Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

laughter and Agatha glared at Mrs Darry.
    ‘Okay,’ she said truculently, raising her voice. ‘We’ll stand out here and discuss your fancy man, the late Mr John Shawpart.’
    For once, Agatha had obviously scored over the terrible Mrs Darry, whose green eyes goggled and then darted right and left. ‘Come in,’ she said abruptly. Her little dog raised his leg and peed on to Agatha’s shoe.
    ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ howled Agatha. The dog scampered into the house. Agatha removed her shoe and, taking out a tissue, wiped it clean.
    ‘Supposed to be lucky, Aggie,’ said Charles. ‘Let’s go in before she changes her mind and slams the door on us.’
    Another dark cottage living-room, everything in shades of dull green: green velvet upholstered three-piece suite, green walls, dark green fitted carpet, green leaves from the thick ivy outside which covered the cottage, blocking out any light the small windows might have afforded. All sat down and faced each other in this subterranean gloom.
    ‘What did you mean by that remark?’ demanded Mrs Darry. The dog leapt on her lap and she kneaded her thin fingers in its coat.
    ‘John Shawpart was a blackmailer,’ said Agatha. ‘He wooed women, found out about them, and then blackmailed them.’
    ‘Rubbish!’ Mrs Darry sounded breathless. ‘I’m a respectable woman. Who could possibly want to blackmail me? I am not like you, Mrs Raisin, with your scandalous affairs with younger men.’
    Checkmate, thought Agatha. What could there be in this acidulous woman’s life that was worth a blackmailer’s time?
    ‘Money,’ said Charles suddenly. ‘It was all about money. We know that.’
    He was half talking to himself, but Mrs Darry stared at him like a rat hypnotized by a snake.
    ‘You know,’ she said through dry lips.
    Agatha was about to say they didn’t know, but Charles looked at Mrs Darry compassionately and said, ‘Oh, yes. We haven’t told anyone and Agatha here went to great lengths to try to destroy any evidence that might have incriminated you. That is why we have not gone to the police. We would be in trouble ourselves. Just tell us how he came to get the information.’
    ‘I went there to get my hair done,’ said Mrs Darry in a low voice, quite unlike her usual biting tones. ‘We got friendly. Had a few meals. I was flattered. I told him that my late husband had been a plumber. A master plumber,’ she added with some of her old spirit in case he might think he was an ordinary tradesman. ‘We were talking about taxes and VAT and how iniquitous both were. He said sympathetically that there were ways round it. He knew a lot of tradesmen who would offer to do a job for a bit less for cash in hand. I’d had a bit too much to drink and so I told him that was what my Clarence had done and so that was the reason I had been left comfortably off.
    ‘Then he phoned me two days later. I couldn’t believe it. We were friends! He told me unless I paid him five thousand pounds, he would inform the Inland Revenue that my husband had been cheating them for years. I panicked. I called on him and said that if he did that, I would kill him.’ She fell silent. Then she said, ‘When I heard he was dead, it was like the end of a nightmare.’
    ‘But look here,’ said Agatha. ‘When did your husband die?’
    ‘Five years ago.’
    ‘But how on earth could the Inland Revenue find out that he had been taking cash payments and not declaring them?’
    ‘They could have gone to his old customers. I sold the plumbing firm, but they’ll still have the old records.’
    ‘But if they were paying cash,’ said Agatha patiently, ‘those payments would not appear on the books.’
    ‘But what if they found his old customers and asked them?’
    ‘What would they say?’ asked Charles. ‘They couldn’t admit to cheating the income tax either. They’d be in deep shit.’
    Weak tears ran down Mrs Darry’s face. ‘So it was all for nothing.’
    ‘All what?’ asked Agatha sharply.
    ‘All my worry. All my sleepless nights.’
    ‘You didn’t kill him?’
    ‘No. I read about it in the papers. Ricin. I’d never even heard of it. Please don’t tell the police any of this.’
    ‘I can’t,’ said Agatha. ‘I went to his house to destroy any evidence and someone set it alight. The police don’t even know I was there.’
    Mrs Darry got up stiffly, as if her joints were hurting. ‘I shall make tea,’ she said and disappeared into the nether