Titles by Gladys Mitchell
Speedy Death (1929)
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop (1929)
The Longer Bodies (1930)
The Saltmarsh Murders (1932)
Death at the Opera (1934)
The Devil at Saxon Wall (1935)
Dead Men’s Morris (1936)
Come Away, Death (1937)
St. Peter’s Finger (1938)
Printer’s Error (1939)
Brazen Tongue (1940)
Hangman’s Curfew (1941)
When Last I Died (1941)
Laurels Are Poison (1942)
Sunset Over Soho (1943)
The Worsted Viper (1943)
My Father Sleeps (1944)
The Rising of the Moon (1945)
Here Comes a Chopper (1946)
Death and the Maiden (1947)
The Dancing Druids (1948)
Tom Brown’s Body (1949)
Groaning Spinney (1950)
The Devil’s Elbow (1951)
The Echoing Strangers (1952)
Merlin’s Furlong (1953)
Faintley Speaking (1954)
On Your Marks (1954)
Watson’s Choice (1955)
Twelve Horses and the Hangman’s Noose (1956)
The Twenty-Third Man (1957)
Spotted Hemlock (1958)
The Man Who Grew Tomatoes (1959)
Say It With Flowers (1960)
The Nodding Canaries (1961)
My Bones Will Keep (1962)
Adders on the Heath (1963)
Death of a Delft Blue (1964)
Pageant of Murder (1965)
The Croaking Raven (1966)
Skeleton Island (1967)
Three Quick and Five Dead (1968)
Dance to Your Daddy (1969)
Gory Dew (1970)
Lament for Leto (1971)
A Hearse on May-Day (1972)
The Murder of Busy Lizzie (1973)
A Javelin for Jonah (1974)
Winking at the Brim (1974)
Convent on Styx (1975)
Late, Late in the Evening (1976)
Noonday and Night (1977)
Fault in the Structure (1977)
Wraiths and Changelings (1978)
Mingled with Venom (1978)
Nest of Vipers (1979)
The Mudflats of the Dead (1979)
Uncoffin’d Clay (1980)
The Whispering Knights (1980)
The Death-Cap Dancers (1981)
Lovers, Make Moan (1981)
Here Lies Gloria Mundy (1982)
Death of a Burrowing Mole (1982)
The Greenstone Griffins (1983)
Cold, Lone and Still (1983)
No Winding Sheet (1984)
The Crozier Pharaohs (1984)
Gladys Mitchell writing as Malcolm Torrie
Heavy as Lead (1966)
Late and Cold (1967)
Your Secret Friend (1968)
Shades of Darkness (1970)
Bismarck Herrings (1971)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © The Executors of the Estate of Gladys Mitchell 1981.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle, 2014
www.apub.com
First published Great Britain in 1981 by Michael Joseph.
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
E-ISBN: 9781477869307
A Note about This E-Book
The text of this book has been preserved from the original British edition and includes British vocabulary, grammar, style, and punctuation, some of which may differ from modern publishing practices. Every care has been taken to preserve the author’s tone and meaning, with only minimal changes to punctuation and wording to ensure a fluent experience for modern readers.
To JULIAN with love
“Time was, when we, beside a Highland burn,
Gathered bell heather and the fronds of fern,
Or squelched in mud and wet-through to the skin,
To watch for salmon leaping up the linn,
Or saw the summer snow on high Ben More,
And gathered pebbles by Loch Broom’s grey shore.
G. M. September 1977
Contents
1 Windfall
2 Read-Through
3 Mouths of Babes
4 Retractable Blade
5 All Right on the Night
6 Last Performance
7 Bare Bodkin
8 Speculations
9 Coroner’s Court
10 Further Suggestions
11 Mytilus Edulis Has Orange Gills
12 Six Characters in Search of a Psychiatrist
13 Cut Down to Size
14 Body on the Foreshore
15 Identification of a Dead Boy
16 Parade of Suspects
17 Mute and Other Witnesses
18 Threnody
About the Author
1
Windfall
I’ll put a girdle round about the earth.
The town was tripartite. Behind the quay with its Customs House, its ancient, partially restored inn, its eighteenth-century town hall, the old warehouses and the low-ceilinged shops which sold chandlers’ wares, yachting gear, and marine stores of all kinds, lay the original guildhall, dating from the fourteenth century.
In the old town, a house, long due for preservation, incorporated some twelfth-century features in what had been a Tudor mansion and, behind and around all this, there was a strange, heterogeneous jumble of narrow alleys, public houses, shops old and new, and what had been the delightful dwellings of the eighteenth-century merchants, now either let out in flats or with their ground-floors converted into modern shop-fronts.
