Another dark cottage living-room, everything in shades of dull green: green velvet upholstered three-piece suite, green walls, dark green fitted carpet, green leaves from the thick ivy outside which covered the cottage, blocking out any light the small windows might have afforded. All sat down and faced each other in this subterranean gloom.
“What did you mean by that remark?” demanded Mrs. Dairy. The dog leapt on her lap and she kneaded her thin fingers in its coat.
“John Shawpart was a blackmailer,” said Agatha. “He wooed women, found out about them, and then blackmailed them.”
“Rubbish!” Mrs. Dairy sounded breathless. “I’m a respectable woman. Who could possibly want to blackmail me? I am not like you, Mrs. Raisin, with your scandalous affairs with younger men.”
Checkmate, thought Agatha. What could there be in this acidulous women’s life that was worth a blackmailer’s time?
“Money,” said Charles suddenly. “It was all about money. We know that.”
He was half talking to himself, but Mrs. Dairy stared at him like a rat hypnotized by a snake.
“You know,” she said through dry lips.
Agatha was about to say they didn’t know, but Charles looked at Mrs. Dairy compassionately and said, “Oh, yes. We haven’t told anyone and Agatha here went to great lengths to try to destroy any evidence that might have incriminated you. That is why we have not gone to the police. We would be in trouble ourselves. Just tell us how he came to get the information.”
“I went there to get my hair done,” said Mrs. Dairy in a low voice, quite unlike her usual biting tones. “We got friendly. Had a few meals. I was flattered. I told him that my late husband had been a plumber. A master plumber,” she added with some of her old spirit in case he might think he was an ordinary tradesman. “We were talking about taxes and VAT and how iniquitous both were. He said sympathetically that there were ways round it. He knew a lot of tradesmen who would offer to do a job for a bit less for cash in hand. I’d had a bit too much to drink and so I told him that was what my Clarence had done and so that was the reason I had been left comfortably off.
“Then he phoned me two days later. I couldn’t believe it. We were friends! He told me unless I paid him five thousand pounds, he would inform the Inland Revenue that my husband had been cheating them for years. I panicked. I called on him and said that if he did that, I would kill him.” She fell silent. Then she said, “When I heard he was dead, it was like the end of a nightmare.”
“But look here,” said Agatha. “When did your husband die?”
“Five years ago.”
“But how on earth could the Inland Revenue find out that he had been taking cash payments and not declaring them?”
“They could have gone to his old customers. 1 sold the plumbing firm, but they’ll still have the old records.”
“But if they were paying cash,” said Agatha patiently, “those payments would not appear on the books.”
“But what if they found out his old customers and asked them?”
“What would they say?” asked Charles. “They couldn’t admit to cheating the income tax either. They’d be in a deep shit.”
Weak tears ran down Mrs. Dairy’s face. “So it was all for nothing.”
“All what?” asked Agatha sharply.
“All my worry. All my sleepless nights.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“No. I read about it in the papers. Ricin. I’d never even heard of it. Please don’t tell the police any of this.”
“I can’t,” said Agatha. “I went to his house to destroy any evidence and someone set it alight. The police don’t even know I was there.”
Mrs. Dairy got up stiffly, as if her joints were hurting. “I shall make tea,” she said and disappeared into the nether regions.
“You can take the offer of tea as thanks for trying to save her neck,” said Charles.
“It wasn’t her scrawny neck I was trying to save but Mrs. Friendly’s. John really did pray on silly, ugly women who would be flattered by his attentions.”
“And some not so ugly,” said Charles with a slanting look at her.
“I wasn’t taken in for a moment!”
“That’s not the way I saw it.”
“Never mind that,” said Agatha hurriedly. “I wonder who inherits. Perhaps all this blackmailing business is clouding the issue. Perhaps he was murdered because of something else.”
“Highly unlikely. Here she conies.”
Mrs. Dairy returned and proceeded to pour tea that looked like discoloured water. Agatha guessed that she had only used one tea-bag in the pot and probably one that had been used already. There was a plate of hard biscuits.
Mrs. Dairy seemed to have recovered most of her old composure-or nastiness, as Agatha judged it to be.
“While I was making the tea,” said Mrs. Dairy, “I was thinking of your so-called detective abilities. I have a shrewd inquiring mind and I am sure I could find out who did it.”
“You mean you want to work with us?” asked Agatha with a sinking heart.
She gave a pitying laugh. “Oh, no. As the bard says, she travels fastest who travels alone.”
“It was Kipling,” corrected Charles. “ ‘He travels fastest who travels alone.’ ”
“Whatever.”
Agatha put her teacup down in the saucer with an angry little click. “Then we will not waste any more of your valuable time.” She got to her feet. Charles rose as well.
“We could compare notes,” said Mrs. Dairy graciously.
“Oh, but that would surely impede your progress.” Agatha headed resolutely for the door. Charles followed her outside. The dog ran after Agatha and began to snuffle eagerly at her ankles again. She picked it up, placed it inside and firmly shut the door. “Horrid little thing. Let’s get home, Charles, so I can disinfect my contaminated shoe.”
After Agatha had washed her feet and put on clean tights and shoes, she j6ined Charles in the kitchen and said, “Portsmouth.”
“What about it?”
“That’s where he used to have a business. We could go there and talk to hairdressers and see if there was any scandal about him.”
“Now? What if the police come calling?”
“So what? We’re not leaving the country.”
“Do you know Portsmouth? Huge place.”
“We’ll get a hotel and look through the Yellow Pages and phone up hairdressers.”
“Waste of time, Aggie. We go to Mircester Library and look up the Yellow Pages for Portsmouth and phone from here.”
Agatha sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I just wanted to get away.”
“Cheer up. If we find out anything on the phone, then we’ll go.”
Just then, the phone rang. It was Mrs. Bloxby. “I think I may have discovered your Maggie for you.”
“Who is she?” said Agatha eagerly. “Where does she live?”
“I may be wrong but I think you want a Maggie Henderson. She lives at nine, Terrace Road, in Badsey. She’s a schoolteacher.”
“How did you find out?”
“I simply give her description, such as it was, and her first name to various people in the surrounding parishes. It may turn out to be the wrong Maggie.”
“We’ll try anyway. Thanks a lot.”
Agatha said goodbye and rang off. She told Charles her news.
“Let’s leave Portsmouth for just now and try this Maggie,” he said. “Badsey’s only a few miles away.”
But when they drove to Badsey and found the correct address it was to find that Maggie Henderson taught at a school at Worcester and was not expected back until about five o’clock. “And with our luck,” said Agatha gloomily, “her husband will be home at the same time. Do we go to Worcester?”
“No,” said Charles. “Let’s go into Evesham and find a place for coffee and make notes on what we’ve got.”
They parked in Merstow Green and walked across the road to a tea-shop off the Market Square. “Look at this!” exclaimed Charles. “The last genuine old English tea-shop in captivity.” It was low-beamed, quiet and dark. A waitress with a gentle Scottish accent took their order.