Free Pushing Up Daisies by M. C. Beaton Page A

dream about. Fickle, faithless Charles, who came and went in her life. But he was all she had left. A great wave of self-pity engulfed her. She shook herself. “Get a grip!” she snarled.
    â€œOf what?” asked Charles, sliding into the passenger seat.
    Agatha jumped nervously. “I was thinking of something and didn’t hear you arrive. Did you find it?”
    â€œFind what?”
    â€œDon’t you remember? You went back to get something.”
    â€œOh, that. My cigarette case.”
    â€œFind it?”
    â€œNo, I must have left it at home.”
    â€œYou went back there to ask her out?”
    â€œAgatha! What if I did? It hasn’t got anything to do with you, has it?”
    â€œIf it has nothing to do with me,” growled Agatha, “why lie?”
    â€œListen! Are we going to talk to this old girl, Mrs. Ryan, or not?” demanded Charles.
    Agatha opened her mouth and shut it again and drove off in the direction of the allotments.
    Mrs. Ryan was a very old lady with pink scalp showing through wisps of grey hair. The skin of her face was like crumpled tissue paper, and her eyes were pale grey. She put her head on one side as Agatha and Charles introduced themselves, and then said, “Please step in to my parlour.” Agatha ignored Charles’s murmur of, “Said the spider to the fly,” and followed her in to a dark little room where a four-bar electric heater shone a red light into the gloom. The room was crammed with upright hard chairs, spindly bamboo side tables bent under their weight of framed photographs, and a large table by the window holding sheaves of paper and a battered old Olivetti typewriter.
    Mrs. Ryan looked at it and said, “I’m writing my life story. I’ve had a very interesting life.”
    Poor woman, thought Agatha cynically. Unless you’re a celebrity, no one is going to want to know.
    â€œOn the night Mrs. Bull was pushed down the well,” she began, “did you hear anything?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact I did. I was going to tell those policemen. They were about to come to the door, but that old bitch, Mrs. Andrews, next door, she says, ‘I wouldn’t bother her if I were you. She’s senile.’ I would like to see her face when she gets my lawyer’s letter. I am suing her for defamation of character.”
    â€œGood for you,” said Charles. “So what did you see?”
    â€œWell, at first … Oh, can I offer you something?”
    â€œNO!” shouted Agatha. And then said mildly, “Sorry I shouted, but I am desperate to find anything out.”
    â€œIt’s the menopause, dear,” said the old lady. “Plays merry hell with your hormones at your age.”
    Warding off an explosion of wrath from Agatha, Charles said quickly, “Do tell us what you heard or saw, please.”
    â€œIt must have been about four in the morning. I’m a light sleeper. I heard a creak, creak sort of noise from the allotments. I looked out of the window. There was this dark figure pushing a wheel barrow right up to the old well. Got the top off the well and heaved something down. I didn’t know it was a body. I thought it was someone dumping their rubbish, and I meant to complain about it.”
    â€œWas there a scream or anything like that?” asked Agatha.
    â€œNo. That’s why I thought it was rubbish. I meant to tell the police, and I was waiting for them to call until that fiend from hell next door told them lies about me. I didn’t like to tell them anything after that because they would think, because of her slander, that I was making the whole thing up.”
    â€œCan you describe the figure of whoever it was pushing the wheelbarrow?” asked Charles.
    â€œIt was too dark. Not tall. I think he must have been wearing black clothes.”
    â€œIt looks as if Mrs. Bull must have been drugged first,” said Agatha. “We’ll pass on