Agatha's First Case by M. C. Beaton

I
    Agatha Raisin had made it to Mayfair. She was twenty-six years old and for the past six months had been working as secretary to Jill Butterfrick, head of Butterfrick Personal Relations. The offices were in South Audley Street; the pay was not very good and the hours were long. But ambitious Agatha wanted to put clear water between herself and her unfortunate past, fleeing the Birmingham slum where she had been brought up, escaping her drunken parents, and walking out on a disastrous marriage to Jimmy Raisin.
    She sometimes felt she should divorce Jimmy, but kept putting it off until she assumed that, like her parents, he had probably died of drink. Agatha could only afford a one-room flat in Acton. She carefully bought designer clothes in thrift shops and tried to elocute as much of her Birmingham accent out of her voice as she possibly could.
    Apart from her eyes, which were small and bearlike, she presented an otherwise attractive appearance. She was slim with very long legs and shiny brown hair worn in a pageboy.
    Jill was a bully and often kept Agatha late when there was no reason for it. Agatha quickly gathered that practically all the clients were “friends of Daddy,” and guessed that the inefficient Jill would otherwise probably have no clients at all. The public relations officers consisted of three languid debs who seemed to do very little.
    All of the dogsbody office work was handled by Agatha. She only put up with it because she wanted to absorb Mayfair. Soon she would move on and, she cynically thought, have to be replaced by at least three employees.
    She had previously tried to get employment with a reputable top PR agency. Agatha had thought the interview had gone well and the boss had said he would let her know. He had called in his secretary as she was leaving. Agatha paused by the secretary’s desk to check her makeup and, to her horror, heard the boss say, “That one just won’t do. Bit of a toughie. Not enough polish for us. Give it a couple of days and send her a rejection.” Agatha had left, her face flaming with mortification. Two Agathas warred in her soul. The quivering inside Agatha wanted to give up her ambitions but warred with another Agatha, who snarled, “One day I’ll show you!”
    But the life of Agatha Raisin was about to change. Jill summoned her one morning. Agatha waited politely for instructions while her inner voice said, What, now, you nasty-faced bitch?
    Jill had a long horsey face and very large teeth. Her carefully tinted blond hair hung about her face in the latest style, which seemed to involve looking as if one had just crawled out of bed.
    â€œWe have a problem,” she said. “Have you heard of the merchant banker, Sir Bryce Teller?”
    â€œI read about him,” said Agatha. “The papers think he’s going to be arrested for murdering his wife.”
    â€œYes, well, he’s a friend of daddy’s, and all that. But I have the reputation of this agency to consider. He wants us to deal with the press. Go round there—better to tell him in person—and say that in the circs, we cannot represent him. But best wishes and all that. He lives in Wigmore Street, so just trot round there. Here’s the address.”
    Heart beating hard, Agatha left Jill’s office. On the road out, she snatched up a pile of the morning papers and took ten pounds out of the petty cash. “Is that authorised?” drawled a girl called Samantha.
    â€œWouldn’t do it otherwise,” said Agatha, and made her escape. It was a sunny July day. Agatha found a café with a table outside and ordered a sandwich and coffee. After she had finished her sandwich, she lit a cigarette and opened the newspapers and began to read everything about the murder that she could. The facts were stark. Sir Bryce had been heard shouting at his wife. His wife had been found in the morning strangled with a cheese wire that Bertha Jones, his