The Croaking Raven

by Gladys Mitchell

  “They might, given certain conditions,” said Dame Beatrice. She changed the subject slightly. “What did you mean when you said that Henry Dysey—Slepe, I suppose I should call him, but it is simpler to retain the name by which, I infer, he is generally known—that Henry Dysey, at the age of three, made vicious attacks upon Bonamy?”

  “All I know is that I was called in to attend Bonamy for a black eye and quite severe cuts—that was the first occasion. The second—and the incident which decided the Tom Dyseys to get rid of Henry—was when they found Henry busy digging a grave.”

  “A grave? How did they know it was that?” asked Laura.

  “Henry told them. A day or so earlier Tom had interested him (with the intention of comforting him for its loss) by conducting a burial service for a dog which had died from old age. Henry had asked what had happened to it, and was told that it had gone to heaven. He appears to have reminded them that they had told him, when he had asked, that heaven was where Bonamy had come from. The workings of the child’s jealous little mind were obvious. He did not love Bonamy, so, obviously, he decided that as Bonamy had come from heaven, he, like the dog, might as well be sent back there, and the house be relieved of his unwelcome presence. One can trace the logical thought, of course.”

  “Poor Henry!” said Laura. Dame Beatrice nodded.

  “It is a well-known pattern of behaviour,” she said. “I wonder what persuaded Cyril Dysey to take the child into his care? Was he living in the chalet at the time?”

  “No, he and Eustace were both living here in the castle. I have nothing really to go on except rumour—not always a reliable guide, although I must say that I have found the old saying of no smoke without fire almost invariably turns out to be correct…”

  “To cut it short,” said Mrs. Binns, “it was said that Etta paid for the chalet and the river frontage out of what was left of her dowry.”

  “Conditional on Cyril’s taking on the little boy and never allowing him inside the castle again,” added the doctor.

  “Ah,” said Dame Beatrice, “that would account, perhaps, for the fact that Henry Dysey did not attend the dinner-party on the night when Thomas was killed.”

  “Oh, that dinner-party!” exclaimed Mrs. Binns, side-tracked, as Dame Beatrice had intended that she should be. “Never shall I forget it!”

  “No. It is not usual, of course, to attend a dinner-party after the conclusion of which the host is killed,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant the party itself. It was ghastly! Wasn’t it ghastly, William?”

  “I have known more agreeable functions,” the doctor admitted.

  “More agreeable! Good heavens above!”

  “What was wrong with it, then?” asked Laura. “Although, come to think of it,” she added, “I can imagine that a party with Mrs. Dysey as hostess would be apt to sour upon any collection of guests.”

  “And what a collection!” Mrs. Binns cast her eyes to the ceiling. “My dear! When I tell you that I’m usually allergic to the clergy and their wives, but that the Charlocks were the only real human beings present except for William and me—well, I ask you!”

  “What were the two girls like?—the nieces?” Laura enquired.

  “Etta called them nieces, but I believe they were only second cousins. Oh, they giggled most of the time. Hopeless! Luckily we didn’t see much of them when the awful games of whist were over. They played a duet on the piano, then insisted on giving us an encore—and then they went broody because Etta wouldn’t allow them to bring their transistor set into the drawing-room, so, after a bit, they retired upstairs—I suppose to turn it on in their bedroom—and that was the last we saw of them. Anyway, we and the Charlocks went home at a quarter to ten.”

  “I saw them on the following morning,” said the doctor, “when I was called in after the gardener found Tom’s body. They were in what I can only call ‘studied negligée’—sexy little what-have-yous, both of ’em!—and even that morning they showed a distressing tendency to giggle. But that, of course, was probably caused by shock.”

  “You saw the body before the police arrived, then,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Nobody had thought of sending for the police until I told ’em they’d got to, and better hurry up about it. Sending for the police involved somebody going over to the home farm to use the telephone—except for my own and the one at the post-office, there isn’t another telephone for miles—and that meant a certain amount of delay, of course.”

