Late and Cold (Timothy Herring) 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 1967

  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 1967 by Michael Joseph

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869383

  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 CHARLES AND PATRICIA and to the next merry meeting

  Contents

  START READING

  CHAPTER ONE The Motte and Bailey Affair

  CHAPTER TWO An Address in Earls Court

  CHAPTER THREE Nanradoc in Sunshine

  CHAPTER FOUR Mr. X. and Madam Y.

  CHAPTER FIVE A Visit in Retrospect

  CHAPTER SIX Pembroke Pritchard Jones

  CHAPTER SEVEN Ways and Means

  CHAPTER EIGHT The Poltergeist

  CHAPTER NINE Marion in Shadow

  CHAPTER TEN Blackbird on a Roof

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Doubting Timothy

  CHAPTER TWELVE The Birds Have Flown

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Nanradoc Renaissant

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Knives at the Feast

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Pussy in the Well

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN After the Inquest

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Private Eye

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Woodpecker and the Crow

  CHAPTER NINETEEN “. . . the police with their enquiries.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY The Iconoclast

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Stately Home

  About the Author

  “ ’Tis late and cold; stir up the fire;

  Sit close, and draw the table nigher;

  Call for the best the house may ring,

  Sack, white and claret, let them bring,

  And drink apace, while breath you have;

  You’ll find but cold drink in the grave.”

  From “The Dead Host’s Welcome” by John Fletcher

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Motte and Bailey Affair

  The Society for the Preservation of Buildings of Historic Interest, better known to its members as Phisbe, is not (as Timothy Herring has pointed out) an institution for the promiscuous dissemination of unreasoning charity. On the other hand, its full title sufficiently explains its raison d’être, for it has never been found guilty of refusing to spend its money where careful and informed research have shown that financial help is both necessary and expedient; on the other hand, as it is extremely wealthy, it is naturally inclined to be cautious.

  Timothy was listed on its notepaper as the Society’s honorary secretary. The ordinary duties of a secretary—such thankless, necessary chores as taking down the minutes of meetings, sending out notices, keeping an inevitably voluminous correspondence filed and docketed—were carried out by a paid underling whose name (it was Coningsby) did not appear in print either on the Society’s notepaper or on the title-pages of its annual Transactions.

  Timothy had no official duties and followed no particular routine. He was a man of substance and of leisure, unpaid by the Society except for his expenses, (when he remembered to put in a claim for them), and his self-chosen task, in his own words, was to “nose out the wheat from the chaff when we get an S.O.S., and give members, especially that cynical man our treasurer, the low-down on whether an enquiry seems to be up our street or whether it stinks.”

  In other, and, perhaps, clearer words, whenever the Society received an appeal for financial or legal aid, Timothy was prepared to go along and look into the matter. On the strength of a favourable report, Phisbe was accustomed to send along its surveyor and its architect, after which “all matters arising” were submitted to the committee and, if necessary, to a specially convened general meeting, so that appropriate action might be agreed on. />
  It was on a morning in late April, when his manservant brought in the post, that Timothy was first made aware of the existence of Mr. Pembroke Pritchard Jones and Castell Nanradoc, known subsequently to the Society as “the motte and bailey affair.” The letter had been sent on by Coningsby from the Society’s London headquarters and was in its own envelope (previously opened, of course, by Coningsby in the performance of his duties) enclosed in a larger one which bore the Society’s superscription. The writing on the letter was in a dashing hand which, but for the signature, Timothy would have guessed was feminine, and the notepaper was cheap and did not match its original cover.

  “The undersigned (the letter stated) has recently become the owner of a valuable property of considerable historic interest but in a bad state of repair. To render it habitable for the writer and three children presents a financial problem too unwieldy for the undersigned to surmount without assistance. As I understand that you take an interest in repairing old buildings, I hope you will see your way to . . .”

  Timothy finished his breakfast and then rang up Phisbe’s London headquarters.

