"A Spoonful of Poison" - читать интересную книгу автора (Beaton M C)

Chapter Two

SIR CHARLES FRAITH, a friend of Agatha’s, placed his slippered feet on a footstool in his drawing room and switched on the television to BBC news.

Agatha’s frantic face seemed to leap at him out of the screen. “I don’t know what happened,” she was saying to the interviewer. “I think some maniac put something in the jam.”

The interviewer went on to describe the events at Agatha’s disastrous church fête. Apart from Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Jessop, two villagers had suffered heart attacks.

The camera panned out over the village. It looked as if the whole of the county’s police force were on the scene, busy taking down names and addresses. They’ll never forgive Agatha for the expense of all this manpower, thought Charles. I’ll get over there this evening and pick up the pieces.

As dusk settled down over the Cotswolds and blossoms glimmered whitely in the fading light, all was peace and quiet except at Comfrey Magna.

Inside the tent, lit by the harsh glare of halogen lights, the two organizers of the jam tasting, a Mrs. Glarely and a Mrs. Cranton, sat weeping quietly.

Agatha and Toni were being interviewed inside the tent for what seemed to Agatha like the hundredth time.

Facing her was Detective Inspector Wilkes, flanked by Detective Sergeant Collins. Bill Wong had been sidelined by Collins, a nasty, pushy woman, who had pointed out to Wilkes that Bill was tainted by his friendship with Agatha and should be kept out of the interview. Collins had said she was transferring to the Metropolitan Police, but Bill had a sinking feeling that she’d been turned down. Behind Agatha, waiting to be interviewed again, were the vicar, his wife and George.

“Now this Betsy Wilson,” said Wilkes, “she was involved in some drug scandal a few years ago.”

“She’s clean,” said Agatha, “and she didn’t go near the jam tent. Betsy went straight to the platform. Her band had arrived earlier and set up. She sang her songs and left.”

“What about the members of the band?” rasped Collins. Her hair was pulled back so severely that Agatha was amazed her eyes didn’t water. “That lot are always into drugs. Assuming it was drugs and not some nasty local herb in the preserves.”

“I think it was LSD,” said Toni suddenly. “I’ve been thinking about it. It’s a hallucinogen.”

“And how come you know about it, young lady?” demanded Wilkes.

“It was a case we turned over to Worcester CID earlier this year,” said Toni. “Do you remember, Agatha? A mother thought her son was on drugs. I followed him to that club in Evesham and found they were giving out tabs quite openly. So I informed the police and the club was raided.”

“What are tabs?”

“LSD is usually found on little squares of blotting paper called tabs,” said Toni. “It’s also a clear liquid. All someone had to do was tip a few drops into each of the jam-testing dishes. I gather the show was set up early in the morning and then the organizers went home for breakfast. It might be an idea to trace the source of the drug. LSD isn’t all that common in the clubs these days. It’s all Ecstasy or crack cocaine or heroin.”

Toni was a pretty young girl aged eighteen. She had naturally fair hair. Collins threw her a look of dislike. “You seem to know a lot about drugs.”

“It’s my job,” said Toni. “I’m a detective. You see, that’s how I found out our two organizers had left the tent empty. Before the tent was opened to the public, the various jam dishes were covered with white cloths fastened with drawing pins. The tent was only opened to the public after Betsy had finished singing.”

“It wasn’t us,” wailed Mrs. Glarely.

“We’ll need the names of all the women who contributed jam,” said Wilkes. He sighed. “Are there many?”

“Only six,” said Toni, pulling out a notebook. “I have their names and addresses here.”

“Good girl,” said Wilkes, and Agatha felt a little stab of jealousy. She felt tired and jaded, and there was Toni looking as fresh as a daisy. Had George noticed Toni? That was the trouble with middle-aged men. They were allowed to fancy young girls. Middle-aged women fancying young men were called cradle snatchers.