  “How did they contact you—also by telephone from the home farm?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “No. Bellairs came over on his bike and got me out of bed. I wasn’t too pleased, I can tell you. I’d been called out at just after midnight to a confinement, and didn’t get to bed again until five a.m. There was a bit of trouble with the police, incidentally, because, before I got there, Cyril and Etta had moved the body from the foot of the tower and carried it into the house. It was quite a natural thing to do, of course, but the inspector was a bit terse about it.”

  “So you saw the body—how long after death, would you say?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “Oh, roughly—which, as you know, is as far as one likes to commit oneself—eight hours. Granted that the body temperature was normal at the time of death, it had dropped just about twenty degrees by the time I examined it.”

  “That would indicate that death occurred at about midnight, then? Well, that fits in very well with the supposition that Thomas Dysey went to keep an assignment with his murderer very soon after he deemed that the rest of the household would be asleep. I wonder at what time they all retired to bed?”

  “I couldn’t say. We left, as my wife told you, with the vicar and his wife at a quarter to ten. Tom had picked them up at the vicarage in his car, so, to save him the trouble of taking them back, I offered them a lift home in mine.”

  “So the four of you left together, and would have parted at about…?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…at about ten, I suppose. They asked us to go in and offered us a cup of cocoa, but we refused.”

  “And then you saw Thomas Dysey’s body at about eight o’clock on the following morning?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t a pretty sight, either. I believe you saw the body of Eustace Dysey? Well, allowing for the difference in time—the length of time they’d been dead, I mean—if you saw Eustace you’ve seen Tom. The injuries were remarkably similar—there was a ring-base fracture of the skull in both cases, and the intervertebral discs were crushed, in Tom’s case, and, in the case of Eustace, a substantially lighter man, two of the vertebrae were compressed. In Tom’s case both legs were broken, and with Eustace the left arm was fractured. Looked to me as though Tom landed on his feet and Eustace on his head.”

  “How much, approximately, did Thomas Dysey weigh?”

  “Oh, about twelve stone.”

  “And Eustace?”

  “Ten stone eight or nine.”

  “During the dinner-party did Thomas seem in any way disturbed, thoughtful, excited, upset?”

  “He glowered at the two girls, but, then, who wouldn’t? They nearly drove the rest of us distracted with their silly behaviour. It was most embarrassing,” said Mrs. Binns.

  “He was always a bit taciturn,” said the doctor, “but he was unusually silent, I thought, even for him. It may have been that the two girls got on his nerves. Anyway, it’s easy enough to imagine things after a violent death, and I may be mistaken in thinking that he must have had something on his mind, for it was only afterwards that I thought so. It did not occur to me at the time, particularly.”

  “I thought Etta was rather keeping an eye on him,” said Mrs. Binns, “but, again, that may be my imagination. Anyway, take it for all in all, it wasn’t my idea of a successful party, and I was glad to come away. Are you staying here much longer, Dame Beatrice?”

  “Until the end of October.”

  “I wonder what will happen when you go?”

 
“In what way do you mean?”

  “Well, I suppose Etta hasn’t any real right to go on living here. The place belongs to Bonamy, if he’s alive, and to Cyril if Bonamy is dead. Of course, William and I don’t think he is dead, but, all the same, there’s that memorial tablet to him in the church.”

  “And you base your assumption that he is not dead chiefly upon the fact that Mrs. Dysey lets the castle for three months in every year, and presumably goes abroad to see her son. Did Thomas go with her?”

  “No. She did not let the castle, or go abroad, while Thomas was alive.”

  “Then, after her husband’s death, when she did let the castle, what did Eustace do?”

  “He went away. The theory was that he stayed at his London club or went to some seaside place—Eastbourne, so I heard from someone—but there are also rumours that he was often spotted in or around the castle, or up on the battlements, you know. He was rather an odd sort of person.”

