The Croaking Raven

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Meaning you don’t agree with them?”

  “Meaning that I am keeping an open mind. You see, I have no concrete evidence to support my views, either. That is one reason why I should like a word with your wife. If I may ask an impudent, but not, I think, an impertinent question—why did you marry her?”

  “Why does any man marry?”

  “I could give you a dozen reasons.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  “Because he believes he is in love, because the woman is wealthy, because she knows his shameful secret (whatever it is), because his father wishes it (the same applies to his mother, his brother, his sister, his wealthy uncle, or, of course, his rich aunt), because an error of judgment on his part has made the marriage desirable from the woman’s point of view, because he believes marriage may advance him in his profession or vocation, because his relatives will suffer in some way (probably financially) if the marriage does not take place…”

  “All right, all right! You win! That makes a dozen reasons if I allow you to count his sisters and his cousins and his aunts and so forth…”

  “And,” continued Dame Beatrice, “in order to render you a baker’s count, because at some time his life, and, even in these more enlightened days, his liberty, may depend upon his being able, as you point out, to rely upon his wife’s silence in the face of the law.”

  “All right, I say! Why on earth do women gab so? Anyway, I married for economic reasons. They say two can live as cheaply as one, don’t they? Well, they can’t, if one has to pay the other four pounds a week and provide for her keep.”

  “I see. Why, then, did she marry you?”

  “You’d better go on up to the house and ask her. I’ve nothing to hide!”

  Dame Beatrice waited no longer. Cyril Dysey stared moodily after her as she walked towards the chalet and then returned to the punt in which he had ferried her over the water. Laura had suggested that she take George and the car, and go the longer way round to the chalet by road, but Dame Beatrice, who guessed that the police would have visited the chalet again, was interested to find out whether Cyril Dysey would welcome her visit. The fact that, when she hailed the chalet from the opposite bank of the river, Cyril had come across to her immediately, suggested that, in his uncouth, apparently unfriendly way, he was prepared at least to give the impression of being neighbourly, if not exactly civil.

  She tapped at the kitchen door and went in. Mrs. Cyril Dysey, otherwise styled the housekeeper, was taking jam tarts from the oven. She did not look round when Dame Beatrice entered, but said, as though to the tarts,

  “Well, it’s to be hoped there’s enough jam in ’em for you this time.”

  Dame Beatrice made no remark until the operation was concluded and the oven door closed. Then she said,

  “I wonder whether you will be good enough to spare me a few minutes of your time?”

  Mrs. Cyril stood up. Except for some short periods during the lunch to which the castle party had been invited, Dame Beatrice had seen nothing of her. She now found herself looking at a tall, thin, middle-aged woman whose dark hair was turning grey and who had a gaunt, intelligent face, weak brown eyes, and red, large hands. She wore a print frock patterned in yellow on a white ground, and black and red slippers.

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Cyril. “I’m sorry! I thought it was Mr. Henry come in from his fishing. Did you want anything, madam?”

  “Only a word with you. May I sit down?”

  “Walked all the way over from the castle, have you? I expect you’d like a cup of tea.”

  “Please do not trouble. My errand will take no more than a few minutes, I hope.”

  “If it’s about the murders, I’ve told all I know to the police.”

  “Why should you assume that I have come about the murders?”

  “Oh, I know all about you. Mr. Cyril and Mr. Henry don’t talk over-much with me, but they talk to one another, and I’ve seen you here before, so I know who you are. And Percy Bellairs, your gardener, he’s always on about you and the other folk up at the castle.”

  “Oh, you go to the home farm sometimes?”

  “Always on Sunday afternoon and evening. I’m a bit related there, you see, and there isn’t anywhere else for me to go.”

  “Oh, yes, somebody mentioned that you were related to the Carters.”

  “Distant, of course, only distant. Still, they don’t mind having me, and it makes for somewhere to go. I suppose you won’t be staying at the castle very much longer, madam.”

  “Not very much longer, I believe.”

