The Croaking Raven

by Gladys Mitchell

  “And that was?”

  “She thought that some other couple had failed to accept an invitation to the function, and that we were being used as a stopgap.”

  “But this was not the case?”

  “I hardly know what to think. The party was an extremely small one, and the atmosphere could have been delightfully informal had the guests been better matched or the Dyseys more gifted as hosts.”

  “You found the atmosphere uncongenial?”

  “That is not quite the word. It is difficult, by this time, for me to remember exactly what I felt. I know that the food was not very good, and I know that Mrs. Dysey, our hostess, seemed to be on edge. I put this down to the customary anxiety of an inexperienced hostess that the dinner should go off well. I wonder now, though, whether there might have been some more sinister explanation of her state of mind.”

  “What were the seating arrangements at table?”

  “My wife was on Mr. Thomas Dysey’s right, and she sat between him and his brother Eustace. Next to Eustace was Mrs. Binns, the doctor’s wife, then came Cyril Dysey, who was therefore next to Mrs. Dysey. She sat at the end of the table opposite her husband. I was on her right, next to a young woman, one of her second cousins, I believe, and the doctor sat between this girl and her sister.”

  “I heard that the Chief Constable of the county and his wife had also been invited, but could not accept,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “Ah, well, that probably accounts for our own invitation, then. We must have been right in what we thought at first.”

  “It may equally well be that the stopgaps, if any, were the doctor and his wife, surely?”

  “Oh, Binns is a sociable fellow, quite unlike myself, and, of course, he was the Dyseys’ physician, whereas I could hardly call myself their chaplain.”

  “Can you remember what Thomas Dysey talked about?—what mood he seemed to be in, and so forth?”

  “He was not in a genial humour, but he conversed with my wife and occasionally with the young woman on his left, but I have no idea what they talked about. My wife is a keen gardener, so she may have led the talk in that direction.”

  “Was Mrs. Dysey the only person who appeared anxious?”

  “Well, no. Eustace Dysey made himself very agreeable to the doctor’s wife, but Cyril Dysey said nothing except to pay a grudging tribute to the claret we were offered, and I myself attempted, without much success, to interest Mrs. Dysey in a history of the parish which I am preparing. I threw out a pretty strong hint that I should be grateful for an opportunity to look through some of the books and manuscripts in the library here, but either Mrs. Dysey did not catch my drift, or else she was determined to keep me out of the house, for there was not the slightest suggestion that I should be welcome to inspect her treasures.”

  “And has your history of the parish been published?”

  “I felt that it would be woefully incomplete without mention of the castle and its archives, so I have had to content myself with a small brochure on the history of the church.”

  “My tenancy of the castle is nearing an end, but if you would care to take advantage of what remains of it…”

  “It would not be ethical, perhaps, for me to do so, as Mrs. Dysey ignored my (I think) rather obvious suggestion that I should be grateful for such an opportunity.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” said Dame Beatrice. “I am anxious to consult some of the books and manuscripts myself, and a clause in my lease gives me all rights over everything movable in the castle, so long as I do no damage. This must include the books, and, if you have any scruples concerning these, I will undertake to stay in the library while you are there, and keep a stealthy eye on you.”

  “Well, thank you. In that case, I shall be delighted to take advantage of your kindness. May I ask—merely as a fellow-scholar, of course—what your particular interest in the Dysey archives may be?”

  “Certainly. In fact, you can be of help to me if you will. I want to find out whether—or, rather, how—the priest’s hole can be opened from the inside. It seems to me that there must be some reference to this among the Dysey papers.”

  “Not necessarily, surely? Might it not be one of those secrets which are passed by word of mouth from father to son?”

  “While the priest’s hole was being used for its obvious purpose, yes, I am sure that would have been so, but do you not think some eighteenth-century antiquarian would have made it his business to investigate the thing and write a note on it?”

