A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
Felse Family 04
A 3S digital back-up edition 2.0
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Contents
CHAPTER I: WEDNESDAY
CHAPTER II: THURSDAY
CHAPTER III: FRIDAY MORNING
CHAPTER IV: FRIDAY AFTERNOON
CHAPTER V: FRIDAY EVENING
CHAPTER VI: SATURDAY MORNING
CHAPTER VII: SATURDAY NOON
CHAPTER VIII: SATURDAY EVENING
CHAPTER IX: SUNDAY AFTERNOON
CHAPTER X: SUNDAY NIGHT
CHAPTER XI: MONDAY MORNING
A
First published in Great Britain in 1965 by William Collins, Sons & Co. Ltd
This edition published by Warner Books in 2000
Copyright © Ellis Peters 1965
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0 7515 3098 0
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Mackays of Chatham plc, Chatham, Kent
Warner Books
A Division of
Little, Brown and Company (UK)
Brettenham House
Lancaster Place
London WC2E7EN
MRS. MALAPROP: Sure, if I reprehend anything in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!
SHERIDAN:
CHAPTER I
WEDNESDAY
^ »
THE BOY in the sea was in difficulties, that was plain from the first moment Dominic clapped eyes on him. Only a seal could possibly navigate off the Dragon’s Head in a tide like this one, racing out on the ebb with the impetus of an express train, checking and breaking back again like hammers on the toothed rocks, lashing out right and left in bone-white spray, and seething down through the wet sand in deep clawmarks, with a hissing like the old serpent of legend striking and missing his prey. For a mile off the point, far into deep water greener than emeralds, the sea boiled. Nobody in his senses swam there in an ebbing tide.
He cupped his hands and yelled, and the bobbing head, a small cork tossed in a cauldron of foam, heaved clear of the spray for an instant and turned towards him a pallor which must be its face. He yelled again, and peremptorily waved the swimmer inshore. The clamour of the ebb off the point might well have carried his voice away, but the gesture was seen and understood. And ignored. The head vanished in foam, and reappeared tossing off spray, battling doggedly outward.
Dominic looked round wildly for someone else to take the decision from him, but there was nobody. This wasn’t the populous Maymouth side of the Dragon, but the bleak bay of Pentarno on the northern side, and tea-time of a fine but blowy day, when nobody frequented those sandy wastes. Mile upon mile of drifted sand on his right hand, and inland, beyond the processional dunes, the first green of pasture and gold and brown of stubble; and on his left the craggy bastions of the Dragon’s Head, running out to sea in a grapeshot of scattered rocks, the cliff paths a
