Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden

"Splendid idea." To Agatha's surprise, Harry was all enthusiasm. "Let's put on our coats and build one right outside the dining-room window where they can see it at lunch-time."

Soon, well wrapped up, they both ventured out. The snow lay in great drifts. "I'll go first," said Harry. "Clear a path."

He headed to a spot in front of he dining-room window. Agatha, like Wenceslas's page, followed in his footsteps.

"I used to be good at this," said Harry. "I'll shape the base if you roll a snowball for a torso."

"Where are the others?" asked Agatha.

"In their rooms, I think." Harry worked busily.

"You never talk about the murders," said Agatha.

"No, I don't. Nothing to do with me. Why should I?"

"You knew Francie. Had a seance with her."

"Oh, that. Maybe that's one reason I don't want to talk about it."

"Why?"

"Because she tricked me. I missed my wife dreadfully and I must have been crazy to go to her. Mind you, her potions and ointments seemed to work."

"So what happened?" asked Agatha.

"I really thought it was my wife. That was until the voice that was supposed to be my wife told me that the bit about the eye of the needle in the Bible was true. Said I should give my money to Francie."

"But if a rich man can't enter the kingdom of heaven, how can a rich woman?" I asked.

"Ah, the voice said Francie would send it on to a good cause. That's when I got suspicious. My wife was very thrifty. 'Must save for our old age,' that's what she always said. I reported Francie to the police. But I'd gone along with it for a little, been conned, and felt like a fool. Don't want to talk about the woman. She's dead anyway."

Agatha rolled a large snowball, and with surprising strength in one so old, Harry lifted it onto the base he had formed while he was talking. "Another one for the head," he ordered.

He began to shape the torso into a woman's bust. Agatha watched, amazed, as a snow-woman began to take shape. "Could you go to the games cupboard," asked Harry, "and get me two marbles for eyes? And some make-up for the face?"

"Right. What about hair?"

"Could you find something? Black hair? And do you have an old dress or coat or something?"

Perfectionist, thought Agatha. What happened to the old-fashioned snowman made of three balls of snow and with a carrot for a nose?

She went up to her room and found an Indian blouse which she had decided she did not much like. What to use for hair? He would need to make do with one of her scarves. She picked out a black one and then found a lipstick and blusher. She then went to the games cupboard in the lounge and took two blood-red marbles out of a jar.

Afterwards, as she surveyed Harry's handiwork, she wished she had taken out two blue or grey marbles, for the red effect was sinister. Harry had created a woman with staring red eyes in a snow face like a death mask. With the black scarf draped round her head and the Indian blouse fluttering in the wind, the snow-woman looked remarkably lifelike and ghoulish.

A gong sounded from the hotel. "Lunch!" said Harry. "Let's get to the dining- room before the rest of them. I want to see their reactions."

They left their coats in the lounge and hurried into the dining-room.

Daisy, Mary, Jennifer and the colonel came in together.

The colonel stopped dead. "By George," he said. "Would you look at that!"

Outside the window the red marble eyes glared in at them from the white face and the black scarf moved in the wind and the blouse fluttered. In that moment, Agatha realized the snow-sculpted features bore a remarkable resemblance to the dead Francie.

"Is it something out of a carnival?" asked Daisy.

But Mary uttered a moan, put a shaking hand to her lips and fainted dead away.

EIGHT

"THE phones are still down," said the colonel after lunch. Mary was lying down in her room being ministered to by Jennifer.

"I know," said Agatha. "I tried to phone Jimmy."

Agatha was beginning to wonder why Harry had gone out of his way to make his snow figure so much like Francie. And why had he such ability?

"Thought that snow thing of Harry's was in remarkably bad taste," said the colonel. He and Daisy and Agatha were sitting in front of the fire in the lounge.

"I'm amazed, however, at his expertise," said Agatha. "I thought he was going to make a traditional snowman."

"I suppose once a sculptor, always a sculptor."

"What! Harry?" Agatha had fondly imagined that sculptors, however old, would look, well, more bohemian.

"Haven't you ever heard of Henry Berry before?" asked the colonel. "He was quite famous in his day. Doesn't do it anymore. Says he hasn't the strength."

"He seems remarkably strong to me." Agatha remembered the ease with which he had lifted and shaped the heavy snow.