The Deadly Dance - M. C. Beaton [45]
Agatha was shaken awake at nine the following morning by Charles. “Get up,” said Charles urgently. “The French police are downstairs and want to speak to you.”
“What’s the time?”
“Eleven o’clock. All that wine. We slept in. You didn’t even hear the phone. Get dressed and I’ll go down first and see what they want.”
Agatha scrambled into her clothes, wondering what on earth had happened. When she went down to the reception area, it was to find two policemen and what she judged to be two French detectives.
“Ed better explain,” said Charles, “because their English isn’t very good. A man has been found dead in your kitchen in. Carsely. He looks as if he’s been poisoned.”
“Who is it?”
“Blessed if I know. All they want at the moment is a timetable of when we arrived in Paris and where we were. I’ve told them everything and they can check it.”
Charles turned away from her and launched into rapid French. One of the detectives replied. Agatha waited impatiently.
“Seems to have been an intruder. The pane of glass in the kitchen door was smashed. There was a black Balaclava on the table and a revolver. Someone was out to get you, Aggie. We’re to wait at the commissariat.”
He turned again and spoke to the detectives.
“He says we’d better pack our bags and check out. It looks as if it’s going to be a long day.”
One of the detectives spoke again. Charles translated, “We’re to have breakfast if we want while they search our room.”
Agatha nodded. It was one of the few times in her life when she felt speechless.
That morning, Emma watched at her window. At last, she saw Doris walking past. She waited for a scream, but all was silent. And then in the distance, she heard police sirens.
Emma jumped to her feet. She would rush next door and get into the house before they arrived. Then, if she had left any footprint unvacuumed, it wouldn’t matter.
The front door was standing open. Emma went in. Doris emerged from the kitchen, her face ashen. “Don’t go in there. There’s a dead body.”
“Who is it?”
“Some man I’ve never seen before.”
“Let me have a look,” said Emma, “I might recognize him.”
She walked into the kitchen. She had not taken a close look at him before. He was a stocky man with thick black hair. His face was so contorted that Emma could not judge what he had looked like normally.
Bill Wong was the first to arrive.
“Both of you get out of here immediately,” he snapped. “Where’s Agatha?”
“In Paris,” said Emma.
“Do you know where she is staying?”
“Miss Simms will know.”
“Mrs. Comfrey, you are walking all over the crime scene. I must ask you to leave.”
“Certainly. Oh, what a shock.” Emma burst into tears, her nerves stretched to the limit.
Doris led her away. Emma dabbed at her eyes, wondering desperately if she had covered everything. She had buried the coffee jar under the compost heap where she had put the rat poison. But if Doris told them that she had had the keys, they might come and search her cottage and garden.
“Eve got to get back and make a statement,” said Doris. “Will you be all right?”
Emma rallied. “I won’t go to the office today. I’ll do some gardening to take my mind off things.”
Agatha and Charles waited all morning in a room in the commissariat. Their passports and airline tickets had been taken away from them.
“They’ll ask us what we were doing in Paris,” whispered Charles. “We’d better say we tried to call on Felicity because George is an old friend of mine. We’ll say we just needed a break.”
“By staying at the same hotel as Laggat-Brown stayed?”
“Well, Mrs. Laggat-Brown has employed you, so you can say you were double-checking his alibi.”
“Okay. I wonder how long we’ve got to wait here.”
The door opened and a French police inspector who spoke English came in. He handed them their passports and two airline tickets. “The English police say you must leave on the one o’clock flight for Heathrow. They have decided that it is important that you return to England. A police car will be waiting for you at Heathrow.