Death of a Burrowing Mole
Gladys Mitchell
Bradley 62
A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0
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Contents
Chapter 1: A Rumour of Buried Treasure
Chapter 2: Castle in the Sand
Chapter 3: Donkey-Work
Chapter 4: Little Rifts Within the Lute
Chapter 5: Attempts to Get Arbitration
Chapter 6: Humpty Dumpty
Chapter 7: Alibis
Chapter 8: Interested Parties
Chapter 9: Retractions and Explanations
Chapter 10: Edward, Nicholas and Susannah
Chapter 11: Private and Other Conversations
Chapter 12: Disappearance of the Hired Help
Chapter 13: Vandalism
Chapter 14: Interim Reports
Chapter 15: A Body in the Woods
Chapter 16: Secondary Burial
Chapter 17: Ways and Means
Chapter 18: Lordly Dishes
Also by Gladys Mitchell
speedy death • spotted hemlock
mystery of a butcher’s shop • the man who grew tomatoes
the longer bodies • say it with flowers
the saltmarsh murders • the nodding canaries
death at the opera • my bones will keep
the devil at saxon wall • adders on the heath
dead man’s morris • death of a delft blue
come away death • pageant of murder
st. peter’s finger • the croaking raven
printer’s error • skeleton island
brazen tongue • three quick and five dead
hangman’s curfew • dance to your daddy
when last i died • gory dew
laurels are poison • lament for leto
the worsted viper • a hearse on may day
sunset over soho • the murder of busy lizzie
my father sleeps • a javelin for jonah
the rising of the moon • winking at the brim
here comes a chopper • convent of styx
death and the maiden • late, late in the evening
the dancing druids • noonday and night
tom brown’s body • fault in the structure
groaning spinney • wraiths and changelings
the devil’s elbow • mingled with venom
the echoing strangers • nest of vipers
merlin’s furlong • mudflats of the dead
faintley speaking • uncoffin’d clay
watson’s choice • the whispering knights
twelve horses and the hangman’s noose
the twenty-third man • the death-cap dancers
here lies gloria mundy • death of a burrowing mole
Michael Joseph LONDON
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd
44 Bedford Square, London WC1, 1982
© 1982 by Gladys Mitchell
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright owner
ISBN 0 7181 2158 9
Printed by Hollen Street Press Ltd, Slough, Berkshire and bound by Hunter and Foulis, Edinburgh.
Two undergraduates decide to spend the long vacation searching for treasure which local legend indicates was buried in a castle well during the Civil War.
When the youths get to the site they are dismayed to find that other parties have also obtained permission to work there. Some archaeologists are hoping to excavate a Bronze Age barrow and two architects, with their helpers, intend to attempt a partial reconstruction of the walls and flanking-towers of the castle.
One of the archaeologists is also an amateur astronomer. One night, while studying the stars, he falls from the top of the keep… to his death.
The fall is regarded with suspicion when the police discover that all fingerprints have been cleaned off the dead man’s telescope. Then two brutal murders are committed on the site and it falls to Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and the local police to solve the mystery of the deaths.
The treasure? Well, the castle is easily identifiable, so no metal detectors please!
To MILLICENT AND PATRICK
with the love and best wishes of their eccentric aunt
AUTHOR ’S NOTE
My warmest thanks to Sister Mary Martina McKeown, O.P., who sent me the newspaper cutting on which this story of buried treasure is based.
1
A Rumour of Buried Treasure
^ »
Dear Godmother,’ (wrote Bonamy Monkswood), ‘thank you very much for my birthday cheque. As usual it will come in uncommon useful. I wonder, though, whether I’ve collared it under false pretences, as Tom Hassocks and I have changed our minds about going to Greece. Instead, we are planning to spend the whole of the summer vac hunting for buried treasure.
‘What happened was this: towards the end of the term Tom was rooting about in a secondhand bookshop in search of material for his thesis on sheepfarming, when he came upon this folder containing half a dozen numbers of the county magazine. The copies were nice and clean and the folder, which was one of these clip-in affairs which are nearly as handy as having a bound volume, looked as good as new, so Tom thought that, when he had done with it, it would make a present for an uncle he is keeping in with, the old boy being a bit of an enthusiast for old customs and local legends and so forth, and the mags are crammed with such.
‘Well, Tom thumbed them through and, although there was nothing much which would help his thesis along, there was this account of a ruined castle and its hidden treasure. I know these romantic stories are two a penny, but this particular one seemed more authentic and more likely than most.
‘The castle, built by the Normans on a hill which had been an early Saxon stronghold abandoned after the end of the Danish wars, was enlarged and altered during the Middle Ages and was held by the Royalists against Cromwell’s troops during the Civil War.
‘Well, the story told in the county magazine was that gold, silver and jewels had been collected from various Royalist sources and stored at the castle until they could be melted down or sold abroad to aid the Royalist cause.
‘When the garrison realised that the castle could not withstand further siege, but would have to surrender in the end, the treasure was dropped into a castle well in the hope that it would be safe there until the king got on top (which, of course, he never did) and the treasure resurrected and used to carry on the war.
‘When the castle was surrendered and evacuated, the Parliamentary army never found the stuff because, out of spite for having been kept at bay so long, they trained their artillery again on the empty buildings and reduced them more or less to rubble. The fallen masonry blocked the well so effectively that nobody knew where it had been and so the treasure, according to the account in the magazine, has never been found and must still be there. Apparently there is a cryptic reference to it in the county records.
‘I’m not saying that I regard this as anything more than a fairy-tale; on the other hand, there may be something in it. Very few people inside the castle itself knew anything about the disposal of the treasure or even of its existence, and it is quite likely that those few who had been trusted with the secret were killed when the castle was taken.
‘Tom has written to the owner of the estate on which the shell of the castle stands and has received permission to do a little restoration work. No mention of the treasure, of course, but I suppose that, if we do find anything, it will be crown property unless the coroner decides it belongs to the landowner. I am not up in these things, and anyway we have not found the stuff yet!’