Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

something, though. You never can tell what a married couple really think about each other. One says one thing, t’other says something else. Fact is, they got along pretty well. They was two of a kind.’
    ‘You mean, she had affairs as well?’
    ‘Nah. She liked to play lady of the manor and he liked to play Lord Muck, judging competitions, trying to rub shoulders with the aristocracy. You should have seen the pair of them if someone had a title. Scraping and simpering and my-lording the chap to death.’
    ‘What will you do now?’
    ‘Get a job, I reckon. Mrs Bloxby’s coming to run me over to Mircester. There’s a new Tesco’s supermarket and they’re hiring people. Don’t want to go but you find you’re doing what Mrs Bloxby wants whether you wants to do it or not.’
    Agatha finished her gin and took her leave. Somehow what Ella had said about the Cummings-Brownes’ marriage made sense. There was no reason for any further investigation. Agatha realized that, deep in her heart, she must have thought Vera Cummings-Browne the murderess all along. This time she really would take Bill Wong’s advice.
    But as she walked back to her own cottage, she saw to her surprise that there was a large FOR SALE notice outside Mrs Barr’s cottage. Mrs Barr saw her coming and stood at her garden gate waiting for her.
    ‘You have driven me away,’ said Mrs Barr. ‘I cannot continue to live next door to a murderess.’
    ‘Fat chance you’ll have of selling it,’ said Agatha. ‘No body’s buying these days, and who the hell is going to want a twee cottage called New Delhi anyway?’
    She marched to her own cottage and went in and slammed the door.
    But Agatha felt bleak. She had poked a stick into the village ponds and stirred up a lot of mucky feelings.
    That evening, before the Carsely Ladies’ Society meeting, she went to the Red Lion for dinner. The landlord, Joe Fletcher, gave her a cheerful good evening and then asked her what all this business about John Cartwright trying to kill her had been. Immediately several of the villagers crowded around to hear the story. Agatha told them everything – about the wire across the road and how Bill Wong had come to her rescue and how the police had found the money from the robbery in Cartwright’s house – while they all pressed closer, occasionally making sure her glass was refilled. ‘I gather his last crime was in Essex,’ said Agatha. ‘Does that mean he wasn’t from here?’
    ‘Born and brought up here,’ said a large farmer called Jimmy Page. ‘Decent people, his folks were. Lived down the council houses. Died a whiles back. Couldn’t do a thing with him, not since he was so high. Got Ella in the family way and her father came after him with a shotgun and that’s how they got married. Kept going off to make his fortune, he said, and sometimes he’d come back flush and sometimes he wouldn’t. Bad lot.’
    Agatha realized dimly that she had not eaten but she did not want to leave the bar and the company. She knew also that she was sinking an unusually large amount of gin.
    ‘I see Mrs Barr has put her house up for sale,’ she remarked.
    ‘Oh, aye, her’s been left a bigger cottage over Ancombe way,’ said the farmer. ‘Aunt of hers died.’
    ‘What!’ Agatha stared. ‘She let me believe it was to get away from me.’
    ‘Wouldn’t pay no heed to her,’ said Farmer Page comfortably. A small man popped his head over Mr Page’s beefy shoulder. ‘Her hasn’t been the same since that play.’ His voice rose to a falsetto. ‘“Oh, Reg, Reg, kiss me.”’
    ‘That be enough now, Billy,’ admonished another man. ‘We all makes a fool o’ ourself sometime or t’other. No cause to throw stones. Turning into a scorcher of a summer, ain’t it?’
    In vain did Agatha try to find out about Mrs Barr. Gossip was over for the night. Farming and the weather were the subjects allowed. The old grandfather clock in the corner of the pub gave a small apologetic cough and then chimed out the hour.
    ‘Goodness!’ Agatha scrambled down from the bar stool. ‘I’m late.’
    She felt very tipsy as she hurried to the vicarage. ‘You’re not terribly late,’ whispered Mrs Bloxby after she had opened the door to her. ‘Miss Simms has just finished reading the minutes.’
    Agatha accepted a cup of tea and two dainty sandwiches and sat down as near to the rest of the eats as she could get.
    ‘Now,’ said Mrs Mason, ‘our guest of the evening, Mr