Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell by MC Beaton Read Free Book Online

all their resources, and sink back down into helpless misery again.
    James’s relatives had given up phoning. His sister and his aunts all seemed to imply that such a worrying, disgraceful thing would not have happened if he had refrained from marrying Agatha. She had finally unplugged the phone from the wall.
    At the end of the third week, Agatha reluctantly answered the summons of her doorbell. ‘I’ve been trying to ring you,’ said the vicar’s wife, pushing a strand of grey hair away from her mild face. ‘No reply. I thought you’d gone away.’
    ‘Come in. Like coffee?’
    ‘Tea, please.’
    In the kitchen, Mrs Bloxby looked anxiously at Agatha. ‘I just wondered if you had had time to clean up James’s cottage.’
    ‘I haven’t had the heart,’ said Agatha dully.
    She placed a mug of tea in front of Mrs Bloxby, who picked it up, and then put it down, untasted, and said, ‘I really think, my dear Mrs Raisin, that you should take some sort of action or you are going to make yourself ill.’
    ‘What can I do that the police can’t?’
    ‘You’ve never let that stop you before. You see, I could help you tidy up the cottage next door. You could go through James’s papers – oh, I know the police have been through them – but there might be something there that they have missed.’
    ‘Still can’t see much point in it,’ said Agatha, lighting a cigarette.
    ‘I cannot see much point in you letting yourself go to seed. One would think James was dead.’
    ‘How do you mean, go to seed?’ demanded Agatha.
    ‘I shall put it bluntly. There are bags under your eyes, you have a moustache and hairy legs.’
    A small spark of humour gleamed in Agatha’s bearlike eyes. ‘It’s women’s lib,’ she said. ‘We only shave ourselves because of men.’
    ‘I shave my legs because they get scratchy and itchy when the hair grows,’ said Mrs Bloxby. ‘I thought your friend, Charles, would have been round to help you.’
    ‘He tried, but I didn’t feel like seeing him.’
    ‘Mrs Raisin, are we going next door, or what? I haven’t got all day. There are other people in this parish in need of my help!’
    Agatha blinked at her in surprise. She had hardly ever heard her friend speak to her sharply before.
    ‘Okay. I’ll get the keys.’
    ‘Clean yourself up first, there’s a dear.’
    Agatha trudged upstairs. For the first time, it seemed, in ages, she took a good look at herself in the long mirror in her bedroom. She was appalled at the ageing mess that looked wearily back at her.
    Downstairs, Mrs Bloxby waited patiently. If Mrs Raisin was taking a long time, then it meant she was tidying herself up, and Mrs Bloxby was still shocked by the deterioration in Agatha’s appearance.
    At last, Agatha appeared, neat and tidy in a shirt blouse and skirt, her smooth legs in tights and her smooth face under a light mask of make-up. ‘Thanks for waiting,’ she said gruffly. ‘Let’s go.’
    ‘Haven’t you been to James’s cottage before?’
    ‘Just on and off,’ said Agatha, remembering nights she had cried into his pillow and days where she had sat with her face buried in his favourite old sweater. ‘I just couldn’t get round to straightening things, although the police did quite a good job after they had finished.’
    They walked out into the sunshine. How odd that the world should look so normal, thought Agatha. Fluffy clouds, like clouds in a child’s painting, hung in a deep-blue Cotswold sky. The first roses were tumbling over hedges and the air was sweet and fresh.
    Agatha unlocked the door of James’s cottage. Mrs Bloxby stood back and looked at the roof. ‘The thatch needs doing,’ she called. ‘I can put you in touch with a thatcher. You might want to wait and see if he comes back. It’s an expensive job.’
    She followed Agatha in. ‘I’ll draw the curtains back and open the windows.’
    Soon sunlight was flooding the cottage. Mrs Bloxby looked round. There was a thin layer of dust