“And,” went on Toni, “Mrs. Cranton said apart from these ladies, the only people who came into the tent before it was officially opened were Mr. George Selby, the vicar and his wife, and a pig farmer called Hal Bassett-”

“What was a pig farmer doing in the jam tent before it was opened?” interrupted Wilkes.

“He was trying to get an advance taste. He eats home-made jam by the spoonful. Then there was Miss Triast-Perkins from the manor. She claimed that she wanted to be sure of decorum at all the events. She said that Mrs. Raisin was out to ruin the village by running the fête like a three-ringed circus.”

Agatha hated being left out. “Could we continue all this in the morning?” she pleaded.

“And I need to let the marquee people come and collect the tents tomorrow,” said George.

“Just a few more questions,” snapped Collins.

And so it went on until nearly midnight, when they were all told they could go but to report to a mobile police unit which would be in place in the village in the morning.

As they all walked outside the tent, Agatha asked George, “Do you know how much we made?”

“The vicar is going to count the money. There must be thousands. Of course, any relatives of Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Jessop must be compensated, not to mention any people who suffered ill health.”

Agatha had been about to suggest she should be compensated for hiring the security firm, but decided it might sound callous. She was desperately wondering how to set up a date with George when she heard the vicar calling her.

Reluctantly she turned back as George hurried away. “Mrs. Raisin,” said Arthur Chance, “this is a terrible business. I would like to hire your agency to find out who did this terrible thing.”

Trixie protested. “There are police all over the place.”

“Mrs. Raisin’s agency has a good reputation,” said the vicar firmly.

“I’ll do it,” said Agatha. “I feel responsible.”

“So you should,” said Trixie, tossing her long hair. “Where’s George?”

“I think he’s gone home,” said Agatha. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

She headed to where she had parked her car to find Toni waiting for her. “We’ve been employed,” said Agatha. “I think you and I should concentrate on this case and leave Phil and Patrick to cope with the rest.” Agatha suddenly remembered Bill’s request. “How are you and Bill getting along?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“Madly in love?”

“We’re just friends. No fire lit. Not for me, not for him, but poor Bill thinks there should be something just because his mum and dad want it.” Toni had wanted to leave the agency and join the police force, but she owed Agatha a great deal. Agatha had rescued her from a brutal home. Perhaps when this case was over, she might find the courage to leave.

“See you at the office,” said Agatha, stifling a yawn. “Make it eight o’clock. I’ll phone Phil and Patrick and get them there early as well.”

As Agatha drove up to her cottage, she saw Charles’s car parked outside. She frowned in irritation. She didn’t feel like coping with Charles and she resented the way he used her cottage like a hotel.

She let herself in. Charles was asleep on the sofa, with the television still on. Agatha switched it off and went upstairs to bed without waking Charles. Sleep did not come easily. She tossed and turned, remembering the events of the catastrophic day. It had all started so well, good-natured crowds flooding into the village and over to a field where a stage had been set up for Betsy. How pretty she had looked with her filmy dress floating in the slightest of breezes. After Betsy had driven off, a great number of people had started to head away. Then the disaster of poor Mrs. Andrews’s flight from the tower. Who had put LSD, if that’s what it was, in the jam? She remembered Toni’s concise report. Her young detective had really shown her up. But she, Agatha, had been running here and there, trying to get the security guards to contain the scene. She fell down at last into a nightmare where Trixie and George were laughing at her because she had turned up at the fête without a stitch on.

In the morning she stumbled out of bed, feeling immeasurably tired. She showered and dressed and hurried downstairs. Charles was still asleep on the sofa, the cats beside him. She scribbled a note, telling him to feed the cats and let them out into the garden and then she drove off to Mircester where she had her office.

Phil Marshall and Patrick Mulligan, who had been called in by Agatha that Sunday for an emergency meeting, groaned when Agatha said that she and Toni were going to handle the Comfrey Magna case. Phil Marshall was in his seventies and Patrick was a retired police detective.

“You’ll need to hire someone else,” said Patrick. “Phil and I can’t cope on our own with the workload. I know a retired detective.”

