The Deadly Dance - M. C. Beaton [74]
Reading the accounts, Roy and Charles found no mention of their names.
First Charles phoned up and sarcastically asked how it felt to have done it all on her own. Flustered, Agatha began to reply, but then he hung up on her.
Then came Roy at his most waspish. “You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in PR, you old hag,” he said. “Any publicity helps. You seem to want your friends just when you need them and otherwise you’re not prepared to help or go out of your way. You’re a disgrace!”
Agatha fumed for days. They were both being ridiculous. After all, the solution had been her idea. Anyway, she couldn’t spare any time to worry about them. The detective agency was so busy she was having to turn down clients.
Bill Wong called one evening. “Well, it’s all sewn up. Felicity was simply using Jeremy and told us all we need to know about him and his operations.”
“The thing that puzzles me,” said Agatha, “is why he should send a death threat to the daughter he was so fond of?”
“Felicity told us he was prepared to give Cassandra a scare. He said once her mother was shot, she’d soon get over it. I think Jeremy was obsessed with Felicity. When he wound up his import/export agency, he decided it would be better if Felicity took a job abroad so that there would be no connection between the two of them.”
“But the police checked out his business. They surely heard about the blonde secretary and wanted to contact her.”
“Felicity had been working under an assumed name and papers. She was working under the name of Susan Fremantle.The real Susan Fremantle died last year in a car crash and her home was burgled during the funeral. Jeremy probably bought the papers for Felicity from some villain or other. I’m not quite clear why you managed to jump to the idea that Jeremy had got someone to stand in for him.”
“It was one little word—reunion. That’s what the French call their AA meetings. The fake Jeremy told the desk clerk that he was going to a reunion. A friend of mine had been talking about some handsome man who had sobered up and from the description it sounded like Jeremy. But it wasn’t. I knew Jeremy wasn’t an alcoholic, I mean at his age it would have shown on his face and figure.”
“You’ve had all the luck of the amateur,” said Bill.
“I,” said Agatha Raisin stiffly, “am a professional now.”
It was only when the dark days of November began to draw to a close that she began to badly miss Charles and Roy. Business had suddenly gone quiet, as if everyone had decided to save for Christmas, and all the lucrative would-be divorcees planned to leave finding out about their adulterous spouses until after the festive season.
Miss Simms had handed in her notice, saying she was better off at home with her baby daughter because she didn’t like leaving her with a baby-sitter the whole time.
Patrick Mullen had suggested Agatha hire a woman detective, Sally Fleming, who had already worked for two other agencies. Sally was small, neat and dark and highly efficient. Instead of the succession of temps, Agatha had also hired a Mrs. Edie Frint as secretary, a widow with impeccable qualifications.
For the first time since she had set up the agency, Agatha had time on her hands and began to mourn her lost friends.
At least there were still Mrs. Bloxby and Bill Wong.
Agatha went along to the vicarage one gusty black November day. She had not told Mrs. Bloxby about the disaffection of Charles and Roy, but now she sought her advice.
“I don’t know what to do,” wailed Agatha in the comfortable vicarage sitting-room. The log fire crackled and the wind howled around the gravestones in the churchyard. “I thought either of them would have phoned by now.”
“Have you tried phoning them?”
“It’s no use phoning Charles because that wretched manservant of his is going to say he’s not at home even when he is. I tried phoning Roy once, and I could hear his voice in the background, but then his secretary said he was in a meeting.”
“Oh dear. Let me think. Are you giving your staff a Christmas party?”
“I thought of a little