Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate Read Online Free PDF

might be able to find out things the police don’t know. They’ll be sticking to facts. We can find out if he conned any of the women in New Cross out of money. One of them could have been watching Mrs Feathers’s cottage and seen him slip out. She may have entered the study by the French windows. There’s no flowerbed in front of the windows to leave footprints, only grass.’
    ‘It all sounds far-fetched to me,’ said Agatha crossly, cross because she expected everyone at all times to play Dr Watson to her Sherlock Holmes. ‘I mean, what sort of person would watch the cottage all night?’
    ‘A jealous, furious woman,’ said John. ‘Come on, Agatha, don’t knock it down just because it wasn’t your idea. We’ll hang around another day to be available for the police and then we’ll go off.’
    ‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ said Mrs Bloxby quietly.
    ‘All right,’ said Agatha sulkily. Mrs Bloxby, despite her fear for her husband and her shock at the murder, could not help but feel amused. There was something childlike about Agatha Raisin with her bearlike eyes under a heavy fringe of glossy brown hair registering a pouting disappointment that someone else was getting in on the act.
    ‘Now, have you eaten?’ asked Agatha. ‘I’ve got some microwave meals at home I could bring along.’
    ‘No, thank you,’ said the vicar’s wife. ‘Neither of us feels like eating.’ She privately thought that even if she and her husband had been starving, they could not have faced one of Agatha’s shop-bought frozen meals.
    Agatha lit a cigarette. ‘Agatha!’ exclaimed Mrs Bloxby, startled into the use of Agatha’s first name. ‘You’re smoking again!’
    ‘Tastes all right now,’ mumbled Agatha.
    John produced a small notebook. ‘I’ll just make a note of these women who were close to Tristan. Let me see – there was a Miss Jellop, and then there were two others.’
    ‘Peggy Slither and Mrs Tremp,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘You call her Peggy?’ asked Agatha. ‘First name?’
    ‘She is not a member of the ladies’ society.’
    ‘What’s she like and where does she live?’ asked John.
    ‘In Ancombe. A cottage called Shangri-la.’
    ‘That’s a bit twee.’
    ‘I think she means it to be a sort of joke. She finds it fashionable to adopt the unfashionable. She has gnomes in her garden. That sort of thing. Rather loud and busty. About fifty. Her money comes from fish and chips. Her father had a profitable chain of fish and chip shops and she sold them when he died.’
    ‘I know Miss Jellop,’ snapped Agatha, who did not like John’s taking over the investigation.
    Mrs Bloxby leaned back and closed her eyes.
    ‘We’d better go,’ said John.
    ‘Phone me if there is anything I can do,’ said Agatha.
    Mrs Bloxby opened her eyes. ‘Just find out who did it.’
    When John and Agatha arrived back at Agatha’s cottage it was to find Bill Wong waiting outside for them. ‘Thought I’d drop in for a chat. Trust you to land in trouble again, Agatha.’
    Agatha unlocked the door. ‘Come in and we’ll have coffee in the garden.’
    Bill Wong was Agatha’s first friend, a young police detective, half Chinese and half English. When they were seated in the garden, he surveyed Agatha with his brown slanting eyes. ‘I know you’ve already made a statement, but I’d like to know a bit more about your evening with Tristan. Did he come on to you?’
    ‘Well, he kissed me.’
    ‘And didn’t that let you know there was something funny about him?’ demanded John sharply. ‘I mean, the difference in ages and all that.’
    ‘I have attracted younger men before,’ said Agatha waspishly.
    ‘So he kissed you. When?’ asked Bill.
    ‘When I was leaving.’
    ‘What sort of kiss? Social peck?’
    ‘No, a warm one, on the lips. What’s all this about?’
    ‘It’s this money business. He was after money, we think. I wondered how far he was prepared to go. If he’d had a full-blown affair with any