City of Gold and Shadows
Ellis Peters
Felse Family 12
A 3S digital back-up edition v2.0
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Contents
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Charlotte Rossignol couldn’t imagine why Great-Uncle Alan’s solicitor had sent for her. She had never even seen her distinguished relative other than on the television screen. Now, she was told, he had set off into Turkey with the intention of spending a year on archaeological research there, and in Istanbul had unaccountably cancelled all his careful arrangements, and vanished. His non-return was causing problems. And Charlotte was his next-of-kin and potential heiress.
An admirable beginning for an unusual thriller—but this is much more than a thriller. In its description of the Roman site on the Welsh border, where most of the story unfolds, it is romantic, detailed, authentic and presents a beautiful landscape. Among the characters, all observed with care, detail and affection, are two young women who are astonishingly individual and memorable.
In its account of the site itself, called Aurae Phiala, and its history, there rings a passion for all knowledge of the remains of the ancient past.
The actions of the characters, and the motives from which they spring, interlock perfectly with a mystery that constantly twists, turns and baffles. The whole is as faultless as a complete tapestry.
Ellis Peters has a high reputation as a story teller, and a wide readership. She has excelled herself here in a story of many powerful ingredients that lead to a devastating end.
by the same author
DEATH MASK
THE WILL AND THE DEED
DEATH AND THE JOYFUL WOMAN
FUNERAL OF FIGARO
FLIGHT OF A WITCH
A NICE DERANGEMENT OF EPITAPHS
THE PIPER ON THE MOUNTAIN
BLACK IS THE COLOUR OF MY TRUE-LOVE’S HEART
THE GRASS WIDOW’S TALE
THE HOUSE OF GREEN TURF
MOURNING RAGA
THE KNOCKER ON DEATH’S DOOR
DEATH TO THE LANDLORDS!
Copyright © 1973 Ellis Peters
ISBN: 0-333-15003-1 / 978-0-333-15003-0 (UK edition)
Publisher: Macmillan
CHAPTER ONE
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Mr Stanforth came from behind his desk to meet his visitor in person, and settle her with ceremony into the client’s chair, though she was not a client, had no need whatever of a solicitor, and had come here in response to his telephoned request chiefly out of pure curiosity, of which she had a woman’s proper share. Mr Stanforth was not entirely what she had expected, but neither, she deduced from the covert glances he was using upon her like measuring instruments, was she quite matching up to his preconceived picture of her. He was small and nimble and immaculate in fine grey mohair, with a clever, froggish, mildly mischievous face, like a very well-turned-out troll from under some Scandinavian mountain. But towards her he was being punctilious in a way which seemed slightly out of character, as though he did not quite know how to approach her, even though it was he who had brought her here.
Her part was easy. She had only to sit back with perfect composure—something at which she was adept—and wait for him to find his way through the necessary preliminaries to the real business of this meeting. After all, he had initiated it. He must have some need of her; she had none of him. This could not even be a matter of learning something to her advantage. Her mind—and she was well aware that it was an elastic and enterprising mind—was quite open. Perhaps that was what baffled him about her. She should have been more concerned, more anxious to know what he had to confide, since he had invited her here for that very purpose.
‘Mademoiselle Rossignol, it’s very kind of you to spare me a little of your time…’
‘Miss will do,’ said Charlotte helpfully. ‘I’m almost completely English, you know, apart from the name, although I’ve lived most of my life in France. My father walked out on my mother when I was seven, so the English influence came out on top from then on.’ Her mother, flighty as a butterfly, had heaved a sigh of relief at getting rid of a whole entrenched family along with Maître Henri Rossignol, who still, perhaps, coloured Charlotte’s image of the law, and made Mr Stanforth incongruous, with his pricked ears and his mild, perilous, goatish hazel eyes.
‘That certainly makes things easier,’ he said heartily, and leaned across the monumental desk to offer her a cigarette and a light. He was just warming up; she knew the signs, knowing quite accurately the effect her looks had on most males of most ages. What she had was not beauty, and she had learned that early, and come to terms with it, being of a practical mind. But there was something more adventurous than beauty in her, a tendency to surge forward into situations somewhat risky in their ambiguity, a taste for accepting any challenge that offered, and a manner and a gait to match the proclivity. Angels might well have feared to tread where Charlotte habitually planted her size four sandals with zest and aplomb.
‘You must be wondering,’ said Mr Stanforth, approaching by inches, ‘why I asked you to come here like this. It was pure luck, my seeing that notice of your concert. There couldn’t be many Charlotte Rossignols who happen also to play the oboe. So I made enquiries at the hall. It was an opportunity for me. I hope you didn’t mind my asking you to come here. I would gladly have come to you, but I thought we could talk more freely here than in an hotel. Briefly, I need to ask you, my dear Miss Rossignol, if you have had any word within the last year from your great-uncle, Doctor Alan Morris.’
There was a moment of absolute silence and surprise. Her eyes had opened wide in wonder, and the light entered their long-lashed blackness and turned it to a dusky, flecked gold. Her small, delicate monkey-features quivered into childish candour, reassuring him that for all her formidable composure she was, indeed, no more than twenty-three. She had fine, white skin, not opaque and dull, but translucent and bright, with the vivid come-and-go of vibrant blood close beneath it; and she had beautiful hair, fine as an infant’s and black as jet, curving but not curling about a very shapely head, and cropped cunningly to underline the subtlety of the shaping. Oh, yes, there was a great deal of France there, whether she knew it or not. And her lips, opening to reply to his question, were long and mobile, eloquent even before she spoke, though she might sometimes go on to contradict what they had intimated.
‘Mr Stanforth,’ she said now, ‘I’ve never once in my life had any communication from my Great-Uncle Alan. I’ve never set eyes on him. I know quite a lot about his work and his reputation, and am quite proud of him, but I don’t expect ever to exchange one word with him. My mother was his niece, and the only daughter of his only sister, but she was as foot-loose as he, and when she married into France she never kept in touch with her English connections at all. I grew up detached. I’m sorry if it seems almost unnatural. It wasn’t out of any want of feeling. No, I’ve had no word ever from Doctor Morris. I should have been very astonished and concerned if I had. I should have taken it for granted there was something the matter.’
Mr Stanforth massaged his sharp jaw with one finger, and looked thoughtful.
‘Is there?’ asked Charlotte, making connections with her usual rash speed. ‘Something the matter?’
‘That’s exactly the trouble, we don’t really know. Naturally I hope not, and the probability is that we’re exercising ourselves over nothing. But the fact remains, we can’t be sure. I’m not surprised,’ he agreed, ‘that you’ve received no word from him, but it was just a chance.’