Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage by MC Beaton Page A

was just beginning when Mrs Bloxby asked her apologetically if she would mind taking the Boggles over to Ancombe in her car.
    ‘I know, Agatha,’ said Mrs Bloxby ruefully, ‘but we put names in a hat before you came and you got the Boggles. Ancombe isn’t far, about five minutes’ drive at the
most.’
    ‘Okay,’ said Agatha gloomily.
    She drove round to the Boggles’ home, named Culloden, on the council estate. Like most of the people on the estate, they had bought their house. How could James even think for a moment I
would live in a place like this, thought Agatha. It was admittedly a well-built stone house, but exactly the same as all the other houses round about. She stood looking dismally up at it. The door
opened and the squat figure of Mrs Boggle appeared, followed by her husband. ‘Are you goin’ to stand there all day,’ grumbled Mrs Boggle, ‘or are you coming to help
me?’
    Agatha repressed a sigh and went forward to support the bulk of Mrs Boggle, who smelt strongly of chips and lavender, towards the car.
    They both got in the back while Agatha, chauffeur-like, got into the driving seat. Mrs Boggle poked Agatha in the back as she was about to drive off. ‘Us shouldn’t be going with the
likes of you,’ she said. ‘Poor Mr Lacey. What a disgrace.’
    Agatha swung round, her face flaming. ‘Shut up, you old trout,’ she said viciously. ‘Or walk.’
    ‘I’ll tell Mrs Bloxby on you,’ muttered Mrs Boggle but then relapsed into silence during the drive to Ancombe.
    Agatha hoisted the two Boggles from the car outside Ancombe church hall and sent them inside and then went to join Mrs Mason, the chairwoman of the Carsely group, Miss Simms, the secretary, and
Mrs Bloxby. ‘Shame about you landing them Boggles,’ said Miss Simms, Carsely’s unmarried mother. ‘Don’t worry, I had them last time.’
    ‘I didn’t know you had a car,’ said Agatha.
    ‘My gentleman friend bought me one. Hardly the wages o’ sin. Not a Porsche but a rusty old Renault five.’
    Agatha turned to Mrs Bloxby. ‘Has that woman who’s bought my cottage joined the Ladies’ Society?’
    ‘I did ask her,’ said the vicar’s wife, ‘but she said she couldn’t be bothered and shut the door in my face.’
    ‘Nasty cow,’ said Agatha. ‘Oh, if only I hadn’t sold my cottage! I’d better look for somewhere else. I can’t live out of a suitcase at James’s
forever.’ She walked off into the hall.
    ‘Now there’s a thing,’ said Miss Simms, picking a piece of tobacco off her teeth. ‘I thought the wedding would happen sooner or later.’
    Doris Simpson, Agatha’s cleaner, joined them. ‘Poor Agatha,’ she said. ‘She do miss her home and I miss the cleaning.’
    ‘Don’t you do for Mr Lacey, then?’ asked Miss Simms.
    ‘No, he does his own cleaning, and that’s unnatural in a man, if you ask me.’
    ‘I had a fellow like that once. Went off and left me for another fellow,’ said Miss Simms. ‘It all goes to show.’
    ‘I do not think our Mr Lacey is that way inclined,’ said Mrs Bloxby.
    ‘Never can tell. Some of ’em don’t come out o’ the closet till they’re quite old and then they run around saying, “This is the life,” and bugger the
wife and kids,’ Mrs Simpson said.
    ‘“Bugger” being the word,’ said Miss Simms and gave a cackle of laughter.
    ‘Shall we go in, ladies?’ suggested the vicar’s wife.
    The revue consisted of songs and sketches. In the way of amateur productions, the singer most on stage was the one with the weakest voice and had chosen to sing a selection
from the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber, petering out in the high notes and dying in the low notes and shrill in the middle. The rendering of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ was,
Agatha reflected sourly, music to stun pigs by.
    Usually when she was out at some event that bored her, she looked forward to returning home to her cottage and cats. But there was only James’s cottage to return