When it was at last all over and they had signed their statements, Wilkes said severely, "I should charge both of you with obstructing police business. But I'm warning you for the last time. We may seem to you very slow, but we are thor- j ough."
They left feeling chastened. From an upstairs window, Maddie Hurd watched them go. She bit her thumb nail and stared down at them. She had not been invited to join in the interrogation. She had not been asked to do anything further on the case at all. She had been given a series of burglaries to investigate instead. She blamed Bill Wong for turning her superiors against her.
Although Bill had not opened his mouth, her jilting of him had a lot to do with it. Bill Wong was very popular, Maddie was not. Women, even in the police force, were expected to be womanly. Women in the police force were not expected to jilt fellow officers. So, although Chief Inspector Wilkes did not sit down and say, "We don't want Maddie Hurd on the case because of the way she has treated Bill Wong," he had, without even thinking about it, decided she was not the right officer for the job.
Agatha completed the business of buying her cottage back, although conscience prompted her finally to offer PS120,000. She felt she had misjudged Mrs. Hardy, that here was a fellow spirit.
When they were leaving the lawyers', Agatha said impulsively, "Look, there's a dance at the village hall on Saturday evening. Why don't you come with me and James? No, don't refuse right away. I thought I would hate things like that, but they're really rather fun. And it's in a good cause. We're raising money for Cancer Relief."
Mrs. Hardy gave a weak smile. All her aggression seemed k to have left her. "Well, maybe..." she said hesitantly. "That's the thing. Think about it." Agatha waved goodbye and headed off to the car, where James was waiting for her.
"Well, that's that," she said cheerfully. "Do you know, she's not that bad? I've asked her to come to the dance with us on Saturday."
James groaned. "I didn't know we were going'. 'Of course we are. What would a village dance be without us?"
Agatha put on a chiffon evening blouse and black velvet skirt for the dance on Saturday, wishing the days of proper evening gowns even for a village hop were not gone forever. Full evening dress was glamorous. She was regretting her decision to 'mother' Mrs. Hardy at the dance. And yet surely the: was no one in the village to catch James's wandering eye. An he did have a wandering eye, witness his interest in Helen Warwick.
He must have meant something hopeful by that 'Give me time'. Perhaps they could go away together to northern Cyprus just for a holiday. It wouldn't need to be a honeymoon. She sat at her dressing-table, a lipstick half-way to her mouth, her eyes unfocused by dreams as she imagined them walking along the beach together, talking.
Then she gave a shrug and, leaning forward, applied the lipstick with a careful hand. The dream James always talked so well, always said all those delightful things she longed to hear. The real James would probably talk about books or the political situation. She stood up. Her skirt was loose at the waist. No thanks to that brief stay at the health farm. It was a result of living with James and eating James's carefully prepared meals - no fries, no puddings. There was no incentive either to snack before meals because she still felt obliged to ask him for everything, and it was easier not to eat anything between meals than to request something and maybe be damned as a glutton. Her face was thinner and her skin clear. I could pass for forty - maybe, thought Agatha.
When they collected Mrs. Hardy and they began to walk towards the village hall, Agatha glanced sideways at her and thought she might at least have made some effort with her dress. Mrs. Hardy was wearing a rather baggy green tweed skirt and a black shirt blouse under a raincoat.
"I don't think this is a very good idea," said Mrs. Hardy. "I don't like dancing."
"Stay for a bit and have a drink," urged Agatha, "and then, if you still don't like it, you can go home."
Light was streaming out of the village hall and they could hear the jolly umpty-tumpty sound of the village band. "It'll be old-fashioned dancing tonight, not a disco," said Agatha. "No heavy metal."
"You mean 'Pride of Erin' and the military two-step, things like that?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I can do those," said Mrs. Hardy. "I didn't know anyone did those sort of dances these days. I thought they just took ecstasy pills and threw themselves about like dervishes."
They left their coats in the temporary cloakroom manned, or 'womanned', by old Mrs. Boggle. "That'll be fifty pee each," said Mrs. Boggle, "and hang your own coats up."
"It's the first time I've ever been charged for a cloakroom ticket at the village hall," said Agatha suspiciously.
"You don't think I'm going to do this for nothing," grumbled Mrs. Boggle.
James paid the money and then led them both into the village hall. "The next dance is a Canadian barn dance," announced the MC, vicar Alf Bloxby.
James turned to Mrs. Hardy. "Care to try?"
"I don't know..."
"Oh, go on," said Agatha, determined to be charitable and reminding herself that she would soon be moving back into her old home.
James and Mrs. Hardy took the floor. Agatha moved over to the bar, where the publican, John Fletcher, was working, having left his wife and son to manage the pub. "Gin and tonic, John," said Agatha.
"Right you are. How's that murder investigation going? They caught anyone?"
Agatha shook her head.
"It's odd, isn't it? And then the murder of that poor woman in the cinema. Mind you, the police don't think nc that the two murders are related."
"Since when?"
"I dunno. Fred Griggs was saying something like that the other day."
He turned away to serve someone else.
Agatha found Mrs. Bloxby next to her. "Mrs. Hardy appears to have come out of her shell," said the vicar's wife.
Agatha turned round and surveyed the dance floor. Mrs Hardy was dancing with unexpected grace. She was laughing at something James was saying.
"And if I am not mistaken, that's quite a flirtatious look in her eyes. Not," added Mrs. Bloxby hurriedly, "that she is any competition. You are looking remarkably trim and well these days."
"Must be James's cooking," said Agatha. "We brought along Mrs. Hardy to cheer her up. I only hope now she doesn't cheer up too much or she will decide to stay."
"But you have your cottage back?"
"Yes, everything's signed and agreed on."
"In that case, she can do nothing about it."
"I hope James is not going to get carried away by my good Samaritan act," said Agatha. "If he asks her for the next dance, I'll murder her...oh, dear, how easily one says things like that. I don't think we're ever going to find out who murdered Jimmy."
"Let's sit over there in the corner, away from the noise of the band, and you can tell me about it," said Mrs. Bloxby.
Agatha hesitated. The dance had finished. But James was asking Miss Simms for the next dance.
"Okay," she said. They carried their drinks over to a; couple of chairs in a corner of the hall.
"I think a lot of it you already know," began Agatha. "Jimmy, and possibly this Mrs. Gore-Appleton, who ran a dicey charity, stayed at a health farm, found out what they could, and blackmailed some of the other guests. I believe one of them murdered him." She went on to describe all their investigations.
Mrs. Bloxby listened carefully and then she said, "I would think the most likely suspect would be Mrs. Gore-Appleton herself."
"But they were in it together!"
"Exactly. But Jimmy went back on the booze and down to the gutter. But he surfaced for long enough to get cleaned up for your wedding. So, say, before that he had some stage where he was relatively sober and needed money. Why should he not seek out his old protector? And think of this. Let's say she wants nothing more to do with him - her miraculous cured alcoholic isn't cured. So she tries to send him packing. But Jimmy has a taste for blackmail, and as he was close to her at one time, he must have known about the fraudulent charity. He knows the police are looking for her. So he says something like, 'Pay up or I'll tell them where you are'? Wait a bit. It could be just before he came down here. He says he's going to be in Carsley. She follows him and waits for the right moment, and what better moment is there than when he is hopelessly drunk and has just had a row with his wife?"