Spotted Hemlock mb-31

by Gladys Mitchell

  Spotted Hemlock

  ( Mrs Bradley - 31 )

  Gladys Mitchell

  Spotted Hemlock

  Gladys Mitchell

  Bradley 31

  1958

  A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

  click for scan notes and proofing history

  Contents

  chapter one: rhubarb

  chapter two: phantom horseman

  chapter three: posted as missing

  chapter four: echoes of highpepper

  chapter five: the corpse speaks in riddles

  chapter six: case history

  chapter seven: machinations of a paternal aunt

  chapter eight: a lamb to the slaughter

  chapter nine: discrepancies

  chapter ten: phantom holiday

  chapter eleven: identification of a lady-killer

  chapter twelve: see naples and die

  chapter thirteen: nobody asked for bloodhounds

  chapter fourteen: the counterfeit patient

  chapter fifteen: piggy comes cleanish

  chapter sixteen: a confusion of students

  chapter seventeen: the gentlemen raise their voices

  chapter eighteen: squeak, piggy, squeak

  chapter nineteen: the grey mare’s ghost

  chapter twenty: painter’s colic

  To Patricia and Joe Rowland with love

  St. Martin’s Press New York

  spotted hemlock. Copyright © 1958 by Gladys Mitchell. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Mitchell, Gladys, 1901-1983 Spotted hemlock.

  I. Title.

  PR6025.I832S6 1985 823'.9I2 85-12513

  ISBN 0-312-75350-0

  First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd.

  First U.S. Edition

  10 987654321

  SPOTTED HEMLOCK

  chapter one

  Rhubarb

  ‘Nothing has ever moved me more than the sight of this splendid vegetation.’

  The Swiss Family Robinson

  ^ »

  Rhubarb?’ repeated Lord Robert. ‘I hardly think so. I could enquire, of course.’

  The occasion was the summer dance given by the students of Highpepper Hall, a place recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as an approved institution for the training of gentlemen-farmers. Lord Robert, the younger son of a duke, whose inheritance consisted largely of piggeries and tillage, was in residence at the Hall for thirty weeks of the year, and spent most of this time as a gentleman and what he could spare of it as a farmer.

  Noblesse oblige, plus a three-line whip from his Common Room chairman, had been instrumental in bringing him on to the dance-floor to do his part in entertaining a bevy of somewhat beefy beauty from Calladale, an agricultural institution for women, situated in a pastoral countryside some twenty-five miles from Highpepper. The no-man’s-land between the two colleges had seemed sufficiently wide to discourage private and unnecessary fraternisation between the men and the girls. It proved, however, that the majority of the gentlemen-farmers possessed cars, and it was a sobering thought that the dances given alternately by the two colleges marked an unavailing attempt on the part of the authorities to sublimate conditions against which all disciplinary action had proved useless. The heavy weapon of rustication and the heavier one of expulsion were used sparingly at Highpepper, and fines had proved but a challenge to the young men to break those particular rules which appeared to have a monastic bias.

  Lord Robert’s partner, beneath some ill-advised make-up, was a fresh-faced, healthy girl of nineteen. She was at Calladale on a scholarship plus a very inadequate grant, and, although she was doing her best to disguise the fact, she was feeling both flattered and alarmed at finding herself in the arms of the aristocracy. She had introduced the abortive rhubarb-motif in a desperate attempt to provide common ground for discussion, for Lord Robert’s interests, on the whole, hardly coincided with her own.

  ‘You can grow it anywhere,’ pursued the misguided girl.

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Only, of course, it needs good rich manure.’

  ‘Oh, quite.’

  ‘Or you can force it. In a greenhouse, you know, or a cellar or shed. You put the roots in boxes and cover them loosely with soil and straw. Or you can put an old bucket with a hole in it over the top of the crowns and mulch well, all round, with plenty of stable dung. I suppose, as all of you at Highpepper go hunting in the season, you’re very well off for dung, so, if you ever did think of growing rhubarb…’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ said Lord Robert. ‘What about some coffee and a bite? There’s a running buffet next door.’

