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  DELICIOUS PRAISE FOR

  MARION CHESNEY AND HER NOVELS

  “Tourists are advised to watch their backs in the bucolic villages where M. C. Beaton sets her sly British mysteries.... Outsiders always spell trouble for the inbred societies Beaton observes with such cynical humor.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “[Beaton’s] imperfect heroine is an absolute gem!”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series just about defines the British cozy.”

  —Booklist

  “Anyone interested in . . . intelligent, amusing reading will want to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Agatha Raisin.”

  —Atlanta Journal Constitution

  “Beaton has a winner in the irrepressible, romance-hungry Agatha.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Few things in life are more satisfying than to discover a brand new Agatha Raisin mystery.”

  —Tampa Tribune Times

  “The Raisin series brings the cozy tradition back to life. God bless the Queen!”

  —Tulsa World

  “The Miss Marple-like Raisin is a refreshingly sensible, wonderfully eccentric, thoroughly likable heroine ... a must for cozy fans.”

  —Booklist

  SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE

  “Fans of the author’s Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin mysteries, written under the name M. C. Beaton, will welcome this new series of historical whodunits.”

  —Booklist

  “Old-hand Chesney maintains her charm and sassiness while indicting evergreen pomposity and class-status stupidity.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Combines history, romance, and intrigue resulting in a delightful romantic mystery.... The who-done-it is well developed and captures reader interest from the outset.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  AGATHA RAISIN AND

  THE DAY THE FLOODS CAME

  “A true village mystery with a heroine so timely and real, you’ll want to meet her at the pub.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  “Funny, breezy, and very enjoyable.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  AGATHA RAISIN AND THE LOVE FROM HELL

  “Among the many joys of all Agatha Raisin adventures are Beaton’s sweetly formal prose and her vivid descriptions of colorful villagers. This one, however, adds a crackerjack plot and a delightfully comic ending to the mix, making it clearly the best of the lot.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “[Agatha] is a glorious cross between Miss Marple, Auntie Mame, and Lucille Ball, with a tad of pit bull tossed in. She’s wonderful.”

  —St Petersburg Times

  AGATHA RAISIN AND THE FAIRIES OF FRYFAM

  “Witty... [a] highly amusing cozy.” —Publishers Weekly

  “More great fan from an endearing heroine.”

  —Library Journal

  “Agatha is as fractious and funny as ever. Don’t miss this one.”

  —Tulsa World

  “Outwardly bossy and vain, inwardly insecure and vulnerable, Agatha grows more endearing with each installment.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  AGATHA RAISIN AND THE WIZARD OF EVESHAM

  “Another deUghtful cozy featuring Cotswolds surroundings, a bit of history, and buoyant characters.”

  —Library Journal

  “[A] smartly updated Miss Marple... . Beaton’s books about this tough little Raisin cookie are well made and smoothly oiled entertainment machines.... Trust Agatha to solve it all in style.”

  —Amazon.com

  “The return of Agatha Raisin, amateur sleuth extraordinaire, is always a treat and M. C. Beaton does not miss a beat.... Another fabulous English cozy by the great M. C. Beaton.”

  —Painted Rock Reviews

  ST.MARTIN’S/MINOTAUR PAPERBACKS

  TITLES BY MARION GHESNEY

  Snobbery with Violence

  Hasty Death

  WRITING AS M.G. BEATON

  The Skeleton in the Closet

  THE AGATHA RAISIN SERIES

  Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate

  Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came

  Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell

  Agatha Raisin and the Fairies ofFryfam

  Agatha Raisin and the Witch ofWyckhadden

  Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham

  Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death

  Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist

  Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

  Agatha Raisin and the Walkers ofDembley

  Agatha Raisin and the Rotted Gardener

  The Vicious Vet

  The Quiche of Death

  The Deadly Dance

  SNOBBERY

  WITH

  VIOLENCE

  M. G. BEATON WRITING AS

  MARION CHESNEY

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed’’ to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book/’

  All characters in this book are figments of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead.

  SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE

  Copyright © 2003 by Marion Chesney.

  Excerpt from Hasty Death copyright © 2004 by Marion Chesney.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 20030411351

  ISBN: 0-312-99716-7

  EAN: 80312-99716-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / July 2003

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / May 2004

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  For my husband. Hairy, and my son, Charlie With Love

  Sapper, Buchan, Donford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery with Violence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.

  — ALAN BENNET

  ONE

  All the world over, I will back the masses against the classes.

  -WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE

  Unlike White’s or Brooks’s, it was simply known as The Club, lodged in a Georgian building at the bottom of St. James’s Street, hard by St. James’s Palace. Its membership was mostly comprised of the younger members of the aristocracy, who considered it a livelier place than the other stuffy gentlemen’s clubs of London.

