Lament for Leto (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 1971.

  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 1971 by Michael Joseph

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869147

  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 Michael Cottrill and the Muses, particularly his own.

  Poseidon, be merciful unto those mariners who cross the Aegean Sea, and let thine anger expend itself against the defiant rocks and not upon their frail vessels.

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE Thalia, the Muse of Comedy

  CHAPTER TWO Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance and Song

  CHAPTER THREE Erato, the Muse of Erotic Poetry and Mime

  CHAPTER FOUR Urania, the Muse of Astronomy

  CHAPTER FIVE Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry

  CHAPTER SIX Euterpe, the Muse of Lyric Poetry

  CHAPTER SEVEN Polymnia, the Muse of Divine Hymns

  CHAPTER EIGHT Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy

  CHAPTER NINE Clio, the Muse of History

  CHAPTER TEN Holmesia, the Muse of Deductive Reasoning

  About the Author

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The quotations used as chapter headings are taken from The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius in William Adlington’s translation edited by F.J. Harvey Darton, printed with permission of Chas. J. Sawyer and the Navarre Society, 1 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LB.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thalia, the Muse of Comedy

  “When I had done this, and was departing away, one of my companions, and fellow at Athens . . . fortuned to pass by, and viewing me a good space, in the end brought me to his remembrance . . .”

  There had been a time (but it seemed to her to belong to a previous existence) when Dame Beatrice had been followed about by strange men. In those days, however, she had been a black-haired, brilliant-eyed siren, ugly, vivacious, unfashionably thin, and small, but possessing an attractiveness which, although entirely divorced from physical beauty, exercised a kind of electric current upon most of those who came in contact with her. It accounted for her popularity with both sexes and with all age-groups and it probably accounted (in both senses) for the three husbands who had predeceased her.

  On the present occasion there was no doubt she was being stalked, although the hunter, this time, was no incipient Romeo, but a mild, scholarly-looking little man wearing badly-creased trousers and with the rest of his apparel concealed beneath a buttoned-up raincoat. Moreover, the venue was no open prairie or primeval forest, still less a lonely country lane or a blasted heath. It was, of all unlikely stamping-grounds for a prowler, the chaste and lofty halls of the British Museum.

  Dame Beatrice was there less as a student than as a fugitive from the rain and as a concession to the unreliable March weather. When she had entered her London clinic to pay a periodical visit to the staff there, the sun had been shining and a boisterous breeze was chasing light clouds across a faint and misty-blue sky, but when she left, not more than two hours later, the wind had dropped and heavy rain was falling. She had no waterproof coat and could see no cruising taxi, so she made for the nearest public shelter. This happened to be the museum.

  She had been standing in front of the so-called Strangford Apollo when she first became aware of the little man. At first she was unaffected by his presence, deeming him to be a chance visitor, as she was herself, but when she found him standing almost at her elbow when she was looking at the Parthenon frieze, and just behind her while she studied the classical sculptures on the marble column-drums from the temple of the Ephesian Diana, she began to wonder whether this dogging of her footsteps might not be calculated, and tha
t he was trying to make up his mind to speak to her.

  To test this she went to look at some black-figure pottery; a narrow-necked lekythos; a broader-necked amphora with its two handles; a bowl-like skythos. From these she turned to some painted drinking-cups. There was one by the Panaiticus artist which portrayed Amazons; there was another of Aphrodite by the Pistoxinus painter; there was a third which depicted Hippomedon attacking the serpent which killed the baby Archemorus. This was attributed to the Sotades painter and Dame Beatrice looked at it closely, not so much because it particularly attracted her interest as in the hope that, by doing so, she would either outstay her pursuer or force him to declare himself.

  It was of no use. When she went back on her tracks to a frieze from the temple of Apollo at Phigalea which she had already studied, the man was still with her. When she lingered in front of the statue of Demeter from Cnidus, so did he. She returned to some early Greek sculptures—the women on the Harpy tomb; a self-satisfied, smirking, crimp-haired, marble kouros; a headless, primitive, seated figure from Miletus; her first love, the formalised, improbable Apollo. The persistent shadow was with her wherever she went.

