Heavy as Lead (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 1966

  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 1966 by Michael Joseph.

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

  E-ISBN: 9781477869376

  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.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE The Disqualified Driver

  CHAPTER TWO Mrs. Stretton

  CHAPTER THREE Perplexities

  CHAPTER FOUR Progress

  CHAPTER FIVE The Stranger Within the Gates

  CHAPTER SIX Old Badbury

  CHAPTER SEVEN A Night at Troggett Hall

  CHAPTER EIGHT Sermons in Stones

  CHAPTER NINE Goodnight, Ladies

  CHAPTER TEN Public Meeting

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Benjamin’s Sack

  CHAPTER TWELVE Bombshells

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Passing Bell for a Wicked Baronet

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN A Case for the Magistrates

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Refutable Evidence

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Pimpernel Herring

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Mrs. Prynne Takes Umbrage

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Lead, Oak, or Elm

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Disqualified Driver

  For some time now it has become the custom to identify certain groups, projects, and secret weapons by the initial letters of their official titles. One thinks of ENSA, PLUTO, NATO, NAAFI, P.A.Y.E., the WRNS, MI.5, the C.I.D., and a dozen others. Members of the Society for the Preservation of Buildings of Historic Interest were accustomed, guided thereto by their secretary, Timothy Herring, to refer to themselves and their organisation as PHISBE. To objections on the part of greybeard members Herring had replied,

  “We need a telegraphic address, you see. No, I don’t think we’re likely to be confused with Thisbe. She, of course, also wears immortality as a garment in her own right, as we do, and needs no bush, laurel or otherwise, from us. On the other hand, we are of neuter gender, a something harumphrodite, as Kipling so tellingly puts it, whereas Thisbe, I am led to suppose, was a female, in spite of the fact (confidently reported by Shakespeare) that, like his three witches, she had a beard coming.”

  “It sounds flippant,” he had been informed.

  “Oh, no, I disagree,” he had rejoined. “The main body of the word History is there, and so are discreet references to the words Preservation, Buildings, and Interest and also to the fact that we are a Society.”

  “Yes, but what does the final E stand for?”

  “Without the final E the word would be unpronounceable.”

  Timothy’s official title was that of secretary, but the more tiresome and unrewarding tasks attaching to this office were performed by a paid underling who distributed notices, typed agendas, answered the telephone, and sent out reminders to the committee to attend meetings. Timothy’s job (and he did it well) was to investigate the complaints of local history societies, lend an ear to their appeals for financial assistance, and look into their accounts of damage (wilful or otherwise) to buildings of historic value in their district. Having verified these things, he had to report upon them to his committee and, later, to the annual general meeting, so that Phisbe could decide whether or not to take action.

  Upon Timothy’s findings the committee was accustomed to sit in sober and learned judgment. They debated the points he raised and argued long and earnestly, but, in the end, they were prepared to adopt his suggestions, for he had a flair for separating the wheat from the chaff, and rare indeed were the occasions on which the Society felt that it had wasted its money or had denied its aid to the deserving.

  It was at one of these committee meetings that, under the heading on the agenda of Correspondence, Timothy said:

  “There seems to be a complaint from a Mrs. Stretton who lives in a place called Parsons Purity. She says—it’s a very long letter and rather peevish, so do you want to hear the whole of it? If not, what it boils down to is that the lead has been stripped from the roof of the church and, as there are no funds to provide for an adequate replacement, the vicar and the churchwardens have decided to use sheets of corrugated iron.”

  “As a temporary measure, of course,” said a member.

  “Well, I don’t know. The lady sounds rather hysterical on the subject. It seems she thinks it’s to be a permanent repair.”

  “Perhaps we had better hear the whole of the letter,” said the chairman. Timothy read it aloud.

  “She sounds knowledgeable, at any rate,” commented the treasurer, “and, if she’s right, it doesn’t sound as though the corrugated iron is considered to be only a temporary measure. Oh, dear!”

  “Do we know anything about the church at Parsons Purity?” asked the chairman, who was new to the office that year. Timothy went over to one of the filing cabinets which lined the spacious eighteenth-century room in which the committee meetings were always held, and abstracted a folder. He resumed his seat at the table.

