My Father Sleeps (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  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 1944

  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 in Great Britain in 1944 by Michael Joseph

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  E-ISBN: 9781477868874

  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 the memory of MARTHA GIBSON OF KIRKCALDY, our dear friend, from Winifred Blazey & Gladys Mitchell

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  ★

  The Loch of the Plain!

  Loch Moigh!

  War Cry of the Clan Mackintosh

  ★

  The stout and seaworthy six-ton auxiliary cutter Kerisaig, brought from the mouth of the Clyde, had come by way of the Crinan Canal and the sea-loch at Crinan into the Sound of Jura, and, having steered north by Dorus Mor and Scarba Sound, had reached Loch Linnhe, which is correctly (as the couple who formed her owner and crew learned later) named An Linne Sheileach. She came up on the eastern side of the loch past the long narrow island of Lismore, rounded the island, and then cruised out on the western side of the loch to the narrow Sound of Mull, and, making half a knot extra speed, took the western slant up the Sound between the northern shores of Mull and the coast of Morvern, and found the quiet little harbour of Tobermory.

  It seemed at first as though her owner and crew had made up their minds to go ashore, but, if they had, they soon changed them. Within an hour the Kerisaig had gently backed from the sea-wall and was heading again for Loch Linnhe.

  This time she skirted Lismore, chugged gently, against a north-easterly wind, up the loch, and, near to an inn, dropped anchor. She carried no dinghy. Her owner and crew signalled an old man ferrying for the inn, and he took them ashore in his boat.

  Behind the inn rose the mountains. Long glens, following the course of the swift, short, West Highland rivers, clove up into the hills, beyond which lay the broken coasts of Ardnamurchan, Moydart, Morvern and, further north, the lands of Arisaig, Morar, and Knoydart. On the opposite side of Loch Linnhe, south of the village of Onich, lay Loch Leven and the pass of Glencoe, and, south of the loch, the old town of Ballachulish fronted the hills of Appin. Further west and south of the inn rose the peak of Garven, two thousand five hundred feet, and behind the inn, further away, was three-thousand-foot Sgurr Dhomhnuill, between Glen Scaddle and Glen Hurlich.

  It was the most amazing country in the world; strange and remote as Tibet; comforting and homely as Devon; a land of the wildest romance and the most rigid Sabbatarianism; abounding in legend; the prey of commercial enterprise; holiday resort and unknown, almost unexplored and hilly wilderness. But in spite of all these obvious comparisons and contrasts, there could be no denying its loveliness, its magic, the gentle simplicity, and dignity of its people. Soaked in the cruelly-spilt blood of bygone ages, rife with feud, torn by the cross-currents of divided loyalties, it also housed, and roughly and wonderfully nursed, the salt and the pith of human kind.

  “That was a strange story,” said the girl who formed the crew of the Kerisaig. “Is it really true?—the tale you told me coming up the Sound?”

  “The tale of James Stewart of the Glen? Of course it is. Nobody thinks he committed the crime he was charged with, and undoubtedly
there are people who know, to this day, who ought to have suffered in his stead,” the owner of the Kerisaig replied.

  “Then really he was a martyr.”

  “Well, no, not quite. I’ve read the account of the trial, and I think he would have named the murderers if he could. He was given no chance to prepare a defence, of course.”

  “What was it, then—a blood feud?”

  “Well, in a way you might certainly call it that. I should imagine the trouble originated simply because the murdered man was a Campbell, and had been given a position of authority after the rising of 1745. There was a great deal of local feeling, which has died down, I suppose, by now, but which could lead to almost any act of violence in those days. But never mind that. I’m hungry enough to commit an act of violence myself.”

  “I’m hungry, too,” said the girl. She glanced up at the tall young man beside her. He had thick, untidy, light hair, grey eyes, and a good-tempered mouth offset by an obstinate chin. His name was Ian Menzies, and he had been born in the Highlands, although not so far west as the land of lochs and legends he was traversing.

  “Good for you, Kate,” he said with immense approval. “See what the sea air and a little hard work in a boat, and, of course, my society, do for you!”

  “Yes, it is strange,” said the girl. “I mean, it is strange I’m hungry.”

