The Devil's Elbow Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Gladys Mitchell

  Vintage Murder Mysteries

  Title Page

  Introduction: Of and Concerning a Corpse

  Book One: Excerpts from Dan to Em

  Book Two: Mrs. Bradley’s Conversations

  Book Three: The Actions of Dan and Others

  Book Four: Recapitulation by Those Concerned

  Copyright

  About the Book

  George Jeffries is attempting to guide a coach party of eccentrics around Scotland via the treacheous mountain known as The Devil’s Elbow. But when one of the touring party is found dead, suspicion falls on the hapless Jeffries. His fiancee goes in tears to her employer, who happens to be the remarkable psychoanalyst and private investigator Mrs Bradley. Fortunately for all concerned Mrs Bradley takes the case, and employs all her singular talents in the task of finding the true murderer.

  About the Author

  Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell – or ‘The Great Gladys’ as Philip Larkin called her – was born in 1901, in Cowley in Oxfordshire. She graduated in history from University College London and in 1921 began her long career as a teacher. She studied the works of Sigmund Freud and attributed her interest in witchcraft to the influence of her friend, the detective novelist Helen Simpson.

  Her first novel, Speedy Death, was published in 1929 and introduced readers to Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, the heroine of a further sixty six crime novels. She wrote at least one novel a year throughout her career and was an early member of the Detection Club, alongside Agatha Christie, G.K Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. In 1961 she retired from teaching and, from her home in Dorset, continued to write, receiving the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger in 1976. Gladys Mitchell died in 1983.

  ALSO BY GLADYS MITCHELL

  Speedy Death

  The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop

  The Longer Bodies

  The Saltmarsh Murders

  Death and the Opera

  The Devil at Saxon Wall

  Dead Men’s Morris

  Come Away, Death

  St Peter’s Finger

  Printer’s Error

  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

  Tom Brown’s Body

  Groaning Spinney

  The Devil’s Elbow

  The Echoing Strangers

  Merlin’s Furlong

  Watson’s Choice

  Faintley Speaking

  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 the Delft Blue

  Pageant of a Murder

  The Croaking Raven

  Skeleton Island

  Three Quick and Five Dead

  Dance to Your Daddy

  Gory Dew

  Lament for Leto

  A Hearse on May-Day

  The Murder of Busy Lizzie

  Winking at the Brim

  A Javelin for Jonah

  Convent on Styx

  Late, Late in the Evening

  Noonday and Night

  Fault in the Structure

  Wraiths and Changelings

  Mingled With Venom

  The Mudflats of the Dead

  Nest of Vipers

  Uncoffin’d Clay

  The Whispering Knights

  Lovers, Make Moan

  The Death-Cap Dancers

  The Death of a Burrowing Mole

  Here Lies Gloria Mundy

  Cold, Lone and Still

  The Greenstone Griffins

  The Crozier Pharaohs

  No Winding-Sheet

  VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERIES

  With the sign of a human skull upon its back and a melancholy shriek emitted when disturbed, the Death’s Head Hawkmoth has for centuries been a bringer of doom and an omen of death – which is why we chose it as the emblem for our Vintage Murder Mysteries.

  Some say that its appearance in King George III’s bedchamber pushed him into madness. Others believe that should its wings extinguish a candle by night, those nearby will be cursed with blindness. Indeed its very name, Acherontia atropos, delves into the most sinister realms of Greek mythology: Acheron, the River of Pain in the underworld, and Atropos, the Fate charged with severing the thread of life.

  The perfect companion, then, for our Vintage Murder Mysteries sleuths, for whom sinister occurrences are never far away and murder is always just around the corner …

