Say It With Flowers 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 1960.

  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 in1960 by Michael Joseph.

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869031

  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 Margaret Murphy with deep affection

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE Treasure Trove

  CHAPTER TWO The Roman Dig

  CHAPTER THREE The Enthusiasts

  CHAPTER FOUR The Grisly Occupant

  CHAPTER FIVE 1950 plus—and All That

  CHAPTER SIX Marigold Utters

  CHAPTER SEVEN Phlox Disclaims

  CHAPTER EIGHT Charon Asserts

  CHAPTER NINE The Riddle of the Beads

  CHAPTER TEN Robert Gavin Comes to Stay

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Dame Beatrice Acts Independently

  CHAPTER TWELVE And Continues So to Do

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Help from the Village

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Two Ladies Go for a Swim

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Manor House

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Dark Suspicions

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Thames-side Gleanings

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Gathering Phlox

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Flowers of Sulphur

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Treasure Trove

  “Abraham might have thought the Ram in the thicket came there by accident.”

  Sir Thomas Browne: Part I of Religio Medici (Section 17)

  * * *

  IT is common knowledge that the fabulous cave-paintings of Lascaux, near Montignac in south-west France, and the treasure of Roman-British silver found at Mildenhall in Suffolk were both discovered by accident. Not so well known (since there proved to be good reasons for hushing it up) is the fact that last year there was also a fortuitous discovery of coins and pottery at a place called Wandles Parva, on the borders of the New Forest.

  The caves of Lascaux were discovered by a dog followed by five boys. The Mildenhall treasure was turned up by the plough. The Wandles Parva discovery was made by a man named Dick Dickon while digging out a badgers’ sett at the corner of his smallholding. What he found—a few Roman silver coins, a black jar, and a rather hideous mask of terracotta—went into his home, for he had never heard of inquests upon treasure trove but only upon dead bodies. It is fair to state, however, that he would have handed current coinage or a piece of modern jewellery to the police without hesitation. He took the Roman coins to an antique shop in Southampton, was told they were two a penny and that no collector would buy them, took them home and threw them into a table drawer. The black jar, which was completely whole, and the mask, also unblemished, he got his wife to wash in warm, soapy water. She accepted the jar as an ornament, but she relegated the mask (likely, she said, to frighten the children) to the bottom of her wardrobe, where she covered it up with an old jumper.

  The objects and the coins had been in Dickon’s place for some months when the vicar called to visit Mrs. Dickon, who had recently borne her second child and was due to churched.

  Introduced into the parlour and invited to take a seat while Mrs. Dickon changed her apron for a nylon overall, the vicar immediately spotted the black jar. He had lifted it off the piano—a period piece of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses in a village which had no electricity and therefore no television sets—and was examining it closely when Mrs. Dickon reappeared.

  His errand forgotten for the moment, the vicar exclaimed:

  “Where on earth did you get this, Mrs. Dickon?”

  Mrs. Dickon explained, adding that there was another bit of a thing upstairs, but that it was too ugly to have on show. She was bidden to go and get it. For go
od measure she also turned out the coins, but decided to put them back again in the drawer. The man in the Southampton shop had said they were worthless, but Mrs. Dickon had the feeling that coins were money and that the vicar might think it not quite the thing to stick to money unless you had earned it.

  The vicar was entranced with the mask.

  “But, Mrs. Dickon, this is sensational! I am most interested. Did you know that a Roman road is thought to have run past this village? Wandles was built to the north of the Roman Way in Saxon times. The Way is supposed to join Ackling Dyke, and that same road, when we find it—I have two people coming shortly upon the trail—may prove to be a continuation of the road mentioned by O. G. S. Crawford as running across part of Beaulieu Heath.”

  “Really, sir? Fancy that!”

  “It may be no fancy, Mrs. Dickon. Your husband’s fortunate discovery of this pottery should lighten my labours and shorten the time which I might otherwise have had to spend.”

  “For why, sir?”

