Shades of Darkness (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 Worsed 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 1970.

  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 1970 by Michael Joseph.

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869406

  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 K and F

  Gunn, Tyte, Rene, and Mike, 1919–21

  et ad infinitum

  “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE The Unspeakable Miles

  CHAPTER TWO Netherton Fivefields

  CHAPTER THREE A Preliminary Survey

  CHAPTER FOUR The Lakeside Keep

  CHAPTER FIVE The Devil at Fivefields Church

  CHAPTER SIX The Missing Heiress

  CHAPTER SEVEN Aftermath of a Play

  CHAPTER EIGHT Castle Sinister

  CHAPTER NINE The Empty Nest

  CHAPTER TEN Solitary Purlieu

  CHAPTER ELEVEN A Death-Like Smell

  CHAPTER TWELVE The Mad Maid’s Requiem

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Visit to Paris

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Timotheus Loquitur

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Great Argument

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Bat-Light, Candle-Light

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Unquiet Grave

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Other Family

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Dawn Over Lethe

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Unspeakable Miles

  “Truly, Filch, thy Observation is right. We and the Surgeons are more beholden to Women than all the Professions besides.”

  John Gay—The Beggar’s Opera

  * * *

  Alison rested her shining, smooth, dark head against the back of a Hepplewhite chair and studied her handsome husband. She had finished her breakfast, but Timothy sat with a cup of coffee arrested halfway to his mouth as he turned once again to the beginning of the letter he had been reading.

  “That’s the third time,” she said. “Tell me the worst. Have all your shares crashed? Have we to do a moonlight flit to get away from our creditors? Am I to take the hat round while you play kerbstone laments on an old trombone?”

  “Worse than all that.” Timothy handed her the letter and finished his coffee. “It’s a commission for Phisbe from the unspeakable Mrs. Miles.”

  “I thought she’d gone to live on one of the Isles of Scilly. Don’t I remember her being fey and fanciful and all pre-Raphaelite on the subject of Lyonnesse?”

  “I’m sure you do, and I did hope and pray we’d seen the last of her, but here she is, as bright and bobbish as ever, full of sound and fury, and, probably, if she runs true to form, signifying nothing.”

  “Shall you see this man she’s sending along?” Alison, having skimmed through the letter, laid it aside.

  “Just long enough to say, ‘Not today, thank you,’ and shut the door in his face. Is there any more coffee in that pot?”

  “Would you like to be technically ‘out’ when he calls, and leave me to get rid of him?” asked Alison, refilling the cup he passed to her.

  “No. I’m dashed if I’m going to land you with my dirty jobs. Besides, I’ve never interviewed the representative of a film company, and I’m always prepared to try anything once. What a gorgeous name he’s got, too—Glanvilliers Ryanston. Let’s have a small bet on what he’ll be like.”

  “The field’s rather wide, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s narrow it down, if you’re prepared for a bit of a flutter. I know there must be dozens of film-producer types, so suppose we concentrate on four? That would give us two chances each at five bob a time. What do you say?”

  “I’
m bound to lose. I always do.”

  “Nonsense! Toss for first pick. You call.”

  “Tails.”

  “Heads it is, so, for my first horse, I select Jacob Z. Schnellenhamer of the Colossal-Exquisite Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, U.S.A.”

  “Oh, I thought they had to be real people!”

  “Better not. There’s the law of libel to be considered. Much safer to stick to the classics.”

  “In that case you give me no option but to choose Isadore Fishbein, president of Perfecto-Fishbein Motion Pictures, probably Inc. Your go.”

  “Right. I think I’ll have Ben Zizzbaum, chief executive of the Zizzbaum Celluloid Corporation; so that leaves you with . . .”

  “Don’t prompt! That leaves me with Glutz, of the Medulla-Oblongata-Glutz Company, and that’s not fair, because we’re not told anything about him, not even his first name. My guess would be Sam, but we just don’t know.”

  “Oh, but we do! His first name was Sigismund.”

  “You’re making that up!”

  “No, no. It’s there in the story. Allow me to quote: ‘In the ornate residence of Sigismund Glutz . . .” It comes in The Rise of Minna Nordstrom, where they go along to swipe Sigismund’s booze. Look it up, if you don’t believe me.”

