“Nothing. I mean, what’s the point? We haven’t the resources of the police. I’m going to bed.”
“Come into the living-room a minute and let’s have a nightcap. We have to talk.”
“I told you, Roy, I’m dropping the case.”
“Dropping the case,” jeered Roy. “Hark at the great detective. I want to talk about us.”
Agatha’s bearlike eyes narrowed. “If you’ve come down here again in the name of friendship to twist my arm into going back into public relations, forget it.”
“I did come down here just to see you, but Mr. Wilson did happen to mention…” Mr. Wilson was Roy’s boss.
“I thought so,” said Agatha bitterly. “You’ll need to share a bed with Charles and I hope you’ll be very happy together.”
She made for the door. “I’m going to get my cats. I’ll run you to the station in the morning. Early train.”
“But, Aggie…”
“Good night.”
After Agatha had seen a still-protesting Roy off on the early-morning train, she returned to the cottage to find Charles sitting in the kitchen, wrapped in a dressing-gown and buttering toast.
“What the hell do you mean by creeping back here last night,” snapped Agatha. “I thought the murderer had broken in. I summoned the local bobby and he found you fast asleep.”
“That’s tunny.”
“It was not funny at all. So when you’ve finished your breakfast, please leave.”
Charles looked mildly at the flushed and angry Agatha.
“What’s got your knickers in a twist?”
“You, you insensitive, self-absorbed little bastard. You have sex with me, bugger off and then tell me you’re in love.”
“Was in love. Was.”
“Then you couldn’t have been in love in the first place.”
“You’re probably right. Do sit down. I’ve made some coffee. It’s as hot as the steam coming out of your ears.”
Agatha’s rage subsided. She felt suddenly weary. She sat down.
“Did you not think, Charles, that your behaviour towards me was selfish and insensitive?”
“No, Aggie. I thought we had fun. Then I had these guests and there was this girl, eminently suitable.”
“That doesn’t sound like love.”
“It sounds like marriage. I really think I ought to get married. Get an heir and all that.” He waved a piece of buttered toast in the air. “But she didn’t even like me. Met some friend in a restaurant in Stratford and went off with him and left me flat. So I thought, I’d best get back and see what Aggie’s up to.”
“Just don’t come on to me again!”
“You, Aggie, were the one who crept into my bed.”
“For comfort, not sex.”
“I thought the sex very comfortable.”
“You’re not only immoral, Charles, you’re amoral.”
“Perhaps. How’s the case?”
Agatha sighed. “Dead in the water. I went to Portsmouth.”
“And?”
Agatha told him about Harriet.
“It’s a wonder you didn’t stay on in Portsmouth. It’s probably crawling with blackmailers of the wicked hairdresser.”
“John’s ex-wife probably knows all about it, but she could be anywhere in the country now. The police have the resources to trace her. I don’t. Oh, and I found out something else.” She told him about Jessie and Mavis.
Charles listened intently. Then he said, “Run that bit about Mavis past me again.”
Agatha looked at him in surprise but repeated what had happened during her interview with Mavis.
“And you believed her?” Charles reached across the table and fished a cigarette out of Agatha’s packet.
“Why not? She seemed a straightforward, honest woman. Her home was clean and tidy. It had the atmosphere of a happy family home.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“Why?”
“She just sounds too good to be true.”
“Oh, well, I suppose you won’t be satisfied until you’ve met her. I never checked to see if you’d packed and taken your clothes away.”
“No, I rushed off and left them. I’ll go and dress and we’ll be off.”
“I wonder if she’ll be at home,” said Agatha as she turned off the by-pass and into the Four Pools Estate. “Perhaps we should have phoned first.”
“Better to surprise her,” said Charles. “Got another cigarette?”
“We’re nearly there and if you’re going to take up smoking in earnest, then I suggest you buy your own.”
“Filthy habit. There’s this hypnotist in Gloucester, said to work wonders.”
“I might try that,” said Agatha. “I heard about him. But if I do give up smoking, I hope to God I don’t turn into one of those morons who goes around making smokers’ lives hell. Here we are. You see, you didn’t have time for another cigarette.”
As they walked up the path, a curtain twitched. The door opened before they could even ring the bell and Mavis stood there, smiling a welcome.
“How nice to see you again!” she cried. “Come in. This your husband?”
I like this woman, thought Agatha. It was flattering to be considered Charles’s wife, as Charles was much younger than she.
Agatha introduced Charles and they both followed Mavis inside. Mavis bustled off to make tea while Charles walked around the room, peering at photographs. “Now here’s a thing, Aggie,” he whispered. “Our Mavis was on the stage in her youth.”
“So?”
“So her acting abilities might have fooled you.”
“I’m a good judge of character,” said Agatha huffily.
“Except when it comes to men.”
Agatha was glaring at him as Mavis tripped in bearing the tea-tray.
After she had served tea, Mavis asked brightly, “So what brings you back?”
Agatha looked helplessly at Charles, who smiled at Mavis and said, “Aggie here told me what you had said and I wondered why you had lied to her.”
Mavis goggled at him and Agatha stared at Charles in surprise.
Then Mavis’s face cleared and she laughed. “Oh, all that stuff about my Betty being a drug addict.”
“No,” said Charles. “I believe that was a lie. But I happen to know that Shawpart was blackmailing you.”
There was a shocked silence. “Mam!” called a child shrilly out on the street. A car drove past, a gust of wind rattled the leaves of the wisteria outside the window and then the room was quiet again.
At last Mavis said in a thin voice, “So that letter wasn’t burnt in the fire.”
Agatha looked to Charles for help, but he was studying Mavis, waiting for her to go on.
“If my husband finds out,” said Mavis, “it’ll be the end of our marriage.”
“He won’t,” said Agatha fiercely. “Tell her, Charles!”
But Charles waited patiently.
“It was like this,” said Mavis. “He flattered me. He said I should never have left the stage. Oh, he worked on me. He got me when I was feeling down and bored and he supplied a bit of excitement. At first it was just sneaky little coffee meetings and then he said we couldn’t talk freely when we were frightened that someone would see us. He invited me to his house. We drank a lot of champagne and he told me… he told me he loved me. He was so passionate, he seemed so sincere. And I thought I was the actor! So I went to bed with him. I was so infatuated, I was prepared to run away with him.”
She began to cry. They waited until she had blown her nose and composed herself.
“Then he did not get in touch with you,” prompted Agatha.
“Yes, and I was desperate. I thought I had done or said something. I wrote to him. When he phoned and said he wanted to meet me, I was over the moon. Then he told me unless I paid him he would send the letter to my husband.”
“I thought you didn’t have any money of your own,” said Agatha.
“I lied. I had a bit put by. But then what seemed like a miracle happened. He was murdered. No, it wasn’t me, although I dreamed of it. Don’t go to the police.”
“We won’t go to the police,” said Agatha. “And there’s no evidence. All the evidence was burnt in the fire.”