The Croaking Raven 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 1966

  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 1966 by Michael Joseph

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869093

  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.

  “Like the sad-presaging raven that tolls

  The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak,

  And, in the shadow of the silent night,

  Does shake contagion from her sable wing.”

  MARLOWE The Jew of Malta

  “The raven himself is hoarse

  That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

  Under my battlements.”

  SHAKESPEARE Macbeth

  “At once his eyesight came to him again, and he saw by the light of the moon and the stars that he was beneath the gallows-tree…”

  THE BROTHERS GRIMM The Crows and the Soldier

  To Jeremy, Michael, and Julie Willson

  “It so fell out at this hunting,

  Upon a simmer’s day,

  That they came by a fair castell

  Stood on a sunny brae.”

  FAUSE FOODRAGE

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: Hamish Chooses a Birthday Present

  CHAPTER TWO: An Introduction to a Castle

  CHAPTER THREE: Open to Inspection

  CHAPTER FOUR: The Boatmen

  CHAPTER FIVE: Childe Roland

  CHAPTER SIX: Guests at the Chalet Dysey

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Internal Evidence

  CHAPTER EIGHT: The Gardener Talks

  CHAPTER NINE: Alas, poor Yorick!

  CHAPTER TEN: The Dysey Inheritance

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Return of Mrs. Dysey

  CHAPTER TWELVE: The Vicar and I Were There

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A Cleric’s Evidence

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Doctor’s Story

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Foolish Virgin

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Ravens’ Hoard

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Cyril Departs in Haste

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: And Returns at Leisure

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: E. and O. E.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: News of the Heir Apparent

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Vicar Ignores His Cloth

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Ravens’ Nest

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Retreat from Castle Perilous

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hamish Chooses a Birthday Present

  “And see ye not yon bonny road

  That winds about the ferny brae?

  That is the road to fair Elfland,

  Where thou and I this night maun gae.”

  Thomas the Rhymer

  Ever since he had been old enough both to know what he wanted and to understand whether or not he was likely to get it (not the same thing, by any means), Laura Gavin’s son Hamish had been encouraged by his parents and his godmother to choose his own presents. From a pedal car, a fairy cycle, a small light football, a weight-for-age cricket bat, he had graduated to the possession of frog-flippers, a pedal-cycle important enough to be called a “real bike,” roller skates, and a model yacht. Later, at his urgent request, he had been given a pram-dinghy, a telescope, a fishing rod, and a pony. His tenth birthday was approaching.

  “I suppose,” he suggested one morning during his Easter holiday from his preparatory school, “you wouldn’t like to ask me something?”

  “Yes. Have you cleaned your teeth?” replied his mother.

  “No, not this morning, but I’ve eaten an apple. It comes to the same thing.”

  “Have you groomed Pegasus?” asked his father.

  “No. George said he’d do it for once.” He looked expectantly at the third a
dult member of the gathering. “You can do better than that, Mrs. Dame, dear, can’t you?”

  Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the godmother aforesaid and, incidentally, his mother’s employer, cackled. She sketched a gesture with a hand like a yellow claw.

  “Well,” she said, “you had the pony for Christmas and it is now your Easter vacation. Should I be right in guessing that you will soon be at home again for half-term?”

  “You’re very hot,” said Hamish joyfully. “I’m sure you know what I mean!”

  “Oh, that!” exclaimed his mother, suddenly enlightened.

  “No!” said Hamish loudly. “You’ve had your guess. Let Mrs. Dame have hers. Do go on, Mrs. Dame, dear!”

  “Is it possible that some thought of a birthday present is in the air?”

  “I knew you’d guess right! Some people,” he added, turning to his father, “have an instinct and some people haven’t.”

  “How right you are,” agreed Detective Chief-Superintendent Robert Gavin of the C.I.D. “Well, slip us the bad news gently. What’s it to be?”

