The Quiche of Death Read Online Free Page A

very lucky."
    "Perhaps she might do a few hours for me," suggested Agatha. The door began to close. "Oh, no," said Mrs. Barr, "I am sure
     she wouldn't." And then the door was closed completely.
    We'll see about that, thought Agatha.
    She collected her handbag and went down to the Red Lion and hitched her bottom onto a bar stool. "Evening, Mrs. Raisin," said
     the landlord, Joe Fletcher. "Turned nice, hasn't it? Maybe we'll be getting some good weather after all."
    Screw the weather, thought Agatha, who was tired of talking about it. Aloud she said, "Do you know where Mrs. Simpson lives?"
    "Council estate, I think. Would that be Bert Simpson's missus?"
    "Don't know. She cleans."
    "Oh, ah, that'll be Doris Simpson all right. Don't recall the number, but it's Wakefield Terrace, second along, the one with
     the gnomes."
    Angela drank a gin and tonic and then set out for the council estate. She soon found Wakefield Terrace and the Simpsons because
     their garden was covered in plastic gnomes, not grouped round a pool, or placed artistically, but just spread about at random.
    Mrs. Simpson answered the door herself. She looked more like an old-fashioned schoolteacher than a charwoman. She had snow-white
     hair scraped back in a bun, and pale-grey eyes behind spectacles.
    Agatha explained her mission. Mrs. Simpson shook her head. "Don't see as how I can manage any more, and that's a fact. Do
     Mrs. Barr next to you on Tuesdays, then there's Mrs. Chomley on Wednesdays and Mrs. Cummings-Browne on Thursdays, and then
     the weekends I work in a supermarket at Evesham."
    "How much does Mrs. Barr pay you?" asked Agatha.
    "Three pounds an hour."
    "If you work for me instead, I'll give you four pounds an hour."
    "You'd best come in. Bert! Bert, turn that telly off. This here is Mrs. Raisin what's taken Budgen's cottage down Lilac Lane."
    A small, spare man with thinning hair turned off the giant television set which commanded the small neat living room.
    "I didn't know it was called Lilac Lane," said Agatha. "They don't seem to believe in putting up names for the roads in the
     village."
    "Reckon that's because there's so few of them, m'dear," said Bert.
    "I'll get you a cup of tea, Mrs. Raisin."
    "Agatha. Do call me Agatha," said Agatha with the smile that any journalist she had dealt with would recognize. Angela Raisin
     was going in for the kill.
    While Doris Simpson retreated to the kitchen, Agatha said, "I am trying to persuade your wife to stop working for Mrs. Barr
     and work for me instead. I am offering four pounds an hour, a whole day's work, and, of course, lunch supplied."
    "Sounds handsome to me, but you'll have to ask Doris," said Bert. "Not but what she would be glad to see the back of that
     Barr woman's house."
    "Hard work?"
    "It's not the work," said Bert, "it's the way that woman do go on. She follows Doris around, checking everything, like."
    "Is she from Carsely?"
    "Naw, her's an incomer. Husband died a whiles back. Something in the Foreign Office he was. Came here about twenty year ago."
    Agatha was just registering that twenty years in Carsely did not qualify one for citizenship, so to speak, when Mrs. Simpson
     came in with the tea-tray.
    "The reason I am trying to get you away from Mrs. Barr is this," said Agatha. "I am very bad at housework. Been a career woman
     all my life. I think people like you, Doris, are worth their weight in gold. I pay good wages because I think cleaning is
     a very important job. I will also pay your wages when you are sick or on holiday."
    "Now that's more than fair," cried Bert. " 'Member when you had your appendix out, Doris? Her never even came nigh the nospital,
     let alone gave you a penny."
    "True," said Doris. "But it's steady money. What if you was to leave, Agatha?"
    "Oh, I'm here to stay," said Agatha.
    "I'll do it," said Doris suddenly. "In fact, I'll phone her now and get it over with."
    She went out to the kitchen to phone. Bert tilted his head on one side and looked at