Death of a Delft Blue
Gladys Mitchell
Dame Bradley 37
1964
A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0
click for scan notes and proofing history
Contents
preamble
chapter one: a conference ends
chapter two: a dinner in amsterdam
chapter three: scottish air on a barrel-organ
chapter four: maastricht and valkenburg
chapter five: a dinner in north norfolk
chapter six: aftermath of a dinner party
chapter seven: disappearance of an heir
chapter eight: concern about the dispossessed
chapter nine: speculation about a troglodyte
chapter ten: maastricht and valkenburg revisited
chapter eleven: laura the sleuth
chapter twelve: towards kinderscout
chapter thirteen: eldon hole
chapter fourteen: no stone unturned
chapter fifteen: gavin reports
chapter sixteen: a delft blue at bay
chapter seventeen: dinner with bernardo
chapter eighteen: the she-bear defends her grand-cub
chapter nineteen: analysis of three reactions
chapter twenty: north norfolk again
chapter twenty-one: pursuit of a delft blue
chapter twenty-two: death of a delft blue
DEATH OF A DELFT BLUE
Death of a Delft Blue revolves around three interrelated families, the Colwyn-Welch family who are English-Dutch, the van Zestiens, who are Dutch-Danish and the family called Rose. Binnen Colwyn-Welch obtains her quite considerable income from her Dutch father’s bulb-fields. She lives in Amsterdam with her two unmarried daughters, and it is to Amsterdam that Florian Colwyn-Welch goes to sit to a sculptor and to have a painting made of his right hand holding a Delft Blue hyacinth. From this sitting he does not return.
The motive for his murder is unusual, but for the murderer it is overriding and would have been perfectly comprehensible to James Elroy Flecker. It was also comprehensible to Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley: and though her secretary, Laura Gavin, reached the same solution, she did so not by logic, but by chance and a tune played on a barrel-organ.
By the same author
DEAD MAN’S MORRIS
COME AWAY DEATH
ST PETER’S FINGER
PRINTER’S ERROR
BRAZEN TONGUES
HANGMAN’S CURFEW
WHEN LAST I DIED
LAURELS ARE POISON
THE WORSTED VIPER
SUNSET OVER SOHO
MY FATHER SLEEPS
THE RISING OF THE MOON
HERE COMES A CHOPPER
DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
THE DANCING DRUIDS
TOM BROWN’S BODY
GROANING SPINNEY
THE DEVIL’S ELBOW
THE ECHOING STRANGERS
MERLIN’S FURLONG
FAINTLY SPEAKING
WATSON’S CHOICE
TWELVE HORSES AND THE
HANGMAN’S NOOSE
THE TWENTY-THIRD MAN
SPOTTED HEMLOCK
THE MAN WHO GREW TOMATOES
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS
THE NODDING CANARIES
MY BONES WILL KEEP
ADDERS ON THE HEATH
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1965 BY LONDON HOUSE & MAXWELL
A DIVISION OF THE BRITISH BOOK CENTRE, INC. 122 EAST 55TH STREET, NEW YORK 22, NEW YORK
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 65-17413
© copyright 1964 by Gladys Mitchell
Set and printed in Great Britain by Tonbridge Printers Ltd, Peach Hall Works, Tonbridge, Kent, in Times ten on eleven point, on paper made by Henry Bruce at Currie, Midlothian, and bound by James Burn at Esher, Surrey
To
Marjorie K. Avery, o.b.e.
and
Marjorie Beer,
who were kind enough to provide me with the Netherlands setting for this book
Preamble
‘A Fortnight in Holland.’
Title of a book by Leslie Bransby
^ »
According to the guide books, Scheveningen, on the Netherlands side of the North Sea, has developed over the centuries from a mere fishing-village to a popular resort. It boasts excellent hotels, fine beaches, possesses every facility for boating and bathing and can offer all the other forms of amusement which a holiday-maker is likely to require.
Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley and her secretary, Laura Gavin, preferred to stay in it rather than in the neighbouring, more dignified but less frivolous city of The Hague, so each morning Dame Beatrice, who was in Holland to attend what her secretary described as ‘a gathering of the vultures’ — in other words, a general conference on higher education — armed herself with her notebooks, her lecture notes, some typed pages of what Laura termed ‘irrelevant answers to improbable questions’ and betook herself to Noordeinde and the historic house in which the conference was to be held. This left Laura in Scheveningen to amuse herself as she pleased for most of the day.
Laura lounged and swam, visited the Municipal Museum and strolled several times along the two-mile esplanade called the Boulevard and also along its higher promenade, the Zeekant. Every afternoon, upon the return of Dame Beatrice, she and her employer took a short walk before returning to their hotel for dinner, and, at table, exchanged the news of the day, Dame Beatrice giving witty, although not unkindly, reports of her fellow-delegates and Laura responding with an account of her own activities.
One morning, after having seen Dame Beatrice off, Laura decided to explore the old part of the town which lay behind the harbour. There were picturesque houses in narrow streets and the harbour itself was a fine and interesting sight, with dozens of vessels, mostly fishing-boats, all moored in neat lines with clear channels between them. It was early in the day, but there were crowds of people on the waterfront, including the usual bevy of Dutch cyclists, and Laura was standing gazing at the scene and enjoying the noise and bustle on the quay, when a girl of about nineteen or twenty approached her.
‘I say, do excuse me for asking, but are you English?’ the girl enquired.
‘Well, actually, I’m a Scot,’ Laura replied. ‘Why? Anything I can do?’
‘It’s about the money, if you don’t mind.’
‘Oh?’ said Laura, whose bump of caution was not highly developed but who had an instinctive objection to being accosted by perfect strangers if financial transactions were to be involved.
‘It’s about the Dutch coinage,’ the girl explained. ‘You see, I rather want to take a few presents back with me, but I haven’t unlimited cash, so I want to lay it out to the best advantage, and I just don’t really understand what the Dutch notes and coins are worth.’
‘Oh, well, it’s simple enough if you take the Dutch guilder as being worth about two shillings in our money.’
‘Yes, I know about the guilder, but they seem to have frightful coins called rijksdaalder and kwartje and dubbletje and stuiver. Grandma won’t help me and Bernardo only laughs. He’s half-Jewish, you see, and understands about the exchange, and all that sort of thing.’
‘Well, the rijksdaalder is worth about five shillings. The kwartje is about sixpence, the dubbletje is roughly twopence-halfpenny and the stuiver is equal to a little over a penny. Its value is five cents, and there are a hundred cents to the guilder. Think in terms of cents and guilders, and you can’t go wrong,’ said Laura briskly.