Dishing the Dirt

“Not a thing. Not even a phone,” said Charles. “It’s only in books where the detective finds something taped to the bottom of a drawer.”


“Let’s try the back garden,” said Agatha. “With all her blackmailing carry-on, she must have needed places to hide things. I wonder if she hid that book in Jenny’s desk or if kleptomaniac Jenny pinched it.”

They walked through the kitchen to the back door. Charles tried several keys and then unlocked the door.

“She was no gardener,” he said. The back garden was nothing but a square of weeds with a shed at the end. The day had turned very dark and as they made their way to the shed, lightning split the sky, followed by a massive crack of thunder.

Then the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down. The shed was unlocked. They dived into it out of the rain.

“Wasn’t it Charles the Second who said that the English summer consisted of two days heat followed by a thunderstorm?” asked Charles.

Agatha scowled at him. She hated quotations. They made her feel more badly educated than she actually was. She looked around. Rusty garden implements were propped against the walls.

“I don’t like this shed,” said Agatha. “There’s something wrong here.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s the storm,” said Charles. “There’s nothing here but us.”

“Would she have buried things?” asked Agatha. “I mean, she thieved Tris’s wallet and kept it. Perhaps she kept souvenirs of all the people she had conned. Maybe there’s a loose plank or something.”

“The floor looks untouched,” said Charles. “There’s nothing here.”

“The police didn’t dig up the garden,” said Agatha, looking out of the grimy shed window.

“Why should they?” remarked Charles. “They weren’t looking for dead bodies. I mean, Jill was the dead body. Look at it. That garden hasn’t been touched in years.”

“Snakes and bastards!” howled Agatha. “I’m sick of the whole thing.”

“Never mind,” said Charles. “The rain’s easing off. Let’s make a dash for it.”

Agatha stumbled across the garden in her high-heeled sandals. One foot caught in the now muddy earth in front of shallow wooden steps leading up to the kitchen and she fell heavily.

Charles rushed to heave her up. “Look!” said Agatha. There were three wide wooden steps and the top of one of them had become dislodged in her fall.

“There’s something in there,” she said excitedly. “It’s a box.”

“Put on gloves,” said Charles.

Agatha pulled a pair of latex gloves out of her handbag. She lifted out a metal box. “I’ll take it into the kitchen,” she said.

She put it on the kitchen table. “It’s not all that heavy. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

She took out items and laid them on the table. “We’ve two Rolex Oyster watches, three wallets, a big pile of notes, all sorts of currencies, sexy photographs of her in bed with various men. She must have had a partner to take these photos. What a contortionist she was! But no documents or letters.”

“Anything in the wallets?”

“No cards. But family pictures in two of them.”

“You’ll need to call the police,” said Charles.

“Do I have to?” wailed Agatha. “I found it.”

“Agatha, those photos are probably from her hooking days in Chicago. You need the police to follow it up. That way, they’ll find out who she was working with.”

“Anybody home?” called a voice. Agatha put the items back in the box and slammed down the lid. “Who’s there?”

“Me,” said Simon, walking into the kitchen. “What have you got there?” He had been searching for her.

“Just found it,” said Agatha. “I stumbled over a box of Jill’s stuff. I’ll need to call the police. There are photos she probably used to blackmail her clients in America.”

“May I have a look?” asked Simon.