The ancient high street which led, with a dog’s-leg turn, down to the quay, had been made a traffic-free shopping precinct, but north of it were the supermarkets, the gas and electricity showrooms, the new public baths, the multi-storey car park, the new library and art gallery, and a complex of even more recent buildings which included a theatre, a concert hall, a restaurant, and rooms which could be hired for various public functions. Behind a beautifully maintained public park flanked by a shallow lake cut off from the vast harbour (almost an inland sea) by the railway embankment, lay the third part of the town. This was largely residential, but only to those who could afford to live there. Part of it faced the open bay, shallow and islanded, which disclosed large, shining sandbanks at low tide. To the east, west, and north of it rose low hills on which the most desirable houses were built. They all faced the bay, a beautiful, natural harbour for small yachts. On the further shore, as the land curved round, there was a long ridge of higher hills and beyond these again were chalk cliffs and the open waters of the English Channel.
The setting, in fact, was picturesque, interesting, and reasonably secluded, and Simon and Penelope congratulated themselves upon having acquired their property (on the strength of a legacy) before house prices soared beyond the reach of anybody who was not in the millionaire bracket, although maintenance was always a problem regarding both house and garden.
However, one fine morning of a biting January day, the unexpected cheque from CABO (Come and Buy One)
fell like a ripe plum through the letter-box and was brought to the breakfast table by Carrie, the only indoor servant except for the cook, whom the Bradleys could afford to keep.
Simon opened the envelope and gave what the romantic novelists used to call “a choking cry.”
“Has the bank gone bust?” his wife Penelope anxiously enquired.
“Not so, but far otherwise.” He handed her the contents of the envelope, whereupon she exclaimed, almost in disbelief, “Good Lord! Pennies from heaven!”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Simon. “Noice little cheque, Liza. Wot shall us do wiv it?”
“I thought that was a joke about the fitted bath in a council house,” said Penelope, who, although beautiful and in her own sphere intelligent, had a painfully pedestrian mind. “Didn’t they keep the coal in it, or something?”
“Probably. I meant what shall we do with all this lovely lolly?”
“Couldn’t you take the Sabbatical that’s due to you?”
“And do what with it?”
“Go for a world cruise, of course.”
“What about Rosamund and Edmund? A world cruise would be murder with two kids aged six and three and a half.”
“Oh, there will be playrooms and provision for being sea-sick and a doctor on board and a ship’s hospital.”
“What visions you conjure up!”
“Well, what about parking the children on to relatives? People would be glad to have them, I’m sure.”
“For three or four months?”
“The aunts and uncles adore them.”
“They would need to.”
“Well, at least we could put out a feeler or two. I’ve always wanted to go round the world on an ocean liner. It would be a kind of holiday for the relatives as well. We could offer them this house while we are away, and then the children wouldn’t miss going to the beach. The relatives surely would jump at free lodgings at the seaside in the summer. Anybody would.”
“Are we talking about your relatives or mine?”
“Well,” said Penelope, helping herself to butter and avoiding her husband’s eye, “I was rather thinking of yours. You’re so much cleverer at talking people into things than I am.”
Simon walked to the window and looked out at the still landscape. Between the house and the stone parapet which bordered a long slope to the shore, a huddle of small boats laid up for the winter in the shelter of the shallow harbour looked like children’s toys. At low tide the sandbanks would be uncovered and even at the quay, several miles away, no ship of more than about three thousand tons could moor, and, at that, the water in the small port had to be dredged continuously to maintain a sufficient depth.
Penelope studied the back view of her husband and then picked up the unexpected largesse of the gods, the promise of a cheque for fifty thousand pounds. It was almost impossible to credit the good fortune which had come through the letter-box that morning. It was Saturday, which accounted for Simon’s being at home and in his dressing-gown, and it also accounted for the absence of her three-year-old. With his sister aged six, she had taken him in the car to the dancing class which gave her a free couple of hours every Saturday morning and the undivided society of Simon, with whom, even after eight years of marriage, she was still sublimely in love.
She put the letter down as Simon came back to the breakfast-table.
“How keen are you on this world cruise?” he asked.
“Darling, it’s the dream of a life-time so far as I’m concerned.”
“Well, I’ve certainly got a Sabbatical coming up at the end of March, so perhaps we can find somebody mug enough to take on the kids.”
“It wouldn’t need to be just one person, you know. I agree it would be rather much to expect that. Couldn’t the aunts and uncles all take a share? And there’s that nice Mrs. Gavin who is secretary to your great-aunt Dame Beatrice. Laura Gavin has always said her brother and sister-in-law would love us to go up to Scotland.”
“Yes—us as a family, not the children on their own.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Gavin herself would take them up there.”
“We couldn’t suggest such a thing. What would great-aunt do for a secretary while Mrs. Gavin was away? Besides, Mrs. Gavin has brought up two children of her own. She won’t want to be saddled with two more.”
“Well, let’s think of somebody else. So long as we spread the load, I’m sure people will help out.”
“Well, there’s Carey in Oxfordshire . . . .”
“With all those pigs? The children would love to go there again. Then there’s Jonathan in the Cotswolds.”
