Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

"I wish I'd never agreed to it," said Agatha gloomily.

"We haven't ruled out that it might be one of them at the hotel, although it seems far-fetched."

"The colonel's very fit," said Agatha. "Come to think of it, apart from old Mr. Berry, they're all pretty fit."

"Find out anything about them and Francie Juddle?"

"Only from Daisy Jones so far. She says she went to Francie to get in touch with her dead husband." Agatha leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with excitement. "Here's a strange thing. She said that the voice she heard at the seance sounded like that of her dead husband, Hugh, but she said Francie never knew Hugh."

"She did, you know. She logged everything in her yearly appointments books and kept them all. We've got police going through them. Hugh Jones did go to her."

"What for?"

"A cure for impotence."

"So she would know what he sounded like!" said Agatha.

"By all accounts, our Francie was a great mimic."

"But a man's voice!"

"She could have had an accomplice. We're going on 'Crime Watch' tonight to appeal to people who consulted her to come forward."

"What did old Mr. Berry go to her for? Oh, you said it was rheumatism."

"He also wanted to get in touch with his dead wife."

"It's a cruel business, that," said Agatha, "conning people that way."

"Oh, there are a lot of believers. They can't let go of the dead."

"Did you ever feel that way ... about your wife?"

"No, you see much as I missed her dreadfully, I didn't and I don't believe in seances. From my experience, people have to mourn and get it over with or they can go crazy. There's a lot to be said for a good old Irish wake."

"No hope of you being at the dance tonight, Jimmy?"

He rubbed a weary hand over his face. "I'm working flat-out. I only nipped in here"--he flushed slightly--"well, just for a break. I've got to be going."

That love potion must really work, thought Agatha. She knew he had meant that he had come to the pub in the hope of seeing her.

"I'll walk with you," said Agatha.

"I don't think that's wise," said Jimmy awkwardly. "You're still a suspect and I got a bit of a rocket from the force crime officer over at Hadderton when he saw us both on television. They're digging up a lot of colourful stuff out of your past, Agatha. I mean your husband being murdered, and all."

"Oh, God."

"Who's this chap, Lacey, you were thinking of marrying?"

"Just someone. I mean, it didn't work out."

"Not still carrying a torch for him?"

Agatha stared at the table. "No."

"Good." He patted her hand.

Agatha sat smiling to herself after he had left. She liked his thick white skin and his sleepy eyelids and his tall figure. What would it be like being married to a police inspector? She began to imagine their wedding, but when she got to the bit where James Lacey asked for a dance with the bride and told her he had always loved her that Agatha snapped out of it. It would be typical of such as James Lacey to tell her he loved her when there was no chance of doing anything about it.

She left the pub and bought the newspapers and then went to the cafe she had gone to with Jimmy for lunch, not wanting to return to the hotel for one of their mammoth meals.

She sat and read the newspapers. On the front of two of them was a photograph of Janine Juddle. In an interview, she said she would be moving to Wyckhadden to carry on her mother's business of helping people. She said she would ask the spirits of the dead to rise up and find the murderer of her poor mother. Janine was a hard-faced blonde. Beside her in the photograph was a surly-looking man with close-cropped hair. The husband. Now he could have done it, thought Agatha. Janine might hold the purse-strings, but ready money had been stolen and who better to know that it had been there than the son-in-law.

Agatha wondered how long it would be before Janine started her business in Wyckhadden.

She went for another long walk and then back to the hotel. She felt she ought to go into the lounge and see if she could grill any of the residents, but she was suddenly very tired. She would see enough of them later.

Agatha went down for dinner wearing a red satin blouse and a long evening skirt. She had tried on the little black dress but decided again that such glamour was definitely wasted on Wyckhadden.

Daisy Jones was resplendent in an evening gown of pink net covered with sequins. When had she last seen a gown like that? wondered Agatha. The fifties. But it was the sight of the others that made Agatha blink. Old Mr. Berry was wearing a greenish-black evening suit and the colonel was also in evening dress and black tie. Jennifer Stobbs was wearing a black velvet trouser suit and Mary Dulsey was exposing a lot of wrinkled skin in a strapless green silk gown.

"We're all going," Daisy shouted over. "Isn't this fun?"