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

your information to the police and assure them that you are perfectly sane.”
    â€œCome back anytime, particularly you, Sir Charles.” She turned to Agatha, a sudden flash of malice in her old eyes. “Is he your…?”
    â€œDon’t even go there,” said Agatha.
    Mrs. Ryan gave a little shrug. “Off you go, and let me get on with my writing.”
    Outside, Charles said, “She was only going to ask you if we were an item. So why did you look at her as if you could kill her?”
    But Agatha was not going to tell him that she had been sure the malicious old woman had been on the point of asking if Charles was her son, even though Charles was only six years younger than herself.
    â€œThe heat in that room was getting to me,” said Agatha. “We’ll drive back to the village. I’m sure Bill will be somewhere about.”
    In the village, they saw Bill, Wilkes, Alice, two other detectives and two policemen having a conference on the village green.
    They got out of the car and went up to them. “Here comes the dynamic duo,” said Wilkes. “Shove off and let us get on with some real police work.”
    â€œSo you don’t want to hear anything about how Mrs. Bull was drugged before she was dropped down the well?” said Agatha. “Come on, Charles.”
    â€œNo! Wait!” shouted Wilkes. “What have you got?”
    â€œSay ‘pretty please,’” said Agatha.
    â€œYou tell me right now,” roared Wilkes, “or I’ll have you up on a charge of impeding the…”
    â€œOh, well, shut up and listen,” said Agatha, and told him what they had just learned.
    Wilkes listened carefully to Agatha’s report and then swung round angrily to the two policemen. “Weren’t you told to interview the women in those two houses next to the allotments?”
    â€œYes, sir. But the woman next to Mrs. Ryan said the old girl was senile.”
    â€œIs she senile?” Wilkes demanded.
    â€œSharp as a tack,” said Charles.
    â€œWong and Peterson, get there immediately and take her statement.”
    â€œA thank you would be nice,” said Agatha.
    Wilkes turned to one of the detectives. “Blenkinsop. Take this pair into the police car and get their statements. Good day to you, Mrs. Raisin.”
    â€œOh, fry in hell,” muttered Agatha.
    When their statements were taken, Agatha said, “I could murder a gin and tonic.”
    â€œNo, you couldn’t,” said Charles. “You’re driving. Take me back to Carsely. I want to go home.”
    â€œOh, suit yourself,” grumbled Agatha.
    But back in Carsely when Charles had left, Agatha fought down a feeling of loneliness and compensated for it by hugging her cats. It was a pity, she thought, that she had felt obliged to give such a precious piece of information to Wilkes. But she did not have the resources of the police, and now, at the hospital, they would take samples of Mrs. Bull’s blood and search for drugs.
    She gave her cats a final caress and put them aside. Something was niggling at the back of her brain. Agatha got to her feet and began to pace up and down, scowling horribly. Then her face cleared. That stone cover on the well. It had taken the use of the crowbar and all Charles’s strength to break it so that the pieces could be lifted off.
    She looked up Mary Feathers’s phone number and rang her up. “It is late,” grumbled Mary.
    â€œI want to ask you about the covering of the well,” said Agatha. “Was it a stone slab?”
    â€œNo. It was a rusty old grill. Must have been put there about early in the nineteenth century, I suppose.”
    Agatha thanked her and rang off. So where did that stone slab come from? Was it already lying around? Who would have the strength to drug Mrs. Bull, get her into a car, unload her onto a wheelbarrow and bring a stone slab as well?
    The phone rang, the