  The subject of conversation which had failed to strike an answering note in the breast of the noble lord had made some slight appeal to a commoner named Soames, who had also danced with the girl.

  ‘It would be rather a rag,’ he said meditatively to his friend Preddle when the dance was almost over.

  ‘What would?’ demanded Preddle. ‘I’m much too exhausted to rag. Gome on up to my room. I’ve got a bottle of Scotch. I really need a restorative after rockin’ and rollin’ those truly dreadful girls. Why do they seem to get heavier and uglier and clumsier every term?’

  ‘Mother Nature would know,’ said Soames, taking the stairs two at a time. ‘Anyway, you’re quite right about ragging them. It would be a waste of time and trouble. Are you going down tomorrow or leaving it until the weekend?’

  ‘Oh, weekend, I think. My people are going to Cannes on Saturday, and I’ll have more scope with them out of the way.’

  The two young men gained Preddle’s room and Soames sank luxuriously into an armchair while his host rummaged among sports gear for the whisky. Relaxed and comforted,. the friends maintained silence. Preddle poured out the second drinks and Soames lighted a pipe. Then Preddle said:

  ‘What was on your mind? What rag?’

  ‘Rhubarb. Plant it all over Calladale on top of dead rats.’

  ‘Crude, old boy.’

  ‘All ragging’s crude, if it comes to that.’

  ‘Where would we get so many crowns?’

  ‘Order them on the College notepaper, of which I achieved a few useful sheets while I was waiting for Sellaclough the other day. There was a whole rack stuffed with headed stationery on his desk, so I helped myself. Never know when it might come in useful. The nurserymen will think the rhubarb’s an official order from College, and bung it along like nobody’s business.’

  ‘Bung it along? Yes, and where to? You’d need a lorry to do a job like that.’

  ‘Old Brown goes down tomorrow. We could have the rhubarb crowns delivered at his house and unloaded there, just inside North Gate. We’d have to be on hand, of course, to reload it into the boots of people’s cars and run it over to Calladale at dusk. We should need half-a-dozen extra chaps, not more, to help with the carting and planting. Don’t want too many people in a rag.’

  ‘What about the dead rats?’

  ‘Old Benson.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But we’ll miss the cream of it, you know.’

  ‘You mean we shan’t be there when the girls dig it all up? No, but you can’t have everything, and we’ll hear about it all right.’

  There came a tap at the door. It opened and disclosed the wistful countenance of their tutor, Mr Gardien.

  ‘I heard you had whisky,’ he said. Preddle rose to h
is feet. Soames took his off the mantelpiece.

  ‘Come in, sir, do,’ said Preddle. He rummaged among riding boots and tennis shoes and found another glass. ‘I didn’t see you at the dance, sir.’

  ‘Too old for dancing. Spent the evening at the Tally-Ho in Garchester. Nice girls, those barmaids.’

  ‘Preferable to the girls we’ve been supporting tonight,’ said Soames. ‘When do you go down, sir?’

  ‘Tomorrow, with Mr Brown. Going rock-climbing in Cumberland. Thanks very much. Well, cheers. Do as much for you another time. Been drinking nothing but draught beer this evening. Offered no hospitality, with all you fellows at the dance. Beer always makes me thirsty. And what devilment were you planning when I came along?’

  ‘Devilment? We’re serious types, sir.’

  ‘Don’t forget I always listen at doors.’ He drained his glass. ‘Another spot? Thanks very much. I think I will. Remember the great coach-rag? No. Before your time. Well, mud in your eye.’

  ‘How much d’you think he heard?’ asked Preddle, when the tutor had gone. Soames looked nostalgically at his empty glass, pushed it forward to be refilled and then shook his head.

