The Croaking Raven

by Gladys Mitchell

  “I say that it is most unlikely. The abdomen was not sufficiently distended, neither were all the organs disrupted by gas, which is what one would expect if the body had been dead for, say, a couple of weeks.”

  “Which parts of the body are the last to be disrupted?”

  “The voluntary muscles, followed by the prostate.”

  “And this had not occurred? Well, thank you, doctor.”

  Dame Beatrice’s opinion of the approximate length of time that Eustace Dysey had been dead thus being upheld by the official medical evidence, the inspector went to work again. Gavin went back to London, Laura took her son to join the school party which was bound for Denmark, Jonathan and Deborah returned to their own home, and Dame Beatrice, supported (although for one day only) by the women servants, she, the gardener, and her henchman George remained at Dysey Castle.

  The first thing that happened, and this not at all to her surprise, was that the cook, the parlourmaid and the housemaid all gave notice.

  “It being ’igh time to look about us for winter security, mum,” said the cook, tactfully.

  “I’m sure we’ve been very happy with you, madam, but us reckon not to stay in one place too long, like,” said the parlourmaid, speaking for herself and her sister.

  “I quite understand,” said Dame Beatrice. “I will pay you your wages and then you can go at once.” Left with the kitchenmaid, who had not uttered a word, she added, “And what about you, Zena?”

  “No, thank you, mum. I’ve bin well suited here.”

  “But I’m only staying for the next few weeks, you know. Have you anything in mind?”

  “Yes, mum, I have been promised a position with Mr. Dysey, mum, him as give evidence in court, when you gives up this ’ouse.”

  “Oh, really? Well, I hope you will like it there, and will settle in comfortably.”

  “I’m to learn the cookin’, mum.”

  “I thought Mr. Dysey’s wife did that.”

  “Not no longer she don’t want to, mum. She’s wishful to be a lady, like you and Mrs. Gavin.”

  “I see.”

  When Laura returned on the following day, Dame Beatrice said to her, “I think I had better send for Henri and Celestine. We can’t expect Zena to do everything. Go over to the home farm and telephone them, will you?”

  “Just as you say, but we could manage quite easily, you know.”

  “I hardly see how. We shall be here until the last week in October. It is not as though it were a few days.”

  “Oh, are you thinking of staying until the lease is worked out? I thought perhaps…”

  “Did you?”

  Laura grinned.

  “Well, no, not really. Not with two unexplained deaths on our hands. What are you going to do about them?” she asked. “Shall you contact Mrs. Dysey?”

  “That will be unnecessary,” Dame Beatrice replied, “for I perceive her at the entrance to the gatehouse.”

  “Wonder why she didn’t attend the inquest?”

  “Perhaps we shall know very soon.”

  Mrs. Dysey presented a less shabby appearance than she had done at their last two interviews with her. Zena let her in and announced her.

  “Mrs. Dysey, mum, unexpected, her says.”

  “I hope I’m not entirely unexpected,” said Mrs. Dysey, glancing round to make certain that Zena had closed the door behind her. “The police asked me to come to the inquest on poor Eustace, but, of course, it was impossible, at this time of year, to book a seat on a ’plane at such short notice, so I had to travel back by rail and boat. Well, I’m sorry your visit had to end like this. Too bad! When did you want to move out?”

  “When my lease of the castle has expired,” said Dame Beatrice. Mrs. Dysey looked taken aback.

  “You want to stay here, after what has happened? Oh, but really!”

  “There is nothing in the agreement to say that I must give up my tenancy because there has been a violent death.”

  “Well, really—I mean, of course you’re within your rights if you wish to stay. I should have thought you would have been only too glad to leave. I would, of course, expect to refund a proportion of the rent you paid.”

  “No, no,” Dame Beatrice assured her, “I shall be delighted to stay.”

  Mrs. Dysey’s face and manner changed.

