Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

something about her garden. Not that she was giving up her idea! A pleasant-looking garden would add to the sale price of the house.
    She arose early in the morning and settled her bill and made her way to Paddington station. She had left her car at Oxford. Once more she was on her way back. ‘Oxford. This is Oxford,’ intoned the guard. With a strange feeling of being on home ground, she eased out of the carpark and drove up Worcester Street and then Beaumont Street and so along St Giles and the Woodstock Road to the Woodstock Roundabout, where she took the A40 bypass to Burford, up over the hills to Stow-on-the-Wold, along to the A44 and so back down into Carsely.
    As she drove along Lilac Lane to her cottage, she suddenly braked hard outside New Delhi. SOLD screamed a sticker across the estate agent’s board.
    Wonder how much she got, mused Agatha, driving on to her own cottage. That was quick! But good riddance to bad rubbish anyway. Hope someone pleasant moves in. Not that it matters for I’m leaving myself, she reminded herself fiercely.
    Urged by a superstitious feeling that the village was settling around her and claiming her for its own, she left her suitcase inside the door and drove off again to the estate agent’s offices in Chipping Campden, the same estate agent who had sold Mrs Barr’s house.
    She introduced herself and said she was putting her house on the market. How much for? Well, the same amount as Mrs Barr got for hers would probably do. The estate agent said he was not allowed to reveal how much Mrs Barr had got but added diplomatically that she had been asking for £400,000 and was very pleased with the offer she had received.
    ‘I want £450,000 for mine,’ said Agatha. ‘It’s thatched and I’ll bet it’s in better nick than that tart’s.’
    The estate agent blinked, but a house for sale was a house for sale, and so he and Agatha got down to business.
    I don’t need to sell to just anyone, thought Agatha. After all, I owe it to Mrs Bloxby and the rest to see that someone nice gets it.
    The village band was playing outside the school hall. Before Agatha went to hear it, she carried a present she had bought for Doris Simpson along to the council estate. When she pushed open the gate of Doris’s garden, she noticed to her surprise that all the gnomes had gone. But she rang the bell and when Doris answered, put a large brown paper parcel in her arms.
    ‘Come in,’ said Doris. ‘Bert! Here’s Agatha back from London with a present. It’s ever so nice of you. You really shouldn’t have bothered.’
    ‘Open it, then,’ said Bert, when the parcel was placed on the coffee-table in their living-room.
    Doris pulled off the wrappings to reveal a large gnome with a scarlet tunic and green hat. ‘You really shouldn’t have done it,’ said Doris with feeling. ‘You really shouldn’t.’
    ‘You deserve it,’ said Agatha. ‘No, I won’t stay for coffee. I’m going to hear the band.’
    Inside the school hall, stalls had been set up. Agatha went in and wandered about, amused to notice that some of the items from her auction were being recycled. And then she stopped short in front of a stall run by Mrs Mason. It was covered in garden gnomes.
    ‘Where did you get all these?’ asked Agatha, filled with an awful suspicion.
    ‘Oh, that was the Simpsons,’ she said. ‘The gnomes were there when they moved into that house and they’ve been meaning to get rid of them for ages. Can I interest you in buying one? What about this jolly little fellow with the fishing rod? Brighten up your garden.’
    ‘No, thanks,’ said Agatha, feeling like a fool. And yet how could she have known the Simpsons didn’t like gnomes?
    She wandered into the tea-room, which was off the main hall, to find Mrs Bloxby helping Mrs Mason. ‘Welcome back,’ cried Mrs Bloxby. ‘What can I get you?’
    ‘I haven’t had lunch,’ said Agatha, ‘so I’ll have a couple of those Cornish pasties and a cup of tea. You must have been up all night baking.’
    ‘Oh, it’s not all mine, and when we have a big affair like this, we do it in bits and pieces. We bake things and put them in the freezer, that big thing over there, and then just defrost them in the microwave on the day of the event.’
    Agatha picked up her plate of pasties and her teacup and sat down at one of the long tables. Farmer Jimmy Page joined her and introduced his wife. Various other people came over. Soon Agatha was surrounded by a group