  Mrs. Cyril, who had been standing at the kitchen table, seated herself in a worn leather-covered chair and said, with a shake of the head to give emphasis to her words,

  “Not any longer much at all, if I might make bold.”

  “What causes you to think that?”

  “Because that young Bonny be come home.”

  Dame Beatrice concealed her surprise. She said,

  “Mr. Bonamy Dysey, do you mean? But that need not concern me. The terms of my lease…”

  “Don’t you fret, he’s come for his own. It wasn’t him let you pay for a lease.”

  “Be that as it may, it is not the object of my visit today. I would like you to tell me what happened here on the night of Mr. Thomas Dysey’s death. It may help to solve the problem of what happened, much more recently, to Mr. Eustace.”

  “What’s it all to do with you?”

  Dame Beatrice gave no indication that she had noticed the sudden change of tone. Indeed, she was no means displeased to have the woman come out from behind what she felt was a façade.

  “I, too, have been visited by the police,” she said, “and, as I was in occupation of the castle at the time of Mr. Eustace Dysey’s death, you will appreciate that I have some interest in the matter.”

  “That’s as maybe, but what odds is it what went on here when Mr. Tom died?”

  “Possibly no odds at all, but there is a feeling, in some quarters, that Mr. Henry should have been invited to the dinner-party.”

  “Oh, there is, is there? Well, he may have been, or he may not. It’s not for me to know which it was. All I know is he didn’t go, and a good thing for him he didn’t, else he might not be with us today, neither.”

  “Oh, you think that, do you?”

  “I don’t think anything, and I don’t know anything.”

  “Are you Mr. Henry’s mother?”

  “As good as, I suppose you might say.”

  “That does not answer my question.”

  “And why should I answer your question? It’s nothing to do with you whether I’m his mother or whether I’m not.”

  “Look, Mrs. Dysey…”

  “There’s no call to put that name on me.”

  “I understood that Mr. Cyril had done so.”

  “He’s daft. He did it to—well, he did it. It was no wish of mine as he should.”

  “So you are Henry’s mother?”

  “I am not, neither. And Mr. Tom was not his father. Make what you can out of that!”

  “Not so very long ago I encountered a woman who calls herself Henrietta Dysey. I imagine that she is his mother. I suppose also that she is your sister. You are much alike in appearance.”

  “What of it?” asked Mrs. Cyril. “Bonamy is expected home, so that’s the end of that.”

  “Really? An end of it? Oh, I see.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t! You don’t know nothing about it.”

  Dame Beatrice smiled mirthlessly at the woman, then got up and walked out of the kitchen. Mrs. Cyril followed her to the door. Dame Beatrice heard the footsteps, but did not turn her head. The door was slammed violently behind her.

  “Well, I bet you didn’t get much change out of her,” said Cyril Dysey, when she rejoined him on the bank of the stream. “She’s a deep one when she likes, and not such a fool as she looks.”

  “I suppose she is very fond of Mr. Henry?”

  “Fond of him? Devil knows!
She’s looked after him since he was three. Staying to tea?”

  “It is very kind of you, but I think not.”

  “Afraid she might poison you, eh?” He laughed loudly and unconvincingly. “Oh, well, get aboard and I’ll ferry you across.”

  “Is it true that Mr. Bonamy is expected home?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “Bonamy coming home? Is that what she told you?”

  “Yes, indeed. What are we to understand by it? Do you think it is true?”

  “Well, I never believed he was dead.”

  “Will you ask Mr. Henry to come and see me again?”

  “What do you want with Henry?”

  “It is not what I want with him, but what I want from him.”

  “And that will be?”

  “The truth.”

  “That’s all very well, but, supposing he tells you the truth, where’s that going to get you?”

  “It is not a question of where it is going to get me, but of where it is not going to get him.”

  “Oh, and where’s that?”

  “Into court, on a charge of murder.”

  “I wish women would mind their own business!”

  “I trust that you do not refer to me. You will ask Mr. Henry to come and see me, will you not?”