  “No, it isn’t,” said the owner, looking affectionately down on the top of her head and taking her hand as they walked up the slope towards the inn. “This air would make anybody hungry. Still glad you came?”

  “Well, it’s rather soon to be sorry, isn’t it?” Her fingers tightened in his. “Besides, I want to meet your sister. If it weren’t for her, I suppose I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Yes, you would. She’ll pull my leg. I’ve a reputation in the family for being a woman-hater. Laura will laugh herself sick at my spending my holidays with a girl.”

  “I don’t really expect you to, you know. You can go off on your own as soon as ever you want to. I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised if you had slipped away early this morning and I’d never set eyes on you again.”

  “Oh, yes, you would,” said he; and they looked at each other and laughed.

  “Besides,” Ian Menzies went on, “I don’t believe anybody—certainly not a Highlander—could resist the lure of showing his own home to someone who’d never seen it before. Of course, we come from beyond Loch Rannoch, but—lovely, isn’t it?”

  The girl stood still, and, with her clear green eyes, absorbed the stillness and beauty of the smooth broad waters, the hills and the quiet road. On the eastern side of the loch, to the north of Loch Leven, rose the mighty mass of Ben Nevis. Almost opposite where they stood, Loch Linnhe, narrowing to the Cape of Corran with its lighthouse before broadening out for the upper reaches known as An Linne Dhubh, separated them from the little village of Onich, and, a couple of miles away, a ferry connected North and South Ballachulish, whence the road ran northwards through Onich up to Fort William, and the loch met Loch Eil, the River Lochy, and the Caledonian Canal.

  “I wonder when Laura and her funny old lady will show up?” Ian remarked, as they walked on again towards the hotel, which was sufficiently famous to have been marked on their map. “Laura didn’t know whether she could make it,” he continued. “She’ll certainly have a fit at seeing you.” He chuckled contentedly. “I hope she can get here for lunch. The old lady’s nephew is pretty handy with a boat, so they should get here all right. The weather’s been wonderful, anyhow.”

  They went into the hotel and ordered lunch.

  “Who exactly is your sister’s old lady?” the girl demanded.

  “Mrs. Lestrange Bradley, the psychiatrist. In her spare time she chases murderers. My sister had something rather queer happen at College, and the old lady was in on that, and, in the end, suggested that Laura should become her secretary. Of course, Laura jumped at it. Mrs. Bradley is due at some conference or other in Inverness next week or the week after, and Laura thought she might be able to persuade her to put in a bit of a holiday first. I believe they are joining forces with Mrs. Bradley’s nephew and his wife and a kid—another nephew. We won’t hang about with them, or anything dull like that, but I would like Laura to be the first of my people to meet you.”

  The party of whom he had been speaking had already moored their hired cruiser and were cheerfully splashing ashore. Mrs. Bradley herself, caught up firmly in Laura Menzies’ powerful grasp, was being borne on to Scottish soil much, as she herself observed, in the manner of the Roman eagles being carried on to disputed territory. Laura disagreed with this by claiming Scotland as her native land and Mrs. Bradley as her own unique and awful gift to it, and they concluded by Laura’s quoting Sir Walter Scott and Mrs. Bradley the de Bello Gallico with zest and in unison. Jonathan Bradley, a saturnine man of twenty-eight or thirty, had his beautiful wife Deborah in his arms, and the remaining member of the party, young Brian Lestrange, a boy of thirteen, had already run ashore and was standing there laughing at the others.

  He and Jonathan were wearing shirts of brightly-coloured towelling and grey flannel shorts, and carried their shoes slung round their necks by the laces. Mrs. Bradley was dressed in a pink linen coat and skirt, a white blouse, and a large straw hat. The two girls were in short skirts and woollen jumpers. Even in this strictly utilitarian uniform Deborah contrived to look beautiful, and Laura, built like an Amazon and moving with a long and confident stride as soon as she set down her burden, swung her pleated skirt like a kilt, and imprinted her native soil with the nailed soles of a pair of mountain-climbing shoes. She wore a little round beret stuck on the back of her head and tennis socks had been given the place of stockings.

