The Piper on the Mountain
Felse Family 05
A 3S digital back-up edition 2.0
click for scan notes and proofing history
Contents
CHAPTER I: THE MAN WHO FELL OFF A MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER 2: THE MAN WHO WASN’T SATISFIED
CHAPTER 3: THE MAN WHO THUMBED A LIFT
CHAPTER 4: THE MAN WHO KEPT THE SCORE
CHAPTER 5: THE MAN ON THE SKYLINE
CHAPTER 6: THE MAN IN THE CHAPEL
CHAPTER 7: THE MAN WHO WASN’T IN CHARGE
CHAPTER 8: THE MEN WHO CAME TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER 9: THE MAN WHO REAPPEARED
CHAPTER 10: THE MAN IN AMBUSH
CHAPTER 11: THE MAN WHO FAILED TO ARRIVE
CHAPTER 12: THE MAN WITH THE FUJARA
Mourning Raga
Death to the Landlords
City of Gold and Shadows
The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael
The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet
Copyright © 1966 Ellis Peters
First published in 1966 by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd
First published in paperback in 1989
by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING PLC
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 written permission 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 being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 0 7472 3226 1
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING PLC
Headline House
79 Great Titchfield Street
London W1P7FN
Chapter I
THE MAN WHO FELL OFF A MOUNTAIN
^ »
Herbert Terrell went to spend his annual summer leave climbing on the Continent, and fell off a mountain in Slovakia. He was traversing a fairly steep rock face by a narrow path at the time, and it seemed that he must have missed his footing at a blind turn where the rock jutted abruptly. They found him fifty feet below, lying on a shelf at the foot of the slope. The shelf, being of white trias limestone, had predictably got the better of the collision. Terrell was impressively and conclusively dead.
Since there was nothing else they could well do for him, the local police did the obvious things. They took a long, cool look at the circumstances of his death, made a full report in the right quarter, popped the body in cold storage, and settled back to await instructions.
In due course, and through the appropriate channels, the news made its way back to all the interested parties in England; and between them, after their own fashion, they compiled Herbert Terrell’s obituary.
Sir Broughton Phelps, Director of the Marrion Research Institute, received the news on a Sunday morning in his London flat. Immaculate from church, he sat at his desk and ploughed his way with disfavour through the surplus of work that had kept him in town over a fine week-end, when he would very much rather have been in his garden in Berkshire, sunning himself in a lawn chair. However, he was a hard-working, serious minded and efficient public servant, very well aware of the responsibilities of his office, and the sacrifice of an occasional Sunday was something he accepted as part of the price of eminence.
