Late and Cold by Gladys Mitchell

Author:Gladys Mitchell [Mitchell, Gladys]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Birds Have Flown

Timothy’s car took the four of them to Nanradoc, but not until after Leonie had telephoned Jones’s lawyers. The knowledge she gained, after they had arranged to ring her back, was not reassuring. Simms, Simms, etc., no longer held the deeds of Nanradoc. Olwen Jones had had them sent to her so that she might lodge them in her bank in Chester, alleging that her brother had agreed to this course. Confronted with this assertion, Pembroke reluctantly agreed that he remembered a letter asking for his confirmation, and had answered it over the telephone, claiming that he hated writing letters.

“You didn’t tell me,” said Leonie. “I thought you hadn’t heard from her after you parted. Why didn’t you say?”

“Couldn’t. You were in London, I seem to remember. But you wouldn’t have had any objection to our lodging the deeds with the bank, would you? Cut a lot of red tape if we suddenly wanted to raise a mortgage on the property, I should think. And that was the only letter I had. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Any objection of mine would now be beside the point, wouldn’t it? But why Chester? We always banked in Mold.”

“Olwen, I suppose, now banks in Chester. Anyway, it all comes back to me. They weren’t keen—Sims, I mean—about acting on a telephone confirmation. They wanted it in writing because they said that, while they would be prepared to forward the deeds direct to the bank, what Olwen wanted was to have them sent to Nanradoc so that she could look them over before she deposited them. Simms pointed out the risk of fire and so forth, but she had made up her mind, so, of course, I wrote the letter to save argument. Anyway, I felt that Nanradoc was hers, because of her accident.”

“And I suppose it never occurred to you to get in touch with Olwen and ask her what she was up to?”

“Good heavens, no! I was in the middle of my Academy picture. I simply hadn’t time, and, anyway, couldn’t be bothered.”

“Didn’t you wonder why your sister wanted to see the deeds?” asked Timothy.

“I never thought another thing about it until Marion came on the scene and wrote to say that she had two kids to look after and wanted somewhere to live. That was when we fobbed off Miranda on to her (with an allowance, of course) and I offered her Nanradoc if she would get it repaired.”

“You were thinking only of the castle, of course.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you add the word ‘castle’ in your offer?”

“Can’t remember.”

“No matter,” said Leonie. “It doesn’t affect our projected enterprise. Let’s get moving, shall we? Have we a key to the bridge?”

“Yes, I’ve got mine,” said Timothy, “on my key-ring with my others.”

“I haven’t one,” said Pembroke, “but, of course, I’ve still got a key to the house. The key to the bridge doesn’t matter all that much, because, of course, there’s a road up to the house from the opposite side of the hill.

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