Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist (10 page)

Agatha had been part of a murder investigation when a rambler had been found dead on Sir Charles's land.

"Do you want to join us?" Agatha indicated her party, who were all staring at them.

"That's that chap Lacey," said Charles. "That's the one you nearly married. Odd bunch of people with him. No, I don't think I want to join them."

"What are you doing here, Charles?"

"Just a little holiday. You're here with Lacey? Honeymoon?"

"No, we're just friends."

"Oh, in that case, let's go somewhere for a drink."

"Don't you want to eat?"

"No, I was just cruising the highways and byways, looking for a cool place to have a drink."

"You'd best come over and say hullo," said Agatha, who was looking forward to introducing this baronet to Olivia.

"I don't think so, Agatha. You know what will happen. They'll all come with us. Let's just drift off."

Suddenly the thought of just walking away with Charles and going for a quiet drink somewhere seemed wonderful.

James had engaged Olivia in conversation, not wanting Agatha to know that they were all awaiting her return impatiently. He had not recognized Charles, who was slightly hidden by a palm; he only knew that Agatha was talking to some man. When he looked up again, Agatha and her companion had gone.

Ten minutes later Agatha and Charles were sitting at an outdoor cafe near the Dome Hotel.

Charles ordered brandy sours for both of them and leaned back in his chair and gazed vaguely out to sea.

"I heard you'd got married," said Agatha.

"Engaged. Didn't work. No chemistry. Sarah was very attached to her parents. Very worthy people, but her father was the sort of man who puts logs on
my
fire. Know what I mean?"

"Sort of," said Agatha, suddenly getting a picture of a solid middle-class family, foreign in their ways to the aristocratic Charles.

"They liked giving very long dinner parties with such boring people. I used to sit there thinking, when will this evening end? Bring on the cheese. Oh, please God, bring on the cheese."

"So you broke off the engagement? How's Gustav?" Gustav had been Charles's manservant.

"Left me because of the engagement. Terrible snob, Gustav."

"Where is he now?"

"Maitre d' in some classy hotel in Geneva."

"Did you replace him?"

"No. Can't have servants these days. Anachronism. Get women in from the village to clean, hire a catering company if we've a lot of people at the weekend. So what about this murder?"

Agatha told him all about it, feeling as she did so that every time she talked about it the whole thing became more unreal.

His pale eyes swivelled from the sea to her face. "So what about it? Are you hot on the trail?"

"Fm not," said Agatha gloomily. "In fact, I should be back there with James trying to find out more about them all. I thought of faxing Bill Wong, you know, my friend at Mircester police, asking him for some background, but James said to wait."

'I'll ask The Dome to send a fax if you like."

Damn James, thought Agatha. Why shouldn't she act on her own initiative?

"I haven't got a typewriter here, or computer," said Agatha.

"Write it by hand. I mean, it's not the Epistle to the Romans, is it? Just a few lines."

"I'll do it!" said Agatha.

"Good girl," said Charles, appearing to lose interest.

"So how are things back home?" asked Agatha, wondering now what James was making of her disappearance, and feeling uncomfortably that she had behaved badly.

"Oh, same as ever. That's a very pretty girl over there."

Agatha had the ordinary feminine irritation of being asked to admire some woman by a male companion. And she had walked off and left the field to Olivia. But as she was eager for Charles to arrange that fax to Bill Wong, she did not want to hurry him over his drink.

At last he signalled to the waitress and paid the bill.

The manager was still on duty and agreed to send a fax. Agatha wrote out her request on a piece of paper, asking for any reply to be sent to her at The Dome to await collection.

"I will put the charge on your bill," said the manager to Charles.

"It's not my fax," said Charles. "Mrs. Raisin will pay."

"Where are you staying, Mrs. Raisin?" asked the manager. "My accountant will send the bill to you."

Agatha wrote down her address.

"Well, I'm off to bed," said Charles, stifling a yawn.

"Aren't you going to run me home?" asked Agatha. "I went to the restaurant in James's car."

"Too tired. I'll get you a cab."

Charles ordered a cab for her at reception and nodded to her and walked off.

