The Croaking Raven

by Gladys Mitchell

  She had to wait until her husband came home, and Hamish had gone to bed, before she could put this assumption to the test. Then, when supper was over, and while there was nearly an hour to go before Gavin went to meet the servants at the bus stop, she said to Dame Beatrice,

  “Tell him about your two visitors.”

  “Oh, did you have only two? Bad show! Hardly worth giving up your afternoon,” said Gavin, sympathetically.

  “Oh, we had seventeen altogether. They came in a bunch at between half-past four and five,” said Laura.

  “Any more ghoulish enquiries? I’ve tracked those first ones to their source, by the way.”

  “Yes, we thought you might have done, so please come clean. Tell us all. We know lots already, so there’s no need to spare our feelings. This afternoon I went for a walk.” She described her encounter with the uncle and nephew. “And while I was gone,” she added, “these two boys came to look over the place and told Mrs. Croc. a little, and that little she repeated to me.”

  “I see. Well, in that case, I suppose I’d better tell you the rest. About a week ago I made the acquaintance of the mob at Quinley-on-Sea police station and it came out, of course, that I was staying at Dysey Castle. Then they told me the story. I didn’t tell you for the very good reason that you believe in ghosts, and I didn’t want you to wake screaming in the night, thinking you were seeing things.”

  “I’ve never screamed in my life, neither in the night nor at any other time, so don’t be insulting. And I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m simply afraid of them, that’s all. Most people are, so what of it? Is there supposed to be a ghost here?”

  “Not so far as I am aware. There is no tradition to that effect, although no doubt there are those who would welcome such a story. No, as those boys indicated, there has been a violent and unexplained death here.”

  “Who was the dead man?”

  “A certain Tom Dysey, husband of the woman we’ve met. He was killed the summer before last—two years ago, almost to the day, in fact, on which we came here. A good deal of suspicion fell upon Mrs. Dysey, but the police could obtain nothing helpful. Mrs. Dysey, later, wrote an account for one of the Sunday papers, and the paper, it appears, studded this account with indulgent captions. They reported her as being fearlessly outspoken, a martyr to bureaucracy, an ill-used but conscientious citizen, an inspiration to her sex, a crusader for the Rights of the Common Man, and a good many other things which the superintendent did not remember.”

  “But why should Mrs. Dysey have come under so much suspicion? The police must have had something to go on.”

  “That’s just the trouble. They really had very little. What it all boiled down to was a question of, possibly, marital infidelity. The dead man was Mrs. Dysey’s husband, as I say, and a letter was found, although the writer has never been identified.”

  “Where was the letter?”

  “That’s the funny part. If it had been to arrange a secret meeting, you’d have expected it to be destroyed, but it wasn’t. It was in the dead man’s wallet, and that was in the inside pocket of the jacket he had been wearing.”

  “Had been wearing? He was killed during the night, then?”

  “At some time between midnight and one o’clock in the morning, the doctor thought. The body was found by the gardener at the foot of that middle flanking tower at the end of the kitchen garden. As I’ve indicated, the police theory is that he was keeping an assignation, but nothing, so far, has been proved, and nobody came forward with any information. The letter was typed and there was no signature.”

  “Well, that’s not surprising, I suppose. You’d be sticking your neck out to the extent of almost asking to be charged with murder, wouldn’t you?—not to speak of all the embarrassing questions you’d have to answer, anyway, if you were a girl, and were meeting a married man in the middle of the night.”

  “He was not necessarily meeting a girl. There was nothing in the letter to indicate the sex of the person with whom he had the assignation, but there was one obvious reason for choosing that particular tower.”

  “The only one you can get to without being spotted from the house? Yes, that’s right. There aren’t any windows in that end gable.”

  “You would need to use the servants’ staircase, though, if you intended to nip out by the side door. Dame B. won’t let our lot use it. She says it’s dangerous if they’re carrying anything and can’t catch hold of the bannisters, but I don’t suppose the Dyseys worried too much about that.”

