Nest Of Vipers
Gladys Mitchell
Bradley 55
A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0
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Contents
Chapter One: Unexpected Legacy
Chapter Two: Nest of Vipers
Chapter Three: Departure of Miss Minnie
Chapter Four: Routine Enquiries
Chapter Five: The Case for the Police
Chapter Six: The New Tenant
Chapter Seven: Personal Questions
Chapter Eight: Niobe, All Tears
Chapter Nine: Billie and the Witch
Chapter Ten: The Junk Shop
Chapter Eleven: The Elysian Fields
Chapter Twelve: Discoveries
Chapter Thirteen: Another Case for the Police
Chapter Fourteen: The Yataghan
Chapter Fifteen: The Witches and Mr Shard
Chapter Sixteen: Assessments and Conclusions
NEST OF VIPERS
A young man is left a totally unexpected fortune together with a neglected but very large house which he turns into flats. Murder is followed by the arrest of the young landlord, and a second murder takes place. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley solves both mysteries and makes certain that the second murderer is put beyond the reach of the law, a moral judgment for which she takes full responsibility.
OTHER GLADYS MITCHELL TITLES IN LARGE PRINT
Noonday and Night
Winking at the Brim
Watson’s Choice
Convent on Styx
My Bones Will Keep
Fault in the Structure
Faintley Speaking
Late, Late in the Evening
Wraiths and Changlings
Nest of Vipers
MAGNA PRINT BOOKS
Long Preston
Yorkshire * England
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Mitchell, Gladys
Nest of vipers. - Large print ed.
I. Title
823'.912[F] PR6025.1832N/
ISBN 0-86009-306-9
First Published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd. 1979
Copyright © 1979 by Gladys Mitchell
Published in Large Print 1981 by arrangement with Michael Joseph Ltd. London
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.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Limited Trowbridge and Esher.
To
ISHMA
with love
‘Give me the forest, so that I can be
Free at long last to be at one with Thee.“
Margaret Anna Borg
Chapter One
Unexpected Legacy
^ »
(1)
CLAUD RUFFORD, of Cox, Cox, Rufford and Cox, sat impassively on a hard chair watching his client who was walking to and fro, reminding him of one of the larger cats at the London Zoo.
‘So there it is,’ said the client, ‘and how I’m going to get out of it I simply haven’t a clue.’
‘We’ve briefed the best man in Britain,’ said the solicitor. ‘Sir Ferdinand works wonders with a jury.’
‘He’ll need to work miracles,’ said the caged leopard, coming to a halt. ‘I’ve been framed. I know I’ve been framed, but I can’t put a finger on the criminal. I’ve been over and over in my mind—’
‘Sir Ferdinand wants you to write everything down.’
‘What’s the good of that? I’ve already made a statement.’
‘His mother is the Home Office psychiatrist.’
‘Good Lord! I’m not a mental case.’
‘Dame Beatrice is also a noted criminologist. She has solved dozens of cases in her time. Sir Ferdinand believes your story and he thinks that a written account, apart from any statement you may have made to the police, might bring out details which would suggest something to Dame Beatrice. You are a novelist, so the writing shouldn’t present any difficulty from your point of view. I need not advise you not to embroider your account. She can detect a lie or an exaggeration as though it literally stinks.’
‘I’ve been over the whole thing, first with the police and then with you. There is nothing I can add. I’ve told the truth and there’s no more to be said.’
‘Very well, but I think it’s short-sighted of you to ignore advice. And I don’t need to tell you that we’ve very little ammunition at present.’
‘Oh, well, it will help to while away the time, I suppose, if I write an unofficial version.’
‘Good man. I’ll have writing materials sent in. All the details, mind. Treat it as though it was part of your next novel, except that it will be solid fact, not fiction.’
(2)
I have been told to tell you everything, Dame Beatrice, so here goes. It began when I came into money and property by one of those freakish decrees of fortune which make truth so much more unlikely than fiction. I was young, ambitious and, at the time, profoundly dissatisfied with my lot, too poor to marry and hating my bread-and-butter job which did not leave me enough leisure to do the thing I badly wanted to do. Like so many young men who have had a university education, I wanted to write.
One January morning I read a newspaper advertisement of a trip to Madeira by passenger-cargo boat. The fares quoted seemed reasonable so I sent for the brochure, made an assessment of my savings and decided that, by careful budgeting, I could just about afford the lowest price for accommodation on the cruise.
I wrote off at once and secured a berth for the following July. The ship, a vessel of four thousand tons, left from Liverpool carrying a mixed cargo. Eighty passengers were taken and the only amenities on board were one deck tennis court, shuffleboard, deck golf, quoits, a canvas tank big enough to allow one to swim a couple of yards and a small, tatty library, and even this had to be housed in a smoking-room cum bar which also did duty as the only lounge.
In spite of the simplicity, almost the austerity, of the arrangements, I think we enjoyed ourselves. Most of us were young and, except for a middle-aged lady who occupied the so-called de luxe cabin amidships and, on the strength of this, reserved for her exclusive use the only deck-shelter available, I suspect that the others had had to save money for the holiday, just as I had, and needed to watch their holiday spending rather anxiously.
The ship was to stay thirty-six hours off Madeira, but, before we could be taken ashore, the cargo for the port of Funchal had to be landed. We were anchored out in the bay and for some time our amusement was provided by bumboat-men and diving-boys who came out to the ship in their own little craft and touted vociferously for our spare cash.
After they had returned to the quay, our crew let down the passenger ladder so that we could be taken ashore. The water was so calm and clear that, as the diving-boys had demonstrated, you could see a coin lying on the sand at a depth of thirty feet.
I approached the deck steward and asked whether there was time for a swim before we went ashore. He replied that there was about an hour before the ship’s boats would be leaving. He warned me that the water was deeper than it looked. Soon all of us who could swim were in the water, and so was our cabin de luxe passenger, who, although she could manage one or two floundering strokes, was not, in my sense of the words, a swimmer.
Whether the clearness of the water deceived her as to its depth, whether she did not realise that water deep enough to float a ship, even one of our tonnage, was too deep for her to be able to put her feet down when she was tired, I do not know. Suddenly she panicked, and got a mouthful of water as she submerged. However, I had no difficulty in getting her back to the safety of the ship’s ladder, on to which she was hauled by one of the sailors.