The Whispering Knights (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 1980

  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 1980 by Michael Joseph

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869284

  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

  JEHANE

  with loving thanks for finding the bookshop in Stornoway and for her photographs and descriptions of the Rollright Stones

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1 CAPELLA’S PILGRIMAGE

  CHAPTER 2 LONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS

  CHAPTER 3 CASTLERIGG

  CHAPTER 4 THE TRUTH GAME

  CHAPTER 5 DIVISION OF FORCES: (1) MACHRIE MOOR

  CHAPTER 6 DIVISION OF FORCES: (2) KILMARTIN VALLEY

  CHAPTER 7 TRUE OR FALSE

  CHAPTER 8 CAPELLA’S DREAM

  CHAPTER 9 CALLANISH AND THE BLACK HOUSE OF ARNOL

  CHAPTER 10 MOONLIGHT, MURDER, AND LOVE

  CHAPTER 11 THE ROLLRIGHT STONES

  CHAPTER 12 INVESTIGATION, LIKE CHARITY, BEGINS AT HOME

  CHAPTER 13 PROFESSOR OWEN

  CHAPTER 14 LIONEL AND CLARISSA

  CHAPTER 15 A CONVENT CONCLAVE

  CHAPTER 16 A SHOT IN THE DARK

  CHAPTER 17 THE HUNT IS UP

  CHAPTER 18 CAPELLA AND THE KING STONE

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  CAPELLA’S PILGRIMAGE

  “As far inland as Stourton Tower

  And Camelot and starlit Stonehenge.”

  Thomas Hardy

  When he was thirty-six years old, Henry Babbacombe married Miriam Starr. He was in a good position to marry, for, in addition to a small but useful private income derived from money left him by an uncle, he wrote a weekly column on such popular matters as astrology, extra-sensory perception, ghosts and other hauntings, unidentified flying objects, the Loch Ness monster, palmistry, the Tarot, the Bermuda Triangle, magical numbers, the secrets of the Pyramids, and the mystery of the Marie Celeste.

  He chose his wife because of her surname, which he soon added to his own, so that his four children rejoiced in the snobbish distinction of being registered as Babbacombe-Starr. Moreover, they were all christened for one or other of the heavenly bodies. The eldest was called Arcturus; the second, a girl, Vega; the next, another boy, Deneb; and the youngest, again a girl, was given the name (pretty, she thought, until she turned it up in the Latin dictionary) of Capella.

  The boys soon changed their names. Arcturus became Arthur, his brother settled for Dane. Vega decided that the nearest acceptable change would be to call herself Vera, but she never had much liking for Truth, holding, wisely perhaps, that one got through life more easily by extricating oneself from dangerous or embarrassing situations by telling a useful, innocuous lie or two. Capella, even when she discovered that her name was anything but glamorous, never attempted to change it. Always superstitious, she thought it would be unlucky to do so.

  The children were carefully spaced at two-yearly intervals, and it was when Arcturus was eighteen and Capella twelve that Henry carried out a holiday plan which had been in his mind for some time.

  “My dear,” he said to his wife on a sunny June afternoon when he had posted his weekly article, “I have a great idea for this year’s summer vacation.”

  “Arc and Den are booked to travel with their school party to Greece. Had you forgotten that?” asked Miriam.

  “By no means. There is nothing to stop them. I approve of these scholastic jaunts. They go off as soon as the school breaks up, so there will be plenty of time left for this holiday of mine.”

  “What do you intend?”

 
“Well, I have been doing some serious reading on the subject of prehistoric stone circles and I learn that Ancient Man aligned his temples with one or other of the stars. In this book our children’s names are mentioned, so I thought it would be rather fun to visit some of the sites. It will not only be a pleasant pilgrimage, but an educational one as well. I shall have to make a careful selection, of course. We shall not have time to visit every stone circle which is connected with Arcturus, Vega, Deneb, and Capella, but I’ve already roughed out a possible route which I think we could cover well inside a fortnight and which includes the right stars.”

  “The children have already seen Stonehenge and Avebury.”