  “Of course I believe you. I’ve never caught you out in a quotation yet. All right, then, that settles the horses. The only trouble is that I don’t see how we’re to differentiate. They’re all exactly alike.”

  “My dear child! You haven’t done your homework. Allow me to help you with your sums. Jacob Schnellenhamer kept a cool head, was a quick thinker, and was married to a lady who, at one time, had been the Queen of Stormy Emotion on the silent screen. Isadore Fishbein, on the other hand, was a beater of his head against sitting-room walls, not to mention statues of Genius Inspiring the Motion Picture Industry. What his wife had been in the old days the master of English prose does not unfold, but we do know that in moments of stress she required eight cubes of ice in a linen bag on her forehead, so, obviously, she was as temperamental as her husband. In respect of Ben Zizzbaum . . .”

  “Oh, I remember now! He was found rolling round the room in circles, with his head held between his hands.”

  “Probably educated during his formative years by a troupe of Cossack dancers, wouldn’t you say?”

  “And what about his wife?”

  “Clearly the senior partner in the marriage. A self-controlled and eminently strong-minded woman.”

  “How do you deduce that?”

  “She needed but six cubes of ice on her forehead as against Mrs. Fishbein’s eight.”

  “You know,” said Alison, “I was serious-minded before I married you!”

  “My darling sweet, you couldn’t have been, otherwise you never would have married me.” He got up and went round to her end of the table.

  “No!” she said, pushing him away. “You sit down and tell me all about Sigismund Glutz.”

  “In the library then, where, if my memory serves me, there is a favourite armchair of mine capable of . . .”

  “ ‘I love it, I love it, and who shall dare

  To chide me for loving that old armchair?’ ”

  sang Alison derisively.

  “All right! You’ll pay for that,” said Timothy, “by helping me to fill it. Now, then,” he continued, when they had adjourned to the library, “to the matter of Sigismund Glutz. Compared with the others, I regard him as almost human.”

  “How can you claim that, when I still say we know nothing about him?”

  “Come sit with me and be my love, and I’ll tell you. No, don’t thresh about! Have you no respect for my digestive processes? I’ve only just had breakfast, don’t forget.”

  “ ‘Have mind upon your health; tempt me no further!’ ” retorted Alison; but she allowed herself to be mastered, having, in fact, no option in the matter. “Now, then, tell me all about Sigismund Glutz,” she repeated, as Timothy gathered her in.

  “All right. Relax, and I will complete your education. With regard to Sigismund Glutz, we are told that while Isadore Fishbein was banging his head against sitting-room walls, and Ben Zizzbaum was rolling round the floor in circles, and Mesdames Fishbein and Zizzbaum were going stark mad in black satin and ice cubes, the Glutz family had been taken away by Sigismund for the weekend. Not for him the entertaining of the Duke of Wigan or the ex-King of Ruritania . . .”

  “Or a hundred and eleven guests, including the Vice-President of Switzerland,” put in Alison. “I remember it all now.”

  “So I see him in the eyes of the world the wealthy and powerful chief of Medulla-Oblongata-Glutz, surrounded by Vice-Presidents, Yes-Men, and Nodders, but in private life he must have been the average well-meaning, obliging, henpecked, child-ridden family man, uncomplaining, much-married, dutiful, and obedient, meekly trotting off for the weekend with wife and kids complete.”

  “And you think this Glanvilliers Ryanston—oh, my goodness !”

  “Yes, it’s even worse when you say it than when you only see it written down.”

  “Anyway, I don’t believe it. Mrs. Miles must have got it wrong. Nobody could be called Glanvilliers Ryanston.”

  “What about Wurzel-Flummery?”

  “Yes, but they only allowed themselves to take the name so that they could inherit fifty thousand pounds.” She smiled at him and ruffled his hair. “Would you, if you had such an offer?”

  “Call myself Wurzel-Flummery? No, I would not, but, against that, I don’t want fifty thousand pounds.”

  “I forgot your middle name was Croesus. Let me see the letter again.”

  “You carelessly left it on the breakfast table. Anyway, reading it again won’t make any difference. I’ve decided that he’s a Zizzbaum, and, if he is, then I win.”

