Death of a Gossip

Forthcoming titles from Robinson
(listed in order)

Death of a Cad

Death of a Gossip

Death of an Outsider

Death of a Hussy

Death of a Perfect Wife

Death of a Snob

Death of a Glutton

Death of a Prankster

Death of a Pilgrim

Death of a Charming Man

Death of a Nag

Death of a Travelling Man

ROBINSON
London

Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the USA 1985 by St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

This edition published by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2008

Copyright © 1985, 2008 M. C. Beaton

The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84529-665-0

Printed and bound in the EU

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Epilogue

In memory of Fleet Street days –
for my very dear friend,
Rita Marshall, with love

CAST OF CHARACTERS
(in order of appearance)

Heather Cartwright:
His wife, and joint owner of the school

Marvin Roth:
American businessman and budding congressman

Amy Roth:
His wife

Lady Jane Winters:
Society widow

Jeremy Blythe:
Barrister from London

Alice Wilson:
Secretary from London

Charlie Baxter:
Twelve-year-old child from Manchester

Major Peter Frame:
Ex-army, expert angler

Daphne Gore:
Debutante from Oxford

Hamish Macbeth:
Village constable

Priscilla Halburton-Smythe:
Local landowner’s daughter

Detective Chief Inspector Blair:
Head of Strathbane CID

Detectives Jimmy Anderson and Harry McNab:
Blair’s assistants

John Harrington:
Courting Priscilla Halburton-Smythe

Colonel and Mrs Halburton-Smythe:
Priscilla’s parents

Mr Johnson:
Hotel manager

Angus MacGregor:
Poacher

‘I hate the start of the week,’ said John Cartwright fretfully. ‘Beginning with a new group. It’s rather like going on stage. Then I always feel I have
to apologize for being
English.
People who travel up here to the wilds of Scotland expect to be instructed by some great hairy Rob Roy, making jokes about saxpence and saying it’s a
braw bricht moonlicht nicht and lang may your lum reek and ghastly things like that.’

‘Don’t chatter,’ said his wife, Heather, placidly. ‘It always works out all right. We’ve been running this fishing school for three years and haven’t had a
dissatisfied customer yet.’

She looked at her husband with affection. John Cartwright was small, thin, wiry, and nervous. He had sandy, wispy hair and rather prominent pale blue eyes. Heather had been one of his first
pupils at the Lochdubh School of Casting: Salmon and Trout Fishing.

He had been seduced by the sight of her deft back cast and had only got around to discovering the other pleasures of her anatomy after they were married.

Heather was believed to be the better angler, although she tactfully hid her greater skill behind a pleasant motherly manner. Despite their vastly different temperaments, both Heather and John
were dedicated, fanatical anglers.

Fishing was their hobby, their work, their obsession. Every week during the summer a new class would arrive at the Lochdubh Hotel. Rarely did they have a complete set of amateurs; experienced
fishermen often joined the class, since they could fish excellent waters for reasonable rates. John would take care of the experts while Heather would mother the rank amateurs.

The class never consisted of more than ten. This week they had received two last-minute cancellations and so were expecting only eight.

‘Now,’ muttered John, picking up a piece of paper, ‘I gather they all checked in at the hotel last night. There’s an American couple from New York, Mr and Mrs Roth; a
Lady Winters, widow of some Labour peer; Jeremy Blythe from London; Alice Wilson, also from London; Charlie Baxter, a twelve-year-old from Manchester – the kid’s not living at the
hotel, he’s staying with an aunt in the village; Major Peter Frame. Oh dear, we had the galloping major before. These men who hang on to their army titles don’t seem able to adapt to
civilian life. Then there’s Daphne Gore from Oxford. I’ll send the major off on his own as soon as possible. Perhaps you’d better look after the kid.’

John Cartwright glanced out of the hotel window and scowled. ‘Here comes our scrounging village constable. I told the hotel I needed coffee for eight people. But Hamish will just sit there
like a dog until I give him some. Better phone down and tell them to set out an extra cup.

‘What that policeman needs is a good, juicy murder. Keep him off our hands. All he’s got to do all day is mooch around the village getting under everyone’s feet. Jimmy, the
water bailiff, told me the other day he thinks Hamish Macbeth
poaches
.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Heather. ‘He’s too lazy. He ought to get married. He must be all of thirty-five at least. Most of the girls in the village have broken their hearts
over him at one time or another. I can’t see the attraction.’

She joined her husband at the window, and he put an arm around her plump shoulders. Hamish, Lochdubh’s village constable, was strolling along the pier that lay outside the hotel, his hat
pushed on the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets. He was very tall and thin and gawky. His uniform hung on his lanky frame, showing an expanse of bony wrist where the sleeves did not
reach far enough and a length of woolly Argyll sock above large regulation boots. He removed his peaked hat and scratched his fiery red hair. Then he reached inside his tunic and thoughtfully
scratched one armpit.