  “That is remarkably interesting,” said Dame Beatrice. “I must get in touch with others who have rented the castle.”

  “With others who have rented the castle?” said Mrs. Binns. “Why should you want to do that?”

  “I should like to compare their experiences with ours. We think that, before his death, Eustace not only haunted us, but stole our food.”

  “How extraordinary! Do tell us all about it!”

  Dame Beatrice did this.

  “A priest’s hole?” said the doctor, when she had finished her account. “Yes, I heard about that. I should very much like to see it. I suppose…?”

  “By all means. We need an electric torch. If you will excuse me for one moment, I will go and get one.”

  “Well, these visits don’t get us much further, do they?” commented Laura, when the guests had gone. Her own share in the last part of the proceedings had been the humble but necessary one of standing on the counterpoise to keep the door into the panelling open.

  “There were the interesting tidings that Mrs. Dysey, having taken his disgrace very much to heart, later became reconciled with her son. There is also the assumption that Henry is Thomas Dysey’s son by an illicit union, and the fact that the child is often father to the man.”

  Laura looked at her enquiringly.

  “As how, in the present case?” she demanded. “Do you mean Henry and his murderous instincts? I don’t believe that. Plenty of quite normal kids hate it when a new baby comes into the house. You can’t blame Henry for what he did at the age of three.”

  “Very true. But the doctor, I thought, had doubts about Henry’s guilt. I wonder at what point Henry was told that he was illegitimate? And whether he was the older child?”

  “I don’t suppose we shall ever know that. But, supposing (as I think you’re suggesting) that if and when he was told, the knowledge soured on him, I can see why he may have killed Tom, if Tom was his natural father, but what can he have had against Eustace?”

  “Time may show. I wonder why those two young girls behaved so very badly?”

  “Had something up their sleeves would be my guess.”

  “You speak from experience, perhaps?”

  Laura grinned.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said. “The fact remains that the doctor and his wife seem to have got heartily sick of them and were thankful when they took themselves upstairs to listen to pop music, or whatever it was, and perhaps the Dyseys were glad to see the back of them, too. I know that at school—yes, and I even seem to remember an occasion at college—one had only to make oneself sufficiently obnoxious in class to get chucked out. It was a wheeze to be used with caution, of course, because, if you went the whole hog too often, you were apt to be sent up to the Head instead of being able to smoke a surreptitious dog-end in the shrubbery or sneak away and catch up on your homework, but it usually worked extremely well.”

  “You think, then, that the girls had some end in view? You would not care to hazard a guess, out of your special knowledge, as to what it was?”

  “Well, there was the uninvited Henry languishing all alone at the chalet, wasn’t there?”

  “Ah!” said Dame Beatrice. She gazed admiringly at her secretary. “What a boon, I perceive, is a mis-spent youth! I did not think of their going to the chalet—and even if I had thought of it, I should have concluded that they would not have found Henry there.”

  “No,” said Laura thoughtfully. “There are times in a man’s life when a health-giving pint at the local is more to be desired than any amount of sporting with Amaryllis, whether in the shade or otherwise.”

  “That was not quite what I meant,” said Dame Beatrice, “but you may well be right.” There was silence for a minute or two. Then Laura said,

  “The doctor didn’t commit himself much, did he? I was thinking about the parentage of Henry. It seemed to me that he was stalling. There was more than a hint of the crime reporter’s cautious ‘it is alleged’ about his remarks, it seemed to me.”

  “Neither did he tell us whether Henry or Bonamy is the older,” said Dame Beatrice, who seemed to think it important.

  “I thought we knew Henry was.”

  “That might need to be proved, you know.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Foolish Virgin

  “O I forbid you, maidens a’,

  That wear gowd on your hair,

  To come or gae by Carterhaugh,

  For young Tam Lin is there.

  “For even about that knight’s middle

  O’ siller bells are nine;

  And nae maid comes to Carterhaugh

  And a maid returns again.”

