Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (14 page)

‘At least we’ll get a welcome there,’ said Agatha. ‘She lives on the council estate.’

‘How are your feet?’

‘Fine now. I changed my shoes.’

Mrs Mason indeed gave them a warm welcome. More tea and scones. Gossip about the village. But Agatha began to shift nervously. A big murder investigation was taking place in the village. Surely it was odd that Mrs Mason should not mention that.

‘Lot of police around,’ ventured Agatha.

‘Yes, poor Mrs Josephs. I find it hard to believe. I think she took her own life. She was so upset about her cat.’

‘That was a wicked thing of Bladen to do,’ put in James. ‘Of course, the police now think he was murdered.’

There was a long silence while Mrs Mason stared at him, her matronly figure rigid. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said at last. ‘No one would kill Mr Bladen.’

‘Why?’

‘He wasn’t the kind of person who gets murdered. He was a man of purpose and vision. A kind man.’

‘Not very kind to kill Mrs Josephs’ cat.’

‘That was a
mercy
killing. He told me the old cat was in
agony
.’

Agatha leaned forward. ‘Just think for a moment, Mrs Mason, just suppose someone had murdered Paul Bladen. Can’t you think of any reason why?’

‘No, I really can’t. I wouldn’t get involved in all this, Mrs Raisin. I really wouldn’t. It’s not decent. Perhaps it’s the way people go on in the city, but . . .’

‘But don’t you even want to know who killed Mrs Josephs?’

‘Yes, but that’s a job for the police.’

They couldn’t get anything else out of her and retreated to Agatha’s cottage.

‘I would like to have a go at that ex-wife, Mrs Bladen, one more time.’ said Agatha. ‘But no doubt she would just slam the door in our faces.’

‘You know,’ said James, ‘we could go back and see Bunty Vere-Dedsworth at the manor house. She might help us in getting Greta Bladen to talk.’

‘Then let’s go,’ said Agatha eagerly, frightened that if they waited in Carsely any longer, Freda would arrive on the doorstep.

They were just about to leave when the phone rang. Agatha started and looked at it as if it were a hissing snake. Was it Freda? Or was it Bill Wong asking them to mind their own business and leave the investigation to the police? He had always had a nasty way of knowing what she was up to.

She picked up the receiver and gave a tentative ‘Hello.’

‘Look here, Agatha,’ said Jack Pomfret’s voice sternly. ‘This is ridiculous. I –’

‘Go away and leave me alone!’ she screamed and banged down the receiver.

Then she stood and wiped her moist palms on her skirt. ‘He’s mad,’ she muttered. ‘I could kill him.’

‘Who? Are you all right, Agatha?’

She shook her head as if to clear it and gave a sigh. ‘Someone I used to know. He’s trying to con money out of me. He starts a new business. I pay. He knows I found out he was trying to cheat me. But he’s insane. He keeps phoning. I feel humiliated. I feel threatened.’

The phone rang again and Agatha jumped.

‘Allow me,’ he said. He picked up the receiver and listened. Then he said in glacial tones, ‘This is Agatha’s husband speaking. I handle all her financial affairs. One more call from you and I will suggest to the police that they take a close look at your business transactions.’

James looked at the receiver before putting it down and smiled.

‘What did he say?’ demanded Agatha.

‘He gave a frightened squawk and rang off. You won’t be hearing from him again.’

‘Why are you so sure of that?’

‘Because, my dear Agatha, it’s an old-fashioned world, however tough and independent women have become. He now thinks he has an irate husband to deal with. Come along. You look too rattled to drive.’

As she climbed into his car, Agatha felt a warm glow permeating her body. He had said he was her husband! Oh, somehow she must tell Freda Huntingdon that!

The day was blustery, with great cloud shadows racing across the fields, where new corn rippled in the fleeting sunlight. Agatha’s heart sang. And then her voice sang, ‘Oh, what a beautiful morning.’

‘It’s afternoon,’ said James. He switched on the radio, a pointed rebuke, and Agatha sank back into silence.

The manor house looked as it had done before, calm and benign, part of the landscape rather than some building thrust upon it.

‘So you’re back,’ said Bunty, looking pleased. ‘I was just going to have some coffee.’

‘We need your help,’ said James when they were all seated in the comfortable kitchen.

He succinctly outlined all that had happened and explained they were sure that Greta Bladen could help them.