  “Ah, but those don’t come within the scope of my itinerary. I was thinking of the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire for Capella, and the Hurlers on Bodmin Moor for Vega. The Hurlers would do for Arc, too, except that he won’t want to share with his sister.”

  “You make him sound very selfish. He is not a selfish boy.”

  “Of course not, but, as it happens, there is also Nant Tawr for him in Wales. Then for Den there is the Druids’ Circle, also in Wales. That sounds rather fascinating, don’t you think?”

  “But probably has nothing to do with the druids. Whereabouts in Wales?”

  “Caernarvonshire.”

  “The children would be more interested in the castle and Snowdonia, I expect.”

  “Don’t you like my scheme?”

  “I hope you will be careful what you say to Capella about it. You know how imaginative she is. There is another thing. If the boys go to Greece we must make it up to the girls in some way. We have never favoured one sex more than the other and I have had some strong hints from Vega on the subject. She is always talking about a schoolfriend who went to Paris last year.”

  “Oh, I don’t think Paris is a very good idea. If she wanted to visit the Louvre I might agree, but all she would be interested in would be the dress-shops and the restaurants. I might consider Rome for her and Capella if we could fix up a package tour.”

  “Rome has fashion-shops and restaurants too.”

  “It also has the Coliseum, the ancient agora and any number of churches, and there might be a chance for the girls to see the Pope.”

  “I thought agora was a Greek word. Don’t you mean the forum?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do. You are always so well-informed, my dear. You continually surprise me and always pleasantly.”

  “Do we let the girls know that there is the chance we may take them to Rome?”

  “Oh, I think so. Even if we can’t get a package tour I can manage the air fares and we need not stay at the most expensive hotel. My colleague Camforth lived in Rome for some years. That is one reason why I thought of it. He will advise me.”

  “I wish the two girls got on together as well as the boys do, but it can’t be expected. Vega already thinks of herself as a young woman.”

  “Well, she is sixteen and has boyfriends, whereas Capella is only twelve and still a child. We can’t expect them to have much in common until Vega is at least twenty and Capella sixteen. They will then be in one another’s confidence and we shall be the outsiders in their lives. One must be realistic about these things.”

  “Capella is cleverer than Vega was at her age. Academically I think she will soon outgrow her.”

  “As Den physically will outgrow Arc. He is much bigger and stronger at fourteen than Arc was. The protective boot may be on the other foot in a year or two.”

  “So long as it isn’t a bovver boot!” said Miriam. “I couldn’t stand a bullying hooligan for a son.”

  “The contingency is an unlikely one, my dear. Heredity and environment are both on your side in the matter.”

  Returned from their excursions abroad, the four children exchanged experiences and did a considerable amount of mild boasting. Vega, under the watchful but indulgent eye of her father—her mother had remained behind at the hotel with Capella—had danced with young Italians whom she compared favourably for looks and manners with the English boys of her acquaintance; Arcturus was inclined to hold forth on the subject of Greek politics and never once mentioned the Acropolis or the visit to Delphi; Deneb had sampled ouzo, which he described as “exciting but nasty,” and Capella had so stuffed herself with pasta in all its varieties that she was in danger of having to be put on a diet for the remainder of the holidays for fear that her school uniform would no longer go round her.

  “Well,” said Henry resignedly, “it seems unlikely that they will take an intelligent interest in stone circles if the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome have made no mark on them.”

  “Oh, but at least they all enjoyed themselves,” said Miriam.

  “We are a disappointment to our parents,” said Arcturus. “They wanted us to imbibe their kind of culture and we haven’t done it.”

  “Of course we have,” said Vega. “Dad said that travel broadens the mind. My mind is a great deal broader than before I went to Rome.”

  “So is Cappie’s tummy,” said Arcturus, giving it a brotherly prod. “Anyway, we must feign an interest in these stone circles. We’ve had our fun. It’s only fair that Dad should have his.”

  Upon this admirable estimate of the situation they crammed themselves into the big, powerful car which towed the caravan (both had been hired) and prepared to make the best of what they foresaw would be a dull fortnight.

