Faintley Speaking

Mrs. Bradley #27

by Gladys Mitchell

On a rainy, miserable night, down-on-his-luck author George Mandsell ducks into a public telephone box, intending to call his publisher and ask for an advance. As soon as he is inside, the phone begins to ring. Answering it, he discovers that the caller is a Miss Faintley, and in no uncertain terms she tells him to pick up a parcel from a neighboring station and to deliver it to a shady shopowner in the village. Before Mandsell can explain that she has mistaken him for another errand-runner, she rings off. Spotting the chance to make a little money while also perhaps finding inspiration for a story idea in the adventure, the penniless author sets out to retrieve the package. A short while later, thirteen-year-old Mark Street is dismayed to find his least favorite school teacher staying at the same hotel where he and his family are passing their summer holiday. Worse luck, Miss Faintley (referred to by Mark as "old Semi-Conscious") has uncharacteristically asked him to accompany her to a nearby town. With a schoolboy's resourcefulness, Mark slips away from his teacher at Torbury and returns to the hotel for an unsupervised swim. He begins to worry, however, when Miss Faintley doesn't return to the hotel by the following day, and confides as much to Laura Menzies, a fellow guest and newfound companion in athletic activities. Out for an early morning hike, Mark and Laura discover a deserted house surrounded by woods on one side and coastline on the other. Ignoring "no trespassing" signs, they investigate and eventually come upon a woman's body lying among the gorse. Laura alerts her employer, Mrs. Beatrice Bradley, and the old detective soon picks up the scent. If the body is that of Miss Faintley, who killed her, and why? After a visit to the caves at Lascaux, the consultation of some botany books, a little seafaring surveillance, and the befriending of both Mr. Mandsell and a Latin-speaking parrot, Mrs. Bradley is ready to deliver a solution.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Cozy Mystery

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Aka Malcolm Torrie, Stephen Hockaby.

Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie.

She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921.

She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939.

She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983.

Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard.

She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Well plotted & entertaining 50s murder mystery. Satisfying to have two female sleuths, the elderly Mrs Bradley and her trusty gym-teacher type sidekick. Not as bananas as the 60s/70s entries in this series.

[Adam Carson]

I have a soft spot from Mitchell’s Mrs Bradley Tales. They’re not the twisty-turns gripping tales of Christie, but there’s something slightly cosy and nostalgic about them that I enjoy.

This is a fairly sedate tale of the murder of a teacher and a smuggling ring. It well written as ever, and includes lots of Mrs Bradley, and her ever endearing Secretary Laura. Cleverly written and well plotted, it’s not earth0shattering but it’s a very enjoyable romp.

[Ivonne Rovira]

Author Gladys Mitchell was herself a schoolteacher of history, English, and games for nearly 40 years. That explains why so many of her novels are set in schools or involve schoolteachers; thus far, I've read just a dozen of Mitchell's book and already amongst them Laurels are Poison, Death at the Opera, Tom Brown's Body, and St. Peter's Finger were set at schools, while now Faintley Speaking involves a dead natural-science teacher and unfolds at a co-ed school for quite a few chapters.

Faintley Speaking begins with a strange parcel delivery and with 13-year-old Mark Street unhappily on holiday at a backwater and dull seaside resort. His family has unfortunately encountered a loathsome teacher from his school vacationing at the very same hotel. Miss Faintley insists on taking the boy on a tour of the Cathedral at nearby Torbury. Mark gleefully plots to ditch her at the first opportunity, but the joke's on him: she ditches him as soon as they get off the bus! A few days later, Beatrice Lestrange Bradley's intrepid Amazonian assistant, Laura Menzies, accompanied by Mark Street, stumble onto Lilian Faintley's body.

How and why was prim, humorless schoolteacher Lilian Faintley involved in retrieving parcels and then forwarding them to an unsavory shopkeeper named Tomson? Why was she killed? What do the ferns in the packages mean? Who are Miss Faintley's confederates? In addition to sleuthing about the seaside village and the city of Torbury, Mrs. Bradley installs Laura to be the replacement teacher for the deceased Miss Faintley. Laura's school adventure proves hilarious. A favorite and sample quote: One female teacher acerbically notes to Laura, "Although we only get four-fifths of the men's money and work three times as hard as most of them, we're looked upon as bloated plutocrats." And Laura's dealing with the officious and awful Mr. Tomalin will have you cheering!

The mystery's resolution comes as quite a surprise. Mrs. Bradley divulges the murderer at the beginning of Chapter 12, 79 percent into the novel (there are no page numbers in the Kindle Edition, which I read), but the reader won't discover what were in the mysterious parcels until the very last chapter. The identity of the murderer quite astounded me, and I didn't really know what was in the parcels, although I suspected some sort of smuggling, beginning about one-third of the way into the novel.