“This is getting like the geriatric employment agency,” snapped Agatha, and then seeing the look of hurt on Phil’s face, said quickly, “Sorry about that. Yes. Hire him. Mrs. Freedman will set up a contract for him.” Mrs. Freedman, the secretary, gave a little smile. They had already discussed the idea of hiring someone extra before Agatha arrived, and the retired detective was one of her cousins. Agatha went through the files and allocated work for Monday morning and then turned to Toni. “We’d better be off to the scene of the crime. It’ll be crawling with press, although a lot of them will be doorstepping Betsy in London.” She bit her lip in vexation. She hadn’t had time to look at the Sunday morning’s papers, but she was sure they would have raked up all that old drug scandal about Betsy. Must get the vicar to say something about Betsy being a saint, she thought.

When Toni and Agatha arrived back at Comfrey Magna, they avoided the mobile police unit and went straight to the vicarage, battling their way through the press.

To Agatha’s delight, George answered the door.

“Mr. Chance is in the study with my accountant. We’re counting up the money.”

Agatha followed George into the study, looking dreamily at his back. He was wearing a shirt as blue as the sky above, chinos and shoes which looked as if they had been handmade.

“Ah, Mrs. Raisin!” cried the vicar, running around his desk to take Agatha’s hands in his. “We have a fortune here. Various charities will get a generous sum, the church roof will be repaired, and then we will compensate the families of the bereaved.”

“How much?” asked Agatha.

“Oh, let me introduce our accountant. Mrs. Raisin, or may I call you Agatha?”

“Please do.”

“Agatha, I would like to introduce Mr. Arnold Birntweather. He lives in our village and has kindly offered his services. Tell her how much we have.”

“We have thirty thousand pounds,” said Arnold.

He was a very small man, with a dowager’s hump and small eyes magnified by thick glasses. His hair was an improbable brown.

Again, Agatha was tempted to suggest that they pay her for the services of the security firm and then again decided it would look too mean. Also, any builder these days with the expertise to repair the church roof would take most if not all of the money.

“Where is Trixie?” asked Agatha, looking around for what she had privately damned as the “competition.”

“My poor wife has gone to the hairdresser. She has been so shocked by the events of yesterday. She felt like some type of beauty treatment to calm her nerves. Now I must get to the church for morning service.”

“Could you please say a few words to the press outside after the service about Betsy?” asked Agatha. “Something nice about such a famous pop star giving up her time?”

“Of course,” said Arthur.

“I’ll come with you,” said George.

“Good idea,” said Agatha brightly.

“Shouldn’t we be out there interviewing people?” whispered Toni.

“They’ll all be in church,” muttered Agatha as the vicar rushed off, clutching his sermon.

The church of Saint Odo The Severe had not escaped the attentions of Cromwell’s troops. There was no stained glass in the windows and bright shafts of sunlight shone through mullioned panes of clear glass. The church was full. Toni fretted. Instead of getting on with the job, they were now trapped inside for a full morning service.

Agatha wondered where the vicar’s wife had managed to find a hairdresser on a Sunday.

As the service dragged on, Agatha’s conscience began to get the better of her. George was in the pew in front and all she could do was stare at the back of his head.

She pinched Toni’s arm in the middle of a rendering of “Abide with Me” and jerked her head to indicate they should leave.

They both emerged, blinking in the sunlight. Boy Scouts and Girl Guides-or did they call them Girl Scouts these days?-were moving about the village, filling up plastic bags with rubbish. Either they had drafted in troops from surrounding villages, thought Agatha, or this was a very fecund village. “We’ll start with Hal Bassett, the pig farmer,” said Agatha.

She stopped one of the Scouts and asked the boy if he knew where Bassett’s pig farm was. “I don’t come from here,” said the boy, moodily poking a plastic bag with a pointed stick. “Ask her over there, the girl with the carroty hair. She’s from here.”

The girl when questioned said that Hal Bassett’s farm was outside the village up on the hill to the left.

“Is it far?” asked Agatha. She was wearing high-heeled sandals.