The smell of hot coffee wafted up from the hotel lounge below the Cartwrights’ bedroom window. It obviously reached the nostrils of the policeman, for Hamish suddenly sniffed the air like
a dog and then started to lope eagerly towards the hotel.

The Lochdubh Hotel had been built in the last century by the Duke of Anstey as one of his many country residences. It was battlemented and turreted like a castle. It had formal gardens at the
back and the clear, limpid waters of Lochdubh at the front. It had stags’ heads in the lounge, armoury in the hall, peat fires, and one of the best chefs in Scotland. Prices were
astronomical, but the tourists came in droves, partly because the main road ended abruptly in front of the hotel, making it the only haven in a wilderness of barren moorland and towering
mountains.

The village of Lochdubh nestled at the foot of two great peaks called the Two Sisters. It was a huddle of houses built in the eighteenth century to promote the fishing industry in the Highlands.
The population had been declining steadily ever since.

There was a general store-cum-post office, a bakery, a craft shop and four churches, each with a congregation of about five.

The police station was one of the few modern buildings. The old police station had been a sort of damp hut. Constable Hamish Macbeth had arrived to take up his duties a year before the fishing
school was established. No one knew quite how he had managed it, but, in no time at all, he had a trim new house built for himself with a modern office adjoining it with one cell. The former
policeman had made his rounds on a bicycle. Constable Macbeth had prised a brand-new Morris out of the authorities. He kept chickens and geese and a large, slavering guard dog of indeterminate
breed called Towser.

Lochdubh was situated in the far northwest of Scotland. In winter it went into a long hibernation. In summer, the tourists brought it alive. The tourists were mostly English and were treated by
the locals with outward Highland courtesy and inner Highland hate.

John Cartwright had been struggling for a month to make the fishing school pay when he had met Heather. It was Heather who had taken over the bookkeeping and put advertisements in the glossy
magazines. It was Heather who had trebled John’s low fees, pointing out shrewdly that people would pay up if they thought they were getting something exclusive and the rates were still
reasonable considering the excellent salmon rivers they were allowed to fish. It was Heather who had made the whole thing work. She was plump, grey-haired, and motherly. Her marriage to John
Cartwright was her second. John often thought he would never know what went on under his wife’s placid brow, but he loved her as much as he loved angling, and sometimes, even uneasily,
thought that the school would not have survived without her, although most of the time he prided himself on his business acumen and his wife comfortably did all she could to foster this belief.

He tugged on his old fishing jacket with its many pockets, picked up his notes, and looked nervously at his wife.

‘Don’t you think we should . . . well, meet them together?’

‘You run along dear,’ said Heather. ‘Give me a shout when you’re ready to show them the knots. Once you get started talking, you’ll forget to be nervous.’

John gave her a swift kiss on the cheek and made his way along to the main staircase. He prayed they would be a jolly crowd. At least he knew the major, although that was more a case of being
comfortable with the evil he knew.

He pushed open the lounge door and blinked nervously at the eight people who were standing around eyeing each other warily. A bad sign. Usually by the time he put in his appearance, they had all
introduced themselves.

Constable Hamish Macbeth was sitting in an armchair at the window, studying the
Daily Telegraph
crossword and whistling through his teeth in an irritating way.

John took a deep breath. Lights, camera, action. He was on.

‘I think the first thing to do is to get acquainted,’ he said, smiling nervously at the silent group. ‘My name is John Cartwright, and I am your instructor. We find things go
easier if we all get on a first-name basis. Now, who would like to start?’

‘Start what?’ demanded a heavyset woman imperiously.

‘Hah, hah. Well, start introducing themselves.’

‘I’ll be first,’ said an American voice. ‘My name is Marvin Roth, and this is my wife, Amy.’

‘I’m Daphne Gore,’ drawled a tall blonde, studying her fingernails.

‘Jeremy Blythe.’ A handsome, stocky young man with a cheerful face, fair curly hair, and bright blue eyes.

‘Charlie Baxter.’ The twelve-year-old. Chubby, beautiful skin, mop of black curls, remarkably cold and assessing eyes in one so young.

‘Well, you know me. Major Peter Frame. Just call me Major. Everyone does.’ Small grey moustache in a thin, lined face; weak, petulant mouth; brand-new fishing clothes.

‘Alice Wilson.’ Pretty, wholesome-looking girl; slight Liverpool accent, wrong clothes.

‘I am Lady Jane Winters. You may call me Lady Jane.
Everyone
does.’ The heavyset woman. Heavy bust encased in silk blouse, heavy thighs bulging in knee breeches, fat calves in
lovat wool stockings. Heavy fat face with large, heavy-lidded blue eyes. Small, sharp beak of a nose. Disappointed mouth.

‘Now we’ve all got to know each other’s names, we’ll have some coffee,’ said John brightly.

Hamish uncoiled himself from the armchair and slouched forward.

Lady Jane eyed his approach with disfavour.

‘Does the village constable take fishing lessons as well?’ she demanded. Her voice was high and loud with a peculiarly grating edge to it.