Death Lights a Candle Read online

  Those who enjoyed The Cape Cod Mystery—and their name is Legion—will hail with delight the reappearance of Asey Mayo, hired man extraordinary, and Miss Prudence Whitsby, his able collaborator in the detection of crime. Miss Prue is one of those indomitable maiden ladies who lands where trouble is, and a good thing for the victims that she does!

  Cape Cod in March. A house party of men and women snowed in—absolutely cut off from the world outside. The host murdered. Poisoning, the doctor says, probably arsenic. But almost every one is found to have arsenic among his things. And how was it administered?

  An intriguing device for dealing death is introduced. Well-known in the Middle Ages but new to present-day mystery addicts and appropriate to the scene.

  Preserving all the humor that made The Cape Cod Mystery such good reading, all that New England “bite” in the conversation of Asey and the other Cape Cod characters, Miss Taylor has contrived to impart to her new story a greater intensity, a heightened suspense, a keener thrill. This clever young writer knows well how to make you smile and how to make you shudder.

  PHOEBE ATWOOD TAYLOR

  DEATH

  LIGHTS

  A CANDLE

  An Asey Mayo Cape Cod Mystery

  THE COUNTRYMAN PRESS

  Woodstock, Vermont

  Copyright © 1932, 1960 by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  ISBN 0-88150-145-X

  All rights reserved

  For

  A. T. A.

  All of the characters in this book, with

  the single exception of Ginger the

  cat, are entirely fictitious

  Death Lights a Candle

  CHAPTER ONE

  MISS WHITSBY GOES VISITING

  I STARTED out that Tuesday morning with no other purpose in mind than to buy a spool of orange silk at Jordan Marsh’s.

  I can not emphasize that fact too highly. I didn’t expect to meet Rowena Fible. I didn’t know that John Kent was phoning the house at five-minute intervals, vainly trying to get hold of me. I had absolutely no intention of ending up, as I eventually did, at Cape Cod on a house-party during the course of which two people lost their lives and I myself was very nearly killed.

  All I wanted, and all I set out to get, was a spool of orange silk to mend the sleeve of my niece’s mandarin coat.

  It was just as I was turning the comer of Temple Place and Tremont Street that Rowena Fible grabbed me by the arm.

  “Pruel Prudence Whitsbyl I’ve been dashing after you ever since you started across the Common. Prue, I have an idea!”

  I was not surprised. Rowena Fible and I have been friends since we were babes in swaddling clothes a good fifty-one years ago, and during that period she has seldom been without an idea of one sort or another. And she has usually dashed around with them, too. This combination of ideas and energy has landed her in the head-lines as frequently as it landed her father, the late Governor. Rowena’s friends have become quite resigned to the flaring captions of “Boston Spinster Joins Caterpillar Club” or “Miss Fible Parades for Light Wines and Beer.”

  “What is it now?” I asked. “And where’ve you been lately?”

  “That’s just it. Why I have the idea, I mean. You see, I’ve been in Chicago modeling a fountain for that gangster. Don’t shudder, Prue. It wasn’t so bad and I made a lot of money. The only drawback was that he made me use his nasty children as models for the cherubs. That’s what’s laid me low. I’ve simply got to do something to get them out of my mind, and just as I got off the train this morning I remembered the Wellfleet house. Prue, I want you to come down to the Cape with me and spend a week or so and help me forget those Mantinis.”

  “You want me to go to Cape Cod in March? Are you crazy? We’d freeze.”

  “Cape Cod in March,” Rowena observed with a shiver, “is no whit colder than Tremont Street in March. It couldn’t be any colder than this comer, anyway. And I’ve decided to paint the house. Cream with wagon-blue blinds, and you know how you love to paint. And the Whitings are in Orleans and they’ll come down for bridge.”

  “I shouldn’t go.” I spoke without much determination. Boston had been dull with my niece away. “Really, I shouldn’t. There’s a tea at the Lamsons’ this afternoon and a dinner to-morrow night——”

  “Let ’em go.” Rowena waved a casual hand. “You need a change. I’ve already wired Phrone to have the house opened, and the roadster’s being greased and groomed right this minute. We can start off within an hour.”

