Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden (20 page)

“What do you expect, you harlot?” laughed Charles. “Where to?”

“I’ll direct you to the car park in the centre of the town. I’ve got to buy a cat box.”

After she had purchased a cat box and Charles was driving sedately back to the hotel, he suddenly let out an exclamation and braked. “Look at that!”

“What?”

“
Casablanca
’s showing at the cinema.”

“So?”

“I adore
Casablanca
. I want to see it. Showing at two this afternoon.”

“We’re checking out at twelve.”

“One more night. I’ll pay. Come on, Aggie.”

“Oh, all right. But you go on your own. I can’t bear to see that old movie again.”

“And I’m starving. You didn’t let us stop for breakfast.”

Mr Martin agreed that, yes, she could have the room for another night. “He’s paying,” said Agatha, jerking a thumb at Charles. “We’ll have lunch.”

They put their coats and the cat box up in the room and then went down to the dining-room. Jennifer, Mary, Daisy and Harry stared openly at them.

“What a bunch of freaks,” said Charles cheerfully. “Very
Arsenic and Old Lace
.”

They ate their heavy lunch in silence. Then Charles went up to fetch his coat and go to the cinema. After he had left, Agatha began to feel the silence of the hotel oppressive. She wished she had not agreed to stay another night. What if Jimmy called and made a scene?

She realized the heavy meal and her activities of the night before had made her feel tired. Agatha lay down on the bed next to Scrabble and soon was fast asleep. She did not awake until six o’clock. She struggled up. Where was Charles?

♦

James Lacey walked into the Garden Hotel. The television news had reported on the death of the colonel and said that Mrs Raisin was helping police with their inquiries, but there had been nothing further in that morning’s news bulletin. He felt it was his duty for old times’ sake to go down and see if he could help Agatha.

He was approaching the desk when the slim neat figure of Sir Charles Fraith walked past him.

“Charles!” called James.

“Hello,” said Charles cautiously.

“I came to see if I could help Agatha.”

“She’s all right,” said Charles. “That old boy died of natural causes. I’m just visiting.”

Suddenly Mr Martin was next to them. He said to Charles, “As you are paying for the room you are sharing with Mrs Raisin, I would like you to sign the registration form.”

“What? Oh, sure,” said Charles, wilting before the blazing rage in James’s eyes.

James turned on his heel and walked straight out of the hotel.

Charles miserably signed the registration form. Then he decided to go out and get a drink somewhere. If Agatha heard that her precious James had arrived and found out that they were sharing a room, she would be in a terrible rage.

♦

Agatha had unpacked a few clothes. There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened and Daisy walked in, staring round her curiously.

There was a hissing sound from the bed. Agatha turned and looked at Scrabble. The cat’s eyes were blazing and its fur was standing on end.

Agatha looked at Daisy in a sort of wonder.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she said. “It was you all the time.”

∨
The Witch of Wyckhadden
∧

9

“T
hat’s Francie’s cat,” said Daisy. “What are you doing with Francie’s cat?”

Agatha, hearing the odd crooning sound in Daisy’s voice and looking at the vacant expression on her face, thought suddenly, she’s mad. She’s been mad all along, and none of us even noticed. But she said calmly, frightened that any loud sound or movement would tip Daisy over the edge, “I found it wandering on the beach.” Scrabble was still hissing and spitting, green eyes ablaze.

“Sit down, Daisy. We have to talk.”

Daisy sat down. Agatha picked up Scrabble and shut the cat in the bathroom. “The cat’s seen you before. Come on. Out with it, Daisy.”

“Out with what?” She moved her head from side to side.

“Francie was blackmailing you.”

“It wasn’t that,” said Daisy in a voice of mad reason. “It wasn’t that at all. She took my money.”

Agatha sat down on the bed. She wondered why she felt so calm. “There’s just the two of us, Daisy. No police. Tell me about it.”

“It all happened so long ago,” said Daisy on a sigh. “You won’t tell anyone?”

“No,” said Agatha, thinking bleakly as she had no witnesses and no proof there was nothing she could do about it. The door was a little ajar. She thought of rising and closing it, but did not want to do anything to stop Daisy telling her story.