  “The church at Parsons Purity was visited by our member, the late R. G. H. Fellowby, in 1959,” he said, “and his report on it is as follows: the building has rubble walls with local freestone dressings. The roof is lead-covered—”

  “Ah!” interpolated a member.

  “—and the church consists of nave, chancel, and crypt—”

  “I like crypts, said a woman member.

  “—and was built in about 1150. A north-east chapel, known as Dame Alice’s Rest, was added in 1240 or the
reabouts, and the chancel arch was widened somewhat earlier. Later, the north aisle and arcade were added, and a south porch was built late in the fifteenth century. The crypt is of the same date as the original chancel and has groined vaults springing from columns which have moulded bases and scalloped capitals, one of which is carved. The carving shows, on the north side, a winged monster devouring a fish, on the east some conventional foliage, on the south a man fighting a beast, and on the west a grotesque head, probably that of a demon.”

  “Did Fellowby take any photographs?” asked a member.

  “It doesn’t seem so. I’ve no record that he did.”

  “Pity! Never mind. Go on.”

  “In the bay between windows on the south wall is a turret staircase leading up to the chancel but now partially blocked, and there is a similar stair on the north side which also originally led up to the chancel but which is now replaced by a flight of stone steps leading to the churchyard. There are three doorways in the west wall, two of them, now completely blocked, led by ramped passages up to the nave, and the middle one, still open, leads to a barrel-vaulted room, nine feet by eight feet, which may have been a confessional when the crypt was used as a chapel.”

  “It sounds a gem,” said a member. “To hell with the corrugated iron! We must certainly do something about that.”

  “When was the roof leaded?” asked another.

  “I don’t know. Possibly in the fifteenth century, of course, but the church has been restored several times—three times during the nineteenth century, then in 1910, and lastly in 1932, when special attention was paid to the restoration of the crypt and to putting right the more flagrant errors of the nineteenth-century planners.”

  “That’s all very well about the flagrant errors of the nineteenth-century planners,” put in a querulous voice. “If it hadn’t been for them, half our ancient monuments wouldn’t exist today. If they erred, they erred in the odour of sanctity . . .”

  “Which has been known to stink,” said an iconoclastic young member. “What I want to know,” he continued hastily, “is what we’re going to do about Parsons Purity.”

  “What we can’t do is to let it be roofed with corrugated iron,” said another member. “I move that Herring goes to have a look at it.”

  “Seconded? Thank you, Condon,” said the chairman. “Those in favour? Carried.”

  “I don’t want to start a red herring—no pun intended,” said the hesitant voice of a middle-aged man who was seated next to the treasurer, “but don’t I remember that there was something rather unsatisfactory and mysterious about Fellowby’s death? And didn’t it take place very unexpectedly almost as soon as he’d reported upon this Parsons Purity place? He was your predecessor as secretary, Herring, as, of course, you know.”

  “Thanks very much for the warning, Dewes,” said Timothy, grinning. “What is this church then? Tutankhamen’s desecrated tomb?”

  “There was nothing mysterious about Fellowby’s death,” said the treasurer. “He had a coronary . . .”

  “As which of us shall not?” asked the young member, with his habitual flippancy.

  “Well, if that’s that, let’s get on,” said the chairman. “The next item on the agenda is this report of death-watch beetle at Stolford All Saints. The surveyor’s report says . . .”

  As soon as the meeting was over, Timothy Herring made the customary note in the members’ book known as Abstracions, and placed the Fellowby report on Parsons Purity church in his briefcase. When he was leaving, the diffident, middle-aged man who had voiced doubts about the cause of Fellowby’s death was waiting on the landing. He and Timothy were the last to leave.

  “I say, Herring,” said his companion, as they walked down the stairs, “you’ll exercise precautions, won’t you?”

  “I always do,” Timothy replied. “About anything in particular, do you mean?”

  “Well, yes. I am thinking about this place you’re to visit. This village of Parsons Purity, you know.”

  “Oh, yes. You had misgivings about it. You voiced them at the meeting.”

  “All I suggest is that you have a care.” They reached the hall door. The doorkeeper held it open and saluted.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Herring. Goodnight, Mr. Dewes.”