  “What else did they tell you at the police station?”

  “Nothing much, except that the dead man was wearing cricketing flannels. They thought that was a bit odd, considering the time of night, and the fact that there was a dinner-party that evening.”

  “They might have held a flannel-dance after dinner. What did he have on his feet?”

  “I saw the official photographs. He had nothing on his feet except his socks.”

  “Did you see the report of the medical evidence given at the inquest?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “No, they hadn’t got a verbatim copy. Multiple injuries consistent with a heavy fall was what it came to. No doubt that’s boiling it down a bit, of course.”

  “Did he fall, or was he pushed?—and the police incline to the latter theory,” said Laura. “Had they any other reason to suspect foul play?”

  “They’d dearly like to know why he was masquerading in his whites at that hour, of course, and they are equally curious about the identity of the person he went there to meet.”

  “Of course, that person may not have been guilty,” argued Laura. “I mean, people do batsy things such as accidentally falling downstairs. Still, it’s all very mysterious, and I’m more than ever thankful that Hamish is safely in the house and not perched up there on a column like St. Simon Stylites. Not that Hamish could be like Saint Anything, come to that!”

  “What about these men you met?”

  “Well, I may have a suspicious mind, but I thought they seemed a bit fishy, especially the older one. He was most unpleasant at first, and told me I was trespassing, and then he turned right round and was quite goodhumoured, and there didn’t seem any reason for the change. Incidentally, I’ve an impression that Mrs. Dysey may be staying with them, but I was too far off to be certain. I wonder why the police suspected her of murdering her husband?”

  “We always suspect people’s nearest and dearest, and it often works out,” said Gavin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Childe Roland

  “His mither she was walking out

  To see what she could see,

  And there she saw her one young son

  Set on the tower sae hie.”

  Earl Mar’s Daughter

  On the following morning, taking it for granted that the irascible older boatman would tolerate their presence in his waters and would refrain from classifying them as “every Tom, Dick, and Harry,” Laura took her husband and son to bathe in the lake.

  “I’m told it’s dashed chilly,” she warned them, “so, if you don’t like it, don’t mind getting out at once. There won’t be anything cissy about it, Hamish,” she added sternly to her son. “It’s well known that boys feel the cold, so mind, if you find it unpleasant in the water, out you come.”

  “Ten minutes will be my limit, anyway,” said Gavin. “What’s more, I’ve asked in the kitchen for a large flask of coffee.”

  Dame Beatrice saw them off and then went to see about lunch. When she had given the necessary orders, the cook, feeling her apron pulled by the kitchenmaid, said,

  “Oh, yes, mum, that reminds me. Zena wants to speak to you private, if you’d be so good.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Dame Beatrice, with the sinking heart known to all householders at the prospect of losing valuable domestic help. “You had better come along to the morning-room, then, Zena.” The girl followed her. “Shut the door, my dear, and sit down. Now, what is it?”

  “Please, mum, you wo
n’t laugh at me, will you?”

  “So it isn’t her notice, thank goodness,” thought Dame Beatrice. She answered, “Certainly not, Zena. It is most unkind to laugh at people. What made you think I might do such a thing?”

  “Well, mum, I haven’t no doubt there’s them as would. Or else they’d tell me off for bein’ silly.”

  “I shall do neither. If you are in any sort of trouble, I shall do my best to help you, so fire away.”

  “Well, mum, could it be the ’ouse is ’aunted?”

  The artless question was not unexpected by Dame Beatrice. She said,

  “What have you been hearing?” She assumed, naturally, that the young girl had heard something (probably garbled, at that) about the death in the tower. To her astonishment, the girl replied,

  “I bin hearin’ singin’, mum.”

  “Well, there’s nothing in that, Zena. Lots of people sing when they’re going about their work,” said Dame Beatrice, without the slightest expectation that this would clear up the matter.

