Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

hated by the traders in Bridge Street, who felt they had been left high and dry ever since it had been turned into a shopping precinct.
    At last Roy said meekly, ‘Are we going to Ancombe?’
    ‘We’ll take this stuff home first,’ said Agatha grimly. Oh, where was James?
    As they unpacked, Roy felt he could not bear the angry silence any longer and said, ‘It’s not my fault James has left.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Well, that’s why you got so shirty with that woman in the supermarket.’
    ‘Let me tell you this. I would have got shirty with that woman in the supermarket at any time.’
    ‘Then why take it out on me?’
    ‘Because you’re a wimp!’
    ‘I think I may as well go back to London,’ said Roy in a small voice.
    ‘Do that!’
    ‘I’ll go and pack.’
    Agatha sat down at the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. Why on earth should she still get so upset over a man who showed signs of actual dislike? Perhaps, she thought, brushing the tears away, it was because of her age, because after James there might be no one left out there to love.
    She got to her feet and called up the stairs. ‘I’m sorry I got ratty. Want a drink?’
    Roy came down the stairs, all smiles. He was an ambitious young man and did not want to offend this prickly woman whose PR skills were so admired by his boss.
    ‘Like a drink?’ repeated Agatha.
    ‘I’ve given up alcohol,’ said Roy, who had only drunk mineral water in the pub.
    ‘Why?’
    Roy hesitated a moment. The real reason was that it seemed to be becoming awfully fashionable not to drink, and Roy did not want to be out of fashion.
    ‘Rots the brain cells, sweetie.’
    ‘I’m going to have a stiff brandy before I go out.’
    ‘I’d hate to see you drink alone . . .’
    ‘I don’t mind.’
    ‘Just a teensy one, then.’
    One brandy led to three and it was an amiable couple who set out for Ancombe. Agatha parked on the main road a little way along from the spring, where a group of tourists were standing staring at it and pointing. The barrier of blue-and-white police tape which had guarded the spring had been taken away.
    The entrance to Robina Toynbee’s cottage was by a gate in a lane which ran up the side of the cottage from the main road. ‘We should have phoned first,’ said Roy.
    ‘It’s all right, she’s at home. She’s watching us from the window.’
    As Agatha raised her hand to knock at the door, Robina opened it. ‘I’m delighted to see you, Mrs Raisin,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of phoning you to thank you. Please come in.’
    The cottage was old, might even be seventeenth century, thought Agatha. The living-room was pleasant: large fireplace, low beams on the ceiling, vases of flowers, pictures and books and a cat asleep on top of the television set.
    Outside the small leaded windows, a long narrow garden led down to the road, an artistic jumble of pansies, begonias, wisteria, clematis, and lobelia. There was a green lawn with a sundial next to where the spring bubbled up and then was channelled between rocks and flowers to where it disappeared through the old garden wall.
    Above the fireplace was a dark oil painting of a grim old lady in an enormous cap.
    ‘Your ancestor?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘Yes, that is Miss Jakes,’ said Robina. She was wearing a soft-green velvet trouser suit. Agatha herself possessed several velvet trouser suits. She realized, looking at Robina, that velvet trouser suits were something favoured particularly by middle-aged women and decided to pack hers up and give them away to some charity shop. Although it was only late afternoon, Robina’s dress was more suitable for evening. With the trouser suit, she wore sparkling ear-rings and a paste diamond necklace, and on her feet, high-heeled black satin shoes.
    In the same way that some lonely women will keep a Christmas tree still lit up long after Christmas, so will they favour evening clothes during the day, as if the very sparkle and glitter could keep youth alive a little longer.
    ‘So,’ said Robina with a gentle smile, ‘what will we all drink?’
    ‘I don’t know . . .’ began Roy.
    ‘Come now. That is a brandy smell, is it not? I would like to join you in a brandy.’
    Agatha blinked away a picture of herself, Roy and Robina standing chatting inside a large goblet of brandy and said, yes, that would be nice.
    ‘Here’s to success,’ said Robina when the drinks were served. ‘I hope that is