Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

suddenly filled with the wail of police sirens.
    Eve released Agatha’s hair.
    Screaming like a banshee, Agatha hurtled out of the chair just as police poured into the shop. She did not wait for all the joy of hearing Eve being cautioned, she went straight out of the shop into Charles’s arms.
    ‘What kept them so long?’ she kept sobbing over and over again.
    At the end of a long day of police questions and statements, Agatha and Charles finally found themselves alone in Agatha’s cottage.
    ‘And the only praise I got from Bill,’ said Agatha sourly, ‘was that he supposed it took one rank amateur to find another.’
    ‘John’s wife certainly had the luck of the devil,’ said Charles, nursing a brandy. ‘Your head’s still stiff with shampoo. Aren’t you going to wash it off?’
    Agatha gave a squawk of alarm. ‘You should have said something before this. I wonder how she planned to kill me?’
    ‘Well, she was banging your head. Probably meant to keep on banging it until you looked like Mrs Darry.’
    ‘And then what would she have done?’
    ‘Well, she had one false identity. Probably planned to flee back to Glasgow and get another. I’m starving. Go and wash your hair and I’ll take you out for dinner.’
    ‘Right. Don’t drink all that brandy.’
    Agatha went up to the bathroom and took off her clothes and threw everything she had worn into the laundry basket. Then she switched on the shower and took a bottle of shampoo and stood under the jet and shampooed her hair vigorously.
    Then she stepped out and towelled her hair. She threw that towel on the floor and then dried her face. Her head felt strangely cold. She looked in the mirror and then began to scream.
    She had not locked the bathroom door. Charles came bounding up the stairs, crashed open the door and then burst out laughing.
    Too distressed to bother about her nakedness, Agatha bent down and picked up the towel with which she had dried her hair. Clumps of wet hair fell out of it on to the bathroom floor.
    ‘The bitch must have used a depilatory,’ said Charles when he could.
    Aware at last that she was stark-naked, Agatha wrapped a bath-towel about herself. ‘What on earth am I to do?’ she wailed.
    ‘Buy a wig. You’re not completely bald. You’ve got little bits of hair sticking up from your head. Gosh, you do look funny.’
    ‘I’m not going out for dinner looking like this.’
    ‘Nonsense. Just wrap a scarf around your head.’
    ‘Go away, Charles, until I recover.’
    Charles went off laughing. Agatha gloomily dried herself and dressed and wrapped a pink chiffon scarf around her head, turban-fashion.
    As she went down the stairs, the doorbell rang. ‘Masses of press out there,’ said Charles cheerfully. ‘Want to go out and address them? Your moment of glory has come.’
    ‘No,’ said Agatha, shrinking back. ‘Not like this. Charles, I don’t want anyone to know what she did to me!’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It’ll make me a laughing-stock. You talk to them. Leave me out of it.’
    Charles shrugged and then went outside. Agatha could hear the sound of his light upper-class voice chatting away happily.
    At last he came in. ‘That should keep them happy,’ he said. ‘They’ve promised not to bother us again tonight.’
    ‘Well, at least the police can’t take the glory away from me,’ said Agatha. ‘It’ll be in all the papers tomorrow about how I solved the case. What about dinner?’
    ‘If you’ll be all right, I think, on second thoughts, I’ll take my stuff and go home. The aunt is beginning to fret that I’m neglecting my duties on the estate.’
    Agatha was disappointed. ‘If you must, you must. I could have done with a bit of company tonight.’
    ‘I’ll phone you.’ He went upstairs and reappeared a short time later carrying a suitcase.
    He gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry. Your hair’ll soon grow in again. I’ll phone you.’
    And then he was gone.
    Agatha sat down and stared about her. The cats jumped on her lap and she stroked them. The doorbell rang sharply, making her jump.
    The press. Perhaps she had been silly to leave it all to Charles. She checked in the mirror to make sure the pink scarf was in place and then opened the door.
    ‘Oh.’
    Mrs Bloxby stood there. ‘I just heard about your catching the murderess. I wanted to make sure you had some company, otherwise I’ll stay with you.’
    ‘Would you?’ said Agatha, but peering around the vicar’s wife to make