  “Not in the dead of night, mum.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” said the girl. “I don’t rightly know what I does mean. Only, mum, I don’t like it.”

  “How many times have you heard it?”

  “Three times now, countin’ las’ night. And then, mum, there’s the pie and the bread and the milk, and other things as well.”

  “Taken from the larder, do you mean? Well, that doesn’t sound like a ghost. It sounds like some poor old tramp.”

  “Would a tramp sing, mum?”

  “I have no idea. Not unless he wished to attract attention, I would say.”

  “If he was on the food-sneakin’ lark, he wouldn’t want to do that, mum.”

  “One would suppose not. You hear this singing when you are in bed, do you?”

  “Oh, yes, mum, and ’orrid creepy it is.”

  “Let us go up to your room and you shall tell me more about it.”

  The house was on two main floors. There were also a couple of attics, but the servants were not relegated to these. The parlourmaid and the housemaid, who were sisters, shared a room at the top of a flight of dark stairs which Dame Beatrice had ordered the servants not to use because she believed it to be dangerous, the cook occupied what had evidently been the dressing-room to the principal bedroom (one of the three rooms shown to the public), and the kitchenmaid had a bed in a small chamber built above the pantry. It had been intended, presumably, for a closet or store-room, but it had a casement window which could be opened and which overlooked the grim Norman keep behind the house. Dame Beatrice walked over to this window and looked out.

  “Do you draw your curtains at night?” she asked.

  “No, I doesn’t, mum. I depends on the mornin’ sunshine to wake me up in time to go down and get the fire raked out and laid, ready for cookin’ the breakfast, being as Cook has the alarm clock.”

  One of the things which Laura and Hamish found romantic, Dame Beatrice inconvenient, and Gavin infuriating, was that there was neither gas nor electricity laid on. Water for baths was heated in the copper and carried in pails to the only bathroom. Fortunately this bathroom was next-door to the scullery and had originally been the wash-house. What the cook thought about the kitchen arrangements Dame Beatrice and Laura had agreed together that it would be wiser not to enquire.

  “Has anyone else heard this singing, do you know?” Dame Beatrice asked.

  “No, they hasn’t, mum, because I asked Cook and she said she hadn’t, and she asked Vi’let and Daffy and they hadn’t heard it neether. But then, they wouldn’t, you see, would they, sleepin’ t’other side the house?”

  “It seems to come from the keep, then?”

  “The what, please, mum?”

  “That big tower opposite your window.”

  “Well, it sort of must, mustn’t it, without it’s somebody roamin’ about down there in the kitching garding.”

  “I will get your bed moved across the landing. You may use that little room where we have put the luggage. The suitcases can be put in here.”

  “Oh, thank you, mum! I’m much obliged, I’m sure.”

  “And I shall ask Cook about the disappearance of the food. I wonder why she has not mentioned it to me?”

  “She believes I took it, mum, though I swore my Bible oath I never. She said she wouldn’t report it for fear of me gettin’ the sack.”

  “That was very good of her,” commented Dame Beatrice drily, ironically certain that Cook’s goodness derived less from Cook’s kindly nature than from a desire not to lose so willing and pliable a kitchenmaid. “If anything else occurs to upset you, you must let me know. There is always something we can do about it.”

  “Yes, mum, thank you, mum. You don’t believe I took them pie and things, mum, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. Even if I did, I should never dismiss a young and hungry creature for stealing food. I shall speak to Cook about it.”

  “You won’t turn her against me, mum, will you? I shouldn’t care for her to have it in for me.”

  “Do not worry, Zena. Get back now to your work. I will see that there is a key to your changed bedroom, so that you can lock the door if you feel at all nervous.”

  “Poor little blighter,” said Gavin, when he, Laura, and Hamish had returned from swimming and Dame Beatrice had taken him into consultation. “It strikes me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a closer inspection of that keep than we’ve made so far. If you remember, Hamish also heard somebody singing.”

