in, Mrs Raisin?’
    ‘Not very well,’ said Agatha. ‘I may have to settle out !’
    ‘Oh, because of your quiche,’ said Mrs Bloxby tranquilly. ‘Do try a teacake. I make them myself and it is one of the few things I do well. Yes, a horrible affair. Poor Mr Cummings-Browne.’
    ‘People must think I am a dreadful person,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Well, it was unfortunate that wretched quiche should have cowbane in it. But a lot of cheating goes on in these village affairs. You’re not the first.’
    Agatha sat with a teacake dripping butter and stared at the vicar’s wife. ‘I’m not?’
    ‘No, no. Let me see, there was Miss Tenby five years ago. An incomer. Set her heart on winning the flower-arranging competition. She ordered a basket of flowers from the florist over at St Anne’s. Quite blatant about it. It was a very pretty display but the neighbours had seen the florist’s van arriving and so she was found out. Then there was old Mrs Carter. She bought her strawberry jam and put her own label on it and won. No one would ever have known if she had not got drunk in the Red Lion and bragged about it. Yes, your deception would have occasioned quite a lot of comment in the village, Mrs Raisin, had it not all happened before, or, for that matter, if the judging had been fair.’
    ‘Do you mean Mr Cummings-Browne cheated?’
    Mrs Bloxby smiled. ‘Let us say he was apt to give prizes to favourites.’
    ‘But if this was generally known, why do the villagers bother to enter anything at all?’
    ‘Because they are proud of what they make and like to show it off to their friends. Besides, Mr Cummings-Browne judged competitions in neighbouring villages and it is estimated he had only one favourite in each. Also, there is no disgrace in losing. Alf often wanted to change the judge, but the Cummings-Brownes did give quite a lot to charity and the one year Alf was successful and got someone else to judge, the judge gave the prize to his sister, who did not even live in the village.’
    Agatha let out a long slow breath. ‘You make me feel less of a villain.’
    ‘It was all very sad. You must have had a frightful time.’
    To Agatha’s horror, her eyes filled with tears and she dabbed at them fiercely while the vicar’s wife looked tactfully away.
    ‘But be assured’ – the vicar’s wife addressed the coffee-pot – ‘that your deception did not occasion all that much comment. Besides, Mr Cummings-Browne was not popular.’
    ‘Why?’
    The vicar’s wife looked evasive. ‘Some people are not, you know.’
    Agatha leaned forward. ‘Do you think it was an accident?’
    ‘Oh, yes, for if it were not, then one would naturally suspect the wife, but Vera Cummings-Browne was a most devoted wife, in her way. She has a great deal of money and he had very little. They have no children. She could have walked off and left him any time at all. I had to help comfort her on the day of her husband’s death. I have never seen a woman