  Henry, who, in spite of a certain formality of speech, was anything but a pedant, had prepared himself for this reaction and had done the best he could to combat it. He had spent hours poring over books and was well primed not only with up-to-date information of a serious character, but with a fund of anecdotes, legends, superstitions, and surmises which he thought would amuse his children. The nature of his job as a columnist made him an interesting and accomplished raconteur and this, coupled with his family’s own good intentions, turned what might have been an irksome pilgrimage into a pleasant holiday. Nobody could have foreseen the ultimate effect it would have on Capella. That was with the gods.

  The expedition started off in good weather. There was soon the pride of possession, too. To hear a circle of impressive size referred to as “your stones, Capella, which you share with the sun and the moon and, at times, a coven of witches,” was gratifying to a romantic twelve-year-old and when this was followed by the legend of the disappointed king, the Whispering Knights, and the myth that the stones walked down the hill to drink water, especially on New Year’s Night, there was a thrilling story to take to bed. Capella, an imaginative child, made her own variations on it and these included marriage to the king and the ritual slaughter of the Whispering Knights.

  “There’s another story that Dad hasn’t told us,” said Vega. “It’s sexy, but I’ll tell it you if you like.”

  “I know all about sex. We have it at school,” said Capella, “but you can tell me if you want to. I expect it will be another of your lies, but I shan’t mind that. Is it a nasty story? Does anybody get murdered in pools of blood?”

  “No. It’s only about bosoms. If your lover can’t give you a baby, you have to press your breasts against the stones.”

  “Which stones?”

  “I don’t suppose it matters. Dad’s book did say, but I suppose any of them would do.”

  “Dad would be livid if he knew you’d handled his book. He paid ten pounds for it.”

  “I wonder how the bookseller knew the price? It hasn’t got it inside and I should think it would be in dollars, not pounds, because it’s an American publication.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It mentions Yale University Press, but I think they’re in London as well.”

  “The London ones would be in pounds, wouldn’t they? I’m glad I don’t have to share my Rollright Stones with anyone. You have to share yours with Arcturus, Dad said.”

  “Oh, I’m not worrying about the stones. I’m not that much interested. There’s a nice-looking boy in another caravan on this site. He’s
invited me to sneak over there and drink lager and play records. He’s with two other boys and no parents.”

  “You’d better ask if you can go, not just sneak over.”

  “That would take away all the romance.”

  “But when could you go?”

  “We’re not leaving here until Dad has found out whether he can count the stones. They say you can’t, but I think it would be easy enough if he made one of us stand by one particular stone and not move away until he had finished counting. I don’t see how that could fail, however many stones there are.”

  “He said there weren’t all that number in the first place, but lumps have fallen off and now get counted as proper stones. Perhaps bits are still falling off and the number you count one day would be the wrong number the next day.”

  “While he’s counting I could slip away.”

  The sisters were able to hold this conversation because the four-berth caravan had two compartments. The girls had single beds in one of these and the parents a double bed in the other, with a bulkhead and a communicating door in between. The boys slept in a tent pitched alongside the caravan and enjoyed the feeling of independence which this arrangement gave them.

  “You’re lucky not to have a holiday task,” said Deneb to Arcturus. “I’ve got to sweat when we get home.”

  “Well, I’ve left school. The Greek thing was my last contact. Besides, I’ve plenty of reading to do before I go up.”

  “Are you looking forward to Oxford?”

  “I suppose so. I haven’t thought about that side of it.”

  “When I go up I shall get my Blue.”

  “Chance is a fine thing!”

  “For boxing or football. I’ll see how I shape.”

  “Hope springs eternal! You’ve yet to get into the school colts.”

  “I’m a cert for the House third, Corrall says.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a start.”

  “Do you mind going to kip as early as I do?”

  “No, not on holiday. It’s different at home. I should jib at doing it there, but there’s nothing on earth to do here once it gets dark. There isn’t even a handy pub.”

  “They didn’t have the same rules in Greece, did they? Age limits and that kind of thing.”