  “Oh, did he?”

  “Yes. I mentioned it to Laura. Come to think of it, I don’t believe you were in the room at the time. Still, it lends substance to the girl’s story, doesn’t it? I think your theory of the tramp is a likely one. He probably dosses down in the keep or in one of the towers. If so, I’m more than ever glad that Hamish elected to sleep in the house. We’ll certainly have a jolly good look around the place. I’m only sorry I’ve nearly come to the end of my leave. What with this unexplained death and now this midnight songster, I could bear to have a man about the place.”

  “Yes, yours is a comforting sex,” Dame Beatrice agreed. “I understand your anxiety. I wonder whether Denis and that friend of his would come?”

  “What about Jonathan and Deborah? Jon would be more use in a rough-house than Denis—not that I’m anticipating anything of the sort. I wouldn’t be justified in leaving Laura and Hamish here if I thought that. But—well, you know how it is.”

  “I’ll try Jonathan first, then. It will be extremely gratifying to see Deborah again. I see all too little of them since they buried themselves in the Cotswolds. They can have the room you and Laura sleep in, and Laura can move into the room next door to Hamish. I must see about having the bed aired.”

  “Good show! I say, we’ve got an invitation to go to lunch tomorrow with those boathouse people Laura got to know. You’re included, of course. Will you come with us? I’d rather like to get the measure of them, if Laura thinks they’re fishy.”

  “With pleasure. I shall enjoy meeting them. How did the invitation come about?”

  “Oh, they were fishing from their boat when we got there, so Laura thought she’d better hail them and ask whether they would mind if Hamish and I joined her in the water. They chugged over to us—their boat had a small outboard motor—and the old chap told us what damn’ fools we were, hoped, in his genial way, that we’d all get pneumonia, and then asked me what I did for a living. When I told him, he issued this invitation. I think he wants to talk about this corpse of ours.”

  “Interesting. I am all agog. Well, I will write to Jonathan and Deborah, and I must also send for George. I shall need the car when you take yours away.”

  She waited until after lunch before she spoke to the cook about the missing food, and received that worthy’s assurance that she “had wondered about young Zena, mum,” but was now completely convinced that the girl was innocent. She assent
ed without demur to Dame Beatrice’s suggestion that a tramp must have got into the larder and helped himself, adding that the window might have been left open at some time or another. She “could not say if it ’ad been, or if it ’adn’t,” but as she herself always personally locked the side door and the back door, leaving the front door to be attended to by Gavin, “if it weren’t the window, mum, I’d be ’ard put to it to say what it was.” However, it appeared that she was now regretful of her first suspicions that Zena had stolen downstairs during the night watches to restore her tissues with illicit calories, and took back all that she had said.

  “But what made you cease to suspect her?” Dame Beatrice mildly enquired. The cook confessed that, as soon as she realised that the pie and other foods were missing, she had searched Zena’s room.

  “But I never found a crumb, mum, not so much as a crumb. And, in my opinion, not even a ’uman boa-constrictor could of polished off all that lot in one night.”

  “When did this theft take place?”

  “It would of bin the Wednesday night as you come in on the Toosday, mum.”

  “After we had entertained our first batch of visitors, in fact. Was that the only time you have missed anything?”

  “Well, I’m not too sure about that, mum. I did think p’raps there was more of the cooked ’am gorn than what I thought I remembered, but an ’ole ’am, mum, well, it do arst to be cut and come again, like, so I can’t rightly say, one way or the other, and, anyway, would not be willin’.”

  “And which day was this?”

  “Well, I looked at it a bit old-fashioned last Thursday mornin’, mum. Ah, and I did wonder about the Sunday joint o’ beef.”

  “You haven’t noticed anybody loitering about the place, of course?”

  “Only the Wednesday visitors that very first Wednesday you was ’ere, before you give us the Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and evenin’s orf, which I may say is ’ighly appreciated by one and all, mum.”