Free Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley by MC Beaton Page B

along, Deborah. You
look as if you need fattening up.’
    Deborah giggled. Agatha suddenly wanted to run away. Never had she felt so timid or inadequate in years. She began to feel angry and truculent. Who the hell did these people think they were,
anyway?
    ‘Good heavens!’ said Sir Charles, as they all sat round a long table in the dining-room. ‘Why all the silver? We can’t be having that many courses.’
    Gustav remained silent. He poured wine. He served soup. Agatha had a feeling that he hoped she would be intimidated by the display of cutlery. But how could he have known anything about her? It
must be little Deborah who was the target.
    Mrs Tassy fixed pale eyes on Agatha. ‘If my nephew is going to employ you, what are your fees?’
    ‘I didn’t think of charging anything,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Amateur,’ said Gustav sotto voce from the sideboard.
    Agatha swung round. ‘Cut the crap, you cheeky pillock,’ she howled.
    ‘I do not think we are going to have a very good summer,’ said Mrs Tassy into the brief startled silence which had followed Agatha’s outburst. Agatha tried to remain cool but
she could feel an ugly tide of red washing up her face from her neck. ‘I read in the paper the other day that it’s something to do with the volcanic eruption in the Philippines. It is
said to cause bad summers in Europe.’
    ‘It might stop you militant ramblers from frightening any more landowners,’ said Sir Charles, smiling fondly on Deborah.
    ‘Oh, never tell me you are one of those.’ Mrs Tassy looked curiously at Deborah. ‘You have to be careful. You don’t want to get yourself killed.’
    Gustav deftly removed the empty soup plates. Agatha had been fiddling with the knives and forks beside her plate. Gustav twitched them back into place with a little sigh.
    Fish in cheese sauce appeared before them next. ‘You’re doing us proud, Gustav,’ said Sir Charles. ‘But a bit extended and formal, isn’t it? I think we would have
been cosier with a bit of cold pie in the kitchen.’
    By way of reply, Gustav raised his expressive eyebrows and retreated again to the sideboard.
    Agatha had a thin pearl necklace round her neck. ‘Are those real?’ asked Mrs Tassy.
    ‘No,’ said Gustav.
    Agatha tried to rally. ‘No one wears real pearls these days,’ she said. She could hear those dangerous twanging Birmingham vowels creeping to the surface of her voice.
    ‘I do,’ said Mrs Tassy, and that was the end of that subject.
    ‘So how are you going to start detecting?’ asked Sir Charles.
    ‘I would like to see the field where the murder took place,’ said Agatha, and then decided to move into the attack. ‘Why did you tell the police that you were in London on the
day of the murder?’
    ‘Because I didn’t want to be accused of it,’ said Sir Charles patiently.
    ‘You panicked?’
    His eyes, turned on her, were suddenly bright and intelligent. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I suddenly wanted to have nothing to do with all the fuss and bother. I really didn’t think
anyone had seen me quarrelling with that Jessica, you see.’
    ‘What were you quarrelling about?’
    ‘Obviously about her jumping up and down in the field and wrecking the crop. She gave me a lot of stuff about being a bloated capitalist. I’ve never heard such clichés since I
was at a meeting of the students’ union at my college in Cambridge. I told her to get knotted and walked away. When I looked back, she was standing there, shouting insults at me. I thought of
calling the police and then I got fed up with the whole thing. I tend to ignore things that make me fed up. Of course, now the police are thinking of charging me with obstructing them in their
investigations. Such a pain.’
    ‘But surely you must have realized they would find out?’
    ‘Why?’ he asked in simple surprise. ‘I didn’t know Noakes had such a dislike of me. None of the other estate workers would have dreamt of saying anything.’
    ‘Probably