  “But I’ve got to pack.”

  “Olga’s packing for you. I stopped at the house to see where you were, told her what I wanted you to do and she thought it was a fine idea. She said you’d been losing your appetite and that the Cape always brought it back. She said she’d look after Ginger, too. Or you could bring him with you.”

  “I think,” I said, “that we’d better take him along. He has a wicker traveling case, you know. It’s pretty dull for him, having only the roof to run around in, and it would do him good to get out in the open. He’s been craving to catch a field-mouse for weeks. I’ve seen it in his eye. D’you mind cats?”

  “You know I love them. I’ll do a figure of him for you, too. I’ve always meant to. Well, that’s all settled. Suppose we walk back to the house. I left my bags there and they’ll bring the car around when it’s ready.”

  “But what about my orange silk?”

  “Was that whait you were after? Olga told me but I couldn’t for the life of me make out what she said. Do you really want it? I mean, we can get orange silk in Wellfleet just as well and we want to get started while it’s still warmish.”

  “Let it go,” I said resignedly. “I’ve been trying to mend the sleeve of Betsey’s mandarin coat for six months and a few weeks more won’t hurt.”

  So we turned and made our way across the Common back to my house.

  Olga met us at the door.

  “Miss Whitsby, a man he call up every five minutes since you go.”

  “Who was it? What did he want? What was the matter?”

  Olga shrugged. “Mr. Kent, he called an’ called an’ ask where you are. He say nothing is the matter, he yust want to ask you something. I tell him you are at Yordan’s for a spool of silk, but he don’t understand.”

  “If it’s John Kent,” Rowena said, “he probably wanted to know who your great-great-grandfather married and what the names of his stepson’s children by his second wife were. That’s the only sort of thing he ever wants to know. When he got out that second book of the Kent family he called me up from London to ask me some such fool question.”

  I nodded. “I had dinner with him last week, and he found out that Uncle Theophilus Whitsby was a Sturgis and he talked of nothing else. I shan’t bother with him. Olga, if he calls again, you tell him you can’t understand him and that you don’t know where I am. And now, put Ginger in his basket. Your car’s come, Rowena. Olga, you can stay here, or lock up and go to your cousin’s. Only see that my mail gets forwarded and have the furnace man keep the fire. I’ll be back in a week or so. I’ll let you know just when. You packed my heavy clothes? Good. And if anything goes wrong, telegraph me.”

  And by three that afternoon we were climbing the rutted lane to Rowena’s Wellfleet house.

  At the fork she stopped the roadster. “I’ve been thinking of those pine-covered hills and the blue stretch of bay and the white clouds and the fresh salt air ever since I began Vittorio Mantini’s vulgar face. He had the most evil leer—and, good lord above, Prue, where did that come from?”

  On the next hill, beyond her little house, was a magnificent Colonial mansion, sparklingly new.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “I don’t
remember seeing anything like it before I went home from here in September.”

  “It wasn’t there when I left in August. How amazing! But there’s smoke coming from my chimney and that means Phrone has come. She’ll know all about it.”

  I smiled. Sophronia Knowles was Rowena’s housekeeper and maid of all work in Wellfleet. She baked and sewed and cleaned and scrubbed and managed to pick up most of the local news at the same time. Not that Phrone was a gossip. “If a body’s put on to this world,” I’ve heard her say, “a body might just as well take a little interest in his fellow men.” Phrone took a very generous interest.

  She stood on the millstone which served as the front door-step.

  “Glad to see you back, Miss Rena. And Miss Whitsby! Well, well. Didn’t expect to see you. How’s your niece an’ Bill Porter?”

  “They’re honeymooning in Majorca,” I said, shaking hands. “From what I hear, they’re very happy.”

  “I guess Bill Porter can afford to have a good long honeymoon. What’s that you got in that wicker basket? Your cat? Ginger? Well, I declare. Shall I let him out?”