  Dame Beatrice possessed a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Many of the latter derived from her practice, for she was a consultant psychiatrist of international note. She was also, in her capacity of psychiatric adviser to the Home Office, not unknown to the criminal classes. Her family ramifications were many, and she had met more of her relatives’ friends and their friends’ friends than she could well remember. She began to think that the faithful little man must know her, but as he made no attempt to speak and as nothing stirred in her mind concerning him, she went to the ground floor of the King Edward VII gallery and looked out into the street. The rain had stopped and there was a cruising taxi. She hailed it and was about to give the driver the address of her Kensington house when the little man manifested himself once more. He raised his hat.

  “Do forgive me for accosting you, but it is Mrs. Bradley—I should say Dame Beatrice—is it not?” he asked. His voice and his deprecating manner gave Dame Beatrice her cue.

  “Dear me! Mr. Ronald Dick, surely?” she said. “This is most delightful. I was just about to go home to lunch. Is it possible that you can join me?”

  “It was the strangest and most fortunate occurrence that I should have seen you in the museum,” said Ronald Dick, seated at table with his hostess in her handsome dining-room. “I was longing to speak to you, but I perceived that you did not recognise me and my courage failed until I realised that you were about to vanish from my ken.” He smiled diffidently. “I had been thinking about you, and there you were.”

  “It often happens that way, in my experience,” said Dame Beatrice. “It is so nice to see you again after all these years. I saw the announcement of Sir Rudri’s death, but have lost touch with the family.”

  “Marie Hopkinson is living in Switzerland and the sons are in America. It was about Sir Rudri, in a way, that I wanted to speak to you. He had planned another of his extraordinary pilgrimages, you know, and death claimed him before he could carry it out. I have often felt that I owed it to his memory—he was extremely kind to me in his way—but until now, there has been no opportunity . . .”

  “To carry out his wishes?”

  “Yes. At last, however, I can see my way clear. I am gathering together a small party to visit some of the shrines and temples of Apollo in Greece and on the islands.”

  “Oh, that is what Rudri had in mind?”

  “Yes. I suppose—this is what I wanted to ask you, if I may venture to do so—I suppose you would not care to come along with us?”

  “When would this be?”

  “We want to leave some time next month or at the beginning of May.”

  “And of whom does the party consist?”

  “With me will be my ward Hero and my adopted son Simonides—both Greek—well, half Greek. Then there are Chloe Cowie the novelist and her niece Mary, Henry Owen the botanist and his two sons, Edmund and Roger, accompanied by Julian Suffolk, their tutor. I think you would find the company agreeable.”

  “I wonder whether they would find me equally agreeable?”

  “I could arrange a meeting before you made up your mind. I should be so relieved and delighted if you would come. My ward is young—only twenty years old—and Mrs. Cowie, although a delightful woman, is not, to my mind, very reliable.”

  “Why should she need to be?”

  “Well, with six young people in the party, an older woman would be a great asset, and I don’t think Chloe would be an adequate chaperone. She has always been somewhat scatter-brained and, like all writers, she is inclined to be self-centred.”

  “You appear to have made a study of her,” said Dame Beatrice, amused.

  “I am thinking of making her an offer of marriage,” said Ronald Dick, simply.

  “Oh, I see. Well, it is an excellent beginning to realise that she has faults as well as virtues. How old are Mr. Owen’s sons?”

  “Seventeen and fourteen, I believe. They are being privately educated, which is not, in my opinion, the best preparation for boys who will have to earn a living. However, they are to go to University later, if they attain the required standard. Meanwhile, Henry wishes them to travel, but prefers to keep them under his eye, so they are coming with us to Greece.”

  “And the tutor? Is he not a capable man, then?”

  “I have not met him, and only once have I met the girl, Mary Cowie, but both, I believe, are very young.”

  Dame Beatrice met the other members of the expedition a week later at an informal get-together arranged by Dick at his flat in Poole. She had been frank with him when she accepted his invitation to join the gathering.