  “Oh, but, meanwhile, what am I going to do? After all, this is my home. You must leave immediately. Really you must!” she cried. Dame Beatrice looked solemn and said,

  “I am afraid I must hold you to the terms of the agreement. It is necessary for me to remain here until my lease expires.”

  “But you can’t! Where am I to go?”

  “I cannot offer you temporary accommodation here, I am afraid. My work would suffer, and that, of course, is not to be thought of. But you would like some tea before you go.”

  Laura rang the bell and gave the necessary order to Zena. There was a long silence after the bell was answered. Laura went over to the writing table and, with her back to the antagonists (for such she felt them to be), began a letter to her husband. Tea was brought in at the end of a quarter of an hour. Laura joined the others and poured out. Dame Beatrice chatted. Mrs. Dysey made monosyllabic replies at first. Then she said, with some suddenness,

  “Please tell me all you know about Eustace’s death. How did he come to be here? He was supposed to be in Eastbourne. I don’t understand it at all.”

  Dame Beatrice gave a brief account of the accidental discovery of the priest’s-hole and of how she herself had found the body there. She made no mention of the thefts of food. She concluded by saying:

  “I suppose you knew of the existence of the secret stairway?”

  “I had heard of it, but I did not know where it was or how to get to it. Of course, there have always been stories that it existed.”

  “Somebody knew that it did.”

  “Eustace himself may have known. He was always poking all around the place. Nothing better to do, I suppose! If I’d realised what a nuisance he was going to make of himself, I would never have had him back here after the war.”

  “You found him a disturbing influence?”

  “Of course I did—creeping about, poking, and prying. There wasn’t a corner of the house we could call our own. I even found him half-way up the chimney of my bedroom on one occasion.”

  “He appears to have been an enthusiastic seeker after truth.”

  “Not truth! Proof!”

  “Proof of the existence of the priest’s-hole, do you mean?”

  “No, I mean proof of the validity of his claim to the castle and estates.”

  “That would have been after your husband’s death, of course. We have made the acquaintance of Mr. Cyril Dysey, and he tells us that he and Mr. Eustace were twin brothers, and that Mr. Thomas Dysey, your husband, was the eldest son.”

  “He died, you know.”

  “Yes, we do know that.”

  “Under very peculiar circumstances.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. What have you heard?”

  “That he was found dead by the gardener at the foot of the flanking tower on the blind side of the house—the tower which stands at the end of the kitchen garden.”

  “Oh, well, if that’s all that you heard…”

  “You allowed us to believe, did you not, that your husband was still alive when we agreed to rent the castle?”

  “Yes, I did. It was neither here nor there, so far as you were concerned, I thought, and, for myself, well, it seemed safer to allow you to think that you had a man to deal with. I am unused to business matters and am afraid of being cheated. Not that I am suggesting for a moment, of course, that you would attempt to cheat me, but you must allow that I did not know you, let alone who you were, at the time.”

  “Quite. I wonder who—I take it that one of your baptismal names is Henrietta?”

  “Unfortunately it is. I was christened Thomasina Henrietta Victoria, if you wish to know.”


  “I see. I wonder whether you know that there seems to be another Henrietta Dysey?”

  “Another Henrietta Dysey?”

  “She was one of the visitors—those, I mean, who pay to be allowed to inspect the castle.”

  “There is no other Henrietta Dysey, so far as I am aware. What does she look like?”

  “She is a little above the average height. She has dyed brown hair. She has shortsighted (I should imagine) pale blue eyes, takes a number six shoe, has thin hands with long fingers, used to bite her nails (I think), speaks with an accent I associate with the Earls Court district of London, is inclined to be dictatorial, is either indigent or mercenary—perhaps both—and she came here on a not very new Raleigh bicycle.”

  “Good heavens! Oh, yes, that’s Henrietta, all right.”

