Death of a Delft Blue (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “In return for their family history, complete with family tree, sketched (I regret to say) upon a hitherto unblemished tablecloth by Professor Sweyn, I returned their civility by recounting a short and, I trust, pithy account of my own circumstances and environment. They were charmed with my picture of you and your Amazonian exploits, and are determined to have speech with you.”

  “I see. Weren’t you brought up to tell the truth and not to embroider merely in order to disguise the poor quality of the material you were working on? Anyway, when do we attend this binge?”

  “The festivities are planned for the day after tomorrow. At my request—for the hotels are full at this time of year—Sweyn has obtained rooms for us at an hotel in which his father holds shares (for diamonds are not Mr. Bernard’s only source of wealth), and therefore we shall be able to take in something of the city tomorrow and on the following morning. In the evening Professor Sweyn will collect us from our hotel and transport us to the one in which they have chosen to entertain us.”

  “Fine! I can’t wait to meet your two professors and their Aunt Binnen. What’s her name mean, by the way? I don’t really know any Dutch, but somehow that word seems to ring a bell.”

  “Binnen means Come in,” said Dame Beatrice, solemnly.

  “Blimey!” commented Laura. “What with that, and daughters named Opal and Ruby—! Why not have called the son Diamond, while they were about it?”

  “Possibly because the daughters’ names were bestowed fortuitously. Their father, if you remember, was English and there is no reason, so far as my information goes, to connect him with Hatton Garden. Did you have a good lunch?”

  “Yes. I could now do with some exercise. What do you say to a stroll to Westbroek Park to take a look at that miniature town they’ve built there, and then perhaps a round of miniature golf by the Grand Hotel in Gevers Deynootweg?”

  “Both projects appear suited to my advanced years and physical frailty.”

  “Right, then. Let’s go.”

  The walk along the promenade was pleasant, although a fresh breeze was blowing inland from the North Sea. Stone breakwaters in the form of jetties took the force of the sea itself and protected a firm sandy beach along which Laura, while the Conference was on, had walked for miles to the north and from which, at least twice a day, she had swum. There were dunes behind the beach proper, but these were fenced in, except for occasional narrow paths which accommodated walkers and the ubiquitous cyclist. The fencing was to protect the grasses whose roots held down the light and shifting sand.

  Dame Beatrice and Laura walked as far north as the turning to Zwolsestraat and then, at Dame Beatrice’s suggestion, they turned about and went as far as Keiserstraat before returning to Gevers Deynootweg and the Grand Hotel for their game of miniature golf. It was the only game, except for chess and croquet, at which Dame Beatrice could always beat Laura. This gave great satisfaction to both.

  They had just concluded a round of the miniature golf when a young fresh voice hailed Laura.

  “I say! This is fun! It’s you again!” it cried. Laura and Dame Beatrice waited politely for the girl to join them. She was, of course, Laura’s pupil in the lesson on the Anglo-Dutch rate of exchange.

  “Hullo,” said Laura, with little warmth of tone. “Lovely day, isn’t it? We’ve just finished playing miniature golf.”

  “Oh, that’s what I thought I would do. I suppose . . . it isn’t much fun going round on one’s own . . .”

  Laura and Dame Beatrice exchanged glances. Laura raised her eyebrows, indicating her willingness to accede to the unspoken request. Dame Beatrice nodded and (most mendaciously) said that she would be very glad of a rest before returning to the hotel. She would hire a beach-chair, she added, and Laura could come and find her when they had finished their game.

  “How went the purchases?” asked Laura of the girl, when Dame Beatrice had left them. “Any luck?”

  “Oh, yes, but the things seem awfully expensive here. I wondered, after I’d bought them, whether I wouldn’t have done better to wait until we went to Amsterdam. Still, I had to get something for Gran and the aunts, who live in Amsterdam, and I suppose they’d much rather have things that came from somewhere else.”

  “If they live in Amsterdam, why on earth didn’t you bring them something from England?” Laura enquired. “I should have thought it was the obvious thing.”

  “You don’t know Gran. She loathes everything English since our English grandfather died of flu in London. I believe she even loathes my brother and me quite a bit, simply because we live in England instead of over here. She grows bulbs—tulips, hyacinths, daffodils—and she’s always talking about Admiral van Tromp and things like that.”

