Free Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam by MC Beaton

going to bed but he was watching a movie called Monsters of the Dark and did not hear her.
    Agatha went grumpily up to bed. She stared at her face in the bathroom mirror. The rain had washed all her make-up off. She felt old and unattractive. She had a leisurely bath. Then she climbed into bed, propped herself up on the pillows and looked through the selection of paperbacks she had placed on the bedside table. She had bought a selection of light reading. There was a large blockbuster which claimed to be, according to the blurb, ‘erotic and unput-downable’. Agatha flicked through it. Gucci labels and crumpled bedsheets. The next came under the category of chick-lit, or rather one of those women’s books, a romance clothed in a convoluted literary style. She discarded that. The next was an Aga saga, a novel set in a village where a well-heeled middle-aged woman found out her husband was unfaithful to her. Agatha was very much of her roots and found it hard to believe that anyone who had money in the bank could suffer in the same way as someone poor. She often felt her yearning for James was ridiculous. She put that aside and settled for a hard cop novel set in the deep southern states of the United States. After a few pages the book slipped from her hand.
    Charles came into her room later to say good night. He switched out her bedside light and kissed her on the forehead. Agatha stirred and muttered something but did not wake.
    She was dreaming of James. They were on a Mediterranean cruise. She could feel the sun on her cheek. They were leaning against the rail. James turned and smiled down at her. ‘Agatha,’ he said.
    ‘Agatha! Agatha!’ In her dream, Agatha wondered why James was suddenly shouting at her. Then she woke up with a start, realizing it was morning and someone was banging at the door downstairs and shouting her name.
    She pulled on a dressing-gown and hurried down the stairs, nearly tripping over the cats, who snaked around her ankles.
    She wrenched open the door. Amy Worth stood there, her eyes dilated with excitement.
    ‘What’s up?’ asked Agatha sleepily.
    ‘It’s Tolly. You’ll never believe it.’
    ‘Believe what?’
    ‘He’s dead . . . murdered . . . and with Framp guarding the house, too!’
     
Chapter Four
    Charles came down the stairs in his dressing-gown. ‘What’s all the row about, darling?’ he called.
    ‘Come in, Amy,’ said Agatha, flushing with embarrassment. She said to Charles, ‘Tolly’s been murdered.’
    ‘How? When?’
    ‘Last night,’ said Amy. ‘I don’t know yet how he was killed. Betty Jackson, the cleaner, went up to the manor this morning and let herself in.’
    ‘So she has a key?’ asked Charles.
    ‘Yes, and she can operate the burglar alarm. It was still on! She said she went upstairs to see if anyone was at home and she found Tolly dead on the landing.’
    ‘Maybe he knew who had stolen that painting of his,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Insurance prices, as a rule,’ said Charles, ‘are often twice or three times the auction estimate. Unless Tolly was so filthy rich he didn’t care, I would have thought he would have been delighted to get the insurance money. How much was it insured for?’
    ‘Tolly told everyone he had insured it for a million.’
    They sat down round the kitchen table.
    ‘A Stubbs,’ mused Charles. ‘Now what would a man like Tolly be doing having a Stubbs?’
    ‘I can explain that,’ said Amy, her face pink with excitement and the importance at being the source of so much interesting gossip. ‘It was just after they moved down here. Lord Tarrymundy was visiting friends in Norfolk and came over for a day’s hunting. Of course, he impressed poor Tolly no end, him being a lord and all. The next thing he says a gentleman like Tolly should start collecting and offered to sell him the Stubbs, knock-down price, he said. I believe it was three hundred and thirty thousand pounds, which isn’t really a knock-down price, but Tolly