Death of a Delft Blue (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)

  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)

  The Mudflats of the Dead (1979)

  Nest of Vipers (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 1964

  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 1964 by Michael Joseph.

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869079

  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 Marjorie K. Avery, O.B.E. and Marjorie Beer, who were kind enough to provide me with the Netherlands setting for this book

  Contents

  THE COLWYN-WELCH FAMILY

  Preamble

  CHAPTER ONE A Conference Ends

  CHAPTER TWO A Dinner in Amsterdam

  CHAPTER THREE Scottish Air on a Barrel-Organ

  CHAPTER FOUR Maastricht and Valkenburg

  CHAPTER FIVE A Dinner in North Norfolk

  CHAPTER SIX Aftermath of a Dinner-Party

  CHAPTER SEVEN Disappearance of an Heir

  CHAPTER EIGHT Concern about the Dispossessed

  CHAPTER NINE Speculation about a Troglodyte

  CHAPTER TEN Maastricht and Valkenburg Revisited

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Laura the Sleuth

  CHAPTER TWELVE Towards Kinderscout

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Eldon Hole

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN No Stone Unturned

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Gavin Reports

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN A Delft Blue at Bay

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Dinner with Bernardo

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The She-Bear Defends Her Grand-Cub

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Analysis of Three Reactions

  CHAPTER TWENTY North Norfolk Again

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Pursuit of a Delft Blue

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Death of a Delft Blue

  About the Author

  THE COLWYN-WELCH FAMILY

  * Denotes that the person was dead before the story begins

  Preamble

  “A Fortnight in Holland.”

  Title of a book by Leslie Bransby.

  According to the guidebooks, Scheveningen, on The Netherlands side of the North Sea, has developed over the centuries from a mere fishing-village to a popular resort. It boasts excellent hotels, fine beaches, possesses every facility for boating and bathing, and can offer all the other forms of amusement which a holiday-maker is likely to require.

  Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and her secretary, Laura Gavin, preferred to stay in it rather than in the neighbouring, more dignified but less frivolous city of The Hague, so each morning Dame Beatrice, who was in Holland to attend what her secretary described as “a gathering of the vultures”—in other words, a general conference on higher education—armed herself with her notebooks, her lecture notes, some typed pages of what Laura termed “irrelevant answers to improbable questions,” and betook herself to Noordeinde and the historic house in which the conference was to be held. This left Laura in Scheveningen to amuse herself as she pleased for most of the day.

  Laura lounged and swam, visited the Municipal Museum, and strolled several times along the two-mile esplanade called the Boulevard and also along its higher promenade, the Zeekant. Every afternoon, upon the return of Dame Beatrice, she and her employer took a short walk before returning to their hotel for dinner, and, at table, exchanged the news of the day, Dame Beatrice giving witty, although not unkindly, reports of her fellow-delegates and Laura responding with an account of her own activities.

  One morning, after having seen Dame Beatrice off, Laura decided to explore the old part of the town which lay behind the harbour. There were picturesque houses in narrow streets and the harbour itself was a fine and interesting sight, with dozens of vessels, mostly fishing-boats, all moored in neat lines with clear channels between them. It was early in the day, but there were crowds of people on the waterfront, i
ncluding the usual bevy of Dutch cyclists, and Laura was standing, gazing at the scene, and enjoying the noise and bustle on the quay, when a girl of about nineteen or twenty approached her.

  “I say, do excuse me for asking, but are you English?” the girl enquired.

  “Well, actually, I’m a Scot,” Laura replied. “Why? Anything I can do?”

  “It’s about the money, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh?” said Laura, whose bump of caution was not highly developed but who had an instinctive objection to being accosted by perfect strangers if financial transactions were to be involved.

  “It’s about the Dutch coinage,” the girl explained. “You see, I rather want to take a few presents back with me, but I haven’t unlimited cash, so I want to lay it out to the best advantage, and I just don’t really understand what the Dutch notes and coins are worth.”

  “Oh, well, it’s simple enough if you take the Dutch guilder as being worth about two shillings in our money.”

