The Echoing Strangers (Mrs Bradley)
Page 1
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Gladys Mitchell
Vintage Murder Mysteries
Title Page
Chapter One: Deaf and Dumb Alphabet
Chapter Two: Amateur Status
Chapter Three: Dead Man’s Keel
Chapter Four: Bowler’s Wicket
Chapter Five: Wetwode
Chapter Six: Mede
Chapter Seven: The Questing Fairy
Chapter Eight: Bruke
Chapter Nine: Pons Asinorum
Chapter Ten: Caliban v. Sycorax v. a Faun
Chapter Eleven: Dorcas
Chapter Twelve: Castor and Pollux
Chapter Thirteen: The Echo Under the Bridge
Chapter Fourteen: The Echo Over the Wall
Chapter Fifteen: The Echo Heard at the Inn
Chapter Sixteen: The Echo Out of the Wood
Chapter Seventeen: The Echo from the Past
Chapter Eighteen: The Echo of a Crime
Chapter Nineteen: The Echo from Mede
Chapter Twenty: The Echo from Wetwode
Chapter Twenty-One: The Echo of Gemini
Copyright
About the Book
Twin brothers Francis and Derek Caux are orphaned at the age of seven, and soon after separated by their grandfather, Sir Adrian, who all but abandons deaf-and-dumb Francis and takes the handsome Derek under his wing. But now the twins are brought together again by a pair of murders and the attentions of the witchlike psychoanalyst-detective, Mrs Bradley. Do the brothers share a guilty conscience?
About the Author
Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell – or ‘The Great Gladys’ as Philip Larkin called her – was born in 1901, in Cowley in Oxfordshire. She graduated in history from University College London and in 1921 began her long career as a teacher. She studied the works of Sigmund Freud and attributed her interest in witchcraft to the influence of her friend, the detective novelist Helen Simpson.
Her first novel, Speedy Death, was published in 1929 and introduced readers to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the heroine of a further sixty six crime novels. She wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career and was an early member of the Detection Club, alongside Agatha Christie, G.K Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. In 1961 she retired from teaching and, from her home in Dorset, continued to write, receiving the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger in 1976. Gladys Mitchell died in 1983.
ALSO BY GLADYS MITCHELL
Speedy Death
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop
The Longer Bodies
The Saltmarsh Murders
Death and the Opera
The Devil at Saxon Wall
Dead Men’s Morris
Come Away, Death
St Peter’s Finger
Printer’s Error
Hangman’s Curfew
When Last I Died
Laurels Are Poison
The Worsted Viper
Sunset Over Soho
My Father Sleeps
The Rising of the Moon
Here Comes a Chopper
Death and the Maiden
Tom Brown’s Body
Groaning Spinney
The Devil’s Elbow
The Echoing Strangers
Merlin’s Furlong
Watson’s Choice
Faintley Speaking
Twelve Horses and the Hangman’s Noose
The Twenty-Third Man
Spotted Hemlock
The Man Who Grew Tomatoes
Say It With Flowers
The Nodding Canaries
My Bones Will Keep
Adders on the Heath
Death of the Delft Blue
Pageant of a Murder
The Croaking Raven
Skeleton Island
Three Quick and Five Dead
Dance to Your Daddy
Gory Dew
Lament for Leto
A Hearse on May-Day
The Murder of Busy Lizzie
Winking at the Brim
A Javelin for Jonah
Convent on Styx
Late, Late in the Evening
Noonday and Night
Fault in the Structure
Wraiths and Changelings
Mingled With Venom
The Mudflats of the Dead
Nest of Vipers
Uncoffin’d Clay
The Whispering Knights
Lovers, Make Moan
The Death-Cap Dancers
The Death of a Burrowing Mole
Here Lies Gloria Mundy
Cold, Lone and Still
The Greenstone Griffins
The Crozier Pharaohs
No Winding-Sheet
VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERIES
With the sign of a human skull upon its back and a melancholy shriek emitted when disturbed, the Death’s Head Hawkmoth has for centuries been a bringer of doom and an omen of death – which is why we chose it as the emblem for our Vintage Murder Mysteries.
Some say that its appearance in King George III’s bedchamber pushed him into madness. Others believe that should its wings extinguish a candle by night, those nearby will be cursed with blindness. Indeed its very name, Acherontia atropos, delves into the most sinister realms of Greek mythology: Acheron, the River of Pain in the underworld, and Atropos, the Fate charged with severing the thread of life.
