Part 11 (1/2)
They hurried towards her. She held out a couple of books as they came up to her. ”I just remembered my mother saying something to me about your interest in the Napoleonic wars, Mr Lacey, and wondered if these books might interest you.”
”How very kind.” James glanced at the t.i.tles. ”Diaries! Where did you get these?”
”I borrowed them from the college. History is my subject.” She smiled at him suddenly and that smile gave her face something like beauty.
”Come inside,” said James. ”We'll have coffee.”
”I'd like that,” said Beth, ”but I would like to talk to you in private as well.” She looked at Agatha.
”See you later, James,” said Agatha and went slowly along to her own house, burning with curiosity.
She had just fed her cats when her doorbell rang. She was expecting to see James, come to report on Beth's visit, but it was Bill Wong who stood there.
”Oh,” said Agatha, that 'oh' being a little dying fall of disappointment. She reminded herself about her new-found freedom from emotional involvement with James and invited Bill in.
”I've come to ask you about Mrs Bloxby,” said Bill.
”Can't you ask Mrs Bloxby about Mrs Bloxby?”
”Don't be defensive, Agatha. I could tell she had told you something.”
Agatha stared at him for a long moment as she remembered something that Mrs Bloxby had told her, not about Mary's disparaging remarks or about the horticultural show; something she should have told Bill.
”I've just remembered,” said Agatha.
”I don't believe that, but out with it.”
”Mary got Mr Bloxby, the vicar, to take her confession.”
”Now that is something. Something must have been troubling her badly. I mean, the vicar doesn't normally take confessions, does he?”
”No, but he'll listen to anyone in trouble.”
”I'd better go and ask him. I wonder what it was about.”
It was about making a pa.s.s at him, thought Agatha, but there might have been something else there.
Bill left and Agatha prepared herself an early-evening meal. She wondered how Beth and James were getting along, and the more she wondered, the more she worried. Why had Beth, who had been so rude, done such an about-face as to offer books to her mother's ex-lover?
Eight.
Bill Wong drove along to the vicarage. It was, he reflected, not like going to see a Roman Catholic priest. It had not been a formal confessional, surely, and the vicar was not High Church of England.
Mrs Bloxby welcomed him. ”I always expect to see our Mrs Raisin with you,” she said, ushering him in. ”What can I do for you?”
Bill stood in the shadowy hall of the vicarage. ”Actually, it was your husband I came to see.”
”Alf's in the church.”
”What is he doing?”
Mrs Bloxby looked surprised. ”Praying, I suppose. You can step over. He's never very long.”
Bill went back out of the vicarage and walked through the cemetery to the church next door. Huge white clouds were moving slowly above over a large summer sky. It was as if, during a good summer, the skies over the Cotswolds expanded in size, giving the impression of limitless horizons. Old gravestones leaned over the smooth cropped gra.s.s of the churchyard, the names faded long ago.
He went to the side door, pushed it open and walked into the warmth of the old church. The foundations were Saxon but the powerful arches were Norman. It was a simple church, with plain wooden pews and plain gla.s.s in the windows, Cromwell's troops having smashed the stained-gla.s.s ones. There was an air of benevolence and calm.
The vicar was kneeling in the front pew before the altar. What was he praying for? wondered Bill. For the murderer to be caught, or simply for his village to return to its usual sleepy calm?
As if aware of a presence behind him, the vicar rose and turned around.
”Mr Wong, is it not?” he said, walking down the aisle towards the detective. ”May I be of a.s.sistance?”
His scholarly face was gentle and kind.
”Perhaps we could talk outside?” suggested Bill, thinking obscurely that discussion of a nasty murder should take place outside the church.
”Very well.” They walked outside and sat down together on a mossy table gravestone, feeling perhaps that the last resting place of someone who had died no doubt respectably in his bed many centuries before was a more suitable place to get down to business. ”I suppose you want to ask me about the murder,” said the vicar.
”I learned that Mrs Fortune had asked you to take her confession.”
Bill waited nervously for a disclaimer or a demand as to how he had come by such a piece of gossip. But Alf Bloxby had lived long enough in rural villages to know that one has not much private life at all.
”Yes,” he said simply.
”You must understand that in view of the circ.u.mstances, I must ask you what she said.”
”I suppose you must. If there had been anything of the real confessional about it, I might refuse to tell you, but the matter is very simple. It amused Mrs Fortune to see if she could lay a priest.”
”Do you mean...”
”Oh, yes, what is it they say these days? She came on to me.”
”Are you sure?”
”I am not, I think, a vain man in that respect. We were in my study. She sat down on my lap and wound her arms about my neck and tried to kiss me.”
”And what did you do?” asked Bill, fascinated.
”I said, if I remember rightly, 'Mrs Fortune, your figure belies your weight. You are, in fact, a heavy woman, and your weight is giving me a cramp in my left leg.' She got up and sat opposite me. I told her I had a great deal to do about the parish and so would she get to the point of her visit. She said she had sinned. I asked her in what way. She said she had been having an affair with Mr Lacey. The only reason I tell you this is because the affair was well known in the village.
”I pointed out that as Mr Lacey was a bachelor and she a divorced woman, what they did together was no concern of mine. I even ventured to lighten the atmosphere by suggesting she had seen too many old Hollywood movies. You know, where the heroine says, 'Father, I have sinned.'
”She became a trifle incoherent in her explanations, but I gathered that I was supposed to talk to James Lacey and suggest he marry her. Perhaps her time in the States had given her a rather naive and old-fas.h.i.+oned view of what goes on in English villages. I said that whether he married her or not was entirely up to Mr Lacey.
”Mrs Fortune was a fascinating contradiction. On the surface, she appeared a witty and mondaine woman. After talking to her, I came to the conclusion that she was really quite stupid, a trifle common, and possibly mentally unbalanced. 'Common' is probably an old-fas.h.i.+oned word. I do not mean she was of low cla.s.s, rather that there was a streak of coa.r.s.eness in her.”