  ‘He was fishing. He hadn’t heard a thing. Even if he had, there was nothing that mattered. He’d probably join in if we asked him. All the staff suffer from retarded mentality.’

  ‘What about us? Are we really going on with it?’

  ‘Well, we’ve more or less committed ourselves, I feel. Put our hands to the plough, so to speak.’

  ‘Put our hands to the spade, you mean. Don’t you see that it will be the most frightful fag?’

  ‘Never mind. Think of the girls digging up old Benson’s rats. We’ll be doing it for the good of their souls.’

  ‘Girls don’t have souls. They only have vital statistics.’

  chapter two

  Phantom Horseman

  ‘We had worked for some time, when we were disturbed by the horrible noise made by our poultry.’

  Ibid.

  « ^ »

  Calladale House was a late Georgian mansion to which had been added, in mid-Victorian times, an excrescence of a long left wing. Lecture-rooms were in the original building and the wing had been converted into study-bedrooms for twenty students. The rest of the girls and most of the staff were accommodated in hostels erected, between 1920 and 1937, at various points on the estate. In addition, there were cottages for the college electrician and the head gardener, various sheds and greenhouses, piggeries, cattle sheds and poultry runs. There were also garages for staff cars and cart-sheds for the farm machinery, not to mention rubbish dumps, compost heaps and a silo.

  On the day before the autumn term began, the Principal, Miss Katharine McKay, known to the students as Canny Katie, was explaining the college ritual to a new lecturer. Mr Carey Lestrange, the noted pig-fancier, had been called upon at short notice to take on the duties of the senior pig-man who wrote to say that he had broken his leg in a climbing accident during the summer vacation, and was still in hospital.

  ‘It won’t be for long,’ Miss McKay had pleaded, ‘and you’re just the person. I have to be rather careful in the choice of my men.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Carey gravely.

  ‘Well, the way we work is this: first milking—won’t affect you in any way, but you may as well learn the routine—is at six, breakfast at seven-thirty—try not to be late; sets a bad example—then work begins at half-past eight. Break is at a quarter to eleven—they get shockingly hungry, so we feed ’em cocoa and bread and jam for fifteen minutes— midday meal at one. Two-fifteen, beginning of the next work period. Two hours. Tea after that, and supper at six-thirty. Then the girls take a compulsory study-period from seven until nine while we mark the written work or prepare for next day. Lock-up is at eleven. All visitors must be off the premises on Saturday and Sundays by eight o’clock. All right? Oh, second milking at five-thirty, but, again, that won’t be your pigeon. Here’s your time-table. Stick to it closely, if you don’t mind, otherwise there’s chaos in a place like this, where everything works on a rota, and everybody alternates theory and practice.’

  ‘Yes, I see. I’m accustomed to pretty accurate timekeeping at my own place, so I can promise not to let the side down.’

  ‘Good. What about sleeping quarters?’

  ‘I’ve got a fast car. I can sleep at home.’

  ‘Means you won’t need to be here for breakfast. All right, so long as you’re ready to begin work at the right time. Don’t let the girls slack. They’re apt to try it on with new men. You’re rather handsome. Don’t let them get any crushes. Awful idiots, most of them. I suppose we were the same at their age.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fast approaching my sere and yellow leaf. I should hardly cause twenty-year-olds to flutter.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it ! Some of ’em would vamp their great-grandfathers if they could. It’s no end of a nuisance having that Highpepper place so close. Twenty-five miles in twenty-five minutes is their average. Gentlemen-farmers, indeed !’

  ‘Oh, yes, the fellows who raise nothing but their hats ! I’ve been over there once or twice to talk pig. All the same, most of them are reasonably intelligent.’

  ‘Rakes, every one. Oh, well, see you in the morning. And, I repeat, stay of one mind with Shelley. “I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden; thou needest not fear mine.” ’

  ‘You terrify me,’ said Carey. ‘No wonder they say that the female of the species is deadlier than the male.’

  ‘And a truer word was never spoken. Haven’t you an aunt with three husbands?’

