Murder by Candlelight, page 1
FAITH MARTIN has been writing for thirty years and has published over fifty novels. She began writing romantic thrillers as Maxine Barry, but quickly turned to crime! It was when she turned to writing detective stories as Faith Martin that she became more widely known. Having lived in Oxfordshire all her life, both the city and the countryside often feature in her novels. The fauna and wildlife of a farming landscape has always played a big part in her life – and often sneaks its way onto the pages of her books.
Also by Faith Martin
A Fatal Obsession
A Fatal Mistake
A Fatal Flaw
A Fatal Secret
A Fatal Truth
A Fatal Affair
A Fatal Night
A Fatal End
COPYRIGHT
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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HarperCollinsPublishers
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This edition 2024
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2024
Copyright © Faith Martin 2024
Faith Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008589981
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2023 ISBN: 9780008655990
Version 2023-11-17
CONTENTS
Cover
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
England: Summer 1924
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Publisher
NOTE TO READERS
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008589981
For my literary agent, Kate Nash, for
putting up with me for so long
ENGLAND: SUMMER 1924
CHAPTER ONE
‘Oh, hello, Mr Swift, might I just have a quick word with you about my ghost?’
Now this somewhat unconventional greeting would no doubt have disconcerted anyone other than Mr Arbuthnot Lancelot Swift. However, Mr Swift – known simply as ‘that young fool Arbie’ to his more discriminating friends and family – was made of sterner stuff. Or so he’d like to flatter himself. The more honest explanation for this display of savoir-faire, however, lay in the fact that, having just written a best-selling book about some of the nation’s more prominent spooks, ghouls, spectres and the odd banshee or two, it could be argued that he was better placed than most to take this sort of thing in his stride.
‘Oh, good morning, Miss Phelps,’ he said, turning around to address the tall, grey-haired lady who was looking at him from a pair of thoughtful, watery blue eyes. ‘Lovely day and all that,’ he added cheerfully.
Naturally, that worthy lady batted away this piece of frippery with barely an acknowledgement.
Miss Phelps, he supposed, must now be in her late sixties, and was one of the wealthiest members of the Cotswold village of Maybury-in-the-Marsh. As a lifelong resident of the village himself, he was very much aware of the older lady’s standing in the community – not to mention her notoriously gimlet eye – and could only hope that his Oxford bags and knitted jumper passed sartorial muster.
Her family had held sway at the Old Forge for generations, her antecedents starting out as mere humble smithies, but through luck, judgement, hard work and notorious parsimony had built up a business that was now the envy of many. But it had been her deceased brother who, like many industrialists, had made their biggest fortune from the Great War, and now the Phelps name could be seen written large on many a factory wall. Not to mention on the doors of a string of garages and scrap metal merchant yards in three counties.
Not surprisingly, Miss Phelps, as one of the very few remaining members of her family, bore evidence of her prosperity easily and without any apparent effort. Today, this took the form of an immaculately shabby tweed suit, specially tailored to fit her five feet eleven inches, a set of truly perfect pearls, the softest of kid-leather gloves and some sort of reptilian-skin handbag that even Arbie (not the most reliable judge of women’s accessories) could tell was probably the envy of every woman for miles around.
But for once, Miss Phelps wasn’t acting quite her self-important self. Normally she could be seen walking through the village like a member of minor royalty deigning to mix with the peasantry, but this morning she seemed to be lacking some of her usual vim and vigour, and her eyes darted nervously up and down Old Mill Lane.
‘I was so hoping I might run into you, Mr Swift. I think you’re just the person to advise me,’ she said, though not sounding particularly convinced by her own statement. Which Arbie had to acknowledge was fair enough. It was rare indeed for anyone to ask his advice about anything. ‘Since you know all about restless spirits and that sort of thing, I mean,’ she added weakly.
Even as she made this request, the pale blue orbs of her eyes were running over him with obvious misgiving. No doubt she was recalling all the times when, as a boy, he’d regularly scrumped her pears, gooseberries and plums, and, on one occasion, had been directly responsible for the rapid entrance of a cricket ball through her (regrettably closed) dining room window.
‘Oh, er, really?’ he responded uncomfortably. Whilst it behoved one to help out one’s neighbours when called upon, of course, it was not something a chap actively encouraged.
A lanky youth of six feet one with plentiful dark brown hair and fine grey eyes, he sought desperately to think of a way of disentangling himself from what looked like becoming a bit of a tricky situation. For the truth was, the last thing he wanted to do was discuss ghosts and their doings. He’d set out that lovely summer morning to stroll to the village shop for the papers and some tobacco and had intended to do nothing more strenuous afterwards than indulge in a spot of fishing in the river which ran along the bottom of his grounds.
Now, it was fair to say that everyone who knew Arbie well had been frankly astonished and bamboozled to see his first literary enterprise, The Gentleman’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting, become such a roaring success with the British reading public. His best friend from Wadham, Walter Greenstreet, who had gone straight into his family’s long-standing publishing business had, likewise, been utterly wrong-footed by it also.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Ghost-Hunting had only come about at all when the two young men had met up in their club one day, and over a very boozy lunch indeed, had found the conversation turning to the nation’s fascination with all things spook and spectre related. Everyone, it seemed, had a ghost story to tell, or an old family home that was haunted by a white lady, headless horseman or some other inconvenient poltergeist. Arbie had responded to this observation in an off-handed manner by saying that it was all too bad, and that someone should take the matter in hand in a logical and orderly way and publish a guide to it all, rather like the hill-walking or cycling tour guides that were currently so popular. Only instead of visiting historical monuments or natural wonders, the tourists could indulge their appetite for spirits (of the non-alcoholic kind) instead.
Why, it could become more popular than bird-watching or nature study, he’d declared airily, getting somewhat carried away. (In his defence, the club’s fine port may have had something to do with his growing fervour.) Arbie had waxed so lyrically and enthusiastically at this bright new idea of how to titillate the bored well-to-do, that Wally had challenged him to go ahead and compile such a volume. After all, he’d pointed out with a wry smile, Arbie had nothing better to do with his time since he was determined not to work for a living, and writing such a guidebook mi ght be a bit of a lark at that. But only if he was up to it, that is.
Naturally, Arbie hadn’t been able to ignore the challenge or back down in the face of his friend’s provocation, and had said grandiosely that he’d write it if Wally’s firm would publish it, fully expecting that to spike his friend’s guns. However, Walter, thus hoisted by his own petard, had instantly agreed to such an enterprise, and had had a contract ready for his friend to sign before the week was out.
This, obviously, left Arbie in something of a pickle. Apart from the fact that he now had only the vaguest of recollections of what they’d discussed at lunch, the same sense of honour that had resulted in the production of the contract had obliged him to take up the challenge and sign the dratted thing.
And so it was that one fine morning he’d found himself with an unwanted publishing deal under his belt and a book to write. And after some weeks of gloomily cursing fate and his treacherous friend – not to mention the club’s fine port – Arbie had set off on a tour of the south of England, suitcase and portable typewriter in hand, in search of ghosts.
And had found, rather to his surprise, that it was all a bit of a lark. Oh, not the actual ghost-hunting itself. That had been tedious in the extreme and usually consisted of sitting in the dark and waiting for something to happen, which never did. But the actual travelling around in his black Alvis saloon had been a delight. Moseying along from seaside towns to attractive villages and staying at accommodating village inns or boarding houses as the whim – or hot tips about local ghosts – had taken him, had given him a wonderful sense of freedom. And since the majority of his commercial hosts and hostesses were willing to bend over backwards to make his stay comfortable in exchange for a good ‘write-up’ about their establishments in his new guidebook, the fact that Arbie had lived like a king might have had something to do with his enjoyment of the venture.
Once he’d returned home, he tidied up his ‘working notes’ and delivered the completed manuscript to Walter. His old pal had then, naturally and somewhat hastily, passed it over – unread – to a junior editor to deal with and had promptly forgotten all about it.
Until it was published three months later – and became something of a sensation. For some reason, a vast percentage of the reading public liked Arbie’s easy, witty style. His habit of describing various holiday hotspots, mixed with his self-effacing ‘tussles’ with ghosts, vastly amused and entertained everybody from housewives to country solicitors, farmers to bus drivers, dowager duchesses to kitchen maids. And Walter Greenstreet, blast him to the moon and back, had all but taken to camping out on Arbie’s doorstep and waving a contract under his nose, desperately promising a higher and higher rate of royalties every time his friend showed his face.
But Arbie’s lazy nature had had ample time to reassert itself, and the thought of actually producing a second book was giving him a case of the jitters. For the last month he’d been so determinedly fending off Wally’s pleadings to take up the ghost-hunt again, that finding himself unexpectedly accosted by a member of his own village asking him about ghosts was the last thing he needed. If Walter’s big ears got to hear about it, he would insist that Arbie had no excuse whatsoever for not starting a new book now that he had a ‘case’ right on his doorstep.
So it was that Arbie cast what he hoped was a winsome smile on the wealthy spinster in front of him and said, ‘Well, Miss Phelps, as a matter of fact I’ve sort of retired from all that sort …’ but the lady, he could see, was going to have none of it. He could tell by the way her spine stiffened, with her upper lip following suit, that he was not going to be allowed to wiggle free. Manfully, he reminded himself that he was a mere boy no longer, and fought against the instilled urge to buckle under her gaze.
‘And honestly, I’m not really such an expert on ghosts as all that, you know,’ he began hopefully. ‘Writing what was really a glorified holiday guidebook isn’t …’ but it was no use. He was doomed, for already Miss Phelps was opening her mouth to cut across his stumbling efforts to extricate himself. She simply wasn’t going to accept anything other than his promise to come and investigate her wretched spook for her – which would probably turn out to be nothing more than the wind in the chimneys or a tree twig scratching against a windowpane somewhere.
With slumping shoulders, he resigned himself to the inevitable. Perhaps, he comforted himself, he could be in and out in one quick visit, before his publishers even became aware that he’d been asked to investigate at all?
‘But you have to help me, Mr Swift,’ the usually stalwart Miss Phelps said rather piteously. ‘You see, this is no ordinary ghost. I think it’s trying to kill me.’
‘Eh?’ squawked Arbie, thoroughly rattled.
It was not, perhaps, a particularly erudite response from one of the nation’s favourite authors. But it conveyed his feelings pretty adequately, nonetheless.
It was at this moment, whilst Arbie was gaping at Miss Phelps like a stunned mullet, that he saw movement out of his peripheral vision, and turned his head slightly to see a familiar sight.
Maybury was a small village with one major road – Old Mill Lane – running through it. On this road most of the village’s prominent residences and amenities had been built, including The Dun Cow Inn, the manor house, the Old Forge and the village shop. Off it, however, ran a few minor lanes and tracks, leading to various cul-de-sacs of cottages, and Church Lane, which led to the Norman church, its adjacent vicarage and finally, Arbie and his uncle’s own residence, a converted chapel. And it was from this direction that a large black boneshaker of a bicycle had turned onto the main village street, bearing astride it a striking figure.
As usually happened whenever Arbie saw Valentina Olivia Charlotte Coulton-James, the vicar’s daughter, whizzing along on her bicycle, he could hear in the back of his head the stirring music of Act 3 of Die Walküre, and Richard Wagner’s rousing piece, ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. This may have been due to the fact that Val, at five feet eleven, was a strapping girl, former hockey champion at her school and all-round athlete. Tennis, swimming, archery, whatever the sport, Val could beat anyone hands down. Or it may have been the fact that she had long, very straight and very fair hair that streamed out behind her in a rippling stream as her muscular legs pumped up and down, getting astonishing speeds out of her hand-me-down vehicle.
More likely, it was probably his memories of their shared schooldays at the village primary school, when Val had regularly duffed him up in the playground.
Now, if someone had told Arbie earlier that morning that he’d be pleased to see Val bearing down on him with her usual expression of mild scorn mixed with reluctant affection, he’d have told them to go boil their head. But as she applied the rather haphazard brakes on her contraption and brought herself to a shuddering halt just in front of himself and Miss Phelps, he did indeed feel inordinately happy to see her.
If anyone could deal with beleaguered ladies with a persecution complex, it was Val. As one of the vicar’s huge brood (how many children did the Reverend have now – eight, nine, ten?), she was used to dealing with anything.
‘Ah, Val, you’re just the ticket,’ Arbie said gratefully.
Val put one sturdy foot on the ground to balance herself and looked at him suspiciously. ‘Oh?’ This was not the sort of greeting she’d been expecting. In her experience, Arbie Swift usually lived up to his name whenever he saw her, and swiftly made excuses to depart. So perhaps she could be forgiven if her gaze travelled suspiciously from his innocent smile to Amy Phelps’s unhappy visage and then back to him again. As she sensed the atmosphere, her face darkened.
Arbie shuffled his feet, which was his usual response to being put on the spot.
‘Have you been upsetting Miss Phelps?’ Val demanded flatly.
‘What? No! As if I would,’ Arbie yelped, stung by her immediate assumption that, whatever was going on, he was to blame. Just for that, he had no more qualms – not that he’d ever had any in the first place – in setting about transferring his problem onto her sturdy shoulders.
‘As a point of fact, Miss Phelps was just telling me about a little problem she has that really needs your father’s sensitive touch,’ he informed her loftily. Sensing that Miss Phelps wasn’t happy with this opening gambit and was about to put her foot in it by saying that she’d asked for no such interference from the church, Arbie rushed on. ‘And you’re just the person to help arrange it. Miss Phelps you see—’