  Some of them felt that the acceptance of Captain Harry Cathcart into The Club was a grave mistake. When he had left for the Boer War, he had been a handsome, easygoing man. But he had returned, invalided out of the army, bitter, brooding and taciturn, and he seemed unable to converse in anything other than cliches or grunts.

  One warm spring day, when a mellow sun was gilding the sooty buildings and the first trembling green leaves were appearing on t
he plane trees down the Mall, Freddy Pomfret and Tristram Baker-Willis entered The Club and looked with deep disfavour on the long figure of the captain, who was slumped in an armchair.

  “Look at that dismal face,” said Freddy, not bothering to lower his voice. “Enough to put a fellow off his dinner, what?”

  “Needs the love of a bad woman,” brayed Tristam. “Eh, Harry. What? Rather neat that, don’t you think? Love of a bad woman, what?”

  The captain, by way of reply, leaned forward, picked up the Times and barricaded himself behind it. He wanted peace and quiet to think what to do with his life. He lowered his paper once he was sure his tormentors had gone. A large mirror opposite showed him his reflection. He momentarily studied himself and then sighed. He was only twenty-eight and yet it was a face from which any sign of youth had fled. His thick black hair was showing a trace of grey at the temples. His hard and handsome face had black heavy-lidded eyes which gave nothing away. He moved his leg to ease it. His old wound still throbbed and hurt on the bad days, and this was one of them.

  He was the youngest son of Baron Derrington, existing on his army pension and a small income from the family trust. His social life was severely curtailed. On his return from the war, he had been invited out to various dinner parties and dances, but the invitations faded away as he became damned as a bore who rarely opened his mouth and who did not know how to flirt with the ladies.

  He put the Times back down on the table in front of him, and as he did so, he saw there was a copy of the Daily Mail lying there. Someone must have brought it in, for The Club would never supply a popular paper. There was a photograph on the front of a suffragette demonstration in Trafalgar Square and an oval insert of a pretty young girl with the caption, “Lady Rose, daughter of the Earl of Hadshire, joined the demonstrators.”

  Brave girl, thought the captain. That’s her social life ruined. He put the paper down again and forgot about her.

  But Lady Rose was possessed of exceptional beauty and a large dowry, so a month later her parents felt confident that her support for the suffragettes would not be much of a barrier to marriage. After all, the very idea of women getting the vote was a joke, and so they had told her, in no uncertain terms. They had moved to their town house in Eaton Square and lectured their daughter daily on where her duty lay. A season was a vast expense and England expected every girl to do her duty and capture a husband during it.

  Normally, the independently-minded Lady Rose would have balked at this. She had been refusing a season, saying it was nothing more than a cattle market, when, to the delight of her parents, she suddenly caved in.

  The reason for this was because Lady Rose had met Sir Geoffrey Blandon at a pre-season party and had fallen in love— first love, passionate all-consuming love.

  He appeared to return her affections. He was rich and extremely handsome. Lady Rose was over-educated for her class, and her obvious contempt for her peers had given her the nickname The Ice Queen. But to her parents’ relief, Sir Geoffrey appeared to be enchanted by their clever daughter. Certainly Rose, with her thick brown hair, perfect figure, delicate complexion and large blue eyes, had enough attributes to make anyone fall for her.

  But the fact was that her support for the suffragettes had indeed damaged her socially, and it seemed as if Sir Geoffrey had the field to himself. Resentment against Rose was growing in the gentlemen’s clubs and over the port at dinner parties after the ladies had retired. Suffragettes were simply men-haters. They needed to be taught a lesson. “What that gal needs,” Freddy Pomfret was heard to remark, “is some rumpy-pumpy.”

  As the season got underway and social event followed social event, the earl began to become extremely anxious. He felt that by now Sir Geoffrey should have declared his intentions.

  One day at his club, he met an old friend, Brigadier Bill Handy, and over a decanter of port after a satisfying lunch, the earl said, “I’d give anything to know if Geoffrey means to pop the question.”

  The brigadier studied him for a long moment and then said, “I think you should be careful there. Blandon’s always been a bit of a rake and a gambler. Tell you what. Do you know Captain Cathcart?”

  “Vaguely. Only heard of him. Sinister sort of chap who never opens his mouth?”

  “That’s the one. Now he did some undercover work behind the lines in the war. You mustn’t mention this.”

  “I’m a clam.”

  “All right. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you my card and scribble something on the back of it. I’ll give you his address. Pop round there and ask him to check up on Blandon. It’s worth it. Rose is your only daughter. They say she talks like an encyclopaedia. Wouldn’t have thought that would fascinate Blandon. How did you come to make such a mistake?”