Bunty listened carefully, her eyes bright with interest.

‘As I told you before, I know Greta,’ she said. ‘We all know each other in this little village. I’ll phone her and ask her to come up.’

She went off and came back shortly to say that Greta was on her way. ‘You had better let me do the talking,’ said Bunty. ‘She can be prickly.’

And prickly was what Greta looked as she entered the kitchen and stopped short at the sight of Agatha and James.

‘Now you can’t run away from people asking questions about Paul’s death,’ said Bunty firmly. ‘You didn’t like the man, but surely you don’t want a murderer to be left to roam the Cotswolds in peace. Sit down, Greta, and have coffee. You see, we all feel that if we knew a bit more about Paul Bladen, then we might be able to guess which of the suspects might have done it.’

‘Including me,’ said Greta bitterly, but she sat down and shrugged off her short coat.

‘Well, it’s a dreary story,’ she said. ‘As you probably realize, I was ten years older than Paul when I met him. He was working as a vet in Leamington Spa where I lived. I had a dog then I was devoted to, the way only the unloved can become devoted to animals.’

Agatha, who had been thinking of her cats, stared down into her coffee cup.

‘I took my dog to the vet for some shots. Paul was charming. I could not believe my luck when he asked me out. My parents had died and left me a house and a comfortable amount of money. It was what the romances call a whirlwind courtship. Shortly after we were married, I found my dog dead one morning. The animal had been fit and healthy the day before. Paul was all sympathy and did an autopsy. He said the dog had died of heart failure. Only in later years did I suspect he had poisoned it. Strange in a vet, but he had a hatred of dogs and cats. He told me about his dream of a veterinary hospital. He said he would name it after me. I gave him a considerable amount of money to get started.

‘During the following year, he regaled me with stories of the plot of land he had bought and how the builders had started work. I was excited and asked to see it, but he said he wanted it to be a surprise. I said, “At least tell me where it is,” and he said Chimley Road on the outskirts of Mircester. He started to come home very late. He said he was always going over to the building site when he finished work. Then he said we were moving to Mircester to be near the new hospital. He did not ask me for money. He said he had a house all ready but I was to promise not to go near Chimley Road until he was ready to surprise me.’

Greta sighed. ‘I was so much in love with him. That was until I met his partner, Peter Rice, at a party. I had known Peter before, by the way. We were old friends. So I thought it all right to ask him if they would still run the surgery when the new veterinary hospital was opened.

‘He asked me, “What veterinary hospital?” I told him. He gave me a pitying look and said why didn’t I go out to Chimley Road and have a look. Alarmed, I set off the next day. It was a long row of terraced houses. No building site.

‘I taxed Paul with it. He began to say that things hadn’t worked out there, so the building site was in Leamington, and when I didn’t believe him, he finally came out with the truth. He was a gambler, a dedicated gambler. Not only had he spent all the money I had given him in gambling but he needed more to pay his debts. I refused. He grew ugly. He told me he had only married an old bat like me for my money. Yes, I could have killed him then. But I wanted free of him and so I made him agree to a separation and subsequent divorce. If he did not agree, I said, I would tell Peter Rice all about him.’

‘So,’ said James, ‘one of his ladies could have murdered him because he conned money out of them.’

‘Surely that’s hardly a reason for murder,’ protested Bunty.

‘Oh, yes, it is,’ said Agatha, thinking of Jack Pomfret.

‘So now you’ve got what you want from me,’ said Greta in a tired voice, ‘may I go?’

‘Of course, my dear,’ said Bunty ‘But you must realize how essential it is to find out who did this terrible thing.’

Greta stood up. ‘Why? Why is it so important? He died painlessly. He was cruel and useless.’

‘But there is the murder of Mrs Josephs,’ said Agatha quietly. ‘You must have read about that.’

‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with Paul?’

‘She said she was going to tell me all about him,’ said Agatha, ‘and the next day she was dead.’

Greta shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I cannot bring myself to believe that Paul’s death was anything other than an accident. I don’t know this Josephs woman – I mean I didn’t know her. Possibly her death is unrelated.’ Her voice shook. ‘I’ve done what I can for you. Please don’t trouble me again.’

There was a long silence after she had left. Then, ‘Poor woman,’ said Bunty.