  ‘Well, not all of them at the same time, you know.’

  ‘Like to meet her.’

  ‘I will invite her to the College Open Day.’

  On the whole, he enjoyed his job, although his students’ combination of intense concentration on work and equally intense concentration on the pursuit of young men amused, and, to some extent, repelled him. The girls, however, were easy to teach and Carey loved pigs. Then, the staff Common Room, although an extremely noisy place, proved to be a surprisingly comradely one. Its extroverted denizens he found sociable and amusing. There were three other men on the staff, and when the monstrous regiment of women became intolerable, as was inevitable at times, there was always the Tally-Ho in Garchester, where the feast of reason and the flow of soul could be enjoyed to the accompaniment of some of the best beer in England. This cathedral city and county town marked, indeed, the apex of a triangle whose twenty-five mile base was bounded on the west by High-pepper Hall and on the east by Calladale. It was almost equi-distant from both colleges.

  Another inevitability was that, with half the time given over to practical work, there was a far more free and easy relationship between staff and students than would have been possible at a college offering a purely academic course. Carey became the recipient of girlish confidences, the repository of girlish secrets, the adviser in the nice conducting of love affairs. He heard of college squabbles and of difficulties at home; of plans and ambitions; of despairs and frustrations; of hopes and fears; of triumphs and disasters.

  ‘In fact,’ he confided to his wife, soon after he had taken up his duties, ‘I might as well be their father-confessor and have done with it.’

  It was also inevitable that, early in his new career, he should hear about his predecessor.

  ‘The other Piggy wasn’t a bit like you,’ remarked a damsel named Gay, one afternoon, after Carey had demonstrated the steps to be taken to relieve constipation in a pregnant sow.

  ‘In what sense?’ asked Carey. ‘Check the increased amount of bran you are using and go easy with that bland pig-oil. In fact, I should try the increased bran-content alone at first. It prevents clogging because it holds water in the lower bowel. Keep your gestation charts up to date, all of you. There will be a “snap” test tomorrow, in place of the lecture on types of bacon pig.’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ explained Miss Gay. ‘The old Piggy never bothered like you do
. As for snap tests—I can just see his groups standing for anything like that ! Yet, for you, we just sit up and beg.’

  ‘Naturally. I’m old enough to be your father. I am a father, at that. I’m accustomed to implicit obedience—or else !’

  Miss Gay giggled.

  ‘It isn’t that,’ she said. ‘And it isn’t the Romeo in you, because there isn’t.’

  ‘Isn’t what? Look at that young boar we were so worried about last week. Putting him in with the little hog pig has bucked up his appetite no end. Nothing like rivalry to make a boar show what he’s made of.’

  ‘There you go again!’ said the amused and exasperated Miss Gay. ‘I believe you’d take a lot more interest in us if we were pigs.’

  ‘Well, of course I should. Pigs are infinitely more interesting than callow young women.’

  ‘It’s a good thing all men don’t think alike, then. When are you taking us to that bacon-curing place ? I hate to think of our pigs ending up as streaky and long back rashers.’

  ‘I know. It is sad, but life’s like that. I’m not sure that I myself wouldn’t rather end up that way, though, appreciated to the last, and of some use, even in death.’

  Miss Gay giggled.

  ‘Even your jokes aren’t a bit like his,’ she said. ‘But when I heard he’d broken his leg I was simply terribly upset. He was quite a heart-throb, you know. He came here from Highpepper.’

  ‘Did he ? I suppose he considered his talents were wasted among the Philistines.—Miss Morris, lift that piglet by one hind leg and the shoulders. No, you won’t hurt him that way. Gentle but firm—that’s it.’

  ‘He couldn’t manage the men, so I heard,’ said Miss Gay, mucking out rapidly. ‘Why is it that, when we let these animals out for exercise, they make straight for the nearest mud and then come back and rock and roll on my nice clean straw?’