“No,” said the girl, pointing to the left. “You go along to the end of the village and walk straight up the hill. You’ll see a sign to the farm. It’s called Bassett’s Piggery. You can’t miss it. It smells.”

“What if he’s in church?” asked Toni as they set off.

“Don’t think so.” Agatha had convinced herself that a jam-loving pig farmer would not be religious.

It was a long straggling village, possibly built along one of the old drove roads. The church was at one end and the road leading to the farm at the other. The small cottages on both sides of the road did not have any gardens at the front. They seemed to crouch beside the road, small, old and secretive. Nobody moved on the deserted main street. Unlike Carsely, there were no streets leading off the main one. One main street was all there was to Comfrey Magna. In a few gaps between the houses, Agatha could see gardens at the back full of spring blossom, but no one had thought to plant anything in the little bit of earth between the houses and the road in the front. The place was deserted.

The street was cobbled. A heel of Agatha’s sandal got stuck between the cobbles and was wrenched off.

“You wait here,” said Toni. “I’ll run back and get the car.”

Agatha enviously watched her flying figure as Toni raced off down the street. Toni’s fair hair gleamed in the sunlight. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and flat sandals. Why did I get all dressed up? mourned Agatha in all the glory of a mustard-coloured linen suit with a short skirt. Because you wanted to get Gorgeous George’s attention, said the inner governess. Agatha was not plagued by any inner child but by this governess, who yakked on, “Why were you so stupid? What do you know of George? Has he shown any wit, humour, charm or anything? No. So here you are, all dressed up like a dog’s dinner.”

Agatha began to wish Toni would hurry up. It was as if there was a feeling of dislike emanating from the very stones of the old cottages. She kept feeling there was a face at one of the windows, just seen out of the corner of her eye, but when she whipped round, the window was empty and blank.

She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Toni arriving with her car at last. Agatha climbed in. “I’ve got a pair of flat shoes in the back,” she said. “I’ll put them on when we get to the farm.”

The farm turned out to be nearly at the top of a very steep hill leading out of the village. “I bet he looks like one of his pigs,” said Agatha. “All that jam. He’s probably round and pink like a porker.”

“It does pong something awful,” said Toni when she drove into the farmyard.

“I hope he’s at home after all this.” Agatha put on a pair of flat sandals and flexed her toes with relief.

“It was a funny time of year for a jam tasting,” said Toni. “I mean, you would think maybe after the strawberries came out.”

“In this backward dump, they probably make jam out of weeds,” said Agatha. “The farm door’s open. Hullo! Anybody at home?”

A thin, commanding-looking woman dressed in jeans and a washed-up cotton blouse appeared in the doorway. She had thick grey hair, grey eyes and a thin mouth.

She looked Agatha up and down and sighed. “You Jehovahs,” she said in an upper-class accent. “Dragging your poor children from door to door.”

“I am not a Jehovah,” snapped Agatha. “My name is Agatha Raisin and this is one of my detectives, Miss Toni Gilmour.”

“Oh, so you’re the female responsible for the deaths yesterday.”

“Look,” said Agatha, “I would like to speak to Mr. Bassett.”

“I am Mrs. Bassett.” Her eyes raked Agatha from head to foot. You could leave the Birmingham slum, thought Agatha, but it was always there, deep inside, waiting to make you feel inferior.

“It’s Mr. Bassett I want to speak to.” Agatha’s small eyes bored truculently into Mrs. Bassett’s face.

“Come in,” she said abruptly.

They followed her into a kitchen which was like something out of the pages of Cotswold Life magazine. It shone and gleamed in the sunlight, from the latest utensils to the copper pots hanging on hooks above a granite counter.

“Wait there,” commanded Mrs. Bassett, pointing towards a kitchen table surrounded by Windsor chairs.

She strode out the back door and called in stentorian tones, “Hal!”

There was a faint answering cry.

“He’s coming,” said Mrs. Bassett, striding back into the kitchen.

As usual, Agatha’s eyes ranged around the room looking for an ashtray, but she could not see a single one.

