The Agatha Raisin Series, page 239
“I’ll see if it’s still working. Good, it is. What have you got there?”
The thin beam of the torch shone on a dusty leather wrapped package. “Must have fallen out of somewhere,” said Agatha. “Let’s take it with us. I don’t want to spend any more time in this house. Not the jewels, anyway. Feels like some sort of book.”
She felt relieved when they were finally up the stairs to the cellar and then up and out of the cellar and out of the house. They hurried to the car.
“I hope no one saw us,” panted Agatha when she finally sank into the car seat. “Now, what do we do? We should tell the police about that passage. That’s how someone got into the house to frighten her.”
“We can’t tell them,” said Paul. “They’d want to know how we found it. Let’s get back to your place and have a look at what we’ve found.”
Once back in Agatha’s cottage, she placed the leather package reverently on the kitchen table. Paul carefully unwrapped it, revealing a leather-bound book. He opened it. “It’s a diary!” he said. “It’s Lamont’s diary.”
“Does it say anything about his treasure?” asked Agatha.
“Let’s see. It’s a detailed account of the preparations for the Battle of Worcester and an inventory of provisions and arms.” He turned the pages. “Then there’s a description of the battle.”
“Skip to the end,” said Agatha excitedly. “He’d hide the treasure when he knew the battle was lost.”
“Don’t rush me!”
Paul turned the pages to the end of the book with what seemed to Agatha maddening slowness.
“Here we are,” said Paul. “He must have written this last bit when he took refuge with Simon Lovesey. ‘Such Gold and Jewels as I had with me, I buried in Timmin’s Field, north of Worcester, before making my Circuitous Way to Hebberdon to seek Refuge. I have not told Mine Host this although he pressures me for Information in an odd way. I shall hide this record until I am sure that his Sympathy with Our Cause is safe.’”
Paul closed the book, his eyes shining with excitement. “So now we know where the treasure is.”
“Let’s go and look for it tomorrow,” cried Agatha. “If we find anything, we can see if Lamont’s got any remaining descendents alive.”
“Timmin’s Field,” mused Paul. “Timmin was probably a farmer.”
“I’ve got an ordnance survey map of the Worcester area,” said Agatha. She hurried off and came back with the map. But although they searched the names of all the farms to the north of Worcester, they could not find the name Timmin.
“The farm could have been sold to other people ages ago,” said Paul. “We need some seventeenth-century maps.”
“We’ll go to the records’ office in Worcester tomorrow,” said Agatha. “We’d better get some sleep.”
She saw him to the door. “You’re a Trojan, Agatha,” said Paul, smiling down at her. “This is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me!”
He flung his arms round her and bent and kissed her on the lips.
Agatha blinked up at him in a dazed way.
“Good night,” he said gently. “See you at ten in the morning. Get a good sleep.”
Agatha carefully shut the door behind him and then danced up the stairs to bed, her heart racing. He would divorce Juanita and marry her! James Lacey would see the announcement of their wedding and she hoped like hell he suffered!
Murder was forgotten as the excited pair set out for Worcester in the morning. The sun shone down on the Vale of Evesham, stretching all the way to the Malvern Hills. Agatha was driving. She was in control. She had a handsome man beside her who had kissed her last night and she was off on a treasure hunt.
The first cloud appeared on the horizon of her mind when she parked outside the records’ office and Paul said cautiously, “Worcester’s a very big place. Must have been relatively small by comparison in the seventeenth century.”
“Don’t be a downer,” said Agatha. “Timmin’s Field, here we come.”
Inside the records’ office, they asked for maps of Worcester for the period covering the mid-seventeenth century.
“Rats!” said Agatha as they both bent over it. “Worcester is small.”
“Let’s see. North,” said Paul. “Look north.”
His long finger moved to the north of the city. “There it is!” he cried. “Timmin’s Field. Timmin must have been a tenant farmer. It’s part of the Burnhaddomm estate.”
“Let’s go,” said Agatha, beside herself with excitement. “We should buy a metal detector first. We—”
“Agatha,” said Paul, “I think we should look at a present-day map of Worcester. That field might be covered over by now.”
“Oh, I’ve brought the map with me.” Agatha fished it out of her capacious handbag.
They opened it up and compared it with the seventeenth-century one.
“It’s been built over. It’s a shopping mall. And houses for miles around as well.”
“We’ll go and look anyway,” said Agatha, determined. “Timmin’s Field might be a car-park now or something that could be dug up.”
“But Worcester continued to spread out since 1651,” said Paul. “I think we should look at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century maps first.”
“Why?”
“Think, Agatha. Any building on that field means the ground would be dug up. Deep digging to make cellars for houses. The treasure would be found, and believe me, whoever found it would keep quiet about it.”
They got the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century maps and pored over them. “Look here,” said Paul. “The nineteenth-century one. Rows and rows of houses right over where Timmin’s Field was, and even a church.”
“That can’t be right. They wouldn’t bulldoze a church!”
Paul got to his feet and returned with a map of Worcester dated 1945. “There’s your answer,” he said. “That area was bombed during the war. Let’s return all these maps.”