  She opened the basket and Ginger jumped out. He sniffed the air, shook himself and, to prove that the winter had not incapacitated him in the least, ran up to the top of one of Rena’s apple trees, and descended as quickly as he had gone up.

  “Some cat,” Phrone observed. “Well, I only got your telegram an hour ago. I got the Smalley boy to bring me up an’ he turned on the water an’ the ’lectricity. I’d done some bakin’ this mornin’ an’ there’s plenty of canned stuff. You want some lunch now?” Rena nodded. “And tell us, Phrone, what’s that mansion over yonder?”

  Phrone chuckled. “That’s Adelbert Stires’s new house. That’s whose it is.”

  Rowena howled. “Adelbert Stires? Prue, did you hear that? Adelbert Stires!”

  “You know him?” Phrone asked interestedly. “What’s he like? I guess I’m the only one in town that ain’t seen him.”

  “Know him?” I said. “Phrone, she even knocked out his front teeth once! She did!”

  “That,” said Rowena with dignity, “is not worthy of you, Prue. Yes, I knocked out his front teeth, Phrone, but it was purely an accident, even though he told the newspapers it wasn’t. The horrid things he said about me! I was glad afterward that I’d done it.”

  “How’d you come to knock ’em out in the first place?”

  “It was years ago when we were suffragettes. I threw a brick at his factory—he’d fired some women because they were suffragettes, you see—anyway, we all threw bricks and it happened to be mine that sailed through a window and knocked out his teeth. I’ve never laid eyes on him from that day to this, but the horrid things he’s said about me make up for any meetings we may have missed.”

  “He know you live here?”

  Rowena shook her head. “I doubt it. The Holloways had the house last fall and he probably thought it belonged to them. We’ve never been what you might call neighborly—and isn’t it going to be a blow when he discovers I live next door!”

  “He’s cornin’ down to-day,” Phrone announced. “He’s havin’ a house-warmin’. Lot of servants an’ all are already there, an’ two big cars come just before you did.”

  “When did he build?” I asked. “And I thought he had a house up the Cape.”

  “He did, but he got mad at something and come down here. They started to build last fall an’ thirty or forty men been workin’ on it every good day this winter. Done a few weeks ago, ’twas. It all runs by ’lectricity. Ice-chests an’ stoves an’ I don’t know what all. Got twenty-six rooms, they say. Is he—Stires—is he the sort they say he is?”

  “Well,” Rowena told her blandly, “he’s short and fat and red-faced. He’s got eyes—well, like blueberries in skimmed milk. He hates women and me in particular. He’s vain and fussy and he’d build a house like this and lay off men in his factories—he makes shingles, you know—and personally I’d believe anything any one said about him that was horrid. Of course,” she added pleasantly, “he may be a fine business man and it’s possible that he has a heart of gold, but I doubt it.”

  Phrone laughed, and I laughed with her.

  “That’s about what I heard,” she said. “Only, Miss Rena, there’s a woman that come a while ago. She had red hair.”

  “A red-haired woman came to Bert Stires’s? Impossible.”

  “Yessir. I been watchin’ with that old telescope of your grandfather’s. Red-headed, she was. She come in a big sedan with a shover. You can see fine out of the west window. Look. There’s another car cornin’ now.” She picked up the telescope and fixed it to her eye. “Nope, he’s cornin’ here. Hey, the wind blew the feller’s hat off. He’s bald.”

  “One of Bert’s guests,” Rena commented.

  “He’s cornin’ here. He’s got out an’ got his hat an’ he’s cornin’ right up.” Phrone put down the glass. “I’ll go and see what he wants.”

  Rowena turned to me. “Prue, have you been making dates with bald-headed men behind my back?”

  “Nary a date. I don’t know any bald men anyway.” In a few minutes the great iron knocker on the front door banged. We heard Phrone’s voice. “Yup. She’s here. This is Miss Fible’s house.”

  “Sounds like John Kent,” I muttered.

  “But he isn’t bald, is he?” Rena whispered back. “I’ve always suspected that he wore a toupee, but I never was certain. His wig probably blew off with his hat, Rena!” We snickered as John Kent entered.