  “Yes, I know about the guilder, but they seem to have frightful coins called rijksdaalder and kwartje and dubbletje and stuiver. Grandma won’t help me and Bernardo only laughs. He’s half-Jewish, you see, and understands about the exchange, and all that sort of thing.”

  “Well, the rijksdaalder is worth about five shillings. The kwartje is about sixpence, the dubbletje is roughly twopence-halfpenny and the stuiver is equal to a little over a penny. Its value is five cents, and there are a hundred cents to the guilder. Think in terms of cents and guilders, and you can’t go wrong,” said Laura briskly.

  “Oh, thank you so much. I’ve only been over here for a few days, you see, and I was getting into awful muddles, always paying in bank notes, of which there seem to be dozens of different ones, and never knowing whether the change was right.”

  “I don’t think one need worry about the right change in Holland. I’ve never been done down since I’ve been here. The bank notes are for a thousand guilders downwards, and are perfectly easy to understand.” With this, Laura nodded and was about to walk on, when the girl said eagerly,

  “And about the presents. Will the English customs be very grabbing?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Show them what you’ve got is my advice. I don’t believe in trying to dodge them. I should think it must be so wearing to the nerves. Apart from that, my husband is a policeman, and I have to guard his reputation.”

  This time Laura really did walk on and went back to the hotel for a second breakfast.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Conference Ends

  “The country which we call ‘Holland’ is, in reality, The Netherlands, and the people we call ‘Dutch’ are, in reality, Netherlanders.”

  Bernard Pingaud, trans. Harald Myers

  At the end of a fortnight, the Scheveningen Conference was over. The experts in higher education laughed, clattered and nattered—the last in a dozen different languages. They gathered up papers and pens, surged around their Dutch hosts, and (but for the melancholy fact that there was nothing to drink except the water in an austere carafe on the chairman’s table), they managed to produce the kind of cacophony usually associated with cocktail parties.

  The chairman disentangled himself from an enthusiastic group and went over to where the distinguished alienist, Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, was the centre of a no less enthusiastic but a very much quieter circle. She was regaling them (by request) with details of some of the more bizarre and interesting deaths by murder and suicide which had fallen within her wide experience.

  “Extraordinary,” thought the Dutchman, “how that mouth, so like the beak of a little bird, can produce those exquisite sounds.” He paused on the outer fringe of the group to listen to these sounds before he muscled in and cut Dame Beatrice off from her circle of admirers.

  “Ah, Dame Beatrice,” he said, “I am now giving a small luncheon party in the English manner. May I hope that you will join us? There will be just twenty people or so —— the amusing ones, of course. I would like you to meet Professor van Zestien and his brother. They were so interested in your paper on Traumatic Regicides With Special Reference to the Death of Charles I. Professor Derde van Zestien has made a special study of the period, your English Puritans having points of interest for all Netherlanders, of course.”

  “Ah, yes. The Pilgrim Fathers came originally from this country.”

  “From Rotterdam. You should visit that city. There is much that is of interest. And do persuade Professor Sweyn van Zestien to describe to you Amsterdam. If you go there, be sure to look for the street organs, the barrel-organs, you know. They are a particular feature. He is sure to mention them. He admires them very much and is an authority upon their manufacture.”

  Still chatting, he led her away, and it was not until some three hours later that she rejoined her secretary in the lounge of their hotel.

  “Did you talk Higher Thought all the time?” asked Laura.

  “Talking shop was outlawed, politely but firmly, by Professor Derde van Zestien,” Dame Beatrice replied. “I was seated between him and his brother at table and he told me of some of the places of interest which we ought to visit before we return to England.”

  “We?”

  “Well, as your dear Robert seems to be fully occupied with that tiresome Curlew murder, and your son Hamish is away at school, I had hoped that you would see your way to remaining here with me while I go on this promised tour. After all, sightseeing counts for nothing unless one is in a position to point out the obvious to one’s long-suffering travelling companion.”

  “There’s bound to be a lot of stuff that needs attention at your London clinic, you know. Oughtn’t I . . .?”

  “Nonsense! Dr. Anderson will cope. I will tell him to employ a temporary secretary.”