  “Oh, yes, the Dutch carrying-trade and our rather dog-in-the-manger attitude regarding it. Well, I can’t say I blame her,” observed Laura.

  “Anyway, I bought her a bit of Delft china and the aunts a tiny silver pin-tray each,” said the girl, “I don’t know what to take home for Granduncle. He’s got everything. I shall have to take him some Dutch cigars, but, of course, he can get those in England. Mamma and Papa will just have to go on hoping. I can’t possibly afford anything for them this time.”

  “Oh, well, then,” said Laura cheerfully, “you’ll have only your granduncle’s present to pay Customs duty on, won’t you? I don’t think we need toss for innings. You drive off, and may the best man win.”

  “I say, I do like you,” said the girl, touching Laura’s arm.

  “Oh, so do lots of people,” said Laura, irritably. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve bothered you. I’m sorry.”

  Laura felt that she had been piggish, and they finished the game in silence and then went to find Dame Beatrice.

  “I’m sorry to have taken your daughter away from you,” said the girl, with apparent contrition and sincerity.

  “You flatter me,” responded Dame Beatrice. “Laura is not related to me, but, if she were, she would be my granddaughter, not my daughter. There would be a generation between.”

  “Sez you!” said Laura. “Well, we’d better be going.” She added to the girl, “Goodbye, and thanks for the game.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve wasted your time,” said the girl. “I’d counted on my brother, but he decided to go to Amsterdam a day early, and my uncles have gone there, too. They are planning a ghastly dinner-party. They’re giving it for some awful people they met at a Hague conference. Florian—that’s my brother—wants to do the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and then tour the red light quarter. He wouldn’t let me go with him. I suppose I can see his point, although I’m quite as much of a sociologist as he is, if it comes to that. Anyway, that’s why I’m on my own this afternoon.”

  “And the other morning?” Laura could not forbear to ask. “You know . . . when we met on the quay.”

  “Oh, Florian never gets up before ten. He never has breakfast, you see. And the Uncles van Zestien were away at that silly Conference I mentioned.”

  “I see. Well, to save embarrassment later, perhaps I’d better tell you,” said Laura, “that we are the awful people for whom the Professors van Zestien are giving the ghastly dinner-party. I take it that you will be present, so we’ll just say au revoir and toddle along.” She grinned, and patted the stricken girl kindly on the shoulder. “Don’t weaken,” she added. “All’s forgiven and forgotten, to coin a phrase.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Dinner in Amsterdam

  “. . . .there was sharp stylistic differentiation in the arts and crafts of tribes whose broad culture pattern was the same.”

  G.C.Vaillant

  Dame Beatrice and Laura explored Amsterdam first of all by steamer from the Stationsplein. Unlike those of Venice, the Amsterdam canals are bordered, for the most part, by streets. Moreover, they do not form a network so much as a woven pattern of concentric circles, and the same bridge may span four, or even more, of these canals at a time
.

  Laura and Dame Beatrice had been on the steamer for not more than a few minutes when they heard the sound of a barrel-organ for the first time.

  “Hullo! Pop music,” said Laura.

  “I have been told,” said Dame Beatrice, “that one should by no means neglect to take the opportunity of inspecting one of these anachronisms. They are said to be decorated by figures which behave in a human manner and to be one of the show-pieces of the city. Incidentally, they may furnish us with a subject of conversation at this evening’s festivities.”

  “Any subject to be avoided, by the way? One likes to be forewarned,” said Laura.

  “So far as the professors are concerned, none at all. Of their relatives’ sensitivities, of course, I cannot speak with any assurance.”

  “One usually has to avoid discussing politics and religion.”

  “They are very much better avoided, in my case, as I know little of either, and could not discuss them intelligently, however much I might wish to do so.”