  MORE VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERIES

  EDMUND CRISPIN

  Buried for Pleasure

  The Case of the Gilded Fly

  Holy Disorders

  Love Lies Bleeding

  The Moving Toyshop

  Swan Song

  A. A. MILNE

  The Red House Mystery

  GLADYS MITCHELL

  Speedy Death

  The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop

  The Longer Bodies

  The Saltmarsh Murders

  Death and the Opera

  The Devil at Saxon Wall

  Dead Men’s Morris

  Come Away, Death

  St Peter’s Finger

  Brazen Tongue

  Hangman’s Curfew

  When Last I Died

  Laurels Are Poison

  Here Comes a Chopper

  Death and the Maiden

  Tom Brown’s Body

  Groaning Spinney

  The Devil’s Elbow

  The Echoing Strangers

  Watson’s Choice

  The Twenty-Third Man

  Spotted Hemlock

  My Bones Will Keep

  Three Quick and Five Dead

  Dance to Your Daddy

  A Hearse on May-Day

  Late, Late in the Evening

  Fault in the Structure

  Nest of Vipers

  MARGERY ALLINGHAM

  Mystery Mile

  Police at the Funeral

  Sweet Danger

  Flowers for the Judge

  The Case of the Late Pig

  The Fashion in Shrouds

  Traitor’s Purse

  Coroner’s Pidgin

  More Work for the Undertaker

  The Tiger in the Smoke

  The Beckoning Lady

  Hide My Eyes

  The China Governess

  The Mind Readers

  Cargo of Eagles

  E. F. BENSON

  The Blotting Book

  The Luck of the Vails

  NICHOLAS BLAKE

  A Question of Proof

  Thou Shell of Death

  There’s Trouble Brewing

  The Beast Must Die

  The Smiler With the Knife

  Malice in Wonderland

  The Case of the Abominable Snowman

  Minute for Murder

  Head of a Traveller

  The Dreadful Hollow

  The Whisper in the Gloom

  End of Chapter

  The Widow’s Cruise

  The Worm of Death

  The Sad Variety

  The Morning After Death

  GLADYS MITCHELL

  The Devil’s Elbow

  VINTAGE BOOKS

  London

  INTRODUCTION

  *

  Of and Concerning a Corpse

  * * *

  ‘I’M NO SAYING I’m glad to see you, and I’m no saying I’m I no glad to see you,’ said Inspector Mactavish. ‘Eh, weel, yon’s the body.’

  ‘And it was found on board a motor cruiser?’

  ‘Aye. Moreover, it will be an English body. Ane o’ these holiday-makers, no doubt. “See the whole o’ bo’ny Scotland for fourrty guineas inclusive.” ’ His tone combined pity, censure and amused contempt in equal proportions.

  ‘I suppose you know by this time who it was?’ enquired Detective-Inspector Gavin of Scotland Yard, himself on holiday in Scotland.

  ‘I’ll refair you to Mrs. Lestrange Bradley here, wha has been briefed by the Home Office. She kens wha it was, and she kens why we brought the body back here.’

  Mrs. Lestrange Bradley, a small, black-haired, yellow-skinned, elderly woman, waved a clawlike hand.

  ‘Holiday-maker is right,’ she agreed in a voice of surprising resonance and beauty. ‘A passenger on a touring motor-coach. As it happens, I am lucky enough to possess copies of some documents connecting the young courier who accompanied the touring party with various incidents which may help us.’ She turned her head and regarded the dead body sombrely. ‘A very nasty knock on the head,’ she observed.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Mactavish, ‘yon’s the weapon.’

  ‘Almost anybody’s weapon,’ commented Mrs. Bradley, looking at a heavy stone without much interest. ‘Well, I shall now add these documents to the pool of our common knowledge. They represent an uncensored source of information, except that, in the interest of the parties chiefly concerned, I have omitted the purple passages and have slightly emphasized the time-factor.’

  ‘You’ve never tampered with
evidence?’ demanded Mactavish, scandalized.

  ‘To the extent I have just now indicated, yes. I am under promise to Em, the owner of the documents in question’—she leered with horrid effect—‘to keep some of the matter where it properly belongs—in the dark. Here you are. Make what you can out of these.’

  She produced a bundle of typescript.

  BOOK ONE

  Excerpts from Dan to Em

  *

  ‘It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many millions of faces, there should be none alike: now contrary, I wonder as much how there should be any. He that shall consider how many thousand several words have been carelessly and without study composed out of twenty-four letters; withal, how many hundred lines there are to be drawn in the Fabrick of one Man, shall easily find that this variety is necessary.’

  Sir Thomas Browne:Religio Medici (Part 2, Section 2)

  * * *

  [1]

  I HAVE GOT the job, been briefed, and start to-morrow for bonny Scotland. There will be thirty-one passengers on the coach. There should be thirty-two, but two people turned in their reservations yesterday because one of them is ill. There was a waiting list for seats, but the agents have only been able to get rid of one place at such short notice because the others who wanted to go have fixed up elsewhere by this time.

  The head courier informs me that I may be very glad of the empty seat, as it will enable me to change my place in the coach now and again. Supposing that I get stuck with some acidulated female with an unquenchable thirst for information, I shall find myself in complete agreement with him! Anyway, I look like being luckier than last year’s courier. When he came to load up it was discovered that the agents had sold his seat with the rest, and he did the whole fortnight’s tour seated on an orange box just inside the doorway!

  I don’t know anything about any of the passengers yet except their names (which are on my list), and their home addresses (which are on a separatesheet marked Confidential).

  There are several hundred rules and regulations about taking people on a coach tour, and I have had to learn them all! I always thought motor-coaches went where they liked, so long as they weren’t obstructive, but this is far from the truth. We are licensed from county to county, must take only the roads we have permission to take, must not presume to deviate from the agreed route, must not do jaunts (we have to hire local transport if the passengers want to visit ‘places of interest’), and we must enter and leave towns by the roads agreed to. I don’t know what happens if these roads are up, or flooded, or if we lose our way. My driver has only done this trip once before, it seems, and you know how much I know of everything north of Yorkshire!

  Well, I suppose I’d better pack. One small grip each is the total luggage allowance for the passengers, and as I have to take a boiled shirt and the soup and fish, I am allowed the same. I am told that if the passengers bring more than the allowance I must contrive somehow to get it stowed. The driver is supposed to do most of the heaving and hauling, but I have to give the directions. I also have to see that all the labels stay on!