  “Oh, well, naturally, I’d love to stay here, especially if there’s nothing to stop us from gallivanting. We do propose to gallivant, I take it?—not all museums and art-galleries?”

  “We will Venice in Amsterdam, even if we also rijsttafel at the Bali restaurant there. We will cheese at Alkmaar. We will flower-market at Aalsmeer, seaside at Zandvoort and national costume at Bunschoten-Spakenburg or Staphorst. We will sheep and bird-watch on Texel, and you may swim there. We will yacht at Sneek, spice-bread at Deventer, labyrinth at Maastricht and walk, grotto, miniature-golf (and anything else you like) at Valkenburg.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want any museums and art-galleries.”

  “Very well. There are sixteen Rembrandts in the Mauritshuis at The Hague, and Delft and Leiden are museums in themselves, so we will visit all.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about Holland.”

  “No, no, very little, in point of fact, and most of what I do know I gained at lunch-time from Professor Sweyn van Zestien, Professor Derde’s younger brother.”

  “Sweyn isn’t a Dutch name, is it?”

  “No. The professors had a Danish mother. I received much information about the van Zestien family tree from both the brothers. At present there are three branches, one might say. The Colwyn-Welches were fathered by Francis of that ilk, who married into the van Zestien family represented by the professors’ Aunt Binnen. She has three children, Opal, Ruby and Frank. After her husband’s death, and after the war, during which she served with the Resistance, Binnen returned to the family home in Amsterdam, where she lives with her two unmarried daughters.”

  “So that’s why Professor Sweyn is so interested in Amsterdam?—they are natives there.”

  “It seems so. The son, Frank, married a Scotswoman, Flora Beith, and lives in Scotland, where they own three hotels.”

  “Up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!”

  “They have two children, Florian and Binnie, aged twenty-three and nineteen respectively. These, however, no longer live at home, but with their granduncle, Bernard van Zestien, father of Derde and Sweyn, and brother to Binnen.”

  “Couldn’t they thole home life in Cale
donia stern and wild?”

  “I gathered, but only by putting some apparently unrelated scraps of information together (and most probably, in the process, making an error of one, or even minus one, in the simple addition sum of two plus two), that their parents had an eye to their future.”

  “Granduncle stinks of money, I suppose.”

  “Not only that, but he has lost the companionship of his sons, Derde and Sweyn, who prefer to live over here and who hold professorships in the Universities, respectively, of Groningen and Amsterdam.”

  “Oh, the children and he don’t live in Holland, then?”

  “No. The granduncle is a diamond merchant, with contacts, of course, in his native city, but it seems he has a house in North Norfolk and an office in Hatton Garden. I gather that he has an extensive fortune, as you suggest.”

  “Which, obviously, somebody will inherit.”

  “Exactly. He was a lonely man when his Danish wife, Ingeborg, died and his sons and daughter left home. The daughter’s name is Maarte and she married a wealthy Jew named Sigismund Rose. They have one son, Bernardo, named after his grandfather.”

  “For obvious reasons, no doubt.”

  “Cynicism run riot, dear Laura!”

  “Don’t you believe it! I know the way of the world. I say, though, the family’s a bit of a mixed bag, isn’t it? Dutch, Jewish, Danish, Scottish and with even English (or, possibly, Welsh) ingredients! Which do the professors seem to favour—their Dutch or their Danish forbears?”

  “It is impossible to say. They are cosmopolitans. Moreover, not only do they muster seven European languages between them, but Derde is an authority on the Aztecs of Mexico and Sweyn’s special subject is the rune-stones of Denmark.”

  “Rune-stones? Mostly magic! I’d like to meet him.”

  “Why, so you shall. We are bidden to dine with the van Zestiens in Amsterdam. It is to be a family party, I understand. Grandmother Binnen, her daughters, her grandchildren, Florian and Binnie, her great-nephew Bernardo all will be there.”

  “At the ancestral home?”

  “No. The celebration is to be held in a private room at an hotel in Nieuwe Doelenstraat.”

  “But do they really want me? After all,” argued Laura, with unwonted modesty, “I’m only your general dogsbody and humble telephone operator.”