  “Possibly. At any rate, I will keep an eye on the possibility while I am engaged in my researches. When would it be convenient for me to begin them?”

  “As soon as ever you like. The sooner the better, I would suggest, as my lease is running out. Would you care to come back, and to begin this evening?”

  “You are most kind. I shall be delighted. We dine at seven. Would half-past eight suit you?”

  “Admirably. And now that that is settled, I wonder whether you will be good enough to continue to reconstruct for me the events of that evening in which I am interested?”

  The vicar stared at a grotesquely-carved panel above the fireplace.

  “It is all rather vague,” he said, “by this time. We were greeted without, I thought, much warmth, by Thomas Dysey, and were taken to the dining-room for a glass of sherry. As it happened, we arrived before the doctor and his wife turned up, but we were introduced to the two young women, Mrs. Dysey’s relatives, who were there with Eustace and Cyril. They were somewhat unsophisticated girls, with a tendency towards blushing and giggling, but they seemed pleasant enough and their manner was in contrast to that of Thomas, who seemed to be in a mood both sour and (it seemed to me) apprehensive, now that I come to think of it.”

  “Indeed? That is extremely interesting. Forgive me for asking the question, but can you be sure that these were your impressions at the time? You do not think that perhaps your recollections have been coloured by Thomas’s regrettable death?”

  “Oh, I can answer the question very readily.” He took from an inside pocket a small notebook. “I keep a ‘special intentions’ diary, you know.” He handed her the slim little book. “You will know whereabouts to turn for the date. The book is almost full. I must remember to replace it very soon.”

  The vicar’s calligraphy was even smaller than Dame Beatrice’s own, and, like her, he used his own form of shorthand, so that many weeks of prayerful intentions took up fewer than half-a-dozen pages. It did not take her long to find, near the beginning of the notes, the entry in which she was interested.

  “T. D. ora v. unq. mind.” The date followed, and after the date came a tick. This was followed, in its turn, by the entry: “T. D. d. had G. R. H. S. Interment Wed.” Dame Beatrice returned the book to the vicar, who stowed it carefully away.

  “Yes,” she said. “You did notice that he had an unquiet mind. It will be useless, I suppose, to ask whether you had any inkling…”

  “As to what had disturbed him? No, I had not, nor have I to this day. Whether he foresaw his death—such things are not unknown—or whether it was some monetary or domestic difficulty he was in, will never, I imagine, come to light, but he was most certainly distraught and ill-at-ease—more so, indeed, than his wife, whom I mentioned earlier.”

  “Do you think anybody else present noticed it?”

  “I could not say. My vocation necessarily makes me sensitive to emotional disturbance in others.”

  “Please go on with your account of the evening.”

  “Mrs. Dysey appeared, after a few minutes—I think from the kitchen where, no doubt, she had been satisfying herself that all was well with the cooking—and almost at the same time Binns and his wife were announced. They came in and were given sherry, and very soon after that we sat down to dinner. Of the conversation at table I can remember very little. After my abortive attempt to suggest that I should like to inspect the books and papers in the library, no subject was offered which was of particular interest to me, but I
did my best to entertain the ladies on either side of me with one or two anecdotes of village life, and had a certain amount of success with the niece—or whatever she was—but none at all, I fear, with Mrs. Dysey.”

  “You indicated that she was anxious and preoccupied?”

  “Not more so, perhaps, than one would expect of an obviously inexperienced hostess. I would not like to exaggerate.”

  “You said before that she seemed inexperienced in entertaining company.”

  “Well, we have not much experience, ourselves, of entertaining in these days, but at home, before I married, I do not remember my mother giving high-voiced instructions to the servants while the meal was being served, nor, to the best of my recollection, did she advise my father on the best method of carving the joint. If she did, it was not in the presence of guests.”

  “Did you form any opinion as to the relationship between Thomas Dysey and his wife? Were they compatible?”

  “It is hardly for me to judge, but the atmosphere was not cordial. In fact, I wished my wife and I had not accepted the invitation.”

