Time for Crime

A 1958 edition published by
Hodder and Stoughton.

Althea Graham is 27 and has 'let herself go', which is hardly surprising since she spends her time looking after her demanding mother. "It was years since she had had her hair done at a shop. It was years since she had stopped using make-up. It was years since she had stopped taking any interest in how she looked." Five years to be precise. That's when she had planned to marry Nicholas Carey, but her mother, who considers herself to be an 'invalid', protested and fell ill. So Althea broke off her engagement and put her life on hold, while Nicholas (a journalist), went abroad. Now he's back in town, and the attraction between him and Althea is as strong as ever. But Mrs Graham remains vehemently opposed to their marriage. Then tragedy strikes when her body is discovered in the summer house where the lovers have held a secret meeting. She has been strangled, and the finger of suspicion falls on Nicholas... But is he guilty? And if not, who is the real killer? And what is their motive? 

That, briefly, is the plot of The Gazebo, one of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries. Miss Maud Silver, for those who don't know, is an elderly one-time governess who has turned her hand to detecting, a little like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. A former governess, she is very observant while remaining unobserved herself, with a wide knowledge of human nature (just like Miss Marple). She also enjoys knitting, and loves Tennyson - she can (and frequently does) produce an apposite quotation for every occasion. Oh, and I nearly forgot, she has a trademark cough, which can be prim, gentle, hesitant, warning, expressing all kinds of emotions and thoughts. Whenever I read these books, I'm always amazed at the many different ways a person can cough! 

Anyway, that's quite enough about Miss Silver. Let's get back to Althea. The plot is fairly simple, but also features two unsavoury men bidding to buy the house where Althea and her mother live, even though it is not on the market - so why are they so desperate to buy it for far more than it is worth? Ne'er-do-well Fred Worple, who talks and looks like a spiv, is a one-time local who has returned with money to spend, while Mr Blount, an antique dealer with dodgy taste in suits and a terrified, downtrodden wife, claims to be visiting the area. We learn that he is thought to have killed his father, and his first wife, but nothing was ever proved, although his current wife is convinced he is trying to murder her. 

Stories of the past come to light, with an account of the Gordon Riots in the 18thC, when the original house on the site of the Grahams' home was burned to the ground, and there are rumours of hidden treasure waiting to be found. Then a valuable diamond goes missing from a ring: its absence is noted by others, but goes unreported by the owner, who offers to provide a false alibi for Nicholas, and you wonder why, and whether any of these events are linked to the murder. The local police are baffled, so Scotland Yard sends its best, in the shape of Detective Inspector Frank Abbott, an old friend of Miss Silver who, fortunately, is on hand to lend her expertise.

At a cocktail party held shortly after Nicholas
returns, Althea makes the effort to llook attractive,
and is described as looking pretty in a green 
dress - something like the one in this old
McCall's pattern perhaps.

Patricia Wentworth is sometimes accused of creating caricatures rather than fully rounded characters, and it's true that her books abound with 'types' who look and behave just as you would expect, but she describes them so well they still seem credible. And when she is in the mood she can really bring a character to life, skewering unpleasant people with pinpoint accuracy. Her description of  Althea's widowed mother Winifred is wonderful, and tells you all you all you need to know. "Mrs Graham wore her invalidism in a very finished and elegant manner, from her beautifully arranged hair to the grey suede shoes which matched her dress. It is true that she wore a shawl, but it was a cloudy affair of pink and blue and lavender which threw up the delicate tints of her face and complemented the blue of her eyes," she tells us.

Wentworth is good at showing character and social class through clothes. Mrs Graham, whose pretty, blond looks have faded over the years (along with her finances), keeps her hair soft, pretty and full of lights with the aid of Sungleam hair rinse, which sounds a little like the Hint of a Tint available when I as young - does anyone remember it? Her hair, make-up and clothes, are all understated,but tasteful, designed to emphasise the fact that she is fragile and delicate.  Her friend Ella Harrison also colours her hair, but looks like what she is - an ex-chorus girl who has married into money. She has brassy hair, a voice to match, and wears too much, too bright make-up and a lot of showy jewellery. And her clothes are most definitely not understated. There is a 'clinging garment of royal blue, the colour being repeated by a twist of tulle and a jewelled clasp in the hair', and plaid skirt worn with a twin set 'in a lively shade of emerald', and again with a scarlet jumper and cardigan, which is 'even more startling'. They seem an unlikely duo to make friends, but I think they are both outsiders, both disliked or distrusted by other women.

