Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

sharpened by fear, perhaps he was a blackmailer, perhaps I’ve been as silly as Charles thinks I am. If he were a blackmailer, then he might have something on Mrs Friendly in his house. Poor Mrs Friendly. Why should she suffer more? Agatha did not realize that she had become a true villager: Although Mrs Friendly was nothing more than an acquaintance, she felt she should be protected, even if it meant breaking the law.
    She gave her name and address to one of the policemen. Her hair was still wet but she didn’t care. She wanted to find out what was in that house and then somehow return with the keys and hide them somewhere in the salon. Besides, when Mr John recovered from his bout of food poisoning, which was what it had looked like, then she would know definitely one way or the other whether he was a villain or simply a very good hairdresser with nothing sinister about him to worry her. Her mind jumped to murder. Could it be murder? The police would not search his house because of simple food poisoning.
    Oh yes, they would, she suddenly thought. They’ll want to go through everything and find out what he ate. The Chinese meal! She hoped it wasn’t that. But he would have developed symptoms of food poisoning before today and she herself would have fallen ill.
    Feeling naked and exposed, she parked in the back streets behind the Cheltenham Road and set off on foot for the villa. The neighbours might be watching and although they might not spot her, they might remember the make and registration number of any car parked outside the house. The day was so dark and still. As she cautiously approached the villa by way of the side street which ran along the side of it, she glanced nervously to right and left but no face glimmered at her through a window and no one was working in their garden.
    After putting on a pair of gloves and fumbling with several of the keys, she found the right one and let herself in.
    How many eyes had been watching her from the house opposite? She could say he had given her the keys before he collapsed. Oh, God, his staff would say he had done no such thing. But she was here and so she may as well get on with it.
    She walked through the silent, dark, over-furnished rooms. No desk, no filing cabinet. She went upstairs. Two bedrooms showing no signs of recent occupation and then a large double bedroom, obviously his. She searched the bedside table and then the pockets of his jackets in the wardrobe.
    Reluctant now to give up the search, she went slowly downstairs. And then, at the bottom of the stairs, she saw a door she had missed before. It was padlocked. A cellar door?
    She tried all the keys until she had found the right one. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
    She switched on the light inside the door and made her way down steep stone steps to a basement room. She was just reaching for the switch to illuminate the basement when she heard a noise above her head. She switched off the light on the stairs and stood in the darkness, panting like a hunted animal. The police must have arrived.
    Agatha had a little torch in her handbag. If only she could find another way out of the basement! Her heart slowed down its pounding race. She cocked her head and listened hard. There were furtive noises from above. She frowned. The police would surely make more noise. Then a sinister gurgling sound. She had shut the door behind her at the top but the padlock was hanging open on the other side of the door.
    Then there was a tremendous whoosh and she heard the upstairs street door close.
    In one horrified split second she knew what had happened. Someone had set the house alight!
    She switched on the basement light. A dusty room with exercise machines and weights and a desk in the comer – a desk that was under a dirty window.
    Later Agatha was to reflect that a cool detective would have seized papers from that desk, but all she could think of was the horror of burning to death.
    She climbed on the desk and tugged at the window. It was firmly shut. She climbed down and heaved up one of the heaviest of the weights and hurled it at the window, which broke leaving a jagged hole. She smashed away the rest of the glass round the hole and with her gloved hands dragged herself up and through on to a patch of weedy earth outside.
    She was in the garden at the side of the house, between the house and garage.
    She crouched on her hands and knees behind a bush. How to get away unobserved? She took the keys from her