Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

Agatha smiled pleasantly. ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘The murder.’
    Mary stood scowling at the duster in her hand. Then she jerked her head. ‘Come in.’
    They followed her into a small dark hall and then along a stone-flagged corridor to a kitchen. ‘Sit down,’ barked Mary. They sat down at the kitchen table. Mary jerked out a chair with the toe of one boot and sat down facing them.
    ‘You have a bit of a reputation as a detective,’ said Mary.
    ‘I have solved some cases,’ said Agatha.
    ‘So you say. The only reason I’m bothering with you is that you might get the police to see some sense. You see, I know who murdered Robert Struthers.’
    ‘Who?’ demanded Agatha and Roy in unison.
    ‘Jane Cutler, that’s who!’
    ‘Why?’ asked Agatha. ‘I heard she hoped to marry him.’
    ‘Of course she did. That ghoul specializes in marrying men who are due to drop dead, only Robert didn’t have terminal cancer or anything like that. He could have lived to a hundred. So she helped him on his way.’
    ‘But what good would that do her?’ Agatha looked every bit as bewildered as she felt.
    ‘Because I believe she talked poor Robert into making out his will in her favour.’
    ‘But you don’t know for sure!’
    ‘I know. Do me a favour and get it out of your police friends. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’
    ‘So what do you think of that?’ asked Roy as they drove off.
    ‘I think we should drive to Mircester and see what we can get out of Bill Wong.’
    ‘Why do you think she sneered at me like that?’ demanded Roy moodily. ‘Creature, indeed.’
    ‘She was furious with me and you just happened to be there.’
    Roy’s thin face lightened. ‘That’s it. It can’t be my clothes. I mean, this sweater’s Italian and cost a mint, and my jeans are stone-washed.’
    Agatha privately thought that no matter how much money he spent on clothes, Roy would always look somehow as if he belonged in one of those London street gangs of white-faced undernourished youths.
    ‘Oh, bugger,’ said Agatha as they drove into Mircester. ‘Market-day. No central parking, and I’m sick of walking.’
    ‘Park right there!’ said Roy.
    ‘It’s a yellow line. No parking.’
    ‘Just park,’ said Roy, fumbling in his back pocket and taking out his wallet. He fished out a ‘disabled’ sticker and affixed it on Agatha’s windscreen.
    ‘Where did you get that?’
    ‘From a friend,’ said Roy.
    ‘But what if some copper comes along?’
    ‘We can always drool at the mouth and say we’re mentally disabled. Come along.’
    They went into the police headquarters and asked for Bill Wong. ‘We should have phoned,’ said Agatha, as they waited. ‘He’s probably out.’
    But after a few minutes, Bill appeared.
    ‘I hope you’ve got something for me,’ he said. ‘I’m busy.’ He led the way to an interviewing-room.
    Agatha outlined everything she had learned since the last time she had seen him, ending up with Mary Owen’s claim that Jane Cutler had murdered Robert Struthers to inherit after his death.
    ‘Not the case,’ said Bill. ‘His son gets everything, not even a mention of either Jane Cutler or Mary Owen in the will.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Agatha, disappointed.
    ‘This old boy, I mean Struthers,’ said Roy, ‘could have been playing both of them along. Old people sometimes do that to get attention. I mean, he liked playing cagey. He wouldn’t tell any of the other councillors which way he meant to vote. Strikes me as being manipulative and liking his little bit of power. Just suppose Jane Cutler thought she was in the will.’
    ‘That’s a good point,’ said Bill, ‘but why not get him to marry her and be absolutely sure? Common sense would tell her that he would leave it all to his son. Then Jane Cutler is rich, and if Mary Owen has fallen on hard times, and she believed he had changed his will in her favour, then she might have bumped him off and then accused Jane to deflect any suspicions from her, although it’s all very far-fetched.’
    ‘James has disappeared,’ said Agatha. ‘Have you heard anything?’
    Yes, Bill had through the grapevine learned that James was masquerading as a member of Save Our Foxes, but he didn’t want to tell Agatha that. He felt the less Agatha saw of James, the better. Out of sight was out of mind.
    ‘No,’ he lied. ‘Probably off on his travels.’
    Agatha pulled herself together. ‘You said they had