  “But I thought you said…”

  “I’d forgotten all about her. As a matter of fact, I heard some years ago that she was dead. Why on earth did she want to come here? She’s not a Dysey. I don’t know that I ever heard her surname. There was some scandal, I believe, but, really, I know very little about it. Henry was a child of two when I married Tom, and he was living in the castle at the time, but he was adopted—I suppose that’s the right word—by my husband’s brother Cyril, and has lived at the chalet ever since Cyril bought it. But that is neither here nor there, so never mind about Henrietta—although, really, I can’t think why she came here. Tell me about the inquest. What did the doctor say?”

  “That Eustace Dysey had fallen from a considerable height, but that he was dead before he fell,” said Dame Beatrice, fascinated by the muddled speech she had just heard.

  “I know what the verdict was, of course. Such utter nonsense! Neither my husband nor Eustace was murdered. The police must be mad! My husband’s death was a sheer accident, and, if Eustace was the cause of it, no wonder he committed suicide. It was only to be expected.”

  Dame Beatrice pursed her lips into a little beak.

  “Of Mr. Thomas Dysey’s death I know next to nothing,” she said, “but it does seem that somebody carried Mr. Eustace Dysey’s body to the priest’s-hole, the inference being that this was in an attempt to hide it. That certainly seems to suggest foul play, does it not?”

  “Oh, nonsense! My own theory is that Eustace had found the priest’s-hole and, having fatally injured himself in an attempt at committing suicide, crept into it to die.”

  “Why should he do that?”

  “Oh, he was always cunning and secretive—and very silly and romantic, of course.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, well,” said Mrs. Dysey, rising from her chair, “I suppose I’d better go along to John Carter at the farm and beg for a bed, since you are determined not to have me here.”

  “I understand that Mr. Carter is also a Dysey by descent,” said Dame Beatrice, accompanying her to the door, “and I am sorry to be churlish about refusing you shelter. Apart from everything else, I have no servants here at present except for the child who showed you in. That fact alone makes it virtually impossible to entertain visitors.”

  “But I left you a cook, a parlourmaid, and a housemaid! What has happened to them?”

  “They folded their tents, like the Arabs. In other words, they were chary of remaining in a house which has been searched by the police and which, by repute, is haunted.”

  “Haunted? By whom?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that.”

  “Have you seen anything?”

  “Personally, no, I have not. But a figure has been seen in the dining-room and ghostly singing has been heard.”

  “Eustace, on both counts. I suppose he never left the place, although he promised me he would vacate it while I was away. But that is Eustace all over. If Alice Carter won’t take me in at the farm, what do you suggest I should do?”

  “Ask Mr. Cyril Dysey for a bed?” suggested Dame Beatrice. Mrs. Dysey stared at her, pausing at the door in order to do so. Dame Beatrice cackled.

  “A joke not in the best of taste, if you knew all,” Mrs. Dysey said. “Well, I will wish you a very good afternoon, and if the police plague you about Eustace as they plagued me about Tom, you will have my sympathy.”

  “I wonder,” said Dame Beatrice, “whether you have any theory to account for the fact that your husband was wearing cricketing flannels when his body was found?”

  “No, I haven’t. Tom and I had not shared a room for years. It was nothing to me how he chose to dress.”

  “And the police, of course, will have asked you all the questions which would occur to an outside observer.”

  “If you mean to ask me whether I know who Tom was going to meet that night, or whether he was, in fact, going to meet anybody, the answer to both questions is the same: I simply don’t know. What business is it of yours, anyway?”

  “I found Mr. Eustace’s body, and have been subjected to police questioning. Does not that make it something of my business to find out, if I can, what has been going on in this castle?”

  “What did you make of her?” asked Laura, when Mrs. Dysey had gone. “She was a bit hole-and-corner on the subject of the other Henrietta, I thought. First she didn’t know her, and then she did. Very in-and-out running, if you ask me.”

  “I wonder why she expected to be allowed to stay here? She could not possibly have thought I would agree.”

  “I think her basic idea was to turn us out. She’s a very fishy customer, I’d say. I didn’t exactly take to her on the other occasions when we met her, but this time I felt extremely anti-Etta. I had the impression that you felt the same—or was that wishful thinking on my part?”

