The Deadly Dance - M. C. Beaton [83]
“That doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, a small place like Ancombe. Such news would soon get out.” “What’s she like?”
“Hard to tell. Have you forgotten, Mrs. Raisin? The Ancombe Ladies’ Society is having a sale of work the day after tomorrow and some of us are going over to help. You could come along and see for yourself. Mrs. Smedley works very hard for good causes, but she is quiet and self-effacing. They’ve only been married for two years.”
“Any children?”
“No, and none by Mr. Smedley’s first marriage either.”
“What happened to the first Mrs. Smedley?”
“Poor thing. She was subject to bouts of depression. She committed suicide.”
“I’m not surprised. Married to a creature like that.” Agatha described him in trenchant terms, ending up with that description of his mouth.
“Mrs. Raisin! Really.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Agatha.
Phil stifled a laugh by pretending he had a sneezing fit. “I think Mr. Smedley is just unnaturally jealous,” said Mrs. Bloxby.
“Oh dear,” sighed Agatha. “It all seems such a waste of time. We’ll leave it for today, Phil, and you can drive me back to the office so I can collect my car. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow. I’ve a few things to work on.”
Just as Agatha was setting down to a dinner of microwaved chips and microwaved lasagne that evening, the telephone rang.
“Don’t dare touch my food,” she warned her cats, Hodge and Boswell.
She answered the phone and heard the slightly camp voice of her former assistant, Roy Silver.
“I haven’t heard from you in ages,” he said. “No more killings down there?”
“No, nothing. Just a divorce case and I hate divorce cases.”
“Stands to reason, sweetie. You being such a reluctantly divorced woman yourself.”
“That is not the reason! I just find them distasteful.”
“Divorce cases are surely the bread and butter of any detective agency. Why I’m phoning is to ask you if I can come down for the weekend.”
“Next weekend? All right. Let me know which train you’ll be on and I’ll meet you at Moreton.”
When Agatha rang off, she felt cheerful at the thought of having company. She had endured a brief unhappy marriage to James Lacey. They hadn’t even lived in the same house. But after it was over, she found herself getting lonely when she wasn’t working full out.
Then Agatha realized she hadn’t tackled Mrs. Bloxby over manipulating her into employing Phil. She rang up the vicar’s wife.
“Mrs. Bloxby,” began Agatha, “I feel you forced me into employing Phil.”
“Mr. Witherspoon. I suppose I did push you in that direction.”
“Why? You’re not a pushy woman.”
Mrs. Bloxby sighed. “I happened to learn that he has only a small pension. He made some bad investments with his capital. He is desperately in need of money and was ready to sell off some of his precious cameras. You needed a photographer, he needed work. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Oh, well,” muttered Agatha, somewhat mollified. “We’ll see how he works out.”
“Going to Ancombe?”
“Of course. I forgot to ask you what time it begins.”
“Two in the afternoon.” “
I’ll be there.”
Agatha returned to the kitchen to find her cats up on the table, tucking in to her dinner. “You little bastards,” she howled. She opened the kitchen door and shooed them both out into the garden. She scraped her dinner into the rubbish bin and suddenly burst into tears.
She finally mopped her eyes on a dishcloth and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. Agatha was in her early fifties, but recently had been assailed with a fear of getting old and living alone. On damp days, she had a stabbing pain in her hip but stoically ignored it. She couldn’t possibly have arthritis. She was too young!
“Pull yourself together,” she said aloud. Was this the menopause at last? She had been secretly proud of the fact that she had not yet reached that borderline.
The phone rang again. Agatha wearily went to answer it.
“Charles, here.”
Agatha’s friend, Sir Charles Fraith.
“Oh, hullo, Charles. Where have you been lately?” Agatha gave a gulping sob.
“Have you been crying, Aggie?”
“Don’t call me Aggie.