This black and white photo of Anne Francis in the 1960 film,
Girl of the Night is not an exact match for Ella in her plaid skirt
 and bright twin set, but has the right air for the woman and the
 period. Ella liked clothes that clung to her curves, so she would
 have worn a skin-tight pencil skirt. rather than a flared one, and her
jumper and cardigan would also have been very tight indeed.

There are some lovely 'bit part' players in the story. I particularly liked the three Miss Pimms, Maud, Nellie and Lily who, like the Grahams, have come down in the world, with a reduced income and shortage of domestic help. They know everything that goes on in Grove Hill, and live for gossip, garnering all the local news and secrets between them, and see nothing wrong in passing the details on to others. And Fred Worple is also well-drawn. He is good-looking in a 'rather obtrusive' way and his tone is one of 'impertinent familiarity'. He is described as being 'quite dreadful' and 'forward and pushing'. He turns out to be an old beau of Ella Harrison, which is unsurprising since they both like lots of noise, glitter, and plenty to drink. I assume they never got together on a permanent basis because neither of them had any money.

Sadly, it's difficult to build much of a picture of Althea's appearance or personality. She's obviously a thoroughly nice middle-class girl, who was once bright, lively and pretty, with brown, curly hair, but has been thoroughly squashed by her selfish, manipulative mother, and has steeled herself to show no emotion, and to remain uncaring about her appearance. She plods through her days, weeks, months and years as if she is sleeping, but is brought back to life when Nicholas reappears. Again, he seems a little shadowy, although he's obviously honourable, good-looking, devoted to Althea, and more than a little reckless and impetuous. Somehow, I always expect the central protagonists to stand out more strongly, but here the action happens around them. They, and almost everyone else, are pushed into the background by Mrs Graham, even though her death her occurs very early in the novel. 

This is Alexandria of Denmark, wife of
Edward VII. Her curly fringe was copied by many
women, including Miss Silver. 

Miss Silver, whilst happy to remain unnoticed, retains her identity and would never, ever allow herself to be pushed anywhere. Being quiet, friendly, and unobtrusive allows her to obtain information from people in a way the police could never achieve, and her appearance reinforces people's perception of her as a harmless, little, old lady. She may have a razor sharp mind, but she looks dowdy and old-fashioned, and is probably the last woman in England to sport an Alexandra fringe - a curly fringe made famous by the wife of King Edward VI. Wentworth says: "She had on one of those patterned silk dresses which are thrust upon elderly ladies who have an insufficient sales-resistance. It had a small muddled pattern of green and blue and black on a grey background, and it had been made high to the neck by the insertion of a net front with little whalebone supports."  Her hat is black, as usual, but she has departed from her custom of straw or felt (depending on the season) and has donned a black velvet toque, bought for a wedding in the spring, and trimmed with three pompoms, one black, one grey, one purple. 

j
Toque hats usually had small brims, and tallish, straightish, squashed down crowns.
In the 1950s and '60s some were taller and smoother, but I think Miss Silver
would have opted for something similar to this Julie Magner
toque in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The book was originally published in England in 1958, so I assume it was written around that time, but it's difficult to tell what period it is set in - life doesn't seem to have changed much since Miss Silver first appeared in the late 1920s. Like many other early and mid-century novels, what strikes you how limited women's lives were. Marriage was still the ultimate goal, and few of them had careers: Nurse Cotton is an exception, as is Miss Silver, with her thriving sleuthing business, and Ella was a chorus girl (which is not considered at all respectable). But most other working women only do a few hours cleaning for those higher up the social scale. 

This may not be the best Miss Silver mystery, but nevertheless I enjoyed it a lot.