The receptionist said, "It is a very busy night. Your cab will be about ten minutes."

"I'll wait in the bar," said Agatha.

She walked through to the bar and stopped short on the threshold. Charles, with another brandy sour in his hand, was talking to a group of Turkish women. Agatha felt rejected all round--by James, by Charles.

She returned to the reception desk and waited until her cab arrived. But when she got back to the villa, it was to find the place in darkness, and James had the keys. She told the cab driver to take her to the Ottoman House Restaurant, only to find that they had all left half an hour before. Thinking she might have missed James on the road, she went back to the villa to find it still in darkness. Wearily she told the driver to take her back to The Dome.

James was not there and the others were not in their rooms. Where had they gone?

She sat down on a chair in the reception area and stared bleakly around.

"Still here?" asked Charles, walking up to her.

"Still here," echoed Agatha dismally. "James is still out somewhere and he has the keys."

"It's late. I'm off to bed." Charles hesitated. "Got two beds. You can have the other one if you like."

"I wouldn't mind that," said Agatha gratefully. "I'm tired of running around."

"Come along, then," he said, heading for the lift. "Just don't use my toothbrush."

Once in his room, he threw her a pair of pyjamas. "You can wear those and use the bathroom first."

Agatha washed and changed into the pyjamas. "You're in the bed by the window," said Charles when she emerged. "I hope you don't snore."

I don't think so," said Agatha. Tears started to her eyes. "Well, if I do, no one's ever told me."

"Have a good cry," he said. "Nothing like a bloody good cry. Then we'll have a drink and you'll sleep like a log."

He went into the bathroom. Agatha stared bleakly ahead. All in that moment, she longed to be back home in her cottage in Carsely with English rain drumming down on the thatch, secure with her cats sleeping at the end of the bed. What on earth was she doing sharing a foreign hotel room with this odd baronet?

He emerged from the bathroom finally, wearing a pair of paisley-patterned pyjamas. He flung open the windows and shutters. "There's at table out on the balcony, Aggie. Come and take a pew."

Agatha sat out on the balcony. The air was warm and sweet and the sound of the sea soothing.

"I can't mix brandy sours," he said, returning with a bottle and two glasses. "But at least I've got the brandy. It's local stuff but not bad."

They drank silently and then he said, "What was all that about?"

"What about?"

"You were nearly in tears, Aggie."

"It's Agatha."

"I like Aggie. I shall call you Aggie, and since you are in my room and drinking my brandy, I can call you what I like."

Slightly tipsy now, Agatha began to talk. She told him all about James, about her relationship with James, about her obsession with James.

"I had a crush on a girl like that when I was seventeen," he said when she had finished. "That's what it's like, Aggie. A teen-age crush."

"I didn't expect you to understand," said Agatha sadly.

"Have you ever considered," he said, tilting his brandy glass in the moonlight and watching the liquid, "that there is something up with the man to keep you hanging around like this?"

"I behaved badly. He won't forgive me."

"Then he should stop jerking your chain. All he had to do was tell you that you should not have followed him out here, that it is all over, and get lost, Aggie."

She bent her head. "I think he still loves me."

"Dream on. And talking of dreams, let's go to bed."

Agatha sighed, drained her glass and followed him into the bedroom. Somehow, even in his pyjamas, Charles looked as neat and impersonal as if he were wearing a business suit.

She got into bed. What a mess! Her head swam from all she had drunk.

"Move over," she heard Charles say.

"What?"

"Move over." He edged into the bed next to her and took her in his arms.

"What are you doing?" demanded Agatha.

"What do you think?"

He bent his head and kissed her slowly. Oh, well, just one kiss, thought Agatha drunkenly. It was all very soothing and sensuous and not quite real. He had forgotten to put on the air-conditioning and the windows were still open. He kissed her for quite a long time before he took her pyjamas off and Agatha's last sane thought was, oh, what the hell.

She awoke at five in the morning with the telephone ringing shrilly. Charles answered it. She heard him say, "Yes, James, she's here. She had nowhere to go, so I let her use the spare bed."