  “Why had the Dyseys decided to give a dinner-party?”

  “For the two young women, I imagine. I can think of no other reason. When dinner was over, we all went into the hall and were invited to take turns at a game of whist. There was only one table and Thomas and Cyril declined to play, so I partnered one of the girls and the doctor the other. Then our places were taken by my wife and Eustace, and Mrs. Dysey and the doctor’s wife, while the nieces removed themselves from the company after they had entertained us at the piano. As soon as the second game was over, whisky and sherry were brought in, and then the leave-taking began and was soon over. The nieces did not reappear.”

  “At what time was this that you left?”

  “Oh, at about a quarter to ten.”

  “And Thomas Dysey was killed at some time after midnight. What was the last you saw of him?”

  “He saw us off at the gatehouse. Binns had left his car just beside the archway and kindly offered us a lift home.”

  “And how did Thomas Dysey seem then?”

  “Nervous, I thought, and unhospitably anxious to speed the parting guests. He kept looking up at the battlements as though he expected to see somebody up there, but this was all of a piece with his previous nervous manner.”

  “And that was really the last you saw of him?”

  “Yes, indeed it was. Half-way home my wife discovered that she had left a silver pencil on the table which had been used for whist, but I declined to allow Binns to turn the car and go back for it, saying that we could not dream of disturbing the Dyseys again that night, but that I would send over for it the next day. Of course, I never did, because, while we were finishing a late breakfast—I am accustomed to hold a Confirmation class for half-a-dozen of the village children before they go to school, so we are often late in breakfasting on Thursdays—Binns called with the news that he had been to the castle and that Thomas Dysey was dead.”

  “Did the doctor give you any details?”

  “No, not really. He told us that the police had taken charge, but he offered no further information except to say that Thomas had died of a fractured skull and had been found by the gardener at the foot of that tower which stands at the end of the kitchen garden. I asked whether he thought I could be of any help to Mrs. Dysey, but he advised me to let time pass, as she was in no state to receive visitors and that he had administered a sedative and had taken it upon himself to advise the two girls to return home as soon as they could.”

  “I wonder what you would have found if you had gone back for your wife’s silver pencil,” Dame Beatrice remarked.

  “You do not think it could possibly have made any difference to what happened, do you?”

  “Most probably not. Almost certainly not, I would say. I wonder whether Mrs. Dysey ever offered any explanation of the fact that when Thomas was killed he was wearing cricketing flannels? I assume that he was not so clad when you arrived for dinner?”

  “Oh, no, he was wearing a dinner jacket. The cricketing flannels have always remained a slight although a tangible mystery.”

  “Did you ever hear that he had a reputation as a practical joker?”

  “I should have thought it the last thing for him to have been. Of course, he may have had some macabre idea of dressing up as a ghost to scarify the two young women, whose mentality did not strike me as being of the highest order.”

  “That, indeed, is a possible explanation, and we are not likely to obtain a more plausible one, but it hardly seems to coincide with his state of mind as you have described it.”

  “At any rate, he could not have been killed because he was wearing cricketing garb.”

  “You know,” said Dame Beatrice, looking searchingly at the preternaturally serious young cleric, “you may be wrong about that. White would show up in the dark.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Doctor’s Story

  “Said, ‘Lye still, lazar, whereas thou lyest,

  Looke thou not goe away;

  I’le make thee a whole man and a sound

  In two howres of a day.’ ”

  Sir Aldingar

  “I was very doubtful about accepting your invitation,” said the doctor’s wife, on the following evening, “but William insisted that we should.”

  “You have not visited the castle since the death of Thomas Dysey, I take it?” said Dame Beatrice.

  “No, I haven’t. William came, of course, when they sent for him after the gardener found Tom dead, and again in response to your message about finding the body of Eustace, but that was only in his professional capacity. I must repeat that I, myself, felt a good deal of doubt about coming here again. What is the meaning of these violent deaths, Dame Beatrice? Have the police got any further?”