  “Henry had nothing to do with those deaths.”

  “That is for him to prove, and, if he will not confide in me, I cannot help him.”

  “Oh, let the police arrest him, and me, too. They can’t prove anything. Come on. Hop into the boat, unless you’re staying to tea, and you said you wouldn’t.”

  The boat had just reached the opposite bank when the sputtering sound of an outboard motor could be heard.

  “Mr. Henry, I presume,” said Dame Beatrice. Cyril Dysey handed her out, and then rowed back to the boathouse. She waited while Henry, in his dinghy, rounded the bend and could see her. Then she waved. Henry cut out his engine and let the boat drift towards her.

  “Hullo!” he shouted in a cheerful tone. “How’s tricks?”

  “So you also have heard the news?” she said, as he leapt ashore. Henry hitched the painter round a post which had been planted opposite the chalet for this purpose, and grinned at her.

  “All our troubles are over! Bonamy’s coming home,” he said. “And do you know what? He’s bringing a half-breed wife and a baby boy with him.”

  “How do you know?” Dame Beatrice asked.

  “Know? Etta told me. Actuated by spite and a determination to take me down a peg, undoubtedly, but, somehow, I’m sure it’s true.”

  “When did you hear this?”

  “Yesterday, as ever was, so today’s the maddest, merriest day of all the glad new year.”

  “Why so?”

  “Well, don’t you see? If good old Bonamy is alive and well, and has also provided himself with a successor, there’s nothing more for my uncle and me to worry about.”

  “What causes you to think that?”

  “But, surely, it’s obvious! If Bonamy is alive, he’s the rightful heir and gets that gloomy old box of tricks, with its birds of ill-omen and its ghastly motto, and all the rest of it. That being so, any case the police may think they’ve built up against my uncle and me falls apart like a house of cards. Can’t you see that?”

  “Yes, if you and your uncle can prove that you knew that Mr. Bonamy was alive when Tom Dysey and your Uncle Eustace were murdered.”

  “Oh, I think we can by-pass that one.” But his joyous confidence had evaporated. “You think so, don’t you?” he asked with sudden concern.

  “It depends upon your answer to a question I asked you some little time ago. Can you account for your movements on the night of Tom Dysey’s death?”

  “I’ve told you what I did.”

  “I think you told me what you did not do. Will you still hold to those statements? It is for you to decide.”

  “I should have thought it was equally to the point for me to account for my movements on the night Uncle Eustace was killed.”

  “But it has not been established with any exactitude which night it was when your Uncle Eustace was killed.”

  Henry looked at her.

  “Well, what do you know!” he exclaimed.

  “Having, in common parlance, given the game away, had you not better confide in me completely? I suggest it in your own interests.”

  “No, I’m damned if I do!” said Henry, with considerable violence. “No! You do your own dirty work—if you can!”

  “In what year were you born?”

  Henry stared at her.

  “1943—not that it matters,” he said. “Three years after Bonamy, so, you see, I’ve nothing to lose!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Vicar Ignores His Cloth

  “This ae nighte, this ae nighte,

  Every nighte and alle,

  Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,

  And Christe receive thy saule.”

  A Lyke—Wake Dirge

  “An odd bod, Henry, wouldn’t you say?” enquired Laura.

  “I should not so choose to describe him. His reactions, although somewhat violent, are perfectly comprehensible, I think. Incidentally, has it not occurred to you that we have now been presented with a most likely pair of participators in the murders of Mr. Thomas and Mr. Eustace?”

  “I can’t see beyond Cyril and Henry, especially now Henry has stuck his feet in, and refuses to tell us what he knows. There’s no doubt he could help us if he wanted to.”

  “Poor Henry is between Scylla and Charybdis.”

  “Between the devil and the deep sea, is he?”

  “I prefer my own metaphor.”

  “Naturally. But why?—I mean, why is he so between?”

