Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [1]
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 the 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