  “Goodnight, Bishop,” said Timothy. “Yes, Dewes, you were saying?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing. That is, I know nothing. Tell me, Herring, do you believe in witchcraft? Oh, well, never mind. Just have a care, my dear fellow, just have a care. Fellowby thought the vicar and the squire were both mad, you know. Hi, taxi! Best of luck, my dear Herring! Goodbye, goodbye! Best of luck!”

  Timothy walked home, or, rather, to his club, where they kept a bedroom for him unless he let them know that he would be out of England for a stated length of time. It was generally understood that he possessed a considerable fortune and what were popularly thought of as gadabout habits. It was known only to his close friends that he was a bachelor. There were times when a mythical wife in the background had proved a very present help in trouble. He proceeded to keep up the fiction as soon as he reached his club.

  “Tell the garage to see that my car is well juiced up, Robson. I shall want it tomorrow morning for a longish trip.”

  “Verra guid, sir.”

  “Oh, and see that the usual telegram to my wife is sent off, will you?” (For wife, read personal manservant.)

  “Surely, surely, Mr. Herring.”

  “Tell her I am off to a village called Parsons Purity, near Cranthorne Minster. She knows where it is. Do you believe in witchcraft, Robson?”

  The porter wagged his head.

  “That will be a difficult question to answer, sir. On the one hand, we have the word of King James VI, a verra intelligent monarch, although not an unco’ guid mon. He refuted Reginald Scot, ye’ll mind, no doubt, but he was upheld, ay, forty years later, by no less a scholar than Sir Thomas Browne himself. Ye’ll mind what Sir Thomas Browne wrote in his wee book? There is no doubt Sir Thomas believed in witchcraft.”

  “But Sir Thomas Browne could believe anything. He even said, “I could believe that Spirits use with man the act of carnality, and that in both sexes,” if you remember your Religio Medici,” protested Timothy.

  “Ay, that is the gist of what I’m putting to ye, Mr. Herring. He had a firm belief in witchcraft.”

  “But he also says, ‘Thus I think at first a great part of philosophy was witchcraft.’ That proves my point. If he could believe that philosophy and witchcraft were identical, obviously he could believe anything, and therefore his thoughts, so far as our present discussion is concerned, have no value.”

  “I see ye are determined to have it your own way, sir, but what do ye make of the Roman writer, Apuleius? Ye’ll not deny that he believed in witchcraft?”

  “He defended himself against the charge that he practised it. As for believing in it, yes, he probably did. He was an African. You know, Robson, a man of your education . . .”

  “Awa’ wi’ ye, Mr. Herring! I am a man of wide and, I trust, profitable reading, and that is the whole of it. But what brings ye on to such a subject as witchcraft, sir?”

  “Oh, things, things. See that I’m called by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, will you?”

  “Surely, surely. Mr. Charles Williams, for whose work I have a high regard, for all that he has his abstruse moments, says in a passage of his book on witchcraft that in the airly Middle Ages there was what he calls ‘the gradual identification of sorcery and heresy.’ What make ye of that thought, Mr. Herring?”

  “Well, there were the charges against Joan of Arc, of course. Would you call it sorcery, or would you describe it as heresy, to replace a church roof with corrugated iron instead of using lead?”

  “I wouldna’ call it either, sir. Iron, I hear tell, is an antidote to the power of witchcraft, and I would not think that a corrugated iron roof was a concession to heresy either. My mother’s wee hen-house is covered with it, and herself a most devout woman.”

  “Be that as it may, you still haven’t answered my first question: do you believe in witchcraft?”

  “Some of those who were inspired to inscribe their thoughts in the Good Book believed in it, sir.”

  “Robson, you’re as incorrigible and as intransigent as the Delphic Oracle!”

  “Yon oracular pronouncements were not witchcraft, but chicanery, sir.”

  Timothy laughed and went up to his room. There he lit a pipe and sat down to study Fellowby’s report. He returned it to his brief-case, bathed and changed, and took a taxi to the home of the chairman of the Phisbe committee, where he had an invitation to dine. The chairman was also the president of the Society.