  “I can afford the time,” she said, “and, as my secretary is taking a Sabbatical six months’ leave to be with her family, I shall not be contributing to medical journals or beginning my new book until she returns. All the same, I should prefer not to be too hasty in promising to join you in Greece.”

  Dick’s flat overlooked Poole Bay, and from its balcony could be seen the castle and woods of Brownsea Island, the long spit of Sandbanks, and, on the other side of the ferry, the end of South Haven Point and the sand-dunes of Shell Bay. The balcony was sufficiently sheltered on a fine sunny afternoon for Dame Beatrice and the two young women to sit out on it for an hour after lunch while Dick and his adopted son washed the dishes and the tutor accompanied his charges for a stroll along the shores of the shallow bay. Chloe Cowie and Henry Owen had left in Henry’s car for the famous Compton Acres gardens near Flag Head Chine and were to return later, when Henry would pick up Julian Suffolk and the boys and take them back to their hotel.

  “A reversal of the historic roles of the sexes,” said Dame Beatrice, referring to the washing-up. “I noticed, Miss Metoulides, that you did not make any protest.”

  “I have no liking for the domestic chores, and Papa Ronald does not break the plates and glasses. I always break the plates and glasses, therefore it is better that he washes them and not I,” said the black-haired girl, flashing Dame Beatrice a warm, conspiratorial smile. “It is a lesson I learnt when I was very small and living for two years in Cheltenham. My foster-mother required me to help neighbours by pushing their babies out in little chairs on wheels to make ourselves a few pence because, of course, we were poor. But the babies, with me, they seemed to overturn their little push-chairs, so I was not allowed to take them out any more, and then my foster-mother married again and I went back to Greece with Papa Ronald. Much nicer there.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t a bit mind taking babies out,” said Mary Cowie, a nondescript blonde girl with serious eyes. “It would be better than doing my aunt’s typing and having to read aloud to her from her own ghastly books so that she can ‘enjoy the cadences’ of her involved and precious prose.” She spoke with extreme bitterness. “Of course I’d really prefer to do no work at all. I suppose we all would.”

  “I
wonder,” said Dame Beatrice, “what we should do with it if we had infinite leisure? Should we not end up like the lotus eaters, dead to all sense of time and reality?”

  “I wouldn’t, perhaps, so much mind working,” said Mary, “if it could be work of my own choosing.”

  “You can become a lotus eater on drugs,” said Hero. “As for me, I work very hard in my own way. I understudy the stars.”

  “Study the stars? You mean you’re an astronomer?” said Mary. “That must be awfully interesting.” She did not sound as though she thought so. Dame Beatrice had been aware, almost from the moment she had met them, that there was, if not antipathy, at least a lack of sympathy between the two girls, of whom Mary was slightly the older.

  “Astronomy is for men,” declared Hero. “I do not mean those stars. Orion, Casseopaeia, the Cyclades—what are they to me?”

  “The Cyclades are Greek islands,” said Mary, infuriatingly tolerant of ignorance.

  “Of course,” retorted Hero. “Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Delos, Skyros—we go there with Papa Ronald. I am talking about the other stars, the modern Greek stars. Mouskouri, Staylas, Cotopoulis, Paxinou, Dimitriades, Drossinis, Gryparis, Kazantzakis, Kephalinos, Malacassis, Solomos, Riadis, Rok, Sikelianos (both Angelos and Eva), Skalkotas, far back Theotocopoulos (you call him el Greco) first of the moderns, and others, very numerous.”

  “The whole alphabet, in fact,” said Mary, less tolerantly and with some contempt.

  “I congratulate you, Miss Metoulides,” said Dame Beatrice, deeming it wise to break in.

  “That we have so many famous ones?”

  “That, of course. I meant that you study singers, dancers, actors, poets, and painters, instead of rebels, patriots, and politicians.”

  “Those are for men. Women would not be interested.”

  “In England,” said Mary, “we don’t make these invidious distinctions.”

  “Between men and women? But biology has made the distinction for you,” retorted Hero.

  “Biology has nothing to do with politics, patriotism, or the arts.”

  “You think not? Where, then, are your women politicians?”

  “We have a number of them in the House of Commons, and some hold ministerial posts.”