The perfect companion, then, for our Vintage Murder Mysteries sleuths, for whom sinister occurrences are never far away and murder is always just around the corner …
MORE VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERIES
EDMUND CRISPIN
Buried for Pleasure
The Case of the Gilded Fly
Holy Disorders
Love Lies Bleeding
The Moving Toyshop
Swan Song
A. A. MILNE
The Red House Mystery
GLADYS MITCHELL
Speedy Death
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop
The Longer Bodies
The Saltmarsh Murders
Death and the Opera
The Devil at Saxon Wall
Dead Men’s Morris
Come Away, Death
St Peter’s Finger
Brazen Tongue
Hangman’s Curfew
When Last I Died
Laurels Are Poison
Here Comes a Chopper
Death and the Maiden
Tom Brown’s Body
Groaning Spinney
The Devil’s Elbow
The Echoing Strangers
Watson’s Choice
The Twenty-Third Man
Spotted Hemlock
My Bones Will Keep
Three Quick and Five Dead
Dance to Your Daddy
A Hearse on May-Day
Late, Late in the Evening
Fault in the Structure
Nest of Vipers
MARGERY ALLINGHAM
Mystery Mile
Police at the Funeral
Sweet Danger
Flowers for the Judge
The Case of the Late Pig
The Fashion in Shrouds
Traitor’s Purse
Coroner’s Pidgin
More Work for the Undertaker
The Tiger in the Smoke
The Beckoning Lady
Hide My Eyes
The China Governess
The Mind Readers
Cargo of Eagles
E. F. BENSON
The Blotting Book
The Luck of the Vails
NICHOLAS BLAKE
A Question
of Proof
Thou Shell of Death
There’s Trouble Brewing
The Beast Must Die
The Smiler With the Knife
Malice in Wonderland
The Case of the Abominable Snowman
Minute for Murder
Head of a Traveller
The Dreadful Hollow
The Whisper in the Gloom
End of Chapter
The Widow’s Cruise
The Worm of Death
The Sad Variety
The Morning After Death
GLADYS MITCHELL
The Echoing Strangers
CHAPTER ONE
Deaf and Dumb Alphabet
*
‘Either the attention was allowed to dwell upon the ruins … or else the intervening layers were impatiently broken through for the purpose of arriving at the oldest and most primitive evidences of human life.’
A History of Greek Religion by Martin P. Nilsson translated by F. J. Fielden
*
IF THERE IS one morbid phenomenon of civilized existence to which scant justice has been done in English fiction, it is the devastating re-discovery in later life of the old school chum. The supreme examples, in Mrs. Bradley’s opinion, were couched in the language of comedy and farce respectively: the visit of Cissie Crabbe to the Provincial Lady and the agonising eruption into the married bliss of Richard (Bingo) Little of the egregious Laura Pyke.
‘… he returns with Cissie Crabbe, who has put on weight, and says several times that we have both changed a good deal …’
Mrs. Bradley sighed. The letter she had just laid down could have been, she reflected resignedly, from Cissie Crabbe in person. The world, it seemed, abounded in Cissie Crabbes.
‘Now that you’re this way for a spell, I do wish you would come and see me. No doubt we have both changed a good deal, but Auld Lang Syne still counts for something. Shall expect you some time next week. No need to let me know which day, as I am always in and there’s quite a good hotel in the village where I always lunch people. It saves so much trouble, and as I myself am on a diet …’
These diets, thought Mrs. Bradley dispiritedly. ‘Utter impossibility of obtaining lentils or lemons at short notice …’ So much for the diet of Cissie Crabbe; and in the case of Laura Pyke, ‘She spoke freely of proteins, carbohydrates and the physiological requirements of the average individual. She was not a girl who believed in mincing her words, and a racy little anecdote she told about a man who refused to eat prunes …’
Mrs. Bradley shook her head. She had last met Mabel Parkinson in the year 1922 or thereabouts, and she could not imagine what they could still have in common except, needless to say, that curse of Auld Lang Syne to which Mabel had already paid tribute. If proof were needed of its power, Mrs. Bradley found herself, a quarter of an hour later, writing to accept the invitation.
Mabel Parkinson lived in the village of Wetwode, a hybrid little place on the River Burwater. At one end was the village proper with its one hotel kept alive by motor traffic and river trippers, and at the other end was the new but not particularly objectionable housing estate on which Mabel had chosen to live. Along the river frontage were a couple of boat-builders’ yards, a timber store, a kiosk which sold picture postcards, cigarettes, Ordnance Survey maps, newspapers and jig-saw puzzles, and on the opposite bank, over the bridge and about a couple of miles down-river, were a few sodden-looking holiday bungalows, each with its boathouse and tiny staithe.
Mabel Parkinson’s house happened to be the first one on the new estate, as the car came out from the village, and Mrs. Bradley’s chauffeur found it without difficulty. There was a notice on the gate.
So sorry. Sister suddenly taken ill in Gateshead. Do come another day.
Mrs. Bradley, mentally paying the usual automatic homage to illness, at the same time felt relief at the prospect of not being obliged to pay the prearranged visit. The car had passed the hotel on the way out. She proposed to return there for lunch, potter about the village and its environs, have tea at her favourite hotel in Norwich, and return to friends in Kings Lynn (where she was staying) in time for a bath and dinner.