“My husband had died. I felt guilty. I suppose someone always feels guilty when someone dies.” She let out a girlish giggle, more horrible to Agatha’s ears than if Daisy had ranted and raved. “We had just had a terrible row, you see, and I felt it was my fault. He accused me of being in love with the colonel.”

“And were you…at that time?”

“Yes, I was very much in love with him. I was so relieved when Hugh died, but I thought God would punish me. I went to Francie to get in touch with Hugh, to find out if he was all right. Somehow Francie must have known something about my feelings for the colonel, seen the way I looked at him. It sounded like Hugh’s voice. He said I had never loved him and I must pay. I think my brain was turned with guilt and fright. I gave Francie five thousand pounds.”

“What for?”

“She said she would pass it on to the spirit world. Then Harry told me she was a fake. I asked for my money back and she wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Why didn’t you report it to the police?”

“And look like a crazy old fool? I didn’t think there was anything I could do. Then Harry let fall that maybe we could report Francie to the tax collector. He said when he had paid her, he had peeked into the other room and had seen her put the money in a cash box. I had sent people to Francie for potions. I discovered a lot about her and her habits, and I found out she had a nap late in the afternoon. I decided try to get at least some money back.

“I went along. The door was unlocked. She never locked it until the evening. I went quietly in. It was all so easy. I found the cash box. It wasn’t even locked. I took out all the money. There was only about twelve hundred pounds in it. I stuffed it in my handbag.

“Then I decided to go upstairs and tell her what I had done. I knew as she probably hadn’t declared any of the money to the taxman that she couldn’t do anything about it. I thought she might try to attack me. I went into the kitchen looking for a weapon and saw a marble rolling pin. So useful, marble rolling pins.” She giggled again, and then put her hand up to her mouth and threw Agatha a coy, almost flirtatious look, like some schoolgirl confessing a misdemeanour to a headmistress.

“I crept up the stairs. She was lying sleeping. She suddenly opened her eyes and saw me. ‘Oh, it’s you, you silly old bitch,’ she said, and she reached down to the floor for her slippers. She shouldn’t have called me old. One minute I was standing there with the rolling pin, and the next I had whacked her as hard as I could on the head.

“I didn’t know if she was dead or not and I didn’t care. I went out carrying the cash box and the rolling pin in a carrier bag. I threw the cash box in the sea. It was amazing. There was no one about. You see, I didn’t care then if I was caught or not. But once I got rid of the cash box, I took the rolling pin back to the hotel. I had left by the fire escape. I buried the rolling pin in the hotel garden.”

Got you, thought Agatha.

“And what about Janine?”

“When it appeared that the murderer was going to be exposed, I kicked Mary as hard as I could. That broke up the seance. But I began to fret and worry. What if Janine knew? I thought the colonel was warming to me. I felt it would only be a matter of time before he proposed.” Daisy leaned forward and tapped Agatha on the knee. “I had to get rid of her. You do see that?”

And Agatha remembered Charles saying that they were all probably mad. She
is
mad, thought Agatha again. Why didn’t I see that before?

“So I went down the fire escape and I phoned her from that call box at the entrance to the pier. I wore gloves this time. I told her I owed her mother money and I would like her to have it but she wasn’t to tell anyone.

“We walked along the pier. I said I had owed Francie thousands. Janine became quite excited. She was very like her mother, greedy. When we had gone along the pier a little way, I suddenly screamed and said, ‘There’s a body floating in the water!’ She said, ‘Where?’ ‘Down there,’ I shouted. She leaned right over. I don’t know where I got the strength but I seized her ankles and tipped her into the sea. She couldn’t swim. Francie told me that once. She told me that neither she nor her daughter could swim. I heard her calling out, so I ran away.”

“Don’t you feel any remorse?” asked Agatha curiously.

“Why?” Daisy’s eyes glittered. “They were bad women.”

“Couldn’t you just have taken Francie’s money and left it at that?”

“No! She cursed me, and Janine cursed me along with the rest of you. They were evil women.”

“Daisy, I am honour bound to go to the police and tell them what I’ve heard.”

“They won’t believe you. You’ve no proof.”

And I’m not going to remind you that you told me about the rolling pin in the garden, Agatha was just thinking when Mr Martin walked in.

