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Authors: Robin Paige

Death at Rottingdean

BOOK: Death at Rottingdean
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Table of Contents
 
 
The Victorian Mystery Series by Robin Paige
Death at Bishop's Keep
... in which our detectives Kate Ardleigh and Sir Charles
Sheridan meet for the first time as they are drawn into a
lurid conspiracy...
Death at Gallows Green
... in which two mysterious deaths bring Kate and Sir
Charles together once more to solve the secrets
of Gallows Green...
 
Death at Daisy's Folly
... in which Charles and Kate discover that even the
highest levels of society are no refuge from the lowest of
deeds—such as murder...
 
Death at Devil's Bridge
... in which newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan begin
their lives at Bishop's Keep—only to find a new mystery
right in their own backyard ...
 
 
 
More praise for Robin Paige's
Victorian Mysteries ...
 
 
 
“I read it with enjoyment... I found myself burning for the
injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.”
—Anne Perry
 
 
“Absolutely riveting... An extremely articulate, genuine
mystery, with well-drawn, compelling characters.”
—
Meritorious Mysteries
The Victorian Mysteries by Robin Page
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
 
 
 
China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert
 
 
 
Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert
THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM
THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW
THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD
THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE
 
 
 
Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert
WRITING FROM LIFE
WORK OF HER OWN
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Publisbed 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.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
 
 
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
 
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors' 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 ROTTINGDEAN
 
 
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors
 
 
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition
I
March 1999
Copyright © 1999 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.
ISBN: 9781440672958
 
 
Visit our website at
www.penguin.com
 
 
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.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Version_2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful thanks are due Michael Smith, Honorary Secretary of the Kipling Society at Rottingdean, who provided access to the Society's archives and many helpful insights into the history of Rottingdean; to Colonel John Albert, USAF, for access to his historical reference library, and to Phyllis Calif and her late husband, Leslie, for first acquainting us with the charm of England's south coast and for providing warm hospitality during our visits there.
 
 
Robin Paige a.k.a. Bill and Susan Albert
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Lord Charles
Sheridan,
Baron of Somersworth
Lady
Kathryn Ardleigh
Sheridan, Baroness of Somersworth and mistress of Bishop's Keep
Lawrence Quibbley,
manservant to Lord Sheridan
Amelia Quibbley
, personal maid to Lady Sheridan
 
 
ROTTINGDEAN'S RESIDENTS AND VISITORS
Rudyard Kipling,
novelist and poet
Caroline Kipling,
wife of Rudyard Kipling
Lady Georgiana Burne-Jones,
wife of the painter Edward Burne-Jones
Jack (Fat Jack) Woodhouse,
constable of Rottingdean
Captain Reynold Smith,
coast guard commander
Harry Tudwell,
stablemaster, Hawkham Stables
Patrick,
an eleven-year-old boy
John Landsdowne,
village chemist
Trunky Thomas,
owner of bathing machines and fishing skiffs
Mrs. Portney,
cook-housekeeper at Seabrooke House
Mrs. Howard,
proprietress of
Ladies' Fashions for Fashionable Ladies
Mrs. Radford, widow of George Radford,
Black Rock coast guard
Professor Waldemar Hertling,
antiquarian
Photographer
 
 
BRIGHTON'S RESIDENTS AND VISITORS
His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales
Arthur
Sassoon, banker and member of the Marlborough House set
 
 
Count Ludwig Hauptmann,
Cultural Representative
of the Kaiser
Captain Pierre
Gostarde, French Navy
Sir Robert Pinckney,
Chief Constable, Brighton
Dr. Paul Barriston,
surgeon and
Queen's
coroner
Reginald Wright Barker,
gun shop proprietor
Mr. Maurice Burke,
tobacconist
A Smuggler's Song
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm—don't you ask no more!
If you do as you've been told,' likely there's a chance,
You
'll
be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood—
A present from the Gentlemen, along o‘being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie—
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
-RUDYARD KIPLING
Puck of Pock's Hill
1
Smuggling is the chief support of the inhabitants at which they are very Dext'rous—for which innocent and beneficial practice (sad to relate) Captain Dunk the Butcher paid £500 and ten of his worthy friends were lodged in Hawsham Gaol or in their elegant language were sent for a month to college to improve their manners.
old History of Rottingdean
 
 
 
 
T
he salt breeze was fresh against the boy's face and the waves broke with a soft chuckle and a foamy fizz on the shingle beach at his feet. On very calm days, when there was no breeze at all, the water lapped gently against the rounded flint pebbles, as it might do at the edge of a mill-pond. But Patrick had spent his entire eleven years on the south coast of England, and he was not taken in by the Channel's deceptive tranquillity. Autumn conjured up angry sou'westers, whose giant crashing waves scooped up the flint pebbles and flung them at the great chalk cliff a few yards behind him, undermining the soft, flint-studded rock until great stabs gave way and collapsed into the maelstrom, pulling down sections of the Brighton-to-Rottingdean road and bits of wall and even a few hapless cottages. The furious waves would pound road and rock and walls and roof to nothing, leaving only the indestructible nodules of gray flint, strewn on the beach to be used as the waves' ammunition for the next attack against the cliff.
BOOK: Death at Rottingdean
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