  The pleasant jumble of houses slid by. The voice of the professional guide droned on. The white-painted pleasure steamer passed beneath bridge after bridge. The boat was broad, squat, comfortable, and had a glass roof. Time passed. Empty barges, painted coal-black and bearing numbers instead of names, were drawn up at quays. A large municipal building, half-obscured by trees, had a tower of red brick topped by a silver-grey spire of graceful proportions. A clock at the base of this spire gave the time as half-past twelve. In the distance was another bridge and there were more towers and a gasometer. Opposite the barges, privately-owned motorboats were at moorings. Everything looked remarkably clean.

  “Well,” said Laura, when the trip was over, “where do we go from here?”

  “Back to lunch,” replied Dame Beatrice firmly. “After that, we can see how we feel. For my own part, I am open to any suggestions which you may see fit to offer.”

  “The Rijksmuseum would give us something to talk about, if the barrel-organs pass out on us or we haven’t managed to see one.”

  “The Rijksmuseum? An excellent idea.”

  “On the other hand, there is something to be said for leaving the Dutch immortals in peace,” said Laura thoughtfully. “I don’t somehow feel I can do them justice at the dinner table. All my concentration will be on the food. What about hiring a car and going to Haarlem? From there—I’ve been looking at the map in the hotel vestibule—we could go to Zandvoort. Didn’t you once speak of yachts?”

  They spent a pleasant and comparatively lazy afternoonm and, in the evening, were conducted to the hotel at which the dinner-party was to be held. They were taken up by Sweyn to the floor on which the private dining-room was situated. With them in the lift were a squarely-built, black-haired, elderly woman and a younger one, fashionably dressed, slim and elegant. The older woman suddenly broke out with impressive vehemence.

  “So why are we mounting to these attics?” she declaimed rhetorically. “Why not a decent room on a decent floor, no?”

  “The best we can do,” said Sweyn, smiling.

  “I’m sure it will be very nice, mamma. I don’t suppose they let the ground-floor rooms to private parties,” said the young woman hastily.

  “Nice is nonsense! I am not here to be nice. For relations I have to be nice? Phooey!” She turned her back on Sweyn and, after giving an insolent stare at Dame Beatrice, who had come into her line of vision, she shrugged and sniffed.

  The lift stopped at the third floor. Laura and Dame Beatrice got out. The mother and daughter followed them and Sweyn brought up the rear. They were all conducted to a swing door and ushered in. The rest of the company, it seemed, was already gathered in the ante-room in which cocktails were being served. Soon Dame Beatrice and Laura were pounced upon by Binnie.

  “Oh, hullo,” she said. “I say, here’s a mess! Great-aunt Rebekah Rose, Bernie’s grandmother, has invited herself and Aunt Petra to the dinner. Oh, Lord! Here they are! Nobody’s safe while Great-aunt Rebekah is around. Do have some sherry or something. I hope dinner will come soon. I’m famished, wolfish and starving.”

  Dinner was announced, and at the table Laura found herself next to Sweyn van Zestien. He declared that he was delighted.

  “Oh, so am I,” said Laura. “I hear you’re an authority on rune-stones, especially those in Denmark. We’ve got some at home in Britain, but when I was in Sweden last year I was told that in about a.d. 1000 the runes took a new lease of life and the rune-stones became more numerous in Sweden than anywhere else. Would that be so?”

  Sweyn embarked upon a long, elaborate, and very learned reply. Laura listened attentively, but could not help overhearing a far more enthralling conversation which was going on elsewhere. An old, strident, self-assured voice dominated the milder tones of her relations, who were attempting to apply the soft pedal.

  “So I am paying for an empty pea-shuck, is it? So I am to be cheated by rascally shopkeepers, yes?” shouted Rebekah Rose.

  An exquisite young man, who had been introduced as Bernardo, and who was a Byronic, very handsome fellow, took issue with her.

  “Now, now, Grandmamma! You can’t expect us to swallow that one, you know! You took back an empty pea-shuck? It just sounds silly to me.”

  “Silly?” screamed his grandmother. “So what? Is silly when, in a bar, you are asking for whisky and paying for it, too, and you get an empty glass? That would be silly, isn’t it, when you don’t complain?”

  “It’s not the same thing, Grandmamma, not the same thing at all. An empty pea-shuck, well, that’s only one among many, and can make no possible difference; but an empty whisky-glass is a thing in its own right, don’t you see.”