  “At present I have no means of knowing.”

  “I have heard that you interest yourself in such things.”

  “That is a very mild way of alluding to Dame Beatrice’s reputation as a successful sleuth, my dear,” put in the doctor, who, with Laura, was superintending the mixing of cocktails. He possessed a refrigerator and had, with foresight, brought along a thermos-jar of ice-cubes. “But are you going to work on the Dysey family, Dame Beatrice?”

  “Yes, indeed. There are some interesting undercurrents endangering their affairs, I fancy.”

  “No more so than in many another family, I daresay.”

  “What is the exact relationship between Cyril and Henry Dysey, I wonder?”

  “They are uncle and nephew by mutual consent. I think you said you preferred sherry to a cocktail?”

  “Thank you. Whose son, then, is Henry?”

  “He is said to be the natural son of the late Tom Dysey by a woman named Henrietta Slepe, but my father had the practice then. I was still at the teaching hospital and knew nothing about the birth. All I do know is that Mrs. Dysey must have agreed to look after the child, have him live at the castle, and bring him up.”

  “And how long did that go on?”

  “Unfortunately, she was obliged to part with him when he was three. He turned out—so the story goes—to be incredibly vicious and to have attacked Mrs. Dysey’s son Bonamy in what was described as a murderous manner. I was qualified by then, and acting as my father’s assistant, and I was called in to attend Bonamy, as a matter of fact, and I drew my own conclusions.”

  “It was very good of you to bring the ice,” said Laura, seating herself. Doctor Binns followed suit, swigged his whisky gently around in the glass and, added,

  “Yes, my own conclusions, which were not quite the same as—Anyhow, Bonamy Dysey ran himself into trouble when he grew up, and had to be shipped off. Tom and Etta Dysey almost beggared themselves, I believe, to get the matter hushed up before criminal proceedings could be started, and Etta, I believe, was so angry and ashamed that, later, she had a memorial put up in the church, indicative of Bonamy’s death. Personally, I am not convinced th
at he is dead. In fact, something she let fall once when I was attending her for influenza some while ago—in the spring after Tom was killed it would have been—caused me to think that Etta badly needs the money she gets for letting the castle so that she can go and see the boy. They meet in Paris, I believe. If so, it is only since her husband’s death, and must mean that she is reconciled with Bonamy.”

  “Does he live in France?”

  “Nowadays I think he does, but, when he was first sent out of the country, I believe he went to South America, or it may have been North Africa. I just don’t know.”

  “He is the heir to the Dysey estates, then?”

  “I suppose so—if he’s still alive. But, as I say, I think he must be, as Etta Dysey lets the castle for the summer months.”

  During dinner the conversation turned into other, more general and lighter channels. Over coffee and brandy, however, Dame Beatrice re-introduced the former theme by remarking, in a casual tone,

  “Henrietta Slepe came to visit the castle the other week. She signed the Visitors’ Book in the name of Henrietta Dysey.”

  “Really? Well, she’d no earthly right to do that,” said Mrs. Binns, “unless…”

  “Unless?” said her husband. “What bee have you got in your bonnet now, my dear?”

  His wife smiled pityingly upon him.

  “Unless she was secretly married to Eustace,” she said. The doctor laughed.

  “Really!” he said. “But, even if she was, that would still leave Henry out of the running. He couldn’t inherit.”

  “He might, eventually, you know, dear. As things stand, if Bonamy is dead the estates come to Cyril. Failing any legal claimant, what’s to stop Cyril from willing the castle to Henry? He’s very fond of him.”

  “But we’ve no real proof that Bonamy is dead. There’s nothing to go by, except that mural tablet. His death was never announced. I’m quite convinced that he’s still in the land of the living, and, if he is, he may have married and have children of his own.”

  “Then the deaths of Tom and Eustace don’t make sense.”