Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

arrangement – ‘looks exactly like cowbane, the plant Mrs Cummings-Browne professed to know nothing about. Mrs Raisin’s hit on something. Maybe I’d better get over there.’
    How many times, wondered Agatha, had she trekked through the stifling heat up to Vera’s cottage, only to find it locked and silent? She was sweating under her blouson.
    And then, at last, she saw Vera’s Range Rover parked on the cobbles outside the door.
    With a quickening feeling of excitement, Agatha knocked at the cottage door.
    There was a long silence punctuated by a rumble of thunder from overhead. Agatha knocked again. A curtain at a side window twitched and then the door was opened.
    ‘Oh, Mrs Raisin,’ said Mrs Cummings-Browne blandly. ‘I was just going out.’
    ‘I want to talk to you,’ said Agatha pugnaciously.
    ‘Well, wait a moment while I put the car away. I think it’s going to rain at last.’
    A stab of doubt assailed Agatha. Vera looked completely calm. But then Vera could not possibly know why she had called.
    To be on the safe side, she followed her out and watched her put the car away in a garage at the end of the row of cottages.
    Vera came back with a brisk step. ‘I’ve just got time for a cup of tea, Mrs Raisin, and then I really must go. I am setting up a flower-arranging competition at Ancombe and someone needs to show these silly village women what to do.’
    She bustled into the kitchen to make tea. ‘Take a seat in the drawing-room, Mrs Raisin. Won’t be long.’
    Agatha sat down in the small living-room and looked about. Here was where it had all happened. A bright flash of lightning lit up the dark room and then there was a tremendous crash of thunder.
    ‘How dark it is in here!’ exclaimed Vera, coming in with a tray of tea-things. She set them down on a low table. ‘Milk and sugar, Mrs Raisin?’
    ‘Neither,’ said Agatha gruffly. ‘Just tea.’ Now it had come to it, she felt almost too embarrassed to begin. There was something so normal about Vera as she poured tea – from her well-coiffed hair to her Liberty dress.
    ‘Now, Mrs Raisin,’ said Vera brightly. ‘What brings you? Starting another auction? Do you know, it’s actually getting cold . The fire’s made up. I’ll just put a match to it. In fact, the fire’s been made up for weeks . Hasn’t this weather been fierce? But it’s broken now, thank goodness. Just listen to that storm.’
    Agatha nervously sipped her tea and wished Vera would settle down so that she could get the whole distasteful business over and done with.
    Trickles of sweat were running down inside her clothes. How on earth could Vera find the room cold? The fire crackled into life.
    Vera sat down, crossed her legs and looked with bright curiosity at Agatha.
    ‘Mrs Cummings-Browne,’ said Agatha, ‘I know you murdered your husband.’
    ‘Oh, really?’ Vera looked amused. ‘And how am I supposed to have done that?’
    ‘You must have had it planned for some time,’ said Agatha heavily. ‘You had already baked a poisoned quiche and put it in the freezer in the school hall along with the other goodies that the ladies use when the tea-room is in operation. You were waiting for a good chance to use it. Then I gave you that chance. You naturally did not want your husband to die after appearing to eat one of your own quiches. When I said I was leaving mine, you saw your chance and took it. You got rid of mine with the rest of the rubbish left over after the competition. You took your own quiche home, defrosted it, and left two slices for your husband’s supper. I don’t know whether you checked to see whether he had died when you came home.
    ‘Then you heard I had actually bought that quiche in London. You’re a greedy woman, I know that, from the way I was conned into paying for that expensive meal in a lousy restaurant in which you own part of the business. You saw an opportunity of getting money out of poor Mr Economides, and so you went straight to London to tell him you were suing him. Who knows? You probably hoped he would settle out of court. But he confessed that the quiche had come from his cousin’s shop in Devon. His cousin grew his own vegetables and there is no cowbane in Devon. So you told the police you had decided to forgive him and not press charges. You said you did not know what cowbane looked like. But you borrowed a book on poisonous plants from the library, and furthermore, I found out from a photo Mr Jones had given me