Mrs. Bassett began to grind coffee beans. She had her back to them and seemed unaware of their very existence.

Hal Bassett came into the kitchen. Mrs. Bassett swung round. “Boots!” she said.

Hal retreated to the doorway, sat down on a small stool at the entrance and tugged off his green wellies.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“It’s that Agatha Raisin woman and her sidekick,” said Mrs. Bassett.

Hal walked up to the kitchen table, twisted a chair round and straddled it. I hate men who do that, thought Agatha.

He was a tall brown-haired man dressed in a checked shirt and cords. He smelt strongly of pig. “So you’re the female responsible for the mayhem yesterday,” he remarked. His voice was light and pleasant. He had a square regular face. He did not look at all like the kind of person to haunt a jam-tasting exhibition.

“I’m not responsible for the LSD in the jam-if that is what the drug was,” said Agatha.

“What did you expect, encouraging a load of riff-raff to come here?” said Hal.

“It seems as if it had nothing to do with the visitors,” said Agatha. “The exhibition was set up in the marquee early in the morning by the organizers, Mrs. Glarely and Mrs. Cranton. The only people to visit the tent before the opening were yourself, Miss Triast-Perkins, the vicar and his wife and Mr. Selby. Did you taste any of the jam?”

“No,” said Hal. “I tried to buy a pot of plum jam from the ones on sale, but I was told I’d have to wait. Mrs. Cranton wouldn’t let me try any of the samples until the place was open to the public. Fair carried away with all this pop-singer nonsense.”

“Did you go back?”

“Couldn’t. Got a sow in farrow. I had to get back here.”

Toni smiled at him. “We aren’t suggesting you had anything to do with it. Of course not. But we wondered whether you might have seen anything when you were in the marquee.”

Hal smiled back. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing being a detective? No, I didn’t see anything out of the way. But if I remember something, I’ll phone you. Got a card?”

Toni took out one of her business cards, but before he could take it, it was snatched by Mrs. Bassett, who said icily, “Hal has work to do. If you’ve finished, we’d like to get on.”

They were just getting into the car in the farmyard when Hal came hurrying out. He thrust a packet of sausages at Toni. “Here you are,” he said. “Prime pork. My own pigs.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Toni. “Does it always pong like this round here?”

He laughed. “I’ve got a load of pig muck stacked up to sell to the farmers for fertilizer. It’ll be cleared out tomorrow. My pigs don’t smell. Come back sometime and I’ll give you a tour.”

“Hal!” called Mrs. Bassett from the doorway.

“Coming.”

“You’ve made a conquest there,” said Agatha, feeling low. How great it would be to be young and pretty like Toni. George would surely pay attention to her.

“George was in the tent as well,” said Toni. “I forgot about that. Do you know anything about him?”

“No, only that his wife died.”

“Maybe he poisoned her.”

“Just drive,” said Agatha sourly. “And find the manor house. We’d better have a word with Miss Triast-Perkins.”

Toni drove back down into the village. “Aren’t we supposed to be reporting to the police?”

“Later.”

People were returning from the church service. Toni lowered the window and asked for directions to the manor, and was told it was at the other end of the village, just beyond the church. “Did you see the way they were all looking at us?” asked Toni. “They’re all in their Sunday best, but if you put them in, say, medieval dress, their faces would fit. They looked as if they would really like to lynch us. I bet there’s a lot of nasty things go on behind closed doors here-wife beating, incest and drunkenness.

“Or maybe they’re too God-fearing to get up to anything nasty,” said Agatha. “Anyway, I could imagine one of them poisoning the jam with some nasty poisonous plant. But LSD? I don’t think any of them would even know where to get it.”

“Oh, oh.” Toni braked suddenly.

“What is it?”

“Bill’s waving us over to the mobile police unit.”

Another hour and a half of rigorous questioning by Collins and Wilkes left Agatha beginning to feel as if she had put the LSD in the jam herself.