“I came up to talk to you, Mrs Raisin, but I heard what was being said and I stayed to hear all of it. Mrs Daisy Jones, I am going to take you to your room and lock you in until the police arrive. Come along.”

To Agatha’s amazement, Daisy stood up and smoothed down her skirt and walked out past the hotel manager. Why had she gone so quietly?

Charles walked in and Agatha flew to him, her nerves suddenly shot, babbling all about Daisy and the murders.

“Here, calm down, Aggie,” he said. “Let’s have it all – slowly.”

Agatha shakily summarized briefly what Daisy had told her, ending with, “I cannot believe she went like that, so quietly.”

“Let’s hope she doesn’t remember telling you about that rolling pin.”

“Why?”

“Well, if she can find a way out of her room and down into the hotel garden, she’ll do it.”

“The window!” gasped Agatha. “The window in her room.” She hurtled out of the door and down the stairs and round to the side of the building. No Daisy in the garden.

“Up there!” cried Charles, suddenly appearing behind her.

Daisy was balancing on the ledge outside her window. Although her room was only one floor up, the downstairs ceilings were so high that she was a good distance from the ground.

She glared down at them. In the distance came the wail of police sirens.

“It’s too late now,” shouted Agatha. “Go back in your room. You’ll only hurt yourself.”

But Daisy leaped from the window-ledge. She plummeted straight down on to a rockery. Her head struck one of the rocks with a vicious thud and she lay still.

Charles went up to her and bent down and stooped over her. “I daren’t move her,” he said over his shoulder to Agatha.

Agatha ran to the front of the hotel just as Jimmy Jessop was getting out of the first police car.

“It’s Daisy,” said Agatha. “She’s in the garden. She’s badly hurt.”

“Phone for an ambulance,” said Jimmy to a policeman. “Lead the way, Mrs Raisin.”

The police followed Agatha into the hotel garden. Jimmy motioned Charles aside and knelt down beside Daisy. He felt for her pulse.

He looked up at them. “I think it’s too late. Go back into the hotel, Mrs Raisin, and you, too, sir. You will need to answer questions.”

Agatha felt sick and shaky. Supported by Charles, she went back into the hotel, to be met by Mary, Jennifer and Harry.

“Mr Martin’s saying it was Daisy who committed these murders,” said Harry.

“It can’t be true,” wailed Mary, and despite her dizziness and sickness, Agatha registered somewhere in her mind that neither Jennifer nor Harry seemed to be surprised.

Agatha said to Mr Martin, “Tell the police I’ll be in my room if they want me.”

She and Charles went upstairs. In their room, they both sat down on the bed. There was a plaintive mew from the bathroom. Agatha rose and let the cat out. Then she rejoined Charles.

“I don’t know why you’re so miserable, Aggie,” said Charles, taking her hand. “If it hadn’t been for your intuition and Scrabble’s behaviour, she would have got away with it. And can I tell you something? You were probably next in line for the chop. I think Daisy’s obsession with the colonel, which had been going on for years and years, had turned her mind. Sooner or later she would feel that he might have lived, might have married her if you hadn’t lured him away.”

Agatha shivered. “All I do is blunder about in other people’s lives. When I get back to Carsely, I’m going to settle down and do good works.”

“That’ll be the day,” said Charles with a laugh.

“I mean it. I’m going to be like Mrs Bloxby.”

Agatha rose. “I’d better feed Scrabble. Any minute now they’re going to come for us.”

“I’ll do it.” Charles opened a can of cat food and then filled Scrabble’s water bowl. “Never mind, Aggie, we’ll be out of here in the morning.”

There was a knock at the door. Charles answered it. A policeman stood there. “If you would both accompany me to the police station…”

They collected their coats and followed him downstairs. “Only one more night, please God,” said Agatha, looking out at the sea. “Just one more night and then I will never come here again.”

At the police station, Agatha was interviewed by Jimmy and Detective Sergeant Peter Carroll.

She wearily began at the beginning and told them how Daisy had come to her room, the reaction of the cat, and how she’d suddenly known that Daisy had committed the murders.

“How did you know?” asked Carroll.

“I don’t know,” said Agatha wretchedly. “It was something Charles said about them all being mad. He was joking. But in that moment, I realized that Daisy was unbalanced.”