Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

back of the hall, ‘Police! Make way, there.’
    Agatha shielded her eyes and peered out over the audience. Police and detectives were making their way down the centre aisle.
    ‘It’s another stunt, isn’t it?’ asked Mr Piercy.
    Agatha felt the world had just come to an end. She was sure they had come to tell her James was dead.
    Detective Inspector Wilkes of Mircester CID came up to her and took her elbow. ‘Come with us, Mrs Raisin.’
    She let him lead her down the steps, through the now silent crowd and out into the night.
    ‘What is this?’ she asked, aware that Charles had appeared beside her.
    ‘If you will accompany us to Carsely, Mrs Raisin.’
    ‘Put her out of her misery,’ shouted Charles. ‘Is James dead?’
    ‘We don’t know,’ said Wilkes. ‘He’s missing and there’s signs of a fight.’
    Agatha was never to forget the journey home. She seemed to be moving through some sort of black nightmare. She prayed to a God she only half believed in, promising everything she could think of, doing deals, anything, if only James would turn out to be still alive.
    They went to Agatha’s cottage because the Scene of Crimes Operatives were busy at work in their white overalls behind the taped-off front of James’s cottage.
    ‘The situation is this,’ began Wilkes. ‘A certain Mrs Melissa Sheppard was passing Mr Lacey’s cottage and saw the door open. She was going to walk past, when she saw a dark stain on the front step. She went to examine it, touched it, and found it was fresh blood. She looked inside and saw furniture overturned. She called us. Mr Lacey’s car is missing. We are searching the countryside for any trace of him. Preliminary questioning reveals that you had been heard threatening to kill him, Mrs Raisin. I also learn that you preferred to keep your previous married name and that you and Mr Lacey, although recently married, preferred to live in separate cottages. Mrs Sheppard also tells us that Mr Lacey was about to undergo treatment for a brain tumour and that he had told her but not you. Is that the case?’
    ‘I threatened to kill him because I was jealous of what I believed to be a relationship with Mrs Sheppard,’ said Agatha. ‘But James, who does not lie, assured me that he had not slept with her. We were reconciled.’
    ‘Mrs Sheppard, who has been very frank, tells us that she had sexual relations with Mr Lacey twice since his marriage to you.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ said Agatha flatly.
    ‘I must ask you for your movements today.’
    Agatha felt some other woman was answering all these questions. She described her day and Charles said he had been with her all afternoon and all evening. Agatha had been in full view of press and television all evening.
    ‘It looks as if there was some sort of fight. We cannot establish yet whether the blood belongs to Mr Lacey or his assailant. We will need to take your fingerprints and a blood sample, Mrs Raisin. You too, Sir Charles. Mr Lacey was heard threatening Mrs Sheppard in the village shop. He was overheard saying he could strangle her.’
    Did I ever really know James? wondered Agatha. Could he have been in love with Melissa?
    ‘Are you charging Mrs Raisin with anything?’ asked Charles.
    ‘Not at present.’
    ‘Not at present,’ jeered Charles. ‘She has an excellent alibi. She was in full view of several hundred people. Can’t you see she’s nearly dead with shock? She’s not going anywhere. Leave her alone.’
    But Agatha and Charles had to give blood samples and fingerprints and promise to report to police headquarters the following day before they were left alone.
    ‘You’d better go, Charles,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Sure? You’re not going to do anything silly?’
    Agatha shook her head. Charles would have insisted on staying had not the vicar’s wife arrived.
    ‘You poor thing,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘I can’t believe it. He has cancer and he never told me.’
    ‘He talked to me about that,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘Of course he did. He probably told the whole world!’
    ‘He said he did not want to tell you because telling you would make it real.’
    Agatha put her head in her hands. ‘What am I going to do?’
    ‘He appears to have driven off, which means he was not badly hurt. The blood in the cottage may not even be his.’
    ‘Who would attack him? James didn’t have any enemies.’
    ‘I am afraid the police are going to be concentrating on you for a bit.’
    ‘Why me?’
    ‘You’ve