  [2]

  We were late starting from Hal’s Cross because it turned out that my driver had left his wallet and all his papers on the mantelpiece at his home, and he lives in Purley! So while he got busy on the telephone I had to see to all the luggage and get our clearance from the clerk at the coach station.

  I soon discovered that it would be impossible to store all the suitcases in the coach’s boot, enormous though this looked, so the only thing left to do was to stick the smaller cases under the seats. Nobody took to this idea.

  One dear old girl named Miss Pew, very tall, thin and ladylike, and with whom I can see I’m going to have endless trouble, complained bitterly that she hadn’t room for her feet, and a very stout, frightfully red-faced old fellow named Leese, who’s got the seat next to mine and is going to take up quite his fair share of room, said loudly and belligerently that usually the passengers had to put up with the luggage down the centre gangway as well as under the seats, and that I ‘wasn’t to worry, cock,’ about lugging it hither and thither. He then added in a terrific ‘aside’ to the people in the seat behind ours that his statement was a lie, but that he wasn’t going to have a fine young fellow like me drag his something guts out for a something old cow like her! I foresee a certain amount of fun and games with these two, for, although the maiden lady claims to be deaf, she wears a doings in her lug and must have heard him.

  Before we started, one of the high-ups from the firm came aboard and, having given my coach load the onceover, rather as though they were a schoolkids’ outing who were not expected to behave themselves too well, he gave tongue as follows:

  ‘Well, good people, good morning to you all!’ (Confused greetings from the mob except from the old boy, who muttered, ‘Communist stuff! Cut it out, will you?’) ‘You have a nice day to begin your trip. A beautiful day! Now I want you to know that everything has been done to ensure you a comfortable journey. First of all, I’m going to introduce Mr. Edwards, your driver. Albert Edwards in his baptism, but to us and to you—Bert. Bert’s a good chap. A very good chap. He’s a good driver, too.’ (Nervous giggles from the coach and an answering Ha! ha! ha! from the high-up.) ‘Yes, you’ll be perfectly safe with Bert, won’t they, Bert? Otherwise he would not be with us to-day. He would be where the good dogs go.’

  The old chap: ‘Battersea.’

  The high-up: ‘Ha! ha! ha! Very good! I can see you’re a caution, sir! Take care, ladies! This gentleman is a caution! Well, now for your courier. This is your courier.’ (Me!) ‘He looks rather shy just now, but you’ll soon cure him of that, ladies! He isn’t our regular courier, who, as you all know, is our Mr. Spencer Caradoc. No, I’m afraid he isn’t Mr. Caradoc, good people, but all the same, he is very good indeed, a real Stewart Macpherson. He knows all the answers. Ha! ha! ha! But this is his first trip with us, so I know you will all back him up. His name is Jeffries, but I know you won’t hold that against him! Ha! ha! ha! George Jeffries. No, I did not say Judge Jeffries! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Mr. George Jeffries. And Bert, your driver. Well, God-speed and good luck, you very, very fortunate people! How I wish I were going with you! But, there Some of us must stay behind and do the donkey-work, or where would you be? Well, a pleasant holiday, good people. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!’

  Having got that off the record, the high-up climbed down, Bert climbed up, I gave a last look round to make sure we had all the cargo aboard—the human kind, I mean—and off we drove. Bert seems a bit of an artist. He’s good-tempered, too, on the road.

  We had morning coffee at Steppenhall. Nice place with the largest Tudor fireplace I’ve ever seen. It seems that we are expected to be a complete democracy in microcosm on this coach. In other words, instead of oiling round to the back door for a pint, Bert and I have to sit with the customers. We picked our two left-hand front-seaters. Nice women, although I’d rather have had a drink.

  One is good-looking, the other not. Both middle-aged, and both seem sensible. Know their way about, too. I think this trip is chickenfeed to both. Same address on the backs of their luggage labels, I noticed, so I suppose they’re a couple of what Maurice Richardson calls ‘jovial collar-and-tie spinsters.’ One is named Baird and the other Carter. Right amount of luggage, ancient but good. Easy to get on with, too, which is more than I am going to be able to say in favour of some of this menagerie. That much I know already, apart from the Leese and the Pew.

  After we left Steppenhall there was some dullish driving up the Great North Road before we arrived in Stanbridge for lunch. Wonderful old coaching inn with lots of stabling (now used as garages, of course), and the house itself joined on to a bit of a thirteenth-century monastery. The main building mostly seventeenth and eighteenth century. Vast place. A two-hundred-year-old wistaria in the garden, a marvellous old gate-house with porter’s spy-window, and a couple of ancient pumps in the yard.

  We were given a private dining-room and a very fat waitress. I don’t think she liked us much, and, as she seemed to be single-handed on the job, I don’t know that I blame her. Anyway, the lunch was all right, although Miss Pew complained that she was given apple rice when she had asked for ice-cream. She’s the sort who’ll be served out with the wrong pair of wings when she gets to glory (or the wrong toasting fork if it’s t’other place), and then there’ll be a row about that! I wish Leese would give up trying to keep her in order, though. There’ll be murder done if he continues to refer to her as Mrs. Rabbit-Guts, because I know she can hear him.