  “And a whisky-glass is accounting for all these deaths on the road, hein? A little ordinary pea-shuck is not doing that, yes? So it has no importance? Stupid boy!”

  “Runic stones in Denmark are to be found mostly in village churchyards,” pursued Sweyn’s thoughtful, cultured voice. “Many of the runes are accompanied by very interesting designs based upon those used in wood-carving. There is a notable example . . .”

  Laura tried to listen to him, but was soon defeated.

  “So I am calling you, Bernardo, an outraged twit!” screamed Bernardo’s grandmother.

  “Outrageous, not outraged! Mind your innuendos, Grandmamma,” protested the handsome Bernardo. “You should go to evening classes and learn English.”

  “So why you are dodging the synagogue?” his relative demanded hotly, taking the battle on to her own ground.

  “But I’m not dodging it, Grandmamma. I just don’t care to go, that’s all. A lot of old men in beards, and all of them wearing their hats! The synagogue doesn’t appeal to me at all, especially on a Saturday. I’d rather play golf with my friends.”

  “Of course, there was Asmund, a professional writer of runic inscriptions, who seems to have lived, (or, more likely, to have worked), somewhere between A.D. 1025 and 1050,” went on Sweyn, patiently, to Laura. “By that time, of course, Christianity had taken over, and we find a rune-stone of the period commemorating a death—the death of a much-loved son. It concludes with the words: ‘God and God’s mother help his soul.’ ”

  “So what was good enough for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, is not good enough for you!” yelled the Jewish grandmother to Bernardo.

  “But the patriarchs didn’t go to the synagogue, Grandmamma dear. There weren’t any synagogues in those days,” explained Bernardo, amused, but also slightly apprehensive.

  “So you risk to die, like poor little Isaac, for someone’s jealousy, yes?” demanded Rebekah.

  “At one time,” pursued Sweyn, “the runic alphabet was reduced to sixteen letters. Later, however . . .”

  “You’re talking through your top-knot, Grandmamma,” protested Bernardo, his voice rising higher.

  “I am? Then think of this, maybe. Who else but this Hagar is wishing to see this Isaac dead? Yahweh? Phooey! Why He should wish to murder a little small boy on the top of a h
ill? Hagar is pitched out, with child Ishmael, no? Jealousy, envy, hatred, malice, all in Sarah’s heart. She made to have Hagar turned away into the desert.

  I tell you, Abraham was got at! Why he should want to have a son by this Sarah, when he has already this beautiful little boy by slave-girl Hagar?”

  “The magical inscriptions,” went on Sweyn, “protected, not only people, but the rune-stones themselves. There is quite a powerful curse put on the Bjorketorp stone in Norway, for example.”

  “But nobody killed Isaac, Grandmamma,” argued Bernardo. “There was a ram in a thicket, if you remember.”

  “I remember good. Why not? He is in my stars, this ram. In April I am born, isn’t it? You may give me a little ram in diamonds for a coat-brooch on my birthday, April ninth. You are not forgetting?”

  “The Golden Fleece!” muttered Bernardo to Binnie, who giggled wildly and began to choke.

  “Runes,” went on Sweyn, his quiet voice now audible in the silence which had followed Rebekah’s request, “were little used from the end of the sixth century until the beginning of the eighth century. England then developed her own alphabet of twenty-eight letters and this was increased in the ninth century to the number of thirty-three.”

  “So twenty pieces of money are given for Joseph, sold into Egypt,” said Rebekah, glaring at Bernardo.

  “Bulbs,” announced Binnen, from her seat between Bernardo and his grandmother, who had been arguing with one another across her, “are of more importance than money, in my opinion. Anything which grows is of more value than something which does not grow.”

  “Money does grow,” muttered Rebekah.

  “Ah, yes, dear aunt,” said Derde, “do tell Dame Beatrice about the bulb-fields. She tells me she has a very large garden at her country home in Hampshire. I am sure she would be interested.”

  “Well, some of us would not!” shouted Rebekah. “Bulbs? Phooey! I spit on bulbs!”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” groaned Bernardo. “Be quiet, darling Grandmamma. You’re making yourself conspicuous! Look at poor Aunt Petra! She blushes for her mother!”