"I thought Aggie was eating her heart out for James Lacey."
"She must have got over it."
"She's probably doing it to annoy him. I know Aggie. I'll go down there and put a stop to it."
"You shouldn't, and anyway, you can't," said Bill. "The roads are blocked."
"I should stop the silly woman. I bet she doesn't give a rap for this inspector."
"She's over twenty-one."
"She's twice over twenty-one," said Charles nastily.
"Why don't you phone her? It said in the papers when they were writing about the murder that she was staying in the Garden Hotel."
"Right. I'll do that."
But the lines in Wyckhadden were down.
* * *
Agatha was never to forget the suffocating claustrophobic days that followed, inurned up in the hotel. No electricity. No phones. No television.
On the Wednesday morning, Agatha found Harry sitting alone in the lounge. "Not even a newspaper," he mourned. "I've never known it as bad as this. And no central heating. You would think a hotel as expensive as this would have a generator. I'm bored."
Agatha walked to the window. "It's stopped snowing," she said over her shoulder.
"Sky's still dark and more has been forecast," said Harry, rising and joining her.
"We could build a snowman," joked Agatha.
"Splendid idea." To Agatha's surprise, Harry was all enthusiasm. "Let's put on our coats and build one right outside the dining-room window where they can see it at lunch-time."
Soon, well wrapped up, they both ventured out. The snow lay in great drifts. "I'll go first," said Harry. "Clear a path."
He headed to a spot in front of he dining-room window. Agatha, like Wenceslas's page, followed in his footsteps.
"I used to be good at this," said Harry. "I'll shape the base if you roll a snowball for a torso."
"Where are the others?" asked Agatha.
"In their rooms, I think." Harry worked busily.
"You never talk about the murders," said Agatha.
"No, I don't. Nothing to do with me. Why should I?"
"You knew Francie. Had a seance with her."
"Oh, that. Maybe that's one reason I don't want to talk about it."
"Why?"
"Because she tricked me. I missed my wife dreadfully and I must have been crazy to go to her. Mind you, her potions and ointments seemed to work."
"So what happened?" asked Agatha.
"I really thought it was my wife. That was until the voice that was supposed to be my wife told me that the bit about the eye of the needle in the Bible was true. Said I should give my money to Francie."
"But if a rich man can't enter the kingdom of heaven, how can a rich woman?" I asked.
"Ah, the voice said Francie would send it on to a good cause. That's when I got suspicious. My wife was very thrifty. 'Must save for our old age,' that's what she always said. I reported Francie to the police. But I'd gone along with it for a little, been conned, and felt like a fool. Don't want to talk about the woman. She's dead anyway."
Agatha rolled a large snowball, and with surprising strength in one so old, Harry lifted it onto the base he had formed while he was talking. "Another one for the head," he ordered.
He began to shape the torso into a woman's bust. Agatha watched, amazed, as a snow-woman began to take shape. "Could you go to the games cupboard," asked Harry, "and get me two marbles for eyes? And some make-up for the face?"
"Right. What about hair?"
"Could you find something? Black hair? And do you have an old dress or coat or something?"
Perfectionist, thought Agatha. What happened to the old-fashioned snowman made of three balls of snow and with a carrot for a nose?
She went up to her room and found an Indian blouse which she had decided she did not much like. What to use for hair? He would need to make do with one of her scarves. She picked out a black one and then found a lipstick and blusher. She then went to the games cupboard in the lounge and took two blood-red marbles out of a jar.
Afterwards, as she surveyed Harry's handiwork, she wished she had taken out two blue or grey marbles, for the red effect was sinister. Harry had created a woman with staring red eyes in a snow face like a death mask. With the black scarf draped round her head and the Indian blouse fluttering in the wind, the snow-woman looked remarkably lifelike and ghoulish.
A gong sounded from the hotel. "Lunch!" said Harry. "Let's get to the dining- room before the rest of them. I want to see their reactions."
They left their coats in the lounge and hurried into the dining-room.
Daisy, Mary, Jennifer and the colonel came in together.
The colonel stopped dead. "By George," he said. "Would you look at that!"
Outside the window the red marble eyes glared in at them from the white face and the black scarf moved in the wind and the blouse fluttered. In that moment, Agatha realized the snow-sculpted features bore a remarkable resemblance to the dead Francie.
"Is it something out of a carnival?" asked Daisy.
But Mary uttered a moan, put a shaking hand to her lips and fainted dead away.
EIGHT
"THE phones are still down," said the colonel after lunch. Mary was lying down in her room being ministered to by Jennifer.
"I know," said Agatha. "I tried to phone Jimmy."
Agatha was beginning to wonder why Harry had gone out of his way to make his snow figure so much like Francie. And why had he such ability?
"Thought that snow thing of Harry's was in remarkably bad taste," said the colonel. He and Daisy and Agatha were sitting in front of the fire in the lounge.
"I'm amazed, however, at his expertise," said Agatha. "I thought he was going to make a traditional snowman."
"I suppose once a sculptor, always a sculptor."
"What! Harry?" Agatha had fondly imagined that sculptors, however old, would look, well, more bohemian.
"Haven't you ever heard of Henry Berry before?" asked the colonel. "He was quite famous in his day. Doesn't do it anymore. Says he hasn't the strength."
"He seems remarkably strong to me." Agatha remembered the ease with which he had lifted and shaped the heavy snow.
"Anyway, he gave poor Mary a dreadful fright," said Daisy. She winked meaningfully at Agatha and then jerked her head slightly towards the door. Agatha correctly interpreted that to mean that Daisy wanted her to leave her alone with the colonel. But it had started to snow again and the rooms were cold because the central heating wasn't working. Scrabble was all right. She had placed a hot-water bottle on the bed wrapped in a towel and last seen, Scrabble had been comfortably coiled around it.
The manager came in with a portable radio. "I thought you might like to hear the news," he said, putting it down and switching it on. "There is a thaw forecast for this evening. They hope to have electricity restored by this evening as well. Dear me, so much food wasted. We've had to throw a lot of stuff out of the freezers."
The colonel cocked his head. "Listen."
The voice of the news announcer began a catalogue of disasters, of blocked roads and thousands of homes without power. Daisy shifted in her chair and looked at Agatha angrily. You can glare all you want, thought Agatha, but I am not leaving this warm fire. She longed to be able to phone Jimmy and find out if there was anything sinister in Harry's background.
The colonel at last switched off the radio. "Thank you, Mr. Martin. It certainly seems as if there is a thaw coming."
The manager took the radio away. "I think I'll go to my room and get a book." The colonel rose to his feet. Daisy watched him with hungry eyes as he left the lounge. She's getting worse, thought Agatha.
When the colonel had gone, Agatha said, "I know you want me to leave you alone with him, Daisy, but I do not want to go upstairs and sit in a cold bedroom, and it's not as if I can go out for a walk."