When she and Toni were finally allowed to go, Agatha looked around, hoping to see a sign of George, but he was nowhere to be seen.

They got in the car and drove to the manor house. The large iron gates were propped open. Beside the gates was a lodge house, fallen into disrepair. “I wonder why the lodge was left like that,” said Agatha. “With the clamour for housing these days, you’d think she’d have sold it off.”

The manor house was a square Georgian building, the front of which was covered by the twisting branches of an old wisteria just coming into flower. Like the village, it had a blank, secretive air. Several of the windows had been blocked up from the days when owners tried to avoid the window tax.

They got out of the car and Agatha rang the bell. They waited patiently. Turning round, Toni noticed that the garden was unkempt-just a weedy lawn and several bushes planted around it.

The door opened. “Are you Miss Triast-Perkins?” asked Agatha.

She was a small thin woman with grey hair worn straight from a centre parting. Her face was thin and her large eyes were pale blue. She was wearing a faded print summer dress.

“You are that woman who organized the fête,” she said. “You’d better come in.”

They followed her into a gloomy sitting room where nothing seemed to have been changed since Victorian times: heavy furniture, stuffed birds in glass cases, framed photographs, and a grand piano covered by a fringed shawl.

“You were in the jam-tasting exhibition before it opened,” began Agatha. “I wonder if you noticed anyone lifting the covers over the jam.”

“No. I asked Mrs. Glarely if I could see that my marmalade was in a prominent position, but she went all bossy and refused to let me see. Those normally quiet sheepish women can turn quite bullying when they are put in charge of anything. Mr. Bassett came in to see if he could get a taste, but she refused him as well. Mr. Bassett and I talked to the vicar and that silly wife of his, who had just turned up. Oh, and dear Mr. George Selby. Poor man. He does mourn for his wife. She was such a pretty woman and did a lot of work for the parish.”

“How did she die?” asked Agatha.

“The poor thing fell downstairs. She was carrying a tray of things and missed her footing. George is an architect and I’d warned him about those stairs. He has an old cottage near the church. Very old staircase, stone, you know, with deep steps.”

“When did this happen?”

“Last year, in June. I don’t think he’ll ever marry again. No one could match up to Sarah.”

“Sarah being his late wife?”

“Yes.”

“And she was pretty?”

What on earth was Agatha doing? wondered Toni.

“Oh, so dainty. A little slip of a thing.”

Agatha began to feel large and lumpy.

Toni said, “The problem is this. We believe that someone put LSD into the jam-tasting dishes. But the young people at the fête did not begin to queue up, having heard there was some drug available, until after the damage had been done. So it could very well have happened at the beginning, when the jam tasting was open to the public.”

“You’ll need to ask the organizers who was there. I went off to walk round the other displays.”

“Where do Mrs. Cranton and Mrs. Glarely live?”

“On either side of the pub in the main street. Mrs. Glarely on the near side and Mrs. Cranton on the far side.”

“If you can think of anything at all that might help, please phone me,” said Agatha, handing over her card.

Outside, Toni asked, “Why all the questions about George?”

“He was in the tent at the beginning,” said Agatha defensively.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Toni, “it wouldn’t take much effort to slide some LSD into the jam. It’s a clear liquid. Instead of tabs of the stuff, someone could have had a small flask concealed in the palm of their hand. There are too many suspects. How are we ever going to find out who did it?”

“We’ll just need to push on.” Agatha took the wheel this time, but as they were approaching the vicarage, she saw George going in and slammed on the brakes.

“Toni, I think it would be a good idea if you could go ahead and interview these ladies on your own. I want to check something with the vicar.”

And she’s just seen George going in to the vicarage, thought Toni. She really is in pursuit of that man. Aloud, she said cheerfully, “Just park the car. I’ll walk.”

When Toni had left, Agatha got a bag of make-up out of the glove compartment and repaired her face and brushed her hair.