  “Not my fault,” said the earl huffily. “My wife got her this governess and left the instruction to her.”

  “I hear that Lady Rose is a member of the Shrieking Sisterhood,” remarked the brigadier, using the nickname for the suffragettes.

  “Not any more, she ain’t,” said the earl. “Mind you, I think the only reason she lost interest was because of Blandon.”

  “Well, maybe there is something to be said for love, though I don’t hold with it. A girl should marry background and money.

  They last, love don’t. Here’s my card.” He wrote an address down and handed it over.

  The earl put his monocle in his eye and studied it. “I say, old man. Chelsea? No place for a gentleman.”

  “If Captain Cathcart were the complete gentleman he wouldn’t dream of doing your snooping for you. But you’ll be safe with him.”

  Lady Rose was at that moment fretting under the ministrations of her lady’s maid. Having abandoned the Sisterhood—but only briefly, she told herself—Rose had once more subjected herself to the staltifying dress code of Edwardian society. While she had been supporting the suffragette movement, she had worn simple skirts and blouses and a straw hat. But now she was dressed in layers of silk underclothes, starched petticoats and elaborate gowns with waterfalls of lace. Her figure was too slim to suit the fashion of ripe and luscious beauty, and so art was brought to bear to create the small-waisted, S-shaped figure. A beauty had to have an outstanding bust and a noticeable posterior. Rose was lashed into a long corset and then put into a Dip Front Adjuster, a waist-cinch that stressed the fashionable about-to-topple-over appearance. Her bottom was padded, as was her bust. By the time the maid had slung a rope of pearls around Rose’s neck and decorated the bosom of her gown with brooches, Rose felt she looked like a tray in a jeweller’s window.

  Geoffrey always praised her appearance but had implied that once she was married, she would be free to wear more comfortable clothes. Rose stared at the mirror as the maid put in pompadours, the pads over which her long hair would be drawn up and arranged. Sir Geoffrey had said nothing about when we are married. But he had stolen a kiss, just the other night, behind a pillar in the Jessingtons’ ballroom, and stealing a kiss was tantamount to a proposal of marriage.

  The captain lived in a thin white house in Water Street, off the King’s Road. The earl fervently hoped that the man was a gentleman and not some sort of Neverwazzer who wore a bowler hat or carried a coloured handkerchief in his breast pocket or— horror upon horrors—brown boots with a dark suit. He had never met him but had heard about him in the clubs.

  The earl climbed stiffly down from his carriage and waited while his footman rapped at the door. To his rehef, the earl saw that the door was opened by a sober-looking gentleman’s gentleman who took the earl’s card, carefully turned down at one corner to show the earl was calling in person, put it on a silver tray, and retreated into the house.

  The earl frowned. His title should have been enough to grant him instant admission.

  The captain’s servant returned after only a few moments and spoke to the footman, who sprinted down the stairs to tell the earl that the captain would be pleased to receive him.

  The earl was ushered
into a room on the ground floor. He was announced, and a tall saturnine man who had been sitting in a chair by the window rose to meet him.

  “May we offer you something?” asked Captain Cathcart. “Sherry?”

  “Fine, fine,” mumbled the earl, taken aback by the amount of books in the shelves lining the room. His Majesty, King Edward, set such a good example by not opening a book from one year’s end to another. Why couldn’t everyone follow such a fine example?

  “Sherry, Becket,” said the captain to his manservant. And to the earl, “Do sit down, sir. I see the sun has come out at last.”

  “So it has,” said the earl, who hadn’t noticed. “I come on a delicate matter.” He handed over the brigadier’s card.

  “What matter?”

  “Well, y’see—” The earl broke off as the manservant reentered the room with glasses and decanter on a tray. He poured two glasses and handed one to the captain and one to the earl.

  “That will be all,” said the captain and Becket noiselessly retreated.

  The captain turned his fathomless black gaze on the earl, wondering why he had come. The earl was a small round man dressed in a frock-coat and grey trousers. He had a round, reddish face and blue eyes which had a childlike look about them.

  “It’s like this,” said the earl, feeling awkward and embarrassed. “I have a daughter, Rose ...”

  “Ah, the suffragette.”

  “I thought people had forgotten about that,” said the earl. “Anyway, Rose is being courted by Sir Geoffrey Blandon. He’s not an adventurer. Good family. Nothing wrong there.”

  “And the problem?”

  “He hasn’t proposed. Rose is my only child. Would like some discreet chap to check up on Blandon. Find out if he’s the thing. I mean, does he have a mistress who might turn awkward? That sort of business.”

  Having got it out, the little earl turned scarlet with embarrassment and took a gulp of sherry.