Death Devil's Bridge

Table of Contents

 

 

“Death at Daisy's Folly
is eminently satisfying. It contains an intricate mystery, a delightful pair of sleuths, a wonderful sense of atmosphere and place, and a nice romance to sweeten the plot. Discerning readers who appreciate finely crafted historical mysteries will treasure this addition to a wonderful series.”—
Gothic Journal

 

“I read it with enjoyment ... I found myself burning for the injustices of it and caring what happened to the people.”

—Anne Perry, author of
At Some Disputed Barricade

 

“An absolutely charming book ... An adventure well worth your time ... You're sure to enjoy it.”—
Romantic Times

 

“Absolutely riveting ... An extremely accurate, genuine mystery, with well-drawn, compelling characters.”

—
Meritorious
Mysteries

 

“An intriguing mystery ... Skillfully unraveled.”

—Jean Hager, author of Blooming Murder

 

“I couldn't put it down.”
—Murder & Mayhem

 

“Wonderfully gothic ... A bright and lively recreation of late Victorian society.”

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

 

 

 

THYME OF DEATH
WITCHES' BANE
HANGMAN'S ROOT
ROSEMARY REMEMBERED
RUEFUL DEATH
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
CHILE DEATH
LAVENDER LIES

MISTLETOE MAN
BLOODROOT
INDIGO DYING
AN UNTHYMELY DEATH
A DILLY OF A DEATH
DEAD MAN'S BONES
BLEEDING HEARTS
SPANISH DAGGER

CHINA BAYLES' BOOK OF DAYS

 

 

THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM
THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW
THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD
THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE

 

 

 

WRITING FROM LIFE
WORK OF HER OWN

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published
by
the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
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South Africa

 

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's 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 DEVIL'S BRIDGE

 

 

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

 

PRINTING HISTORY Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 1998

Copyright © 1998 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, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-440-67297-2

 

 

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. The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

Our thanks go to Robin Barker, for the generous loan of the 1895-98 issues of
The British Journal Photographic Almanac,
and to Charles Albert, for his help with engineering details. We are also grateful to the many readers who have written to comment on the technical and historical authenticity of this series. We very much appreciate your interest and support.

 

Bill and Susan Albert aka Robin Paige

MAJOR CHARACTERS

THE GENTRY

Sir Charles Sheridan,
of Bishop's Keep and Somersworth

Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan, aka Beryl Bardwell,
of Bishop's Keep

Lord Bradford Marsden,
of Marsden Manor

The Honorable Miss Patsy Marsden,
of Marsden Manor

Roger
Thornton,
Squire, of Thornton Grange

 

SELECTED EXHIBITORS, COMPETITORS,
AND GUESTS AT THE ESSEX MOTOR CAR EXHIBITION AND BALLOON CHASE

Herr Wilhelm Albrecht,
German motorcar racer and
driver
of Lord Marsden's Daimler

Mr. Arnold Bateman,
Cambridge, inventor and driver of the Bateman Electric Car

Mr. Arthur Dickson,
Sheffield, owner and driver of a Serpollet Steamer

Mr. Sam Holt,
journalist, of
Autocar
magazine

Mr. Harry Dunstable,
promoter of the British Motor Car Syndicate

Mr. Frank Ponsonby,
bill-broker and driver of a Benz

The Honorable Charles Stewart Rolls
of Trinity College, Cambridge, aeronaut and owner of a Peugeot

Mr. Henry Royce,
electrical engineer, of Manchester

DEDHAM VILLAGERS

Dr. Braxton Bassett,
surgeon

Harry Hodson,
the Crown's coroner

Mistress Bess Gurton

The Widow Jessup

Young Jessup

Edward Laken,
Constable

The Reverend Barfield Talbot,
Vicar of St. Mary's Parish

Tom Whipple

Mudd,
butler

Pocket,
footman

Mrs. Sarah Pratt,
cook

Amelia Quibbley,
housekeeper

Lawrence
Quibbley,
mechanic to Lord Bradford Marsden and photographic assistant to Sir Charles Sheridan

Far behind them, Mole, Toad, and the Water Rat heard a faint warning hum, like the drone of a distant bee. Glancing back, they saw a small cloud of dust with a dark centre of energy, advancing at incredible speed.... It was on them! The “Poop-poop” of the horn rang with a brazen shout in their ears ... and the magnificent motor-car, immense, breath-snatching, passionate, with its pilot tense and hugging his wheel, possessed all earth and air for the fraction of a second, flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and enwrapped them utterly, and then dwindled to a speck in the far distance, changed back into a droning bee once more.

—KENNETH GRAHAME
The Wind in the Willows

 

 

 

 

T
he sky was darkening over Dedham Vale as Bess Gurton hitched up her woolen skirt, climbed the stile, and set off along the margin of Dead Man's Meadow. High overhead skittered an early and erratic bat, half-blind in the dying light Higher yet, in the tops of the horse chestnut trees, a few rooks offered somber good nights.

Bess tightened her grip on her willow basket. The ominous voices of rooks frightened some, but not her. “Rusty death a‘cawin',” her neighbor Sally would say, looking up from her knitting when she heard the birds shrieking. “Sit-tin' in judgment,” she would add with a shudder, and get up to close the casement. “Passin' a death sentence on some poor lost soul.”

But about rooks, Bess knew better. As a girl, some thirty years ago, she had kept a rook called Figwort, a sociable bird with a bright, inquisitive eye. She had raised Figwort from a fledgling, and while he grew up to be a mischievous thief, stealing the odd bit of this and that, he was never the least bit malevolent. No, if the melancholy calls of the sleepy rooks in the dying twilight brought anything to Bess's mind, it was an ancient longing that harked back to her childhood, a foolish, reckless wish, Sally would say, and surely quite wicked. Her neighbors in Dedham Village, Bess had learned long ago, were easily affrighted by what they did not understand and swift to suspect any impulse that seemed out of the ordinary.

And this wish was indeed an extraordinary one, at least by village standards. Audacious, intemperate as it might seem to those who did not dare think on such things, Bess wanted to fly.

“And why not, I'd like to know?” she would ask herself truculently. “Wot's wrong wi' it?”

And herself would respond, gently reassuring, “Nothing's wrong with it, Bessie, me girl. Birds do it, angels do it, yer gammer's done it. Now, stop shilly-shallying an' git on wi' it. If ye'r ever goin' to fly, let it be now!”

The desire to fly was not uniquely nor even originally Bess's wish. She had learned it from her grandmother, who had raised her from infancy in the whitewashed cottage on Black Brook which Bess occupied now, together with a company of cats, an ancient Jack Russell terrier named Fat Susan, and a milk cow named Patience. In those days, Gammer Gurton had had two cronies, both of whom could fly—or so Bess understood from the hushed stories she heard around the kitchen fire when she was quite a young girl. And Gammer herself had also flown, Bess was sure of it, for hadn't she seen her with her very own eyes one moonlight night, astride a hurdle, skirts and cape snatching at the brambles as she sailed low over the hedge and into the Great Wood?