  “Coningsby? That letter you’ve sent me from a Mr. Jones of Earls Court. This Nanradoc Castle. Do we know anything about it?”

  “I have looked up the archives, Mr. Herring, but we have no note of it.”

  “Oh, well, write back and promise that the letter will be placed before the committee at its next meeting, but damp the correspondent down a bit. I don’t think he’s our cup of tea. I’m sending the letter to our president with a covering note to that effect. The chap seems to think it’s our business in life to re-house him and his family, and I really don’t think we can wear it.”

  “Pardon me, sir, but could there be two people named Pembroke Pritchard Jones?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The Pembroke Pritchard Jones I’ve heard of, sir, is an artist, and exhibits in Chester. He is a painter whose works are already being collected by connoisseurs. He paints landscapes, I believe. I saw an advertisement of an exhibition of his work last autumn.”

  “Oh, well, he was probably staying in Earls Court when he wrote to us.”

  “Pardon me, sir, but I think it highly unlikely that a gentleman of the upbringing and eminence of Pembroke Pritchard Jones would have been staying at the address given in the letter. I reside, as you know, in West Kensington, and I know the Earls Court district very well.”

  “You mean it’s a shimmy address?”

  “I would not go so far as that, Mr. Herring, but it certainly is not in the best part of S.W.5, and, if you will forgive me for offering advice, I think you should treat this application with great caution.”

  “Oh, well, thanks for the information, Coningsby. I’ll include it, and your advice, in my note to the president.” He wrote this note the same day. It was expressed in his usual casual, informal way—he and the president had been friends for several years—and concluded with the words: “I rather like ‘a financial problem too unwieldy for the undersigned to surmount.’ I’d like to meet the bloke who penned that incredible sample of English. By the way, in spite of his Civil Service antecedents and his far too respectful attitude, Coningsby is a likely lad and deserves (and, no doubt, desires) a rise in salary. Remind me to bring it up at the next committee meeting. He obviously thinks there’s something very fishy about our latest correspondent, and a tip-off of that kind is useful. Anyway, I shall push along tomorrow to take a look at this ‘valuable property of considerable historic interest.’ It may be good for a laugh, if nothing more.”

  He put the letter on the hall table ready for the post, and went out into the garden. He had recently moved house, and now lived in the Cotswolds in a converted sixteenth-century inn which had been built round a small courtyard. He had completely enclosed the courtyard by adding an entrance vestibule and a square hall, and had sunk the courtyard by three feet, surrounding it by a kind of cloister walk. By putting a roof over the whole, he had made an attractive thing of it without sacrificing the charm of the original building, and it was a house in which all he needed, his sister was apt to inform him, was a wife.

  To reach the garden he had to take a few steps along the cloister walk, pass through what was now his library, turn and cross a lawn, and then, by way of a wicket gate, he was in an illogical combination of orchard, flower beds, and vegetable plots. It looked inconsequent and haphazard, and a wife, he sometimes reflected, would have made him alter it, but his cook and her kitchen-maid liked it as it was, his manservant ignored it, and his gardener, who was a local man and had known the place when it was the only inn for miles around, was more than content to look after the garden as it was, for he saw no reason to criticise it. It was as it had always been, and therefore it was right.

  Timothy’s interest in it—apart from a liking for fresh vegetables and flowers, and an appreciation of home-grown fruit from apple, pear, and plum trees and the raspberry canes—was chiefly in the view from its north-west aspect. What was more, the country beyond the Severn and away to the Welsh Marches had suddenly gained a new interest. Somewhere in that direction lay Castell Nanradoc, that mysterious fortress. On the following morning he was on his way to it.

  He had friends in Shrewsbury, but decided not to contact them that night. They were Tom and Diana Parsons. Tom was Phisbe’s architect, and it would be time enough to put him in the picture when the preliminary visit to Nanradoc had been paid, so Timothy stayed the first night at an hotel. Next day, after stopping on the road for coffee and to make enquiries, he was fairly on his way to the Pass of Nanradoc and its castle.