  “Phrone said a bald man was paying us a visit,” I began, but stopped as I noticed his look of irritation.

  “Hullo, you two. Prue, I’ve been hunting you for hours. Didn’t that brass image of a cook of yours tell you I wanted you? I had to track her into the wilds of Melrose and even then I had a job trying to find out where you were. I wanted to ask a favor.”

  Rowena got up. “You’ll stay for a late-lunch-early-tea?”

  “Thank you, but I’ve eaten.” He took off his polo coat and slung it over a chair. “Don’t leave, Rena. This is nothing private.”

  He lighted a cigarette and sat down in a big armchair.

  “What’s the favor?” I asked.

  “Well.” He blew out a cloud of smoke. “Well, it’s hard to begin. D’you remember Bert Stires’s half-sister, Lucia Hammond?”

  I nodded. “We went to the same china-painting school on Berkeley Street one winter and covered otherwise excellent china with pansies and goldenrod.”

  “Well, she ran off with the youngest Allerton boy, Cass. Remember that? And she died in Rome during the war, and Cass drank himself to death. He finished the job about a month ago. Their daughter arrived in Boston this morning to make her home with her guardian, who happens to be Adelbert Stires.”

  Rowena and I made no attempt to restrain our laughter.

  “What’s she like?”

  “Young, about twenty. She has red hair”— Rowena and I looked at each other; the red-haired woman was explained—“and her finger-nails match her clothes and she has violet eyes.”

  “How is Bert bearing up?” Rowena asked.

  “Well, you can imagine. He’d been planning this house-warming—a bunch of us come down every year—and he didn’t dare leave the girl alone in Boston, so he had to have her come along. It went against his principles to have a young girl alone with a lot of men, so he decided he needed a chaperon.” He stubbed his cigarette out very carefully. “That’s why I’ve been hunting you, Prue. I thought of you at once. I hoped that you’d be good enough to come and help us out.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. No. I realize, Prue, that this is not a very graceful invitation. But won’t you come?”

  “Certainly not. I wouldn’t consider it. Besides, I’ve promised to help Rowena paint her house. You may tell Bert Stires that I have a previous engagement. Did he ask you to get me, by the way?”

  John hesitated. “He told me he’d be delighted to have any one who
could come,” he said lamely.

  “In other words, he promised to take anything you could get. I’m sorry. You know he hates women, and he bears me no particular love. I shouldn’t think of going. Even if I did, I’d not leave Rowena.”

  John banged his fist on the arm of the chair. “Won’t the two of you come?”

  Rowena laughed. “You recall the episode of Adelbert’s teeth and my brick?”

  “That makes no difference. You’ve simply listened to too many unkind things about Bert. He’s a good sort. He doesn’t dislike women. He’s just scared to death of ’em. He’d be no end grateful if you’d help him out. It’s going to be a good party. You’d enjoy the other men.”

  “Who’s going to be there?” Rowena asked.

  “Borden James, for one.”

  “Not,” Rowena exclaimed delightfully, “not Prue’s old beau Denny?”

  “Yes. And the woolen Blakes. Victor himself and his son Junior. You’ve heard of them even if you don’t know them,—they pay more income taxes than any other people in Massachusetts. Then there’s Cary Hobart, the head of the Hobart Lumber Company. Greatest center rush they ever had at Harvard. Doesn’t any one of ’em appeal to you? Denny’s amusing,— Prue knows that. The Blakes have all the money in the world and Cary looks like Douglas Fairbanks. Rowena, haven’t you any influence with Prue? Can’t I bribe you to come? Prue, won’t you come if Rena will?”

  I nodded, feeling perfectly safe.

  “Rena, what can I do to make you come?”

  “I think,” Rowena drawled, and I did not like the look in her eye, “I think that if you could make Blake sit to me, I might consider coming. But if you’d get Adelbert as well, I rather think I’d actually come.”

  I gasped.

  “Done,” John said without an instant’s hesitation. “Done. Go and get your hats and coats and bags and I’ll take you over before you change your respective minds.”

  “But——”