Faintley Speaking doesn't fall in the first tier of Mrs. Bradley mysteries, like Death at the Opera, When Last I Died, Tom Brown's Body, The Dancing Druids, and, of course, The Saltmarsh Murders, Mitchell's tour de force. However, Mitchell builds plenty of suspense and strews enough humor throughout to keep you reading eagerly to the last page. A second-tier Mrs. Bradley novel still beats out 90 percent of mysteries that are out there; you won't be faintly sorry that you read Faintley Speaking.

[Alex Sarll]

Less indebted to the weird than my favourite Mrs Bradleys, and indeed rather too familiar when, starting it on the wet Tuesday just gone, I found an impecunious man out in the pouring rain. But, because this was seventy years ago, he faced half-day closing and telephone boxes that aren't just being 'preserved for future generations'*. Hearing one ringing, he picks it up, as you would, and is given an errand clearly intended for someone else, but carries it out anyway, for something to do – and then finds himself part of a murder investigation when the caller, a botany teacher as apparently underwhelming as her name, is found dead under puzzling circumstances. Which do somehow connect to her profession, and the more everyone talked about ferns, the more I thought of the great Jeff Lint. Mrs Bradley isn't as prominent as sometimes, but still gets plenty of opportunity to cackle; Laura has come by her boat, Canto Five, so gets even more excuses than usual to strip off and jump in bodies of water. Between the two of them, they thoroughly enliven the holiday of a boy from Faintley's school who, along with the skint author and various policemen, makes for something of a theme whereby far more capable women fondly indulge male pride – or rather less fondly when the strapping Laura inevitably finds herself undercover as a teacher, with a colleague so oblivious he thinks she needs his help to maintain discipline. In having a correctly identified individual offed in an early chapter, the threads of that followed in a pretty linear manner (OK, there is one brief sightseeing jaunt to the Continent), and the guilty arrested by the fuzz at the end, it never does spiral off into the glorious peculiarities of peak Mitchell, but still scratches the Mrs Croc itch better than some.

*I still say they'd probably prefer a liveable planet, but nobody asked me.

[Mary Schneider]

My second Mrs Bradley adventure, and yet another example of Mitchell's spellbinding powers. Not only who-done-it but also what exactly did they do! Mystery galore with a delightful cast. One advantage of these older books is the comfort in knowing there won't be any gore or sex.

[Maureen Keimig]

Love the Mrs. Bradley mysteries.

[Sara Aye Moung]

Good puzzle with engaging characters

[William Bibliomane]

A thoroughly entertaining Mitchell romp, Faintley Speaking carries the reader from the south coast of England, to a co-ed school, and back to the Isle of Wight. Mrs. Bradley, crocodilian as ever, and her erstwhile assistant Laura Gavin, become embroiled in the murder of Miss Faintley, the nature studies mistress at a nearby school. But what do mysterious parcels and an empty house have to do with Faintley's death? This is another character-driven Mitchell story, full of charming touches and in-canon references, and while the mystery itself becomes curiously secondary, although there is an adventurous moment or two for Laura before the tale ends.

Full review to follow.

[Whistler's Mom]

This is one of my favorite of the Mrs. Bradley books, although I'll be the first to admit that the plot is as thin and preposterous as anything Mitchell every concocted. I just reread it and enjoyed it (again) for the endearing character of well-born, but impecunious writer Geoffry Mandsell and his kindly landlady Mrs. Deaks. Their dealings and dialogue remind us that even the rigid class system of old England allowed for plenty of friendly elbow-rubbing.

It also revolves around a large "mixed" (i.e. coeducational) school and the workings of its staff and students. As Mitchell's fans know, she was a long-time, dedicated school teacher and never really left the profession, even when her writing made her financially independent. She loved teaching and kids and showing the intricacies and eccentricities of her colleagues' personalities and relationships.

I also like this one because it features Mrs. Bradley's lively young secretary Laura Menzies. Laura is an athletic, attractive Amazon who treats her betrothed (a handsome Scotland Yard detective) and all of her other male admirers with breezy friendliness. Mitchell was a life-long and apparently contented spinster. She married her characters off, but she left the romantic stuff to other writers.

The crimes themselves are far-fetched, but the characters are some of Mitchell's best and there's plenty of action. If you enjoy Mitchell's books for their off-beat charm, you'll like this one.

[Susan]

When a starving artist answers the phone in a call box, he becomes involved in a mysterious business of package delivery. That doesn't seem to have much to do with the death of a schoolmistress on holiday, but Mrs. Bradley is on the scene, and her secretary Laura Menzies finds the body. As consulting psychiatrist to the Home Office, Mrs. Bradley is able to interfere at will, eventually elucidating a complicated (maybe too complicated?) plot and a number (many too many?) criminals. You read this one for the characters, more than the story.

[Jan]

Very boring, for a detective story. I had some trouble understanding some of the English coloquialisms, too.