  “Well, you generally give me separate things,” said Hamish. There was a pause. His mother and father looked apprehensive. “This time,” Hamish continued, “I expect you’ll have to club together.”

  “What are we buying you? A motor-bike?” demanded Laura.

  “Not yet. I’m not old enough to own one. This thing I’ve thought of isn’t in the least dangerous. I mean, I’m sure it’s a thing you’d love to give me if you thought you could afford it. And, of course, I’d give up my pocket-money, and all that sort of thing.”

  “You’re reducing me to a nervous wreck,” said Gavin. “Do put us out of our misery.”

  “Well, I wondered…”

  “Get on with it!” said Laura.

  “You see, I saw an advertisement.”

  “Well, that’s not unusual.”

  “This one was. It was—oh, well, I’d better tell you. All hold your breaths and count ten…Right? Well, I don’t want this present on my birthday itself. I don’t want it—or anything else—until the summer holidays, so that will give you plenty of time to save up.”

  Laura groaned. Gavin whistled. Dame Beatrice cackled and asked,

  “What is it? A cruise round the world?”

  “No. I want them to rent a castle for me. Oh, only for a month, you know, because, of course, I’m going with the school to Denmark for part of the time. Look, I’ll get the advertisement and show you. I’ve got it upstairs.”

  He dived over an occasional table, turning a neat somersault in so doing, and ran out of the room. His elders looked at one another, but, before any of them could make a remark, Hamish came clattering in again, waving a magazine. He rushed up to his mother and, dropping on his knees beside her chair, he spread out the magazine on her lap. Among the advertisements offering holiday accommodation, one was heavily marked in red.

  “That’s where we shall be, if we back this scheme, I suppose,” commented Laura.

  “Where, mamma?”

  “In the red.” But she studied the paragraph closely before she passed the magazine to her husband. Gavin scanned the advertisement and handed on the magazine to Dame Beatrice.

  “They want a three months’ let,” he said. “No good to us at all.”

  Hamish’s face fell.

  “Surely they wouldn’t stick to that, if people like us would take it for a month,” he said. “Couldn’t we go and see them and—well, ask?”

  “You’d only be the more disappointed at being turned down, old man,” said Gavin, sympathetically.

  Hamish took the magazine dispiritedly from Dame Beatrice and went out of the room whistling. She glanced at the disappointed slant of his shoulders.

  “We must take him to see it,” she said. “I know something of these people. The man used to be a patient of mine. He was a bomber pilot during the war and was shot down over Germany. He was caught twice while trying to escape, and was badly wounded the second time. He was given solitary confinement before he was fit to leave hospital. He was in a sad state by the time he was released. He was sent to me under a general rehabilitation scheme sponsored by the Government. I have never been to the castle, but I used to talk with him about it. It gave us a starting point for his treatment.”

  “Well, you’re the authority, of course,” said Gavin, “but I should have thought it the worst thing in the world for Hamish to see the castle, as we can’t rent it. There’s no doubt his heart was set on it.”

  “Who said we couldn’t rent it?” Dame Beatrice asked in mild tones.

  “You mean that, as you know these people, they might let us have it for only a month? I shouldn’t think they could afford to, you know.”

  “There is no reason why they should afford to, dear Robert. I shall rent it for three months, and then, if we like it, Laura and I will stay on after Hamish goes back to school. We can live there just as easily, for a few weeks, as we can in Hampshire, and the castle is not a prohibitive number of miles from my London clinic, so there will be no difficulties at all. Please summon Hamish and inform him that we will go and look at the place, but that he must not be disappointed if someone has acquired the lease before we get there.”

  “Well, really!” exclaimed Laura. “I’ve always said you spoil Hamish, but this is the limit!”

  “Oh, Hamish isn’t the only one among us who wants to find out what it’s like to live in a castle. I was watching you as you read the advertisement, and I decided that, for once, mother and son saw eye to eye with one another,” retorted Dame Beatrice, cackling.