Outside, Agatha said stubbornly, “I still want to see it.”
“As you wish, but it’s hopeless. You drive, I’ll direct you.”
Agatha finally pulled up outside a giant shopping mall. “How big would you say Timmin’s Field was?” she asked.
“Six acres, I guess.”
“Well, that monstrosity is over six acres. You’re right. With all that building and digging, the treasure’s long gone.”
“And we’re left with a valuable record of the Civil War and we can’t tell anyone how we got it,” said Paul. “Let’s have something to eat and decide what to do next.”
“I want comfort food, junk food,” said Agatha.
“Then turn around and go back a bit. I saw one of those all-day breakfast places.”
Agatha, having demolished a plate of egg, sausage, bacon and chips, sat back in her chair with a sigh. “Now, I can think. First of all, we’ll need to figure out what to do with that book of Lamont’s.”
“I only glanced through it. It’s closely written and full of detail, as far as I could judge. We’ll need to find out if there are any descendants of Sir Geoffrey Lamont, and if we find even one, just post the book to them anonymously.”
“There’s something that is really worrying,” said Agatha.
“What’s that?”
“The secret passage. You noticed that the stairs had been repaired. I think Harry and Carol knew about the passage. They certainly didn’t want us to look for it. We can’t tell the police or we’ll need to explain what we were doing in the house. Even if we found a way of tipping Bill off and the forensic team got down there, they’d find our fingerprints all over the place. We didn’t wear gloves.”
“If either Harry or Carol knew about it, why would they want us to find the murderer for them? I mean, if one or both of them murdered their mother?”
Agatha scowled horribly. Then her face cleared. “What if,” she said, “just what if neither of them committed murder at all, but had been using the passage to try to frighten their mother to death?”
Paul shook his head. “Won’t do. They both knew their mother would not be easily frightened.”
“Wait a minute! I’ve just thought of something. Why was Harry offering her house for sale to that hotel chain before she died?”
“I think we’d better go and ask him, don’t you?”
They called at the shop first but it was Saturday afternoon and there was a CLOSED sign on the door.
“Funny, that,” said Agatha. “A lot of tourists come to Mircester. You would think he’d stay open on Saturdays.”
“Better try his home,” said Paul.
At that moment, Mrs. Bloxby was studying Mrs. Davenport. “You say you want Mrs. Chatterton’s address in Madrid? Why don’t you ask Mr. Chatterton?”
“I would do,” said Mrs. Davenport crossly, “if he were ever at home, but he’s always out with that Raisin woman. Disgraceful, I call it, a woman of her years, and with a married man, too.”
In an even voice, the vicar’s wife said, “Mrs. Raisin and Mr. Chatterton are of the same age. They are investigating this murder. That is all. I hope you will keep this in mind and not go around the village spreading malicious gossip.”
Thwarted, Mrs. Davenport left the vicarage. How could she get that address? Who else might have it? Then she thought of Miss Simms, the secretary of the ladies’ society. She had a list of addresses. Juanita had attended one meeting. Perhaps Miss Simms had taken a note of the address. She headed for the council house estate. She could not understand why such a respectable body as the ladies’ society should have a secretary who was an unmarried mother and lived on a council estate. Definitely Not One of Us, thought Mrs. Davenport grimly as she walked up the neat garden path leading to Miss Simms’s home and rang the bell.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Miss Simms. “I’m just going out.”
“I wondered if you had Mrs. Chatterton’s address in Madrid.”
“I dunno. I’ll have a look. Come in. Hey, wait a bit. Why not ask her husband?”
“He is never at home.”
“Then just shove a note through his door.”
Mrs. Davenport’s bosom swelled. “Be a good little girl and see if you can get me that address. Chop-chop.”
“Shan’t.”
“I beg your pardon?” declared Mrs. Davenport in the tones of Edith Evans saying, “In a handbag?”
“I said I won’t give it to you, so shove off, you old trout. I’ve got a feeling you’re out to make trouble.”
“Well, really!”
Mrs. Davenport stormed off.
She’s out to make life hell for our Mrs. Raisin, thought Miss Simms. Better warn her.
But at that moment the doorbell rang again and it was Miss Simms’s new gentleman friend who travelled in soft furnishings, and somehow the whole scene with Mrs. Davenport was forgotten.
Harry opened the door of his home to Agatha and Paul. “It’s you,” he said. “Find out anything?”
“Not yet, but we want to ask you something.”
“Come in.”
He turned round to face them. “What is it?”
“Why did you try to sell your mother’s house to a hotel chain before she was murdered?”
He had been scowling, but his face cleared. “Oh, that’s easy. My business was failing and I wanted to see if Mother would bail me out. She told me, calm as anything, that she had invested unwisely and she had no spare cash. I pointed out that the house was too big for one person. She could sell it, move into sheltered accommodations and live off the interest on the money she could bank from the sale of the house.”
“Mother said she wouldn’t get enough to make her want to move. I said I would prove to her how much she would get. I approached the hotel company. At first they were interested, but then they found that to make the necessary alterations would need planning permission and they were pretty sure they wouldn’t get it. Mother seemed delighted at my failure. But then, she always loved me to fail,” he added bitterly.