“He and Deb had the kids for three weeks last summer, if you remember.”
“There weren’t any complaints and the children had a lovely time. I’m sure Jon would have them again, and great-aunt would have them in Hampshire and Laura would take them for picnics in the New Forest. On, darling, I’m sure it will all work out. Do write to the shipping companies or see a travel agent or something and then, as soon as we know definite dates, we can write to the relatives and get everything fixed up.”
“What about Rosamund’s schooling? This pillar-to-post business you’re suggesting isn’t going to do her education any good.”
“Darling, she’s only six!”
“The law of the land has laid down—”
“Oh, I know that, but listen! Deb used to be a college lecturer, Laura Gavin was trained as a teacher and surely nobody is going to bother about two small children on Carey’s farm in Oxfordshire? If they go to Scotland they can attend the local school—or not, as the case may be. They wouldn’t be up there for more than a fortnight, anyway, and if they spend the whole of May and June here at home with somebody to look after them, Rosamund can attend school as usual. I’ll go and see Mrs. Trigg and explain the situation. She’s very understanding.”
“Considering the fees we pay, that hardly surprises me.”
“What’s in the other letter?”
“This?” Simon slit it open. “Oh, Lord! The local dramatic society want to stage A Midsummer Night’s Dream out of doors and would like the loan of our garden. It’s from Brian Yorke, and of course he’s been here and knows the set-up. The previous owner used to stage his own plays here and had the lawn terraced for the purpose.”
“Shall you agree?”
“Oh, yes. I owe Yorke a favour. The fairies and the lovers can prance in and out of our wilderness in the wild woods left-centre of the lawn, while we, with any luck, shall be out on the ocean blue and a thousand miles away from it all.”
“We are going, then?”
“If we can fix up the kids, but you mustn’t be disappointed if it doesn’t come off.”
“Our own midsummer night’s dream! Oh, it’s got to come off! What can anybody have against the children?”
“Their youth, their boundless energy, the necessity for keeping an eye on them, their capacity for being wide awake and up and doing at six in the morning, their bath-times and Rosamund’s non-stop questions and general precocity.”
“She’s intelligent, not precocious. You ought to be glad she wants to know about things.”
“Other people may be less glad of it than I. But you’ve got your priorities wrong.”
“How do you mean?”
“We must see our way clear about the kids before I see about a travel agent. I believe I said that before.”
When his nephew’s letter arrived at Jonathan Bradley’s breakfast table he scanned the first page and uttered an anguished moan.
“Oh, darling, not bad news?” asked his wife Deborah.
“Bad news? You can say that again! It’s only that Simon and Penelope want us to take a share in looking after Rosamund and Edmund this summer.”
“Don’t tell me they’re getting a divorce!”
“No. They want to go on a world cruise. They’ve won a lot of money in a lottery—that new government thing—and apparently can’t wait to blue some of it.”
“I suppose it m
eans Simon will take that Sabbatical which is due to him. I’m very glad. He works so hard, poor boy. Of course we’ll have the children.”
“That’s all very well! My God! A three-month babysit if the rest of the relatives opt out! We should never survive it.”
“Oh, nonsense, darling! The children are perfectly sweet and I’d love to have them. May I see the letter?”
Jonathan handed it over and, as his young relative had done, walked over to the window. Outside his Cotswold home lay the January snow, deep, limitless, and shining, and the world was stilled in the hush that only snow can bring. At the foot of the long slope of the hill ran a little river and beyond the river rose the dark and bare-branched wood which hid the village from view.
“Didn’t you get as far as the third page?” asked Deborah, as Jonathan turned round. “Simon suggests that we use their house for any part of the time we choose. There’s the sea and the use of his boat, and he’ll put you up for guest membership of the golf-club and he reminds us that Aunt Adela doesn’t live all that far away. He is certain she and Laura will take the children off our hands for a fortnight when we feel we must have a break.”
“He’s more certain about that than I am. Besides, with Laura in charge of them, the children would probably break their necks.”
“Her own children didn’t.”
“Look, Deb, it’s an absolute imposition and it’s definitely not on. I’ll write straight back and say so.”
“We are going to the Cotswolds,” said Rosamund to her brother.
“What’s Cotswolds?”
“Where Uncle Jon and Aunt Deb live. You went there for three weeks last summer. Don’t you remember? You ran down the hill and fell over.”
“Jack an’ Jill went up the hill to fetcher pailer water. Jack fell down an’ broke his crown an’ Jill came tumberling after. Did they really?”
“They did, if it says so. It’s printed in your book, so it must be true. They wouldn’t print anything that wasn’t true.”
“Was Jack a king?”
“He must have been if he had a crown. I expect he cried when he broke it. I cried when I broke my best dolly.”
“If I was a king I wouldn’t break my crown. I would wear it every day and every night.”
“You couldn’t wear it in bed and you couldn’t wear it all day.”
Lovers, Make Moan (Mrs. Bradley) Page 1