The vicarage door was open. She walked in, hearing the sound of voices coming from the back of the house. Through the kitchen window she saw, to her dismay, not only George and the vicar and his wife but Charles Fraith. They were sitting round a garden table under the shade of a cedar tree, chatting animatedly. Trixie Chance had turned into a blonde. Her long hair fell in golden waves to her shoulders. Where the hell did she get a dye job like that done on a Sunday? wondered Agatha. And blast and damn Charles.

As she approached the group, Charles called out, “Hi, Aggie. Why didn’t you wake me up when you got home last night?”

Trixie looked amused. As Agatha sat down in a chair at the table, Trixie asked, “Are you pair an item?”

“Just friends,” snapped Agatha.

“Thought so. Bit young for you.”

Agatha was in her early fifties and Charles in his forties. She decided she actually hated Trixie. A breeze blew across the garden, sending a shower of petals from a fruit tree swirling across the grass. It blew a strand of Trixie’s golden hair onto George’s shoulder. He was sitting very close to her.

“How have you been getting on with the investigation?” asked Charles.

“Not very far. The list of suspects gets longer and longer.”

“I wonder if it was simply one kind of jam that had the LSD in it,” said Charles. “If they could find that out at the autopsy, we could focus on the person who made that jam.”

“Won’t work,” said Agatha. “Too many people were getting stoned. Toni says someone could have had a small flask of the stuff. Maybe the police should try to trace where that came from. Can’t see the drug dealers selling flasks of the stuff.”

“It also comes in gelatine squares,” said Charles.

“How do you know that?”

“Googled it on your computer this morning,” said Charles.

Charles looked as lazy and relaxed as always. He was wearing a short-sleeved checked shirt and jeans of that soft expensive blue look which costs a fortune. His fair hair was barbered and his neat features looked amused as he glanced from Agatha around the group.

“I came to help you,” he said to Agatha. “Perhaps we should start with the jam makers.”

“Toni’s talking to two of them, so that leaves four.” Agatha took out her notebook. “No, it leaves two. Mrs. Andrews and Mrs. Jessop were jam makers. The two remaining ones are Miss Tubby and Miss Tolling. Was there a lot of competition amongst the jam makers?”

“I don’t think so,” said the vicar. “Mrs. Andrews usually won. Her chunky marmalade was superb.”

“But there’s another one,” exclaimed Agatha. “Miss Triast-Perkins up at the manor. She said she had marmalade in the tasting.”

“I forgot about her,” said Trixie. “It’s the first year she’s entered anything.”

“So where can we find Miss Tubby and Miss Tolling?” asked Charles.

“They live together,” said the vicar.

“Lesbians,” said Trixie, twisting a long strand of golden hair between beringed fingers.

“Now, dear,” admonished Arthur. “I am sure it is all very innocent. They live in Rose Cottage, opposite the pub.”

“I never saw a pub,” said Agatha.

“It used to be a shop. It’s set a little back from the road. Called the Grunty Man.”

“Odd name.”

“Probably was the Green Man at one time.”

“Where have all the press gone?” asked Agatha.

“The police decided they were interfering with the investigation and banished them from the village and they have stopped any more entering.”

Toni had failed to get anything out of either Mrs. Glarely or Mrs. Cranton. At both addresses she was told by their husbands to “get lost.” She wandered back down the village street in the sunshine.

Men were dismantling the marquees which had held the exhibits. She stood watching as they took down the jam tent. As the canvas collapsed, something small and glittering in the sunlight rolled out from the folds and lay on the grass. Toni ran forward. It was a small glass phial.

“Stop!” she screamed at the workers. “Evidence. Stop! Get the police.”

The door of the mobile police unit opened and Bill Wong came out. “Over here, Bill,” yelled Toni.

Bill ran to join her and Toni pointed to the phial on the grass. Bill put on a pair of latex gloves, took out an evidence bag, carefully lifted up the phial and popped it in the bag.

“Why didn’t we see that before?” he asked.

“It fell out of the canvas when they were taking the marquee down,” said Toni.

“You’d best come back with me and make a statement. Don’t let Collins fluster you. She’ll probably suggest you put it there yourself!”