Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon - M. C. Beaton [74]
“Without her, I don’t think we might have found them,” said Bill. “You say Mabel Smedley’s been picked up?”
“Before she even reached the Portuguese border. Joyce Wilson was determined not to suffer alone.”
“So what is she saying? Who killed who and why?”
“Burt Haviland had been laying both of them. They were both insane with jealousy of Jessica. Robert Smedley found his wife trying to bury the dagger with which she had killed Jessica in their garden. He told her unless she signed all her money and the business over to him, he would turn her in. So she gave Joyce the weedkiller and told her to get on with it. They killed Burt because he knew something and was threatening to go to the police. They both did that one.”
“But that neighbour only heard one set of footsteps leaving Burt’s flat.”
“That would be Joyce. Mabel’s flat shoes probably didn’t make a sound.”
“Agatha Raisin,” said Bill, “often gets results we can’t because she doesn’t go by the book.”
“Then it’s time she did,” said Wilkes. “It’s going to be all over the newspapers tomorrow about how she tracked them down. She’ll see to that.”
Agatha put down the phone. “Well, that’s that, Patrick. Every last British national newspaper. We’re to wait here. Their local stringers and photographers are coming here to interview us and take our pictures. We’d better get dressed up.”
“I am suitably dressed,” said Patrick.
He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt in a pattern of red and yellow, droopy khaki shorts, black ankle socks and open-toed leather sandals.
“It’s just that you look so much more the detective in your suit, Patrick, and I’ve got the air conditioning on. The rest should be here any moment.”
“What rest?”
“I told Phil, Harry and Mrs. Freedman to fly out and join us. Don’t you see what a good photograph it’ll make? The whole of the detective agency.”
Patrick sighed and went to change. He wondered where Agatha got all her energy from.
Sir Charles Fraith picked up his copy of the Daily Telegraph the following day. He found himself looking at a photograph of Agatha. “Full story pages six and seven,” he read. He opened to the relevant pages.
There they all were—Agatha, Patrick, Harry, Phil and even Mrs. Freedman. There were long quotes from Agatha praising the detective abilities of her staff in solving three murders.
Charles felt left out. After all, he had done a lot of unpaid work. But he had to admit that he had left Agatha in the lurch when he went chasing after Laura. And where was Laura? Gone back to her fiance, that’s where. “You didn’t even tell me you had a fiance,” he had raged.
“He was abroad,” Laura had said. “Don’t make a fuss, Charles. We had a nice little fling.”
The night before their departure for England, Agatha and her staff celebrated with a lavish dinner in the hotel restaurant. Agatha did not mind the money she was spending. All that publicity would pay dividends. She had carefully told the British press which flight they would all be on when their plane landed at Heathrow. With luck, there would be even more publicity. Of course, now that there was a trial in the offing once the pair were extradited, she hadn’t been able to go into all the details.
“Here’s to us,” said Agatha, raising her glass. “Many more cases, I hope.”
“But no more murders,” said Mrs. Freedman with a shudder.
“Amen to that,” said Phil.
But at first it looked as if there was to be no triumphal homecoming. They were taken from the plane before the other passengers got off and herded into a side room where an angry Wilkes was waiting.
“How did you know they were in Marbella?” he asked Agatha.
“I interviewed a friend of Joyce’s who said Joyce had once been in Marbella. It was a long shot.”
“You should have phoned me! I could have alerted the police in Marbella and both of them might have been picked up earlier.”
“I don’t think you would have listened to me,” said Agatha. “You would have said something like, ‘Run along.