Endless Night

Michael Rogers, a restless young Englishman of 22, narrates this story from an uncertain vantage point, wondering where his tale truly began. He settles on a day when, idling in the village of Kingston Bishop, he notices a sale bill for a property called The Towers. A local tells him the land is known as Gipsy's Acre: It once belonged to Romani travelers who were driven off and placed a curse on it. Mike walks up the hill and is struck by the magnificent views. An elderly Romani woman named Mrs. Esther Lee warns him fiercely against the property, reads his palm, then abruptly drops his hands, telling him sorrow and danger await.

Mike has drifted through jobs as a chauffeur, waiter, mechanic, and fruit picker, always searching for something he cannot name. While chauffeuring a client to the French Riviera, he met Rudolf Santonix, a brilliant but terminally ill architect who told Mike he could build him a perfect house if Mike ever found the money.

Mike returns to attend the auction of The Towers, but the reserve price is not met. Walking up the road afterward, he encounters a young woman near a fir tree who introduces herself as Fenella Goodman. Mike impulsively shares his vision of building a Santonix-designed house on the site, and the two feel an immediate connection. On their way back, Mrs. Lee confronts Fenella, who goes by Ellie, warning her to leave and prophesying death.

Over the following weeks, Mike and Ellie meet repeatedly in Regent's Park. Ellie describes a stifling upbringing as a sheltered American heiress controlled by her stepmother Cora van Stuyvesant, an uncle named Frank, and various trustees. Her only real ally is Greta Andersen, a German-Swedish companion who arranges escapes from her family. Mike feels instinctive jealousy of Greta's influence.

Ellie goes abroad for her 21st birthday and returns more confident. She reveals that she bought Gipsy's Acre through her own lawyer and that her real name is Fenella Guteman, heir to one of America's largest oil fortunes. She disguised her surname so Mike would not recognize it. They plan to marry secretly, and Ellie has already commissioned Santonix to design the house. They marry in Plymouth with strangers as witnesses and honeymoon across Europe. In Greece, Santonix shows them completed plans that leave Mike overwhelmed. Santonix warns that Ellie will always know where she is going but that Mike "might take the wrong road" (57).

When the marriage becomes public, Ellie's family converges. Andrew Lippincott, her principal guardian-trustee, accepts the marriage but warns that Greta has too much influence over Ellie. Mike meets Greta for the first time: a strikingly beautiful Nordic blonde he privately compares to a Valkyrie.

Santonix telegrams that the house is complete. Mike carries Ellie over the threshold. That first night, a stone crashes through the window, cutting Ellie's cheek. They defiantly name the house Gipsy's Acre. Further threats follow: a dead bird skewered with a knife and a menacing note. Ellie befriends Claudia Hardcastle, a horse-loving neighbor who turns out to be Santonix's half-sister. When Ellie sprains her ankle near a Folly, an ornamental garden pavilion they have restored in the woods, she sends for Greta, who takes charge of the household and stays on indefinitely.

Mrs. Lee's threats escalate, and Sergeant Keene reveals she has been flush with money, suggesting someone is paying her to frighten the couple. Santonix visits, gravely ill, and warns Mike privately that Greta is dangerous.

On September 17th, Mike goes to an auction with Major Phillpot, the local patriarch, while Greta goes to London with Claudia. Ellie rides out after breakfast, planning to meet Mike for lunch. She never appears. Mike and Phillpot search the moorland and find Ellie dead at the wood's edge. Dr. Shaw, the local physician, attributes death to heart failure. A witness reports seeing a figure in a red cloak near the woods that morning. Mrs. Lee has vanished, and the Coroner adjourns the inquest.

Suspicions multiply. A stone bearing the message "It was a woman who killed your wife" crashes through the window (189). Police find a gold lighter with a diamond "C" in the Folly. Ellie's family members all turn out to have been in England on the day of her death. Lippincott tells Mike he is Ellie's principal beneficiary and advises him to hire independent counsel.

Mike sails to New York, where he discovers that Stanford Lloyd, Ellie's investment manager, has been mishandling her finances. Before Mike departs for England, Lippincott informs him that he is sending a letter by air mail to Gipsy's Acre. News arrives from England: Mrs. Lee's body has been found in a quarry, and Claudia Hardcastle has been killed in a riding accident. A cable summons Mike to California, where a dying Santonix briefly regains consciousness and shouts, "You damned fool . . . Why didn't you go the other way?" (212).

On the ship home, Mike writes to Phillpot announcing his intention to marry Greta. Walking up to Gipsy's Acre at dusk, he sees, or believes he sees, Ellie's ghost under the fir tree where they first met. She looks toward him with love but cannot see him.

He enters the house and embraces Greta. Then the narration shifts as Mike reveals the truth: he and Greta have been co-conspirators from the start. They met in Hamburg long before Mike encountered Ellie. Greta proposed the plan: Mike would seduce and marry the rich heiress Greta had access to as her companion, and then Ellie would die. Mike also confesses to earlier killings: as a schoolboy, he let a friend drown to steal his wristwatch; during military training, he killed a wounded companion for his gambling winnings. He reveals the method of Ellie's murder: he and Greta replaced one of her allergy capsules with a cyanide-laced one prepared in the Folly. Ellie took it at breakfast, rode out, and died when the poison took effect. Mike also pushed Mrs. Lee into the quarry to silence her.

Triumph curdles. Greta excitedly plans world travel while Mike grows agitated, repeating the phrase "Endless Night" from the William Blake poem Ellie used to sing. He opens Lippincott's letter and finds a newspaper photograph from Hamburg showing Mike and Greta walking arm in arm. Lippincott has known all along. Greta calls Mike a coward. His mood shifts to hatred, and he strangles her.

Dr. Shaw and the police arrive. Shaw explains that the cyanide method was uncovered because Claudia found one of the leftover poisoned capsules in the Folly and died quickly enough for the poison to be detected. Mike is taken into custody and requests pen and paper to write the account the reader has been reading. His mother visits, saying she always feared she would fail to keep him safe. In his final reflections, Mike realizes that only Ellie matters, and she can never find him again. He circles back to the narrative's opening, wondering where his story truly began.