Read Online Agatha's First Case by M. C. Beaton - Free Book Online

Agatha. “How dare she hire a private detective to dig up my background?”
    â€œWe will be interviewing Clive Tremund,” said Bill. “Begin at the beginning.”
    Agatha did not want to say again that she had initially lied to Jill about her upbringing. Tell a detective that you’ve lied about one thing and they might assume you’re lying about everything else. She detailed the previous day. She had been working on a divorce case and had been out on it with Phil. He had the pictures to prove it. They then had both met with the client’s lawyer and handed over the evidence. Agatha worked late, typing up notes on other outstanding cases, and, as she was heading home, that was when Mrs. Bloxby had called her.
    â€œWhy do you call Mrs. Bloxby by her surname?” asked Alice, when the interview was over.
    â€œThere was a society for women in this village when I arrived here,” explained Agatha. “We all addressed each other by surnames and somehow it stuck. I know it’s strange these days when every odd and sod calls you by your first name. But I rather like being Mrs. Raisin. I hate when in hospital nurses call me Agatha. Seems overfamiliar, somehow. And, yes, it’s ageing, as if they think I’m in my second childhood.” She stifled a yawn.
    â€œWe’ll let you get some sleep,” said Bill.
    When they had left, Agatha noticed that a red dawn was flooding the kitchen with light. She opened the garden door and let her cats out. The morning was fresh and beautiful. She went into the kitchen and got a wad of paper towel and wiped the dew off a garden lounger and then sank into it, sleepily enjoying the feel of the rising sun on her face and the smell of spring flowers.
    She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Two hours later she was in the grip of a nightmare where she had fallen overboard from a ship, and as she struggled in the icy water, above her, Jill Davent leaned over the rail and laughed.
    She awoke with a start to find the rain was drumming down and she was soaked to the skin. Agatha fled indoors and upstairs, where she stripped off her wet clothes, had a hot shower, pulled on a nightdress and climbed into bed.
    *   *   *
    Agatha awoke again in the early afternoon and reconnected her phone which she had switched off before falling asleep. She checked her messages. There were worried ones from her staff and several from the press.
    She dressed and went wearily downstairs. Looking through a small opening in the drawn curtains in her front room, she saw the press massed outside her cottage. Agatha went upstairs and changed into an old T-shirt, jacket, loose trousers and running shoes.
    Down again and out into the back garden, where she seized a ladder and propped it against the fence. She had somehow planned to heave the ladder up when she was straddled on the top of the fence but could not manage it. She was just about to give up and retreat when James appeared below in the narrow path which separated her cottage from his.
    â€œI’ll get my ladder,” he called up to her.
    If this were a film, thought Agatha grumpily, I would leap down into his strong arms. A watery sunlight was gilding the new leaves of the large lilac tree at the front of her cottage which mercifully screened her off from the press, who might otherwise have spotted her at the end of the passage.
    James came through a side gate from his garden carrying a ladder which he propped against the fence.
    Agatha climbed down. She smiled up at James and then ducked her head as she realised she wasn’t wearing make-up.
    â€œCome in and have a coffee,” said James. “But I really think you should have a word with the press, even if it’s ‘no comment’ or they’ll be here all day.”
    â€œIn these clothes!”
    â€œAgatha! Oh, all right. We’ll climb back over, sort yourself out, and then go out to face