Part of Series
Fenella Lestrange is motoring from her great-aunt Beatrice's house in Wandles Parva to her cousins' manor in Douston, and she is running late. Looking for a place to eat, Fenella stops at the village of Seven Wells and tries her luck at the local inn, called the More to Come. There she learns that the inn was built upon the foundations of an ancient church, and that the village is busy with secret preparations for tonight's Mayering Eve ceremonies. Unable to get more information about this apparently unique pagan holiday (the date being April 30th), Fenella finishes her dinner and returns to her car only to find that the vehicle, working fine moments ago, now won't start. Frustrated by the delay, she has the car towed to the only garage around, then secures a room for the night at the More to Come. Villagers and the staff at the inn continue to allude to the strange activities that will happen soon. After being told by the landlord, Mr. Shurrock, to bolt her bedroom door for the night, Mrs. Shurrock adds, "Whatever happens, don't you open that door to nobody." Fenella's curiosity soon overtakes the unease she feels, and she slips out of her room to do some investigating. She first encounters the bizarre scene of costumed villagers dressed as the signs of the Zodiac, reading cards at the inn. Scorpio recognizes Fenella as an intruder, and the group turns hostile. Escaping the group, Fenella also becomes spectator to a strange ritual taking place within the crypt of the old church. Inside, a sacrificial skeleton is sprinkled with rooster's blood while the gatherers chant a pagan fertility poem. The anointed bones are then carried to their resting place in a hillside grave. Dame Beatrice is quite interested in Fenella's adventures, for the psychiatrist is looking into the murder of the squire of Seven Wells, Sir Bathy Bitton-Bittadon. The man was found with a knife in his back, and it appears the murderer then threw Sir Bathy over a wall that surrounds his land. When Fenella makes a later visit to the More to Come, she is surprised to find that the landlord and staff have been replaced by a group of strangers. Enquiries on the Shurrocks' sudden absence produce sinister warnings from the villagers. And another unpleasant discovery is in store: within the crypt beneath the inn, Fenella comes across five freshly laid out human skeletons.
Author
Aka Malcolm Torrie, Stephen Hockaby. Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie. She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921. She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939. She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983. Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard. She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