  “I felt that it was unreasonable of her to expect us to vacate the castle at almost a moment’s notice, although I agree that that was really what she wanted.”

  “Cool cheek, I call it. Besides, if she can come here now, she could have come over for the inquest, and then, I suppose, you’d have had to put her up for a night or two.”

  “She explained why she could not attend the inquest.”

  “Phooey!—as a dear old friend of ours would say. I bet she could have come to it if she’d wanted to. Afraid she might be asked some awkward questions, don’t you think? She’s a menace! I don’t trust her an inch, and I can tell that you don’t, either. There’s something desperately fishy about her. I’ve thought so all along.”

  “I think she is keeping her own counsel—and is determined not to help the police to track down the person or persons who killed Thomas and Eustace Dysey.”

  “Are you going to take on the job yourself? You have the air of a woman who has something up her sleeve.”

  “I take no more than an academic interest in the matter.”

  “Well, that goes for the police, in a way, I suppose. I mean, they’re not spurred on by motives of revenge. You’d have to kill a policeman to get that kind of reaction from the Force.”

  “You are right. Revenge, in any case, is a sordid type of triumph, so let academic interest hoist its banner.”

  “You are going to muscle in, then?”

  “An unsuitable metaphor to apply to my urge to research into a delicate problem.”

  “Would you call murder a delicate problem?”

  “No, but the question of an inheritance may be described in those terms.”

  “How are you going to begin?”

  “By talking with the persons who were members of the house-party on the night when Thomas Dysey was killed.”

  “You think these are dynastic murders, so to speak? But, if that’s so, the murderer is either Cyril or Henry Dysey.”

  “Unless, of course, there is a nearer claimant who has not yet appeared on the scene.”

  “Oh, so that’s what you think! Well, a constructive natter or two should bring him to the surface. Who’s your first victim to be?”

  “The vicar’s wife, I think,” Dame Beatrice replied.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Vicar and I Were There

 
; “She has cast awa’ the brown and the red,

  And she’s follow’d him to beg her bread.

  She has ta’en the scales o’ gowd frae her hair

  She has ta’en the scales o’ gowd frae her hair

  Hynd Horn

  The church, with its vicarage, was distant some two miles from the castle, but was on what had once been demesne land, according to the custom of the time when it had been built. The village of Ravens Dysey was half a mile south of it, and the church tower resembled the Dysey Castle keep in that it had been a stronghold in the troubled times of Matilda versus Stephen. Laura had visited the church in company with Hamish on the Sundays when both had been resident at the castle, and had pronounced it as being “quite respectably Norman, with an Early English chancel and a broach spire.” Hamish had added to this description by referring enthusiastically to “two fab. brasses, Mrs. Dame dear, and, if I can get some heel-ball and a big enough piece of paper, I’ll take some rubbings for you if I can get permission from the vicar.” The rubbings had not materialised. He was kept too busy down at the home farm, he explained, to be able to spend time on mere pleasure.

  A sighting-shot, as Laura termed it, had been aimed at the vicarage in the form of a letter delivered by George, who brought back the answer that the vicar and his wife would be delighted to take lunch at the castle. After lunch, while Laura showed the vicar the keep, the battlements and the priest’s-hole, Dame Beatrice and the young wife sat out on the grassy side of the courtyard and conversed. Mrs. Charlock was in the last few weeks of her first pregnancy, and had declined to inspect flanking towers or to negotiate spiral staircases.

  “I suppose you have been to this castle before,” Dame Beatrice observed.

  “Only once, on the night Thomas Dysey was killed. Edward was appointed to the living here three years ago. He was curate of a parish in the Midlands before that, and did a good deal of youth club work with which I helped him before we were married. The Dyseys called on us when Edward was inducted, but, after that—” She shrugged.

  “And what is your opinion of youth clubs?”

  “It’s rather like preaching to the converted, I always think. The decent youngsters come, and those we’d really like to get hold of stay away—or amuse themselves wrecking the place. We had quite a bit of that.”