PAGEANT OF MURDER
Gladys Mitchell
Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley 38
Contents
CHAPTER ONE: The Special Sub-Committee Meets
CHAPTER TWO: So Does an Inner Circle
CHAPTER THREE: Town Hall Rehearsal
CHAPTER FOUR: The Day of the Pageant
CHAPTER FIVE: Doings at Squire’s Acre and the Town Hall
CHAPTER SIX: The Reclamation of Falstaff
CHAPTER SEVEN: Exit a Poor Player
CHAPTER EIGHT: Councillor Perse Takes a Hand
CHAPTER NINE: The Death of Henry VIII
CHAPTER TEN: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Environs of Brayne
CHAPTER TWELVE: Head Tucked Underneath His Arm
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Second Pageant, Part One
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Second Pageant, Part Two
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Death of Edward III
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Some Questions Answered
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Dame Beatrice Puts In Her Oar
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Sunday School Point of View
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Droit de Seigneur
CHAPTER TWENTY: On the Trail of a Youthful Councillor
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Batty-Faudrey Angle
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Special Sub-Committee Disbands
The dull but important little town of Brayne, situated somewhere between London and Windsor, is celebrating its new status as a borough. Among other festivities, the Council have decided to stage an historical pageant. Along with other celebrities are figured Shakespeare’s Falstaff and two English Kings—Henry VIII and Edward III.
The persons taking these parts are apparently innocent and harmless, and yet, in turn, all three are murdered, not, it seems, so much for their own sins as for the long-ago short-comings of the characters they represent in the pageant.
Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley and her secretary, Laura Gavin, succeed in unravelling the mystery, Laura by making a somewhat gruesome discovery in the little river on which Brayne stands, and Dame Beatrice by applying to the case what the immortal Jeeves would call “the psychology of the individual.”
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
Death of a Delft Blue
LONDON HOUSE & MAXWELL
NEW YORK
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. 65-20725
© 1965 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 my dear Helen Brace, with love, and with many thanks for giving me the special copy of Fred Turner’s book on Brentford
“Tout passe; l’amitié reste”
Author’s Note
All the quotations which follow the chapter headings in this book are taken from History and Antiquities of Brentford by the late Fred Turner, F.R.Hist.S.
CHAPTER ONE
The Special Sub-Committee Meets
“It may therefore serve a useful purpose, if, at this point, we devote a few moments to the consideration of the subject.”
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It having been signified by the Council,” said Councillor Topson, the chairman, “as how we are going to celebrate being made into a borough, it is our duty, being appointed the special sub-committee for arrangements, to seek ways and means to bring the said borough into public notice. The Chair is open to any suggestions.”
“What about a sports-day for the children?”
“Church parade of the Council, with fully-choral service?”
“Plant a tree in the park?”
“A civic dinner at The Hat With Feather?”
“A tea for the old folks?”
“A competition for the best front garden?”
“Open-air dancing in the park, with flood-lighting and a platform for the band?”
“Historical pageant, indicating the development of the town?”
The last suggestion came from a man named Perse. He was the youngest recruit to the Council, and there were those who wished that he had never been voted in.
“Sports day for the children?” said Councillor Topson. “That will be taken care of, anyway. Nothing takes place in this town—soon to be a borough—without a sports day for the children. Have to see about prizes, that’s all. Church parade? Well, naturally, the Mayor will have to be churched. It’s the understood thing, so both them suggestions are in.”
“What about planting a tree in the park?” persisted the woman Councillor who had suggested this. The chairman beamed at her.
“A ruddy good idea, Councillor Mrs Skifforth,” he said. “We could have a Mayor’s Avenue, as time goes on. I have seen such a memorial before. Very effective and nice, and we’ll certainly propose it. But we need something a little more lively and entertaining as well. Now, Councillor Perse, what was your suggestion?”
“Oh, I withdraw it,” said young Mr Perse airily. “It doesn’t seem necessary, if we are to have all the other things.”
“We are open to all suggestions, Councillor, so, if you would oblige with yours again, I’m sure members of this sub-committee would be honoured to consider of it,” said the chairman, with heavy irony.
“Well, in that case, I thought that, being roughly, so to speak, on the road to Windsor, we might put on an historical pageant, showing the development of the town from a Thames-side village to its new status of borough, if you see what I mean.”
“I like that idea. It’s classy. But wouldn’t it need words and music?”
“We’ve got the town band. As to words, I don’t see those would be necessary. All we’d need would be a printed programme, to be sold beforehand in shops and the market, setting out the order of the pageant and what the various floats were representing.”
“Councillor Band’s brother runs a printing press,” said the member who had proposed the church parade. “He might do the job at reduced rates, if approached official and patriotic-like.”
“And he might not!” said the member who had proposed a tea for the old folks. “If he knows it’s for the Council, it will be the reverse, if I know anything. But I like the idea of a pageant. I vote the chairman puts it to the meeting.”
“If it’s to be historical, then it’s got to be something people have heard about, or had learned ’em at school,” said the chairman thoughtfully.