  “No, he was born Smith, Jones, Brown, or Robinson, and his wife invented the name of Glanvilliers Ryanston in order that he should have to live up to it and so get on in the world. And if that is so, he is wife-ridden and must be a Glutz, so I win.”

  “Let’s have another five bob on it, this secondary bet to be cancelled if he turns out to be a Schnellenhamer or a Fishbein.”

  “I think I’ll hedge. I think he is a Schnellenhamer.”

  “All right, we’ll wait and see. I wonder how soon we can expect him? One thing—I’ve got my answer ready. I am not having Phisbe mixed up in films, whatever the ghastly Madame Miles may think. Thank goodness there are still a few of the decencies left!”

  In the event, all bets were void. Glanvilliers Ryanston, who turned up at half-past three on the following afternoon, resembled the Wodehouse characters, on which the wagers were based, in one respect only. He was indubitably Jewish, having been born in Golders Green of rich but honest parents whose family name was Goldstein and who had been British subjects since some years before the war, when they had contrived to leave Germany for their own good.

  Ryanston, né Goldstein, was a slim, dark, personable young man, polite, persuasive, and determined, and he stated his business calmly, clearly, and briefly. Timothy, feeling rather like a reasonably gifted chess-player who has inadvertently come face to face with the international champion, got rid of him in the end with a facile and slightly mendacious promise to “look into the thing with my committee and let you know.” His intention was certainly to call a committee meeting. He was determined, however, to make sure that it turned down Ryanston’s suggestions. To his immense surprise, he was soon made aware that Alison did not agree with his decision to sway the voting.

  “Play the game, ref,” she said, when, the visitor having taken his departure in a blood-red Jaguar, Timothy disclosed his intentions.

  “But, darling girl, Phisbe doesn’t exist in order to find locations for films!”

  “What sort of locations does he want?”

  “He wants a period house—exact period not specified—a ruined castle with a lot of it still standing, a large barn, a folly, a ruined church, and an
old bridge.”

  “Why can’t he find them for himself?”

  “I asked him that, and he told me that the stuff is for an educational film and has to be strictly vetted. What he meant was that we could find the settings very much more quickly than the film people can, and also get permission for them to be used. He wants to begin filming at the end of May, if that’s possible.”

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t help him. Look at Far From the Madding Crowd. The settings were the film!”

  “As an old inhabitant of Wessex, I suppose you would think like that. There was also, allow me to remind you, a Thomas Hardy story, not to mention some first-class acting and an almost inspired use of colour in that film.”

  “Oh, yes, granted, but none of that would have been the same without the settings. Think of that shot of Bat’s Head where the sheep went over the cliff! Think of the swordplay on the ramparts of Maiden Castle, and the coastline near Durdle Door where the soldier swam out to sea! Think of the old barn at Abbotsbury, the manor house at Bloxworth where Bathsheba Everdene lived, and Waddon House, near Portesham, Boldwood’s home. Then there was the folly—Horton Tower—where the cock-fighting took place. (How did they get round the law in that particular sequence?—it looked horribly real!) And do remember all the lovely shots of the hill fields round about Encombe in Purbeck! If Phisbe can help Mr. Ryanston to produce that sort of filming, I think it jolly well ought to, so there!”

  “And them’s your last words on the subject, are they? Well, will you kindly remember that Phisbe—otherwise the Society for the Preservation of Buildings of Historic Interest—in this case means me, Timothy Francis Herring? It would be my thankless task to tour the countryside looking for sites destined (if I could find them) to make a plutocratic film magnate even richer than he is already. Why on earth should I sweat myself to the bone and waste my petrol on his behalf?”

  “Oh, Tim, don’t throw cold water on the scheme before you’ve at least consulted the committee. And when I say “consulted” I don’t mean when you’ve browbeaten, bamboozled, and bullied them. Left to themselves they might think quite well of the commission. I bet the treasurer would, anyway, because there is bound to be a monetary return for our trouble.”

  “Our trouble! You mean, as I have already pointed out, my trouble. Why on earth should I do Mrs. Miles’ confounded and ridiculous bidding just to oblige her beastly friends? She’s a dratted nuisance and always has been. I’m sick to death of her!”