  Tam Lin

  “Give you Gina’s and Peggy’s address?” said Mrs. Dysey. “Well, yes, I can, of course, but I can’t see why you want it. You haven’t met them, have you?”

  “No,” said Laura, who had volunteered to go over to the home farm and make contact with Mrs. Dysey. “We think they may be able to help us, that’s all.”

  “In what way help you? Help you over what?”

  “Help us to solve the problem of your husband’s death. You do want it solved, don’t you?”

  “But there is nothing to solve. You know what the verdict was.”

  “And are you satisfied with it?”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Dysey, “if you’d found yourself under suspicion of having killed your husband, wouldn’t you be satisfied with a verdict of death by misadventure, or whatever it was?”

  “No,” said Laura, very firmly indeed, “I most certainly should not. If my husband was killed like that, I shouldn’t rest until I’d found out all about it.”

  “Maybe you love your husband,” said Mrs. Dysey, with a short, bitter laugh. “That would make a difference, no doubt.”

  “So you don’t want to give me the address of those two girls?”

  “Oh, I have no objection. You could get it from the police, I suppose, if I refused to give it you. But it won’t do you any good, you know. You had much better leave things as they are. But there! As a policeman’s wife I suppose you’re inured to muckraking into other people’s business. As for that precious employer of yours, the less said about her the better.”

  “For the first and only time, I agree with you,” said Laura. “So kindly keep your opinion of Dame Beatrice to yourself.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Oh, no,” said Laura, calmly. “It is quite ridiculous to threaten people. Actions speak louder than words.” She flexed her fingers, gazed down at a large and shapely palm, and then looked fixedly at Mrs. Dysey. Mrs. Dysey involuntarily put her own hand up to her cheek. “Exactly,” said Laura, pleasantly. She turned away.

  “I’ll write it down for you,” said Mrs. Dysey. “Don’t go. I won’t be a minute.” She almost ran out of the room.

  “I don’t know whether I would have dotted her one,” said Laura to her employer when she had returned to the castle with Gina’s and Peggy’s address. “I’m glad she didn’t force
the issue. A bit awkward for Gavin if I were had up for assault and battery. When do we go and interview this moronic pair of sirens?”

  “I will write to them and find out.”

  “And while we’re waiting for their answer?”

  “Masterly inactivity, as I believe I have heard it called. Henri and Celestine arrive on the four-thirty. George will meet them with the car. I am retaining Zena’s services until further notice.”

  “You don’t mean she’s going back with us when our lease of the castle runs out?”

  “Such is my intention.”

  “I thought she was going into service with Cyril Dysey.”

  “So did Cyril Dysey, but I have persuaded Zena that her interests will best be served if she remains with us.”

  “Does Cyril know?”

  “Not yet. In any case, he will have other things to occupy his mind before we go home.”

  “Why have you decided to take on Zena? There’s something behind all this. Besides, what are Henri and Celestine going to say about it?”

  “To reply categorically to your questions, although in reverse order, Celestine can do with some help at the Stone House, and I have decided to take on Zena as the only means which occur to me at the moment of preventing her from entering Cyril Dysey’s service.”

  “Oh? I shouldn’t have placed Cyril in the big bad wolf category.”

  “Neither should I. I am thinking along entirely different lines. Anyhow, I prefer to keep the girl under my own eye. Do you forget that she is native to this countryside?”

  “I know she is. I can’t see it makes much difference. She can’t have knowledge of anything which would incriminate anybody, can she?”

  “Probably not, but, if she has, she can unfold it to me, not to the Dyseys. And now for the Misses Wick.”

  “Do you want me to draft a letter?”

  “I think not. It may be better, after all, to take them by surprise. Order the car for nine o’clock tomorrow morning. We will take our chance of finding them at home.”

  “I expect they go out to work, you know. They wouldn’t be at home at the time we should get there.”

  “Very true. Order the car for nine o’clock, just the same.”