‘Perhaps.’ Agatha laced her fingers tightly round the coffee mug. ‘On the other hand, she surely had the most reason to kill Paul. She would know about Immobilon. Perhaps she would have access to Adrenalin, if he had left any of his drugs behind when he left her.’

‘You’re forgetting about the break-in at the surgery,’ James pointed out.

‘The police seem to think that might have been done
after
Mrs Josephs’s death.’

‘So many women. So many suspects,’ mourned James. ‘But we have taken up enough of your time, Bunty.’

They thanked her and left.

‘We’ve got one thing,’ said Agatha, as they drove off. ‘Money, not passion, seems to be at the bottom of things. Look, Jack Pomfret didn’t get any money out of me, right? But the very fact that he tried to trick me, the fact that he has the gall to phone me up makes me want to murder him, gives me a mad hatred and fear of him. Can you understand that?’

‘Yes, I think so. If any of these women, I mean any of our suspects, apart from Greta, paid up, there would be a motive. We could go to Mircester and ask Peter Rice what happened to Paul Bladen’s deposit book.’

Agatha agreed, delighted at an opportunity of more time in his company.

The evening surgery at the vet’s in Mircester was just closing. Peter Rice greeted them this time amiably enough but scoffed when they asked if he had any of Paul Bladen’s bankbooks.

‘I cleared all his papers out and made a bonfire of them,’ he said. ‘I’ve put the house up for sale. I could hardly sell it with all his junk around. I asked Greta if she wanted anything but she didn’t, so I gave his clothes to charity and the contents of the house are being sold with it.’

‘Which was his bank?’ asked James.

‘The Cotswold and Gloucester. But bank managers don’t reveal anything about their customers’ accounts, even when they’re dead, as far as I know.’

‘You didn’t happen to notice if Paul had received any large sums from women recently?’ asked Agatha.

He gave a jolly laugh. ‘He was hardly young enough to be a toy boy. The lawyers will only pass over to me what is left after their bill and the funeral costs have been settled. I’m afraid his banking affairs have gone to the grave with him. But why do you ask? Hadn’t been ripping you off, had he?’

‘Just curious,’ said Agatha. ‘I mean it is odd, now that it’s turned out someone murdered Mrs Josephs. I mean, it definitely makes Paul Bladen’s death look like murder.’

‘Not to me,’ said Peter. ‘Pendlebury asked me to do that operation and I said I would never touch Immobilon again.’

‘Let’s get something to eat,’ suggested James when they had left the surgery.

They chose a nearby pub – but not the one where Agatha had ruined the hand basin – and began to discuss the suspects, or rather, Agatha discussed the suspects while a preoccupied James frowned into his beer.

‘I don’t believe you’ve been listening to a word I’ve been saying,’ said Agatha crossly.

‘I’ve been half-listening. The fact is I’ve been thinking about committing a crime.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. I’ve been thinking about breaking into the Cotswold and Gloucester Bank.’

‘But that’s impossible. There’ll be sophisticated burglar alarms and laser beams and pressure pads and God knows what else.’

‘Perhaps not. Let’s finish our food and drink and go and take a look at it.’

The bank was a converted shop in a side street where old Tudor buildings with overhanging eaves crowded out the night sky above.

‘Burglar alarm of course,’ said James. ‘We’ll take a look round the back if we can get there.’

They found a lane which ran along the back of a row of shops and the bank. There were a series of lock-ups, garages, and tall wooden fences, all having a closed, impregnable air.

James counted along. ‘This is the back of the bank,’ he said, ‘what used to be the garden. Surely they wouldn’t wire up this wooden door in the wall.’

He took a small wallet of credit cards out of his pocket. Agatha bit back the impatient remark she was about to make – that apart from in the movies, she had never seen anyone open a lock with a credit card. He selected one.

Agatha turned away and looked along the lane, which was lit with sodium lamps, making everything look unreal, and, she thought more practically, probably making her lips look purple.

There was a click and she swung round. The door in the wall was standing open. ‘Amazing,’ said Agatha.

‘Let’s get inside before someone sees us,’ whispered James.

Agatha followed him in. He closed the door behind them and took out a pencil torch. ‘You’ve done this before,’ accused Agatha.

He didn’t reply but led the way up a narrow path between two strips of lawn. ‘Look,’ he murmured, ‘there’s a kitchen at the back.’