  The whole party had an atmosphere of holiday, an air of unconventionality, and was surrounded by an aura of good-humour. It tramped quietly enough on its way to the inn, with Jonathan describing to the boy the respective merits of the Irish lakes and the Scottish river Dee for salmon fishing. The youngster joined in when the talk turned on the greased line in sunk fly fishing on the Welsh Dee, and the conversation seemed to be completely satisfactory to both.

  Mrs. Bradley walked by herself; not because she was anti-social; certainly not because she did not care for young people; but partly because she had a good deal to think about, and partly because she had an old-fashioned idea that young people sometimes liked to talk to one another without being overheard by their elders. She brought up the tail of the procession, therefore, for the two girls, owing to the immense stride of the Amazonian Laura, soon passed Jonathan and Brian and quickly reached the door of the inn. The boy followed them in. Jonathan waited for his relative.

  “I think,” he said, “we might as well lunch here, Aunt Adela. We shan’t find a better place, I imagine, and then we can go on to Kinlochleven this afternoon, and the others can amuse themselves on Stob Ban, if that’s what they want, or we could all take the path across Devil’s Staircase to Kingshouse, and stay the night. What do you think? How soon must you get to Inverness?”

  “I am at the disposal of the party, dear child. If I get to Inverness a week from to-day, it will do.”

  “Well, if we made Kingshouse for the night, it might fit in better for Laura. She wants to explore a part of Rannoch Moor, and, if she did that, we could all get to Bridge of Orchy the next day. From there, there are plenty of possible excursions, or a good long tramp to Loch Etive, if we feel inclined.”

  “What about Deborah?”

  “She can make it.”

  “And Brian?”

  “He’s very fit now.”

  “Then let us have lunch as soon as we can.”

  They went in, to discover that the others were fraternising with the owner and crew of the Kerisaig, to whom they had been introduced by Laura, who, nobly mastering her astonishment at finding her misanthropic brother with a girl, overcame an obvious difficulty by pretending to know who she was.

  “This looks like a put-up job,” said Mrs.
Bradley, acknowledging the introductions.

  “It is,” said Laura, with great satisfaction. “I told Ian in my last letter that he could meet us here if he liked, although why he was so keen on it . . .” She stared thoughtfully and speculative at the crew of the Kerisaig who had been referred to by Ian as Catherine . . . “I don’t quite see. He eats with a knife and fork, like everybody else, by the way, if you wouldn’t mind letting him join us.”

  “I am delighted,” said Mrs. Bradley, noting what had been overlooked by the exuberant Laura—the wedding-ring on Catherine’s hand.

  “Ye’ll have soup,” said the waitress definitely, coming to the table and looking somewhat severely at them. “And if ye’re agreeable to trout there’s trout fresh caught, and if ye’re against it there’s maybe an omelette. I’m not just sure. Ye’ll have lamb or beef. I’d take the beef if I were you, but ye’ll please yourselves. There might be chicken if Mr. Jones is expected. I’ll just see.”

  During lunch, which was of a substantial and satisfying kind, various excursions were suggested and possible routes discussed. Some of these involved the use of the boats, and some did not, and, finally, a compromise was reached. Laura and Mrs. Bradley would walk from, and return to, South Ballachulish, making an excursion along the shore of Loch Leven. The others would leave Ardgour and drop down Loch Linnhe to Port Appin, or, better still, Portnacroich, from where they would walk on the morrow along the shores of Loch Creran.

  “From North Ballachulish,” Laura remarked, “Ian could run Mrs. Bradley and me up to Fort William in the Kerisaig, as we’re going to give up our cruiser. Then we can depart for Inverness when we like, which ought to be a week to-day, Tuesday, at the latest, and you others can do as you like until we get back. Does that suit everybody?”

  Apparently it did, and the company left the hotel. As they walked down the slope, Laura said a word to Deborah, and the two girls unobtrusively changed partners. Deborah fell in with Catherine, to whom she had been talking at lunch, and Laura strolled along with the owner of the Kerisaig, and met his quizzical eye.

  “Who is she, Ian?” she enquired.

  “I don’t know,” Ian replied. “She came to dig at Mrs. White’s last month and seemed at a loose end, so I took her to a dance the week before last, and encouraged her to cut her stick and come up here for a holiday.”