  “Pottery as good as this—strange that it should not be broken; unique, possibly; still, the very light and sandy nature of the soil just around here—as I was saying, the presence of this pottery may argue a villa, and a villa should argue a near-by Roman road, since the Romans delighted in urban life and never built even the most grandiose villa very far from a town, so you see, the case for a road, if Dickon has discovered a villa, would almost appear to be established.”

  “Yes, indeed, sir. Excuse me, sir, I’ve left my Alfie with the baby and I better see what he’s up to.”

  “Oh, dear! I hope you can trust him? Some young children are very jealous of a newcomer to the nest, are they not?”

  “Oh, Alfie dotes on her, sir. It’s only that he experiments, if I don’t watch out. He means ever so well, I’m sure, but it don’t always do to leave him with her too long.”

  She went out, in search of the embryo scientist, to the garden. Left alone, the vicar carried the black jar to the window which, although somewhat obscured by a luxurious curtaining of geraniums, fuchsias, and hanging baskets of ferns, gave a better light than that over the piano, and inspected the prize closely. Then he re-examined the mask which Mrs. Dickon had brought in.

  “These,” he said aloud, “must certainly go to the museum in Bossbury public library. Even the Culminster museum might like them. They can’t possibly keep them here. I must explain to them that they can’t.”

  When he got back to the vicarage his wife met him in the hall.

  “Hilary Beads is coming to stay,” she said. “On Saturday, so I’ll have to bustle about. It will be nice to see her again.”

  “Splendid,” said the vicar, aware of what his wife had told him, but thinking also of Roman black pottery and terra-cotta masks.

  “She says you promised to teach her to play golf.”

  “So I did. Dear me! Why does one undertake these rash commitments?”

  “She wants you to read the manuscript of her book about Miss Buss and Miss Beale.”

  “An excellent book has already been published on the same subject by Mrs. Josephine Kamm, whom, you remember, I met in London.”

  “Hilary knows that. It doesn’t deter her. She says there has been a correspondence in the Times Literary Supplement about people writing the same book. It seems it doesn’t matter if they do.”

  “Not the same book, my dear. A book on the same subject.”

  “Well, all right, but you know what I mean. She says there was a lot in the Times Lit. about the Brontës and other people like that.”

  “Perhaps it is fortunate that there are not any other people like that,” said the vicar, who thought Wuthering Heights ridiculous.

  The vicar’s wife grinned.

  “Pedantic old dotard,” she said. She took him by the arm and led him into the dining-room. “My chief worry,” she observed, “is that the Carmichaels are supposed to be coming, too, and you know they always insist upon separate rooms. Hilary comes on the eleventh for a fortnight, and they are booked for the eighteenth.”

  “You’ll have to put them off, then, I suppose. They’ll quite understand, that’s one thing. I have never met such a pleasant, accommodating couple.”

  “I don’t care about them much. Phlox gives me the creeps. Oh, but you were going to have such fun with them and your Roman road! It does seem a pity to put them off, and I suppose it’s mean to do it, as they booked first.”

  “Yes, but they’re people who never worry about keeping to a programme. Write and explain the circumstances. They’ve always got some bee in their bonnet which will keep them occupied. They’ll find something to do, and come on here afterwards. We could accommodate them on the next Saturday—the twenty-fifth, when Hilary leaves.”

  “I hate to do it, but it does seem the only thing. I can’t ask Hilary to share a room with Marigold,” said the vicar’s wife, frowning thoughtfully.

  “Not if Marigold won’t even share with her own husband,” said the vicar.

  “It’s not quite the same thing, Mr. Greatheart. Besides, it was from Hilary’s point of view I was seeing it. There’s a considerable difference in their ages. Anyway, Hilary’s untidiness would drive Marigold insane.”

  “How long is Hilary proposing to stay?”

  “Only a fortnight. You don’t listen! She’s going to America and her boat leaves from Southampton, so, as this house is more or less on the way, she thought she’d like to come to us again before she sails. I expect it’s an act of charity, if we did but know.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Well, the money will be welcome, I suppose.”

  “And now, what were you so excited about when you came in?”

  “Was I excited? I don’t think I was.”