The date was towards the end of June, the weather discreetly perfect. Lunch at the hotel was good, and when it was over she had coffee in the riverside garden. There was a large tree for those who preferred the shade. It was set in a long, smooth, lawn broken here and there by circular flower-beds in which roses were freely blooming. For entertainment there were the coming and going of boats, a friendly cat, and the hotel boatman who suggested, when the maid collected Mrs. Bradley’s tray, that it was a nice afternoon for the river. Mrs. Bradley glanced at two small motor-launches. Their gleaming brass and highly-polished mahogany had already produced a seductive and weakening effect upon her determination to have nothing whatever to do with aquatics that afternoon. She gave in almost immediately.
‘Self-drive, madam, or man to accompany?’
‘Oh, there will most likely be two of us. We shall be all right,’ said Mrs. Bradley, who could imagine few things more uninteresting than a launch trip with man to accompany.
‘I’ll get her out for you, then, madam. Which one would you prefer?’
Out of the corner of her eye Mrs. Bradley could see her chauffeur. He was talking to the gardener, and they began to turn away towards the shrubs which screened the hotel’s lock-up garages. She called her man by name.
‘George!’
‘Yes, madam?’ George came over to her. He was a stocky fellow, friendly, obliging and discreet.
‘Which of these boats do I want?’
‘The Thornycroft, madam. I inspected both motor-launches whilst you were finishing lunch. It is a better engine than the other, is suited to the construction of the launch, and is nicely bedded.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs. Bradley, looking at him with the reserved admiration which she retained for all persons who understood petrol or diesel engines. ‘Are you coming, George? Don’t, unless you like. I can manage the boat quite well so long as nothing but starting, stopping and steering are involved.’
‘If not obtruding myself, I should be very happy to accompany you, madam.’
‘Good. Then I’ll tie my scarf over my head and we can be off.’
She produced a witch-like effect by dealing with the first item on this agenda and grinned amiably as she watched the boatman untie the launch. In less than five minutes, with George lounging in the back and herself at the simple controls, the launch was purring upstream at about four knots, this modest speed being maintained out of deference for the oozy banks of the river.
‘Not much further this way, madam,’ said George, at the end of three-quarters of an hour. ‘Our draught won’t permit. We’re getting into shoal water.’
‘All right,’ agreed his employer. ‘Let’s go back. You’d better turn the boat round.’ She cut out the engine and moved over. When they got back to the hotel it was barely three o’clock.
‘Should we not go downstream for a bit, madam? You will like to see what lies beyond the bridge.’
‘Shall I? All right, then. We have plenty of time.’
The boatman, seeing their intention, called out from the bank:
‘Keep well over to starboard, and give a touch on the horn. And don’t forget all moorings is private until you get to the Broad.’
Under the centre arch of the ancient bridge drifted the launch, with her engine barely ticking over. Then George accelerated. They passed the kiosk, the timber-store and the boat-builders’ yards, and at the end of twenty minutes or so they found themselves approaching the first of the riverside bungalows. In front of it was a small lawn, chopped into to provide a mooring space for a yacht or a cruiser. On the lawn were a middle-aged woman and a slender, handsome youth. The river made a pronounced bend where the bungalows began, so that, although there were numbers of boats on the river that afternoon, it chanced that, as it came into the bend, Mrs. Bradley’s launch had the short reach to itself
.
The middle-aged woman was looking downstream and the youth was standing close to and a little behind her. As Mrs. Bradley watched, he suddenly extended both arms and pushed the woman into the river.
George gave a smothered exclamation. The youth turned and cantered towards the bungalow, leaving the woman to struggle. It was soon obvious that she could swim, and was in no immediate danger, but, encumbered by water-clogged clothing, she was not able to get back on to the bank without assistance. George cut out the engine and brought the launch up to the lawn. He leapt ashore with the mooring rope, took a couple of twists round a post, lay on his stomach, extended his arm to the woman and soon had her safely on the lawn.
Mrs. Bradley, meanwhile, had also stepped ashore. The woman was sitting on the grass squeezing water out of her skirt. She coughed, spat, and gratefully accepted a dry handkerchief on which to blow her nose.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Well, he’s never done that before.’
Mrs. Bradley could not sufficiently admire this philosophic handling of the situation. George withdrew to a respectful distance, ready to unhitch the launch when this seemed to be required. In a few moments the youth came up to the woman, looked at her, then sauntered towards the water. He was a tall boy of about seventeen, with a thin face and remarkably large eyes. These accorded to his countenance a saintly expression which did not seem to coincide with his actions and intentions. George kept a wary eye on him but, looking down at the launch and presenting to George a thin profile as stern as that of a Red Indian, the boy added nothing to anybody’s knowledge of his mind.
The woman, declining further assistance, went into the bungalow, presumably to dry her hair and change her clothes. Mrs. Bradley returned to the launch and the youth removed himself to the far side of the lawn.
‘I don’t like leaving them together after what we saw, George,’ said Mrs. Bradley, ‘but the woman insists that what happened was an accident. There seems nothing for us to do except to take ourselves off.’
George untied the launch, and the next minute they were moving gently upstream towards the hotel.
‘Those bungalows,’ said Mrs. Bradley, when she had paid the hotel boatman and tipped him. ‘Who lives in them?’