  The road was narrow, wild, and beautiful. It wound among the mountains and was bordered on one side by a turbulent stream which had its origin on the slopes of Snowdon, and on the other by the menacing heights whose foothills had been cut into when the Pass had been broadened and made into a road. He came in sight of the ruined keep before he had expected to do so. It was set well back, and had been built on the highest point of a bracken-covered hill which showed brilliantly green against the sombre mountains behind it. The road bent sharply leftwards past the castle, giving the impression that the ancient fortress and its hill blocked the way. Further on there were woods, and, Timothy had been told, a little village.

  Timothy pulled up on a verge beside the stream, making certain that his car was off the road. He left it, crossed over, and looked for a path to the castle. He found one, rough and stony, which led deviously upwards through the bracken. It came out at last upon the hilltop.

  There was a good deal more of the castle than could be seen from the road, and, apart from the keep itself, there were substantial remains of outbuildings and of the curtain wall against which they had been erected. There were also impressive although broken blocks of stone which lay in untidy heaps inside what had been the bailey.

  The keep itself was a round tower. It had a ragged opening where the door had been, and the walls were eight feet thick, but, inside the tower, the floor was not more than twenty feet across. A depression in the centre indicated the site of a well. Three deeply recessed and narrow windows inadequately lighted the place. There were two newel staircases built in the thickness of the walls, and the tower was roofless.

  Timothy climbed one of the staircases. It grew narrower as it mounted. The parapet at the top had crumbled away, and there were great gaps in the sentry-walk round the battlements, but, from the breezy perch he had reached, Timothy had a fine view of the road as it wound through the Pass, a prospect of looming mountains, and a glimpse of the flashing silver of a lake.

  At the point where the staircase narrowed there was a blocked doorway, indicating an entrance to what had been the first floor of the tower before weathering and neglect had rotted the planks away. The tower itself was so narrow that it seemed unlikely to have been a family dwelling. It must have served merely as a look-out or as a last stronghold in time of trouble. The first-floor chamber had been nothing more than a guardroom, and the well in t
he ground-floor chamber would not have been the only one in the castle, but merely the least accessible to an enemy. He made his survey and then attempted to climb the other staircase, but it was crumbling and dangerous, and, just above first-floor level, was completely broken away and continued upwards as a ragged, insurmountable shaft, so he left the keep and turned his attention to the scattered remains of the domestic quarters and the remnants of the curtain wall which had protected them.

  The largest of the buildings, a rectangular structure with appreciable gaps which had evidently been its doorways, was almost completely in ruins, but these indicated that they were the remains of the great hall with its kitchen and buttery. Two flankings of stone marked the site of the medieval screens. Beyond this building there were other indications of stone structures, including one which was in surprisingly good repair and might have been a chapel, and others which might have been store-houses and stables. All in all, Castell Nanradoc conformed to the pattern of its time. It was larger than many local strongholds of its type, but it did not compare for size with Edward’s great fortresses in the north and west of Wales. In any case, it had been built more probably by a Welsh prince than by an English baron of the Marches, and might have been a bulwark against local marauders in the troubled times between the death of Llewelyn the Great and the accession of his grandson.

  Speculating in this way and after this fashion, Timothy left the ruins and took a path which he hoped would lead down to the lake which he had glimpsed from the top of the tower. The way was rough and steep and passed through some woods on the further side of the hill. It did not lead to the lake. As Timothy came out from among the trees he saw in front of him a broad plank bridge with a handrail on either side of it, but, on the further shore of the river which it crossed, his way was barred by a tall, iron, padlocked gate. The path continued on the other side of this and meandered across a meadow where cattle were grazing. Beyond the meadow, iron railings enclosed some park-land on which a house of considerable size had been built. It was, so far as he could determine without closer inspection, a Caroline mansion, squarely built, symmetrical, and, seen from a distance, austere.