  CHAPTER TWO

  An Introduction to a Castle

  “There’s a castle bigg’d wi’ lime and stane;

  O gif it stands not pleasantlie!

  In the forefront o’ that castle fair,

  Twa unicorns are bra’ to see;

  There’s the picture of a knight and a lady bright,

  And the green hollin abune their bree.”

  The Outlaw Murray

  The castle certainly was built of lime and stone, and Gavin pulled up about twenty yards from the entrance so that the party could take a look at it before committing themselves further. It stood in a delightful setting of low hills and tall trees. There was no moat, but a curtain wall with six strong flanking towers protected a small Tudor house and the scowling Norman keep which rose behind it. There were no unicorns to be seen, for the coat-of-arms above the gatehouse archway showed three ravens and the motto Salve Domina.

  The car drove in through the open gatehouse entrance and pulled up on the paved half of a large courtyard, the other half of which displayed a finely-trimmed lawn surrounded by flower-beds.

  “Rather an odd sort of motto, didn’t you think?” asked Laura, as the car drew up on the paved area in front of the house.

  “Well, odd or not,” Dame Beatrice replied, “there is much to be said for a motto which indicates neither militant nor mercenary sentiments.”

  Hamish, from his seat in the front beside George, the chauffeur, wrenched open the door of the car and leapt out. George went to the rear door and opened it for Dame Beatrice. Laura followed her out and Gavin opened the door on his side and joined his son. Hamish was gazing rapturously at curtain walls and flanking towers. These seemed at odds with the small Tudor house, but this blended, although somewhat haphazardly, with the grey stone of the gatehouse.

  “Delightful,” remarked Dame Beatrice, as they walked towards the main door of the house. “Everything appears to be in a remarkably good state of repair. I do hope we are in time.”

  “They sounded quite cordial on the ’phone,” said Laura. “It was a woman’s voice.” She rang the bell. The door was opened by a grey-haired woman in a badly-hung skirt and a cardigan which had seen better days. She smiled, but her eyes were like grey glass.

  “Oh, do come in,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Dysey. You will be Dame Beatrice and party. I’m so sorry my husband isn’t here to meet you,
but I can tell you all you want to know. Let’s talk in here, shall we?” She opened a door into a shabby but habitable room. “Please do sit down.” There were only three chairs, so Gavin and Hamish remained standing. “Well, now,” went on Mrs. Dysey, taking the third chair after raising her eyebrows at Gavin, who smiled and shook his head, “what would you like to know first?”

  “They’d like to know the price,” said Hamish. “You didn’t put it in the advertisement.”

  “We thought it might put people off before they’d even seen the place, young man.”

  It was a tart reply. It was clear that Mrs. Dysey did not approve either of the comment or the commentator.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Hamish, aware of and sensitive to the rebuke, “but, you see, it’s really for me they want to come here. It’s to be my birthday present.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Dysey, mollified by this explanation. “Well,”—she addressed herself to Gavin, the only adult male among the party—“we’d like three hundred and fifty pounds in advance, and this would include use of linen, plate and cutlery, laundry service, servants’ wages, and any produce from the kitchen garden and the home farm. We don’t mind which three months you choose, provided that they run consecutively and that you let us know at least one month beforehand when you would like to come.”

  “If we take it, we should want it for August, September, and October,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Well, you’d like to look over it, I expect. Oh, there is one other thing. I hope you won’t find it an obstacle, but there’s a clause in the lease to say that the place must be thrown open to the public on two afternoons a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. There’s nothing about a charge for admission, but you had better make one, all the same. People don’t value things they are given for nothing, and, also, it keeps out the louts and their girl-friends. Well, if you’d like to come this way…”

  “I suppose,” said Hamish, prepared for another rebuff, “I mean, I’m not terribly interested in houses, so do you think I could go and look at the towers and the more castle-y bits in the courtyard?”

  “That’s up to your parents. If you do, be very careful of the newel staircases. They are very narrow and steep. And don’t lean over the battlements, little boy.”