  “Because, whichever way Henry turns now, he is bound to incriminate someone, even if that someone should be himself. His would appear to be a straight choice, but it is a choice which, except in extremities, he is determined to avoid as long as he can.”

  “You speak, as often, in riddles. What’s his choice? To sacrifice either his uncle or himself?”

  “Oh, no. While I leave you to consider the implications of a most important fact which should have come to our notice earlier than it did, let me read to you certain extracts which I have culled from my study of the life-work of Mrs. Sarah Harrison of Devonshire.”

  “The same being…?”

  “The Housekeeper’s Pocket Book, etc.”

  “Oh, cooking and so forth. What made you pick on that?”

  “Because certain entries in the copy which I used have been underlined in ink.”

  “Well, I suppose the lady of the house to whom the book belonged had some favourite recipes.”

  “The underlinings do not altogether suggest that. Let me draw your attention to these extracts. I shall be surprised if they do not suggest to you what they have already suggested to me.”

  “I’m all agog. This isn’t a leg-pull, is it?”

  “Certainly not. It is in no way calculated to deceive.”

  “Read on, then.”

  Dame Beatrice produced the small notebook into which she had copied the entries and read aloud:

  “ ‘Take two Ounces of Jesuit’s Bark, infuse it in Spring-water.’ ”

  “Good heavens! Is this a clue to the whereabouts of the Ravens’ Hoard, by any chance?” demanded Laura.

  “I wondered that, myself. ‘Take the Leaves of Rue, pick’t from the stalks, and bruise them. N.B. You may occasionally change the Conserve of Rue for that of Roman Wormwood.’ ”

  “Can’t see how that bit helps.”

  “You will, later on, I think. ‘If any soft or perished Place appear on the Outside, try how deep it goes, for the greater Part may be hid within.’ ”

  “I begin to see what you mean.”

  “I thought you would. Lastly, ‘Break off the dirty Ends, put Salt to them.’ ”

  “Oh, dear! I’m befogged again.”

  “I think not. It seem
s to me that the extracts give a picture of the place where the Ravens’ Hoard is or was hidden, and clear directions as to where to locate it.”

  “Half a minute! Suppose—although it sounds too good to be true—but suppose we find it? Does it belong to Bonamy Dysey?”

  “I have no idea. There is one other marked passage. It seems to lead nowhere, and yet, if we are to accept the others as presumptive evidence, we cannot discount this one. It reads: ‘Wormwood, Rosemary and Lavender, of each a like quantity, and Charity, two Handfuls,’ and is referred to in the margin as ‘Apportionment of the Treasure.’ ”

  “The Family Bible!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t you see?” cried Laura. “Don’t you remember the one thing which was stolen when thieves broke in at the home farm? The Family Bible was the only thing missing, and then it came back via one of the pig-sties.”

  “Dear me!” said Dame Beatrice. “I find your air of excitement infectious, but I see no occasion for your obvious emotion. What part does the Carters’ Family Bible play in the affair?”

  “Didn’t you have a Family Bible in your home?”

  “Not so far as I remember.”

  “Well, they’re called Family Bibles, I gather (we haven’t one, either, but Alice Boorman’s grandmother has), because in the front there are spaces ruled out for births, marriages, and deaths, so you’ve a record, you see, of the family activities in these matters.”

  “I begin to perceive your drift.”

  “If the Carters are collaterals of the Dyseys, the Family Bible will have information, most likely, as to how and why. What kind of ink was used for those underlinings?”

  “I know very little about the composition of inks. I believe the ancient Egyptians, seven thousand years ago, used a carbonised form of ink, but that fact would not be likely to help us.”

  “What colour is this underlining?”

  “Mauve. But look for yourself.”

  Laura took Mrs. Harrison’s book and leafed it through to find the marked passages.

  “Mauve it is,” she said. “We’d have to get an expert’s opinion, but I read a book* a year or two ago which said that mauve ink was first made in 1856. That sort of date would fit in with the possession of a Family Bible all right. With your permission, I will hie me to the home farm and request a loan of the heirloom.”