“Have you thought of any enemies she might have had?” asked Paul.
“She must have made scores. She delighted in making people’s lives a misery. There’s Barry Briar, for one.”
“The landlord?”
“Yes, him. Mother was teetotal and disapproved of drinking. She was always trying to find ways to get him closed down. Then she was always rowing with people in the village.”
“And you don’t know of any secret passage into the house?”
“There is no secret passage. I would have known about it.”
“What about Peter Frampton?”
“Who’s he?”
“He runs a historical society in Towdey. He was trying to buy the house.”
“Never heard of him.”
Agatha and Paul couldn’t think of any more questions. They left after promising to let him know if they found out anything about the identity of the murderer.
“I still think of him as prime suspect,” said Agatha. “I think we should contact that amateur theatrical group and find out if there was any way he could have got over to Hebberdon that evening.”
“It’s that passage that’s bothering me,” said Paul. “The police must have gone over the whole house, even before her murder.”
“Before the murder, they probably didn’t take her seriously enough to do any real search.”
“But after the murder?”
“Everything in that cellar was very dusty. Runcorn didn’t impress me as the brain of Britain. Anyway, they’d open up the chest and just see curtains. You know what we should do, Agatha?”
“What?”
“We should go back there tonight with gloves on and go exactly everywhere we’ve been and wipe it clean. Then we can get Bill over and say we’re sure an old house like that would have a secret passage and had they looked.”
“And while we’re wiping it clean, we could be wiping away traces of the murderer as well.”
“Anyone with murder in mind would have got rid of fingerprints.”
“All right. But I hate the idea.”
At midnight that evening, Mrs. Davenport stood screened by bushes at the end of Lilac Lane and peered along at the cottages of Paul and Agatha. She had been watching on and off all evening. Her patience was rewarded just as the church clock tolled out the last stroke of midnight. Paul Chatterton came out and went to Agatha’s cottage. She came out. He kissed her on the cheek. He was carrying a travel bag. They both got into Agatha’s car and drove off.
Juanita Chatterton has got to be told. It is my duty, Mrs. Davenport told herself.
Seven
AGATHA and Paul worked all night and into the next morning, dusting and wiping and vacuuming. When they left in daylight, they were too exhausted to care whether anyone saw them. The main thing was that they had removed all traces of their visit.
They agreed to go to bed and sleep and meet up in the evening to decide how they could tell the police about the passage.
Agatha’s last dismal thought before she plunged down into sleep was that they were indeed a pair of amateurs, blundering around, without really knowing what they were doing.
They met in Agatha’s kitchen at seven in the evening to plan what to do.
“An anonymous letter?” suggested Agatha.
“Maybe. There must be another way. I wonder whether Peter Frampton knew about the secret passage.”
“Perhaps. The person who did know was whoever put that chest over the trapdoor and put those curtains on top. It was a very old chest.”
“But it must have been moved at some time. The cellar can’t have been full of junk from day one.”
“We could, you know,” said Agatha cautiously, “throw ourselves on Bill’s mercy.”
“Won’t do. Breaking and entering. Destroying valuable evidence. There’s no way he could cover up for us.”
“So what about an anonymous letter?”
“Risky. They can get your DNA off the envelope flap.”
“There are self-seal envelopes,” Agatha pointed out. “I know, Moreton-in-Marsh police station is closed at certain times. Certainly, I think, during the night. We could just post a sheet of paper through the letter-box. Not typed. They used to be able to trace typewriters. Maybe they’re able to trace computers. I’ve got a new packet of computer printing paper. It’s a common brand.”
Paul sighed. “Okay, let’s try it. But we’d better wear gloves.”
Agatha went upstairs and extracted a pair of thin plastic gloves from a hair-dye kit she hadn’t used and went back to join Paul.
They went through to her desk and Agatha put on the gloves and opened the packet of printing paper and gingerly extracted one sheet.
Holding it by the tips of two fingers, she carried it through to the kitchen. With her other hand, she tore off a sheet of kitchen paper and spread it on the kitchen table and then laid the sheet of paper down on it.
“What should I write?” she asked.
“Keep it simple,” said Paul. “Block letters. Say: ‘There is a secret passage in Ivy Cottage. The entrance is at the bottom of an old chest in the cellar.’”
Agatha tried to hold her breath as she wrote, terrified that even a drop of saliva would betray her to the forensics lab in Birmingham.
“There!” she said. “Now how do we get it through the letter-box at the police station without being seen? There are flats for retired people bang opposite and some old person might be watching.”
“Fold it into a square,” said Paul. “We’ll need to think of some disguise.”
“Mrs. Bloxby’s got a box of costumes she keeps for the amateur dramatic company. Funny thing. They’ve just finished a production of The Mikado. She’ll wonder why we want something. I don’t even want to tell Mrs. Bloxby about this.”
Paul said, “I’ll tell her we’re going to a fancy dress party at a friend’s in London.”
“If we wore The Mikado costumes, that would turn the police’s attention back to Harry—that is, if they ever turned their attention off him.”