  “Come clean. Has Mrs. Dickon joined the Methodists?—or has she refused to be churched?”

  “No, of course not. The fact is, Dickon has made a discovery of two very fine Roman pottery things and I think they may indicate a villa.”

  “Splendid! You can get plenty of help in the village to dig it out and people will come from all over England to see it—they must all have seen Chedworth and Bignor and that sort of thing by now—and the rich ones will all want our guest-rooms and we’ll simply coin money all the summer.”

  “I don’t know what the Bishop would say if he knew that we took in paying guests.”

  “Oh, but, darling, he does know. I told him at the palace garden party and all he said was better the guest who pays than the guest who doesn’t, and, often, much more considerate and ever so much better behaved. He’s a lamb, so you’ve no need to worry. After all, he knows we don’t get quite as easy a time as the lilies of the field—not that I spin, although I do think I toil quite a bit. Have you spoken to Dickon about this Roman villa?”

  “No. I thought he was with the pigs, but he left them for Opening Time. You know, my dear, I really do think those finds of his should go to the Bossbury museum.”

  “Wait until Hilary comes, then, and take her along with you. She’ll soon chisel them out of him. What’s the good of running a marriage bureau and a first-class one, at that, if you can’t manage a bit of sharp practice when it’s necessary? I’ve often suspected Hilary of bringing off more than one doubtful deal, apart from getting her books printed.”

  “Mrs. Dickon certainly thought it might be difficult to induce Dickon to part with the finds.”

  “In that case, the machinations of Hilary are obviously called for.”

  “Well, let us hope that small Alfie Dickon isn’t allowed to experiment with the things and break them before Hilary comes along.”

  Hilary came along by the appointed train and the vicar met her at the station with his new car.

  “Tiens!” said Hilary, a very smartly-dressed, stylish woman in her middle thirties. “L’automobile! How did you get it? Last time I came you met me with a vintage model of London-to-Brighton fame.”

  “Veronica thought it bad for business to meet the guests in an old and battered car
,” the vicar explained, “so we bought a new one.”

  “But what does the parish think? Are you suspected of having had a go at the Pools?”

  “I don’t believe the parish does think. At any rate, no speculative gossip has come to my ears about the car. Do you like it?”

  “Yes, but I’m sorry to see the old one go. It had a way of coughing in an apologetic sort of way whenever it was going to conk out on a hill, or half-way through a water-splash, that really went to my heart. Well, and what fun have you decided on for me this week?”

  “As a matter of fact, I want to send you on a mission.”

  “What!”

  “Oh, not that sort of mission. Veronica thinks that you, with your popular touch, and so on, could persuade Dick Dickon to send his Roman stuff to the Bossbury museum. They’ve a respectable little collection there in the library vestibule and Dickon’s finds should be added.”

  “Tell me more. What are Dickon’s finds?”

  The vicar told her all that he knew. She affected great interest. On the third morning of her stay—nothing more having been said in the meantime about Dickon and his finds—she raised the matter of going over to his smallholding to talk to him. She elected to go alone, (although the vicar’s wife offered to accompany her), was directed to the place and came upon Dickon’s wife feeding the chickens. Hilary said that she was staying at the vicarage and had been told about the finds. She begged to be allowed to see them.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Dickon. “Don’t give they hens no more, Alfie. No, you can’t have no more in your basin. You don’t want the hens to be too fat to lay a nice brown egg for your breakfast. I don’t know, miss, I’m sure. You’re the second one today as has asked to see them, and I couldn’t refuse the other lady, her being squire of the village, as you might say.”

  “I’ll promise not to handle them, of course, but it’s not every day one gets the chance to see real old Roman stuff that has actually been found in the neighbourhood. One usually has to go to a museum for that,” said Hilary, putting on a false but persuasive smile.

  “If the vicar have his way, that’s where you would have to go and see ‘em, miss.” Mrs. Dickon spoke tartly, having no use for Londoners.

  “Yes, a lot of people would be able to see them there, though. This, a private view, would be something quite special for me and I should like it very much. Still, they belong to your husband, of course, so . . .”