"He's coming up," said Charles after he had replaced the receiver. He got out of bed and rapidly put on the pyjamas he had discarded.

Agatha ran for the bathroom, where she had left her clothes. She turned on the shower and washed herself hurriedly, dried, and then put on her clothes. Outside she could hear the sound of voices. She looked anxiously at her face in the mirror, but it showed no signs of love-making.

She went out into the hotel room. "So there you are," said James cheerfully. "What a scare you gave us! Police all over the place looking for you."

"Where were you?" asked Agatha, avoiding looking at Charles. "I went to the villa, to the restaurant, but there was no sign of anyone."

"We all went on to a bar. Thanks for looking after her, Charles. I gather that must have been you at the restaurant. Why didn't you say hullo?"

"My pleasure," said Charles smoothly, ignoring the last question. "Now, if you both don't mind, I'll get some more sleep. I'm quite exhausted. Must be the sea air."

James led the way. Agatha turned in the doorway and looked back at Charles, but his neat features were closed and impersonal.

Men, thought Agatha Raisin. I'll never understand them.

Rose Macaulay described Saint Hilarion as "a picture book castle for elf kings" and it is supposed to have inspired the animators of
Snow White.
Sited on its craggy eyrie, 2,400 feet above the plain, Saint Hilarion is best known as the honeymoon castle of Richard the Lionheart. Saint Hilarion consists of three distinct sections on different levels. The highest part of the castle, reached by very steep worn steps, is the Tower of Prince John. Signs on the road up to the castle proclaim in multiple languages that photography is forbidden, but no one seems to pay any attention to that, in the same way as the locals pay no attention to either speed limits or parking restrictions.

Agatha climbed out of the car in the car-park the following afternoon and looked all around. Far below her on one side stretched the blue Mediterranean; on her other side, the ruins of the castle reared up against cloudless skies. There was a smell of pine, and cicadas chattered with their sewing-machine busyness.

James had let her sleep late and had been unusually quiet on the journey up the long winding road to the castle. Agatha felt guilty about having slept with Charles. What had come over her? And what had come over him? Charles had not shown any sign earlier in the evening of having been attracted to her in any way. He probably regarded her as a convenient lay. Agatha blushed.

"Your face is all red," said James. "Is it the heat?"

"Yes, yes," said Agatha fretfully. "The sun is very strong up here."

They walked together out of the car-park, past a small cafe and up steep steps towards the first part of the castle. Agatha felt bone-weary. She stumbled slightly. James caught her arm with unexpected roughness and said sharply, "I didn't know you and Charles were such buddies."

"We're not," said Agatha, jerking her arm away. "I only saw as much of him during that case as you did."

"That's what I thought. So why did you just walk off with him last night?"

"He took a look at the company and didn't like what he saw, so he asked me for a drink," said Agatha defensively. "What's up with that?"

"There's nothing up with that. Why did you just walk off with him? Oh, I know, my snobby little friend. He's a baronet."

"It wasn't that," raged Agatha. "I just wanted to get away from the lot of you!"

"Leaving me to find out what I could. One minor aristo crosses your path, Agatha, and you're off and running."

"That's not true. I sent a fax off to Bill Wong."

"What?"

"I sent a fax to Bill from The Dome. Charles saw the manager for me and he--"

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"How could I? You weren't there."

"And didn't you think to get a taxi? There was no need surely to climb into a comparative stranger's bed."

"I climbed into the spare bed. I had already been out to the villa twice. You weren't there. Was I supposed to cruise back and forwards all night, waiting for you to get home? Isn't there a spare set of keys?"

He fished in his pocket and handed her a ring of keys. "Jackie called with these this morning. That's the front door, that the back, that's the door off the upper terrace. Okay?"

"Thank you," said Agatha stiffly. "Are we going to stand here all day in this heat or are we going to get on and see this lump of rubble?"

They walked grimly on and upwards.

At last Agatha cried, "I've got to sit down for a moment."

She sank down onto a wall in the shade. James sat down beside her and stared at the ground at his feet. The atmosphere became heavy with unspoken accusation. Agatha pulled her guidebook out of her handbag and began to read aloud: