Death at Rottingdean Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Historical Notes and Authors’ Reflections

  References

  The Victorian Mystery Series by Robin Paige

  Death at Bishop’s Keep

  ... in which our detectives Kate Ardleigh and Sir Charles

  Sheridan meet for the first time as they are drawn into a

  lurid conspiracy...

  Death at Gallows Green

  ... in which two mysterious deaths bring Kate and Sir

  Charles together once more to solve the secrets

  of Gallows Green...

  Death at Daisy’s Folly

  ... in which Charles and Kate discover that even the

  highest levels of society are no refuge from the lowest of

  deeds—such as murder...

  Death at Devil’s Bridge

  ... in which newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan begin

  their lives at Bishop’s Keep—only to find a new mystery

  right in their own backyard ...

  More praise for Robin Paige’s

  Victorian Mysteries ...

  “I read it with enjoyment... I found myself burning for the

  injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.”

  —Anne Perry

  “Absolutely riveting... An extremely articulate, genuine

  mystery, with well-drawn, compelling characters.”

  —Meritorious Mysteries

  The Victorian Mysteries by Robin Page

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP

  DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN

  DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY

  DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN

  DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL

  DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS

  DEATH AT DARTMOOR

  DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE

  DEATH IN HYDE PARK

  DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE

  DEATH ON THE LIZARD

  China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM

  THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE

  Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert

  WRITING FROM LIFE

  WORK OF HER OWN

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Publisbed by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition I March 1999

  Copyright © 1999 by Susan Wittig Albert and William J. Albert.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. For information, address The Berkley Publishing Group,

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  ISBN: 9781440672958

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  BERKLEY ® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Grateful thanks are due Michael Smith, Honorary Secretary of the Kipling Society at Rottingdean, who provided access to the Society’s archives and many helpful insights into the history of Rottingdean; to Colonel John Albert, USAF, for access to his historical reference library, and to Phyllis Calif and her late husband, Leslie, for first acquainting us with the charm of England’s south coast and for providing warm hospitality during our visits there.

  Robin Paige a.k.a. Bill and Susan Albert

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Lord Charles Sheridan, Baron of Somersworth

  Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan, Baroness of Somersworth and mistress of Bishop’s Keep

  Lawrence Quibbley, manservant to Lord Sheridan

  Amelia Quibbley, personal maid to Lady Sheridan

  ROTTINGDEAN’S RESIDENTS AND VISITORS

  Rudyard Kipling, novelist and poet

  Caroline Kipling, wife of Rudyard Kipling

  Lady Georgiana Burne-Jones, wife of the painter Edward Burne-Jones

  Jack (Fat Jack) Woodhouse, constable of Rottingdean

  Captain Reynold Smith, coast guard commander

  Harry Tudwell, stablemaster, Hawkham Stables

  Patrick, an eleven-year-old boy

  John Landsdowne, village chemist

  Trunky Thomas, owner of bathing machines and fishing skiffs

  Mrs. Portney, cook-housekeeper at Seabrooke House

  Mrs. Howard, proprietress of Ladies’ Fashions for Fashionable Ladies

  Mrs. Radford, widow of George Radford, Black Rock coast guard

  Professor Waldemar Hertling, antiquarian

 
; Photographer

  BRIGHTON’S RESIDENTS AND VISITORS

  His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales

  Arthur Sassoon, banker and member of the Marlborough House set

  Count Ludwig Hauptmann, Cultural Representative of the Kaiser

  Captain Pierre Gostarde, French Navy

  Sir Robert Pinckney, Chief Constable, Brighton

  Dr. Paul Barriston, surgeon and Queen’s coroner

  Reginald Wright Barker, gun shop proprietor

  Mr. Maurice Burke, tobacconist

  A Smuggler’s Song

  If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,

  Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.

  Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.

  Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

  Five and twenty ponies,

  Trotting through the dark—

  Brandy for the Parson,

  ‘Baccy for the Clerk;

  Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,

  And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

  If you see the stable-door setting open wide;

  If you see a tired horse lying down inside;

  If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;

  If the lining’s wet and warm—don’t you ask no more!

  If you do as you’ve been told,’ likely there’s a chance,

  You ’ll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,

  With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood—

  A present from the Gentlemen, along o‘being good!

  Five and twenty ponies,

  Trotting through the dark—

  Brandy for the Parson,

  ‘Baccy for the Clerk.

  Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie—

  Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

  -RUDYARD KIPLING Puck of Pock’s Hill

  1

  Smuggling is the chief support of the inhabitants at which they are very Dext’rous—for which innocent and beneficial practice (sad to relate) Captain Dunk the Butcher paid £500 and ten of his worthy friends were lodged in Hawsham Gaol or in their elegant language were sent for a month to college to improve their manners.

  old History of Rottingdean

  The salt breeze was fresh against the boy’s face and the waves broke with a soft chuckle and a foamy fizz on the shingle beach at his feet. On very calm days, when there was no breeze at all, the water lapped gently against the rounded flint pebbles, as it might do at the edge of a mill-pond. But Patrick had spent his entire eleven years on the south coast of England, and he was not taken in by the Channel’s deceptive tranquillity. Autumn conjured up angry sou’westers, whose giant crashing waves scooped up the flint pebbles and flung them at the great chalk cliff a few yards behind him, undermining the soft, flint-studded rock until great stabs gave way and collapsed into the maelstrom, pulling down sections of the Brighton-to-Rottingdean road and bits of wall and even a few hapless cottages. The furious waves would pound road and rock and walls and roof to nothing, leaving only the indestructible nodules of gray flint, strewn on the beach to be used as the waves’ ammunition for the next attack against the cliff.

  Patrick walked for a few feet eastward, studying the shiny flint pebbles, but they gave no clue to what he had seen last midnight from the hazardous margin of the cliff above. Frowning, he raised his eyes and scanned the heaving horizon, but the fishing boats far out in the Channel seemed to be going about their ordinary business. He turned and looked back at the cliff. Nothing there, either, except for a pile of recently fallen chalk whose collapse had carved out a shallow cave a dozen feet up the rock wall, typical of the shallow caves that pocked the white cliffs eastward from Rottingdean and westward nearly to Brighton. All that was left of what he had seen was the shadowy image in his mind: a figure in black oilskins hauling a skiff onto the shingle at this very point, then dragging something heavy from the base of the cliff back to the skiff. The waning moon was draped with clouds and its light had been shuttered and fitful, like a flickering lantern in a high wind. Patrick could not see the boatman’s face, but there was something in his movements and bearing that made the boy think he knew him, and he was sure he recognized the skiff. Once his burden was loaded, the man had pushed off and rowed out to sea.

  Patrick had watched, his heart beating fast, until the thin moon flickered out and darkness extinguished man and boat and mysterious cargo. When there was no more to be seen, not even the glimmer of a turned oar, he hurried along the path below Beacon Hill and past the great dark windmill to Mrs. Higgs’s dilapidated cottage. With the sureness of long practice, he climbed the apple tree and scrambled nimbly through the loft window to drop feet-first onto his bed, where he pulled the scratchy blanket to his chin, squeezed his eyes shut, and pondered. The longer he thought, the more vague and ghostly and dreamlike was the remembered scene, until he drifted into sleep and it actually was a dream, the boatman throwing off his hood to reveal a terrible face with huge holes for eyes, and the cargo a dead man.

  A dead man. Well, why not? With a shiver that was half excitement and half apprehension, Patrick shoved his hands into the pockets of his ragged corduroy trousers and set off toward the Gap, where the metal pier jutted out into the sea and a row of red-and-white-striped bathing machines were lined up like miniature circus tents under the cliff. This beach had seen its share of dead men, drowned sailors washed up like bloated cod from Channel shipwrecks and smugglers killed in the pursuit of their hazardous occupation. Smugglers’ Village, Rottingdean was called by some, in honor of its role in the contraband trade. There must have been dozens of smugglers caught between the coast guard and the cliffs, or trapped like rats in the maze of tunnels that lay under the streets and houses. Patrick pushed his lips in and out, his fertile imagination summoning up a disagreement, a violent struggle, a shot fired in anger. A dead man on the beach below the cliff’s crumbling edge? A natural event, to any who knew the history of Smugglers’ Village.

  To an observer of the late 1890s, Rottingdean appeared to be a peaceful hamlet of some twelve hundred kind and law-abiding souls, where little enough happened from year to year. Its chief distinctions were its proximity to bustling, brassy Brighton, a scant three miles to the west, and its quiet streets, quaint appearance, and fresh sea air, which attracted a few wealthy London families who enjoyed summering in a seaside village. The racing on White Hawk Down brought in a different kind of visitor, who was likely to stay at the White Horse Inn and employ the village boys—among whom Patrick made himself most convenient and willing—to execute various urgent commissions.

  Yes, the beach had seen its share of brutal murder. Settled in Neolithic times, the village owed its existence to the Gap, a narrow breach in the cliff that guards the south coast of England like a fortress wall. The Gap was opened eons before by a stream that cut through the soft chalk on its way to the sea and vanished before the area became a Roman outpost, and then (by subsequent violent overthrow) a Saxon territory and a Norman settlement. From time to time over the centuries, marauding raiders and foreign invaders stormed through this inviting opening into the Sussex uplands, killing and burning and destroying. Once the invasion had ended, the folk who survived (and some of them always did) returned to their peaceful pursuits: growing corn in the arable meadows and grazing sheep on the gently rolling downs.

  But by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the villagers, a wily, opportunistic lot who were steeled by their encounters with this harsh land, had discovered that a different sort of traffic through the Gap might be used to benefit the village. This was the period when punitive excise made smuggling both into and out of England a gainful occupation, and most of Rottingdean’s citizens were in one way or another engaged in it. The cellars under the houses—chieny those around the Green—were linked to one another and to the beach by a labyrinth of tunnels dug through the soft chalk. Bales of fleeces (wo
ol was the chief illicit export) were stored in the cellars, then trundled through the tunnels to the beach and loaded onto ships bound for distant ports. Boxes of tea and tobacco, barrels of spirits, and bundles of lace—products that the rich people in the great houses and cities to the north wanted and were willing to pay for (without the duty, of course)—came in the other direction, being unloaded from the ships, hauled in through the tunnels, stored in the cellars, and freighted under cover of darkness in the direction of Falmer and Lewes, for further transport to London. It was altogether a profitable business, considered by the villagers to be a legitimate, if illegal, perquisite of their coastal residence.

  In an attempt to halt this brisk commerce, the government built a customs house in the village and three stations along the cliff’s edge, where armed coast guards made regular nightly patrols from Black Rock eastward through Rottingdean to Saltdean. But whether it was because the coast guards were lazy or stupid or dishonest (or all three), the smugglers continued to ply their trade with the regularity of the moon and the tides until the excise laws were dismantled in the 1840s and the business ceased to return a profit That, at least, was what the high government officials thought. But Patrick, whose sharp eyes and ears and quick wit made him privy to most of the village secrets, knew otherwise.

  And now he knew about the dead man on the beach. He raised his head, frowning. Should he tell what he had seen? On the whole, he thought not, with the shrewdness of a boy who knows that it may be dangerous to share secrets with men. But what if he himself had been seen watching from his clifftop vantage point and thought to be an accomplice, a lookout? He could protest his innocence but he could not prove it, which would lead to difficulties with the officials, who would go straightaway to Mrs. Higgs, the woman who looked after him, who would shut up the window and bar the attic door at night and make it difficult for him to come and go as he pleased.