Free Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam by MC Beaton Page B

came in at that moment and Agatha hailed him with a furious cry of ‘Charles, they’re reading my book and they don’t have a search warrant.’
    ‘I didn’t know you were writing a book,’ said Charles. ‘Still, you lot are being a bit cheeky.’
    ‘Mrs Raisin’s book is called Death at the Manor ,’ said Hand.
    Charles laughed. ‘Oh, Aggie, your first attempt at writing?’
    Agatha nodded.
    Charles turned to Hand. ‘How was Tolly murdered?’
    ‘His throat was cut with a razor.’
    ‘You mean, one of those old-fashioned cutthroat razors?’
    ‘Exactly. And in Mrs Raisin’s manuscript, the owner of the manor, Peregrine Pickle, is murdered when someone slits his throat.’
    ‘You can’t call him Peregrine Pickle,’ said Charles, momentarily diverted.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘It’s the title of a book by Tobias Smollett. A classic, Aggie.’
    ‘I can change the name.’ Agatha turned red. She hated the gaps in her education being pointed out. ‘But what on earth are we doing discussing literary points? They’ve got no right to look at anything of mine without my permission.’
    ‘She is right, you know,’ said Charles.
    There was a ring at the doorbell. ‘That’ll be for us,’ said Hand. He went to the door and came back waving a piece of paper. ‘Now, this is a search warrant, Mrs Raisin. Before I get my men in, I would like to ask you some questions.’
    Agatha sat down on the sofa next to Charles, defeated. Her outrage at the detectives looking at her manuscript was not because she was furious at the intrusion, but because she was ashamed of her work.
    She and Charles answered the preliminary questions: who they were, where they came from, what they were doing in Fryfam.
    ‘So we get to what you were both doing at the manor yesterday,’ said Hand. ‘Mr Trumpington-James said something about the pair of you being amateur detectives.’
    Before Charles could stop her, Agatha, nervous, had launched into a full brag of all the cases she had solved. Charles saw the cynical glances the detectives exchanged and knew they were putting Agatha down as a slightly unbalanced eccentric.
    ‘I think at the moment,’ said Hand sarcastically, when Agatha’s voice had finally trailed off under his stony stare, ‘that we’ll just settle for good old-fashioned police work. But should we find ourselves baffled, we will appeal to you for help. Can we go on? Right. Why did you visit Mr Trumpington-James? Had either of you known him before you came here? You first, Mrs Raisin.’
    Agatha described how she had first been invited for tea. Then she hesitated a moment, wondering whether to tell Hand about Lucy’s suspicions of her husband’s infidelity. Then she thought angrily, why should I? Let him find out for himself if he’s so damned clever.
    ‘You hesitated there,’ said Hand. ‘Is there something you’re holding back?’
    ‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘Why should I hold anything back?’
    Hand turned to Charles. ‘You say you did not know Mr Trumpington-James before and yet you called on him with Mrs Raisin. Why? You only arrived yesterday.’
    ‘Aggie told me about the theft of the Stubbs.’
    ‘Aggie being Mrs Raisin.’
    ‘It’s Agatha, actually,’ said Agatha crossly.
    ‘So, Sir Charles, you called. Why?’
    Charles felt ashamed of saying they thought they might be able to find out who had stolen the Stubbs after all Agatha’s bragging, but he shrugged and said, ‘We thought we might get an idea of who had taken it.’
    ‘How?’ demanded Hand sharply. He should cut his fingernails, thought Agatha. They’re like claws, all chalky and ridged.
    ‘How, what?’
    ‘How on earth did you think, Sir Charles, that you could find out something the police could not? You do not have forensic equipment or even a knowledge of the area.’
    ‘I know you didn’t believe Agatha when she was going on about the mysteries she solved,’ said Charles patiently, ‘but you can always check with the Mircester