Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam by M. C Beaton

Author:M. C Beaton [Beaton, M. C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: [Côte d’Azur]
Published: 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

∨ The Fairies of Fryfam ∧

6

Lizzie Findlay came in, blinking in the light. She looked small and faded and scared.

“Are you going to blackmail me?” she asked.

“Not at all,” said Charles. “Take off your coat and come into the sitting-room.”

He helped her out of her coat.

When they were all seated in front of the fire, Charles said, “We’ve found out you spent some time with Tolly, masquerading as his wife, in Norwich.”

Lizzie went white. “You won’t tell my husband!”

“No,” said Agatha. “We just want to know what it’s all about. We won’t tell the police either.”

“I suppose I’ll have to tell you,” said Lizzie, looking miserably down at her work-worn hands. “It started last year. Tolly was very nice to me and we talked a lot at those interminable hunt dinners. After a bit, I began to tell him how awful my marriage was and he began to tell me how awful his marriage was and one thing led to another. My husband goes out a lot, and Tolly then came up with this idea of taking the flat in Norwich. My husband was going away to visit relatives in Canada for a month and he said he wouldn’t take me. So that really started it, that month together. I was worried about Lucy finding out, but he said she didn’t care a rap for him, only his money.”

“Could the captain have found out?” asked Agatha. “Could he have killed Tolly?”

“I don’t know,” she said wretchedly. “I’ve worried and worried about it.”

“We saw you in Norwich this afternoon,” said Charles. “You were transformed – different clothes, make-up, all that. Is there someone else?”

“No,” said Lizzie, “and there never will be now. I’m trapped for life. Tolly wanted to make out a new will…” Agatha flashed a triumphant look at Charles. “He wanted to leave everything to me. But I said Lucy would contest the will and there would be such a scandal. He kept saying he would get a divorce and I kept asking him if he’d told Lucy, but he always swore he would tell her soon. Then he said he would make a new will, leaving me the Stubbs, and that way I could sell it and be free of my husband.”

“So there was another will!” cried Agatha.

Lizzie shook her head. “I don’t think so. He said he’d made a new will on one of those do-it-yourself will forms from the stationer’s, but why would he do that when, as far as he knew, he might outlive me?”

“But don’t you see,” said Agatha, excited. “Say he did make out another will and Lucy found it; she may have stolen the Stubbs herself to make sure you didn’t get it.”

“You haven’t told us yet why you still go to that flat in Norwich and dress up,” said Charles.

She gave a pathetic little smile. “The flat’s paid up until the end of the year. You know how some transvestites parade around as women and that’s all they do. I’m rather like that.

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