Free The Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton

lie."
    The next morning Roy took over the cooking when he found Agatha was about to microwave the sausages for breakfast. He whistled
     happily as he went about the preparations and Agatha told him he would make someone a good wife. "More than you would, Aggie,"
     he said cheerfully. "It's a wonder your health hasn't crumbled under a weight of microwaved curries."
    Steve came down wrapped in a dressing-gown, gold and blue stripes and with the badge of a cricket club on the pocket. "He
     got it at a stall in one of the markets," said Roy. "Don't bother talking to him, Aggie. He doesn't really wake up until he's
     had a jug of coffee."
    Agatha read through the morning papers, turning the pages rapidly to see if there was anything further about the quiche poisoning,
     but there wasn't a word.
    The morning passed amicably if silently and then they went out to the main street, Roy doing cartwheels down the lane past
     Mrs. Barr's cottage. Agatha saw the lace curtains twitch.
    Steve took out a large notebook and began to write down all about the festivities, which started off with the crowning of
     the May Queen, a small pretty schoolgirl with a slimly old-fashioned figure. In fact all the schoolchildren looked like illustrations
     in some long-forgotten book with their innocent faces and underdeveloped figures. Agatha was used to seeing schoolgirls with
     busts and backsides. The Queen was drawn by the morris men in their flowered top hats, the bells at their knees jingling.
     Roy was disappointed in the morris dancers, possibly because, despite the flowered hats, they looked like a boozy Rugby team
     and were led by a white-haired man who struck various members of the audience with a pig's bladder. "Supposed to make you
     fertile," said Steve ponderously and Roy shrieked with laughter and Agatha felt thoroughly ashamed of him.
    They wandered around the stalls set up in the main street. Every one seemed to be selling wares in support of some charity
     or other. Agatha winced away from the home-baking stand. Roy won a tin of sardines at the tombola and got so carried away,
     he bought ticket after ticket until he managed to win a bottle of Scotch. There was a game of skittles which they all tried,
     a rendering of numbers from musicals by the village band, and then the morris dancers again, leaping up into the sunny air,
     accompanied by fiddle and accordion. "Don't you know you are living in an anachro­nism?" said Steve ponderously, scribbling
     away in his notebook.
    Roy wanted to try his luck at the tombola again and he and Steve went off. Agatha flicked through a pile of secondhand books
     on a stall and then looked sharply at the woman behind the stall. Mrs. Cartwright!
    She was, as Agatha had already noticed, a gypsy-looking woman, swarthy-skinned among all the pink-and-white complexions of
     the villagers. Her rough hair hung down her back and her strong arms were folded across her generous bosom.
    "Mrs. Cartwright?" said Agatha tentatively. The woman's dark eyes focused on her. "Oh, you be Mrs. Raisin," she said. "Bad
     business about the quiche."
    "I can't understand it," said Agatha. "I shouldn't have bought it, but on the other hand, how on earth would cowbane get into
     a London quiche?"
    "London is full of bad things," said Mrs. Cart­wright, straightening a few paperbacks that had tumbled over.
    "Well, the result is that I will have to sell up," said Agatha. "I can't stay here after what happened."
    " 'Twas an accident," said Mrs. Cartwright placidly. "Reckon you can't go running off after an accident. Besides, I was ever
     so pleased a London lady should think she had to buy one to compete with me."
    Agatha gave her an oily smile. "I did hear you were the best baker in the Cotswolds. Look, I would really like to talk about
     it. May I call on you?"
    "Any time you like," said Mrs. Cartwright lazily. "Judd's cottage, beyond the Red Lion on the old Station Road."
    Roy came prancing up and Agatha moved on quickly, afraid