“That night, you mean? Yes. Harmer drove us over to his friend’s place. He has guts; he was scared stiff, I think, but he went through with it. I see Tisdall has turned up,” he said as Grant rose to go. “That must be an enormous relief to you. Is he ill?”
“No. He has a chill, and he’s overwrought, of course. But I hope he’s going to be all right.”
“In the midday edition I bought at York, I read a harrowing description of his sufferings. Knowing the Press, I believed with confidence that not a word of it was true.”
“Not a word. That was just Jammy Hopkins.”
“Who is Jammy Hopkins?”
“Who is—” Words failed the Inspector. He looked enviously at Champneis. “Now I know,” he said, “why men go out into the waste places of the earth!”
Chapter 27
Herbert Gotobed left England about a month later on his way to explain to the inquisitive police of Nashville, Tennessee, what he had done with the two thousand dollars old Mrs. Kinsley had given him to build a church with.
And on the day that he sailed—although neither party knew of the other’s activities—Erica had a dinner party at Steynes “to take the taste of the last one away,” as she said bluntly to Grant when she invited him. The only addition to the original personnel was Robin Tisdall, and Grant found himself ridiculously relieved to find that her small nose was still as casually powdered, and her frock still as childish as on the first occasion. He was afraid that contact with anyone as good-looking and ill-used as Robin Tisdall would have bred a self-awareness that would be the end of her girlhood. But it seemed as if nothing could make Erica self-conscious. She treated Tisdall with the same grave matter-of-factness she had used when she had told him that his shirt collar was too tight. Grant saw Sir George’s eyes going from one to the other in glad amusement. Their glances met, and moved by a common impulse the two men raised their glasses in a small gesture of mutual congratulation.
“Are you drinking a toast?” Erica asked. “I’ll give you one. To Robin’s success in California!”
They drank it with a will.
“If you don’t like the ranch,” Erica said, “wait till I am twenty-one and I’ll buy it from you.”
“Would you like that sort of life?” His tone was eager.
“Of course I should.” She turned to Grant, beginning to say something.
“You’ll have to come out and see it long before you’re twenty-one,” Robin persisted.
“Yes, that would be nice.” She was sincere but inattentive. “Mr. Grant” (for some reason she never called him Inspector) “if I get those tickets from Mr. Mills myself will you come with me to the Circus at Christmas?”
She was very faintly pink, as if she had asked a forward thing. A phenomenon in Erica, who was forward by nature and never knew it.
“Of course I will,” Grant said, “with the greatest pleasure.”
“All right,” she said. “That’s a promise.” She lifted her glass. “To Olympia, at Christmas!”
“To Olympia at Christmas!” Grant said.
About the Author
ELIZABETH MACKINTOSH used two pen names during her writing career: Josephine Tey, who was also her Suffolk great-great-grandmother, and Gordon Daviot. She was born in 1897 in Inverness, Scotland, where she attended the Royal Academy. Miss MacKintosh later trained for three years at the Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, then began her teaching career as a physical training instructor. She gave up teaching to keep house for her father, who lived near Loch Ness, and pursue her writing. Her first book was The Man in the Queue (1929), published under the Gordon Daviot pseudonym, and it introduced the character of Inspector Grant, familiar now from the Tey novels. The author wrote chiefly under the signature of Gordon Daviot from 1929 to 1946, during which time her works included the play Richard of Bordeaux (1933), which ran for a year with John Gielgud in the lead part. The first of the Josephine Tey mysteries, A Shilling for Candles, was published in 1936 and was eventually followed by Miss Pym Disposes in 1947. Also included among the “Tey” mysteries are The Franchise Affair (1949), Brat Farrar (1949), To Love and Be Wise (1950), The Daughter of Time (1951), and The Singing Sands (1952). Elizabeth MacKintosh died in London on February 13, 1952.
OTHER BOOKS BY JOSEPHINE TEY
Brat Farrar
The Daughter of Time
The Franchise Affair
The Man in the Queue
Miss Pym Disposes
The Singing Sands
To Love and Be Wise
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TOUCHSTONE
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Originally published in Great Britain in 1936.
First published in the United States of America in 1954 by Macmillan Publishing Company.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone trade paperback edition October 2007
Cover design by Cherlynne Li
Cover illustration by Robert Crawford
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN-13: 978-0-684-84238-7
ISBN-10: 0-684-84238-6
A Shilling for Candles Page 22