Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death Read Online Free Page B

immediately gone.
    ‘What’s your name?’ asked Agatha.
    ‘Portia Salmond.’
    ‘Well, Portia, are we going to get down to business this day?’
    ‘Mr Peter and Mr Guy will be with you directly.’ Portia went to the coffee machine and poured a cup of coffee for Agatha. She returned and put it down in front of her, along with an
extra saucer. ‘You can use that until I manage to find an ashtray.’
    The door at the far end of the room opened and a man entered, hand outstretched.
    ‘I am Peter Freemont,’ he said. ‘Guy will be along in a minute.’
    Peter Freemont was about forty years old, powerful and swarthy with black hair already greying at the temples. He had a large fleshy nose and a small mouth, thick bushy eyebrows and a very large
head. His broad figure was encased in a pin-striped suit and his feet, which were tiny, in black lace-up shoes, like children’s shoes. He looked like the figure of a man painted on the side
of a balloon. Agatha wondered madly whether, if she tied string around his ankles and held him out of the window, he would float up to the sky.
    But then brother Guy walked in and Agatha promptly forgot about Peter. Guy Freemont was beautiful. He was tall and slim, with jet-black hair and very blue eyes, a tanned skin and an
athlete’s body. Agatha judged him to be in his middle thirties. He gave Agatha such a blinding smile that she searched in her briefcase for her notebook to cover her confusion.
    They both sat down at the table. ‘Now, to business. You come highly recommended,’ said Peter.
    ‘I would like to know first,’ said Agatha, ‘if this meeting to be held by Mary Owen in the village hall is going to pose problems. What if the villagers all decide they
don’t want the water company?’
    ‘There’s nothing they can do,’ said Peter, clasping his plump hands covered in black hairs on the table in front of him. ‘The spring rises in Mrs Toynbee’s garden.
Mrs Toynbee is a direct descendant of Miss Jakes, who first channelled the spring out to the road, and Mrs Toynbee has given us her permission.’
    Guy opened a folder and slid a piece of artwork in front of Agatha. ‘This is what the bottle will look like.’ Agatha was surprised to see that the label showed a photograph of the
skull with the water gushing out of it. ‘Isn’t that a bit grim,’ she asked, ‘particularly in view of the murder?’
    ‘They’re not sure it is murder yet,’ said Guy. ‘Anyway, death’s heads and skulls always promote a product. There was a cigarette company that always had something
like the shape of a skull in their ads and a brand of gin used to have an ad with the ice cubes in a glass in the shape of a skull.’
    ‘It could be argued,’ said Agatha, lighting a cigarette, ‘that people who drink and smoke have a death wish. But people who go around drinking gnat’s piss like mineral
water are usually the healthy type.’
    ‘Not any more,’ said Peter. ‘They can be reformed alcoholics who still have the death wish. They can be business people at the new fashionable “dry” lunches, or
they can be people who just can’t stand the taste of the drinking water from the tap, which often smells like swimming pools. But everyone is fascinated by death. Now there needs to be some
big event to launch the water. What about taking over some stately home like Blenheim Palace . . .?’
    ‘They’d hardly agree to that, seeing as how they are producing their own water,’ Agatha pointed out.
    ‘Perhaps hire a boat and go down the Thames, lots of celebs, lots of booze for the press?’ suggested Guy.
    ‘Old hat,’ said Agatha. ‘I have it, and it’d be a way to get the goodwill of the village. A village fête.’
    ‘Oh, come on,’ protested Peter. ‘Tacky cakes and home-made jam and women in 1970s Laura Ashley dresses.’
    ‘No, no, listen to me,’ said Agatha eagerly. ‘Why do you think tourists come to the Cotswolds?’
    ‘Beauty spot?’ suggested