Noonday And Night
Beatrice Adela LeStrange Bradley 51
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Contents
CHAPTER 1: Pottery and Porcelain
CHAPTER 2: The Missing Coach-Drivers
CHAPTER 3: Hulliwell Hall
CHAPTER 4: Dantwylch, Below the Knoll
CHAPTER 5: The Bishop’s Palace
CHAPTER 6: Devil-Porter It No Further
CHAPTER 7: The Watchman Waketh But In Vain
CHAPTER 8: The Hotel on Loch Linnhe
CHAPTER 9: Saighdearan, Place of Soldiers
CHAPTER 10: The Bungalow
CHAPTER 11: Pistol and Dagger
CHAPTER 12: No Coaches on the Roads
CHAPTER 13: The Story of a Disappearance
CHAPTER 14: Conradda Mendel Speaks
CHAPTER 15: So Does Basil Honfleur
CHAPTER 16: Confession of an Avenger
CHAPTER 17: Sunset and Evening Star
NOONDAY and NIGHT
Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is called in to investigate the mysterious disappearance of two touring motor-coach drivers and uncovers a racket in stolen antiques, smuggling – and murder.
MAGNA PRINT BOOKS
Bolton-by-Bowland Lancashire . England
First Published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 1977
Large Print Edition by Magna Print Books 1978
by arrangement with Michael Joseph Ltd, London
© 1977 Gladys Mitchell
ISBN 0 86009 100 7
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 prior permission of the copyright owner.
Printed and Bound by Redwood Burn Ltd. Trowbridge and Esher
Noonday and Night
CHAPTER 1
Pottery and Porcelain
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The invitation to dinner was accompanied by two slightly unusual requests. One was that Dame Beatrice would bring another woman with her, preferably one who was interested in ceramics; the other was that she would also bring her two blue-dash English delftware dishes, chargers which had been made round about AD 1640, although whether in London or Bristol was uncertain.
One sentence in Basil Honfleur’s letter appeared to explain this otherwise curious request. ‘I’ve recently become possessed of a particularly fine early nineteenth century Welsh dresser, and I would love to see how your two pieces look on it compared with some which my crockery scout Vittorio has managed to pick up for me.’
This, Dame Beatrice thought, was an elliptical way of indicating that, if her pieces looked well on his shelves, there would be an offer to purchase them. After the dinner, she supposed, the company would adjourn to the kitchen and the dishes would be put on display. Then would follow a bargaining battle between the knowledgeable woman Dame Beatrice would have brought with her if she could think of anybody suitable, and Vittorio (whoever he was), to fix upon the price to be offered.
Dame Beatrice was not particularly attached to her delftware, which had been left her by a distant relative for whom she had had little affection. It was neither uncommon nor, she supposed, very valuable. She considered it, in fact, to be rather ugly and, compared with her collection of Sevres porcelain (actually made in the factory at Vincennes before that was transferred to Sevres itself), extremely crude. One charger was decorated with a figure on horseback which might or might not represent Prince Rupert; the other showed Adam, Eve and the serpent, Adam chastely upholstered in an apron of fig leaves which appeared to depend upon faith alone for its support, Eve content apparently with her Godiva-like mantle of hair. The serpent, writhing down from a loaded fruit-tree, was focusing its attention upon the apple (or whatever) which was being passed from hand to hand by the other
