Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage by MC Beaton Page A

at a
kiosk in the foyer, and inside, tired middle-aged women showed people to their seats and then searched while the cinema was empty to make sure no one had left anything valuable.
    Rose saw the solitary figure sitting in the middle of one of the rows in the centre and thought, here’s another old-age pensioner fallen asleep. It was hard to be patient with these old
people. Some of them didn’t even know where they were or who they were when they woke up. The Cotswolds were turning into geriatric country.
    She edged along the row behind the still figure and, leaning forward, shook one shoulder. It was like a Hitchcock movie, thought Rose, her heart leaping into her mouth. The figure slowly keeled
sideways. Rose gasped, leaned over and shone her torch into the figure’s face, for although the lights were on in the cinema, they were still quite dim.
    The bulging eyes of Miss Purvey stared glassily back at her. A scarf was twisted savagely around the old scrawny neck.
    Shock takes people in strange ways. Rose walked quickly to the foyer and told her fellow usherette to call the manager, and then she phoned the police. She told the man in the ticket office to
come out and close the cinema doors and not let anyone else in. Then she lit a cigarette and waited. The police and an ambulance arrived, the CID arrived, the pathologist, and then the forensic
team.
    Rose told her story several times, was taken to the police station, where she repeated everything again, and then signed a statement.
    She accepted a lift home in a police car and told the pretty young policewoman that she would be perfectly all right after she had had a cup of tea.
    When she let herself into her house, her husband shambled out of the living-room. He was wearing his favourite old moth-eaten cardigan and he had bits of boiled egg stuck to his moustache.
    ‘I hate you!’ screamed Rose, and then she began to cry.
     
Chapter Five
    James and Agatha walked through the fog back to Lilac Lane from the Red Lion that evening. They were silent. The villagers had decided that they were not murder suspects and
so, instead of a chilly silence, they had received a warm greeting and then had had to endure a heavy sort of banter, being teased about when they were going to tell everyone the date of their
wedding day.
    James had not wanted to say firmly that he would never marry Agatha because that would have been rude, and so it was the blunt Agatha who had suddenly said loudly, ‘We’re not suited;
we’re not marrying, and that’s that!’
    And instead of being grateful to her for having sorted the whole business out, James felt obscurely that Agatha had given him a public rejection and was in a mood remarkably like a sulk.
    Agatha grabbed his arm. ‘Look!’ she cried.
    Under the security light outside James’s door stood Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes, Bill Wong and Maddie.
    ‘What’s happened now?’ asked James. ‘Oh, God, I hope that Purvey woman hasn’t committed suicide as well.’
    Wilkes waited until they approached and then said, ‘We’d better go inside.’
    James let them in. They all stood around in the living-room.
    ‘Sit down,’ said Wilkes, his dark face serious. ‘This might take some time. Did you call on a Miss Janet Purvey today?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Agatha. ‘What is this about?’
    ‘And where were you both this afternoon?’
    ‘Before you go any further,’ said James, ‘I thought it was only in the movies that the police keep asking questions without telling anyone the real reason they are being
questioned. So, out with it! Something awful has obviously happened to Miss Purvey.’
    Bill Wong spoke up, his narrow eyes scanning both their faces. ‘Miss Purvey was found strangled in the Imperial Cinema in Mircester this afternoon. So we must ask again, what were you both
doing this afternoon?’
    ‘You should know, Bill, that neither of us could have anything to do with her murder,’ exclaimed Agatha.
    ‘Just answer