Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

Agatha’s windows. It was a day of movement and bright, sharp, glittering colour. She took the threatening note out of the rubbish. Why not show this to Bill Wong? What did it mean? She had not been doing any investigating to speak of. But he would ask a lot of questions and she might slip up and tell him of her visit to Mrs Cartwright and that Mrs Cartwright had told her to call again.
    She smoothed out the note and tucked it in with the cookery books. Perhaps she should keep it just in case.
    After breakfast, there was a knock at her door. She had a little scared feeling it might be Mrs Barr. Damn the woman! She was nothing but a warped middle-aged frump, and she should not cause a stalwart such as Agatha Raisin any trouble at all.
    But it was Mrs Bloxby who stood there, and behind her, to Agatha’s dismay, Vera Cummings-Browne.
    ‘May we come in?’ asked Mrs Bloxby.
    Agatha led the way into the kitchen, bracing herself for tears and recriminations. Mrs Bloxby refused Agatha’s offer of coffee and said, ‘Mrs Cummings-Browne has something to say to you.’
    Vera Cummings-Browne addressed the table-top rather than Agatha. ‘I have been most distressed, most upset about the death of my husband, Mrs Raisin. But I am now in a calmer frame of mind. I do not blame you for anything. It was an accident, a strange and unfortunate accident.’ She raised her eyes. ‘You see, I have always believed that when one dies, it is meant . It could have been a car driven by a drunken driver which mounted the pavement. It could have been a piece of fallen masonry. The police pathologist felt that Reg could have survived the accidental poisoning had he been stronger. But he had high blood pressure and his heart was bad. So be it.’
    ‘I am so very sorry,’ said Agatha weakly. ‘How very generous of you to call on me.’
    ‘It was my Christian duty,’ said Mrs Cummings-Browne.
    Behind the mask of her face, which Agatha hoped was registering sorrow, sympathy, and concern, her mind was rattling away at a great rate. ‘So be it . . . Christian duty?’ How very stagy . But then Mrs Cummings-Browne buried her face in her hands and wept, gasping through her sobs, ‘Oh, Reg, I do miss you so. Oh, Reg!’
    Mrs Bloxby led the weeping Mrs Cummings-Browne out. No, thought Agatha, the woman was genuinely broken up. Mrs Cummings-Browne had forgiven her. All Agatha had to do was to get on with life and forget about the whole thing.
    She set about phoning up the editors of local newspapers to raise publicity for the auction. Local editors were used to timid, pleading approaches from ladies of the parish. Never before had they experienced anything like Agatha Raisin on the other end of the phone. Alternately bullying and wheedling, she left them with a feeling that something only a little short of the crown jewels was going to be auctioned. All promised to send reporters, knowing they would have to keep their word, for Agatha threatened each that she would phone on the morning of the auction to see if they had indeed dispatched someone.
    That passed the morning happily. But by the afternoon and after a snack of Farmer Giles’ Steak and Kidney Pie (‘Suitable for Microwaves’), Agatha found her steps leading her in the direction of the Cartwrights’.
    Mrs Cartwright answered the door herself, her hair back in pink rollers, her body in a pink dressing-gown.
    ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Drink?’
    Agatha nodded. Pink gin again. Where had Mrs Cartwright learned to drink pink gins? she wondered suddenly. Surely Bacardi Breezers, lager and lime, rum and Coke would have been more to her taste.
    ‘How was bingo?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘Not a penny,’ said Mrs Cartwright bitterly. ‘But tonight’s my lucky night. I saw two magpies in the garden this morning.’
    Agatha reflected that as magpies were a protected species, one saw the wretched black-and-white things everywhere. Surely it would have been more of a surprise if Mrs Cartwright had not seen any magpies at all.
    ‘I wanted to know about Mr Cummings-Browne,’ said Agatha.
    ‘What, for example?’ Mrs Cartwright narrowed her eyes against the rising smoke from the cigarette she held in one brown hand.
    From the living-room where they sat, Agatha could see through to the cluttered messy kitchen – hardly the kitchen of a dedicated baker.
    ‘Well, as you won the prize year after year, I thought you might have known him pretty well,’ she said.
    ‘As much as I know anyone in the