The Third Eye

by Ethel Lina White

“From the first, Professor Freeman was reluctant to let his young sister-in-law, Caroline, accept the post of games mistress at the Abbey School.”
He’s quite right to be reluctant; it is rumoured that the previous games mistress died only three weeks into her post, literally frightened to death. The staff are odd and eccentric, the Headmistress and Matron hold séances, and an atmosphere of uneasiness and dread builds up relentlessly. “The less one talks about anything here, the safer one is…”
A chilling thriller from the author of The Wheel Spins, later made into the film The Lady Vanishes by Alfred Hitchcock.
Originally published in 1937.
The cover shows a detail from the original dustwrapper.

Genres: Mystery

222 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1937

About the author

Ethel Lina White was a British crime writer, best known for her novel The Wheel Spins (1936), on which the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes (1938), was based, and Some Must Watch (1933), on which the film The Spiral Staircase (1946) was based.

Born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1876, White started writing as a child, contributing essays and poems to children's papers. Later she began to write short stories, but it was some years before she wrote books.

She left employment in a government job working for the Ministry of Pensions in order to pursue writing. Her writing was to make her one of the best known crime writers in Britain and the USA during the 1930s and '40s.

Her first three works, published between 1927 and 1930, were mainstream novels. Her first crime novel, published in 1931, was Put Out the Light. Although she has now faded into obscurity, in her day she was as well known as such writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie.

She died in London in 1944 aged 68. Her works have enjoyed a revival in recent years with a stage adaptation of The Lady Vanishes touring the UK in 2001 and the BBC broadcast of an abridged version on BBC Radio 4 as well as a TV adaptation by the BBC in 2013.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young Caroline Watts feels that she is becoming a burden to her sister Lesley and brother-in-law Professor Freeman and wants to take up a job and move out of their home. They don't agree with her, well the sister does a little, but not much, after all Caroline is sleeping in the dining room seeing every other room is taken. Without any professional degrees, she tried her hardest, but just couldn't pass the exams. Me either, if I would have tried that is, which I wouldn't. So she applies for the job of games teacher at Abbey school, which sounds like it would be absolutely awful even if people weren't either dying or creepy there. Professor Freeman is not happy about it but the two women convince him that he is worrying about nothing. The two women should have lost the battle this time.

"It's such a roundabout business," he complained to his wife. "You broadcast the fact that our Beloved Fool" -he smiled affectionately at Caroline - "wants a job, and someone who's staying in Wiltshire goes to tea with someone who can put her in touch with someone who can offer her work."

I don't know, it seems easier than having to go around looking for a job yourself. However, when Caroline arrives too feels the same well, not so happy as she was a day ago when she left home. She definately has mixed feelings when she reaches the school on a dark, drizzling night. Doesn't just that sound creepy? Yes, her feelings about her new position as the games teacher at Abbey School are changing. I don't find basketball, hockey, football and things like that games when I'm the one who has to play them, so thank the Lord I don't have to. My feelings to this job aren't mixed, I'd hate it for the day or so I'd be there until they'd fire me. She finds it odd when arriving, she isn't met by the principal. On inquiring about the Principal Nash, she is told that the lady was with Mrs. Yaxley-Moore, the matron, and wasn't to be disturbed at any cost. Why they can't be disturbed when they are together is something I didn't see coming. But first we'll see why the position is vacant in the first place:

I do hope Caroline will get the post," she said. "I spoke strongly in her favor. The personal recommendation counts for so much after an unlucky experience."

"What unlucky experience?" asked the Professor, pouncing on the admission.

"Oh, the other poor games mistress. She was found dead in bed. Heart failure.".......

Perhaps it was even more unlucky that the Professor had not the gift of clair-audience, and so was unable to hear Mrs. Gloucester's remark to her husband that night.

"I felt so sorry for the poor dear Professor having his sister-in-law wished on him for so long that I was furious with myself for blurring out about the rumors connected with the other games mistress's death. Luckily, her sister took no notice, and the Professor was far too wise to raise any question."

"What were the rumors?" asked her husband sleepily.

"Oh, the usual hush-hush affair. The doctor had been attending her for heart-strain, so he was able to write a certificate....But the story got about that she had been frightened to death."

And now we're back to Caroline arriving on that first night:

Everyone knew that Caroline was desperately eager to get a job; but no one knew that she nearly turned back at the gates of the Abbey School.

As a rule she walked quickly, with her head erect and looking before her, as though she saw someone she loved standing at the end of a long, straight road. This special characteristic was to prove of vital importance at a future crisis of her life, (that's for sure) but it was absent that night.
While she moved slowly and unwillingly, dragging her feet and with her eyes fixed upon the road, a dark object writhed across her path and disappeared into the long grass which bordered the ditch.

"A snake - and I nearly trod on it," she shuddered.

She was so unnerved by the incident that she was almost on the point of waiting for the first bus back to Plume, lest it should prove an omen of ill-fortune. But while she waited in the greenish gloom common-sense prevailed, reminding her that the reptile was probably but harmless grass-snake and prodding her through the lodge gates and up the drive.

I like snakes, they eat mice. I like anything that eats mice. From the next morning, Caroline realizes that Abbey school is a strange place, especially the hold that the matron Miss Yaxley-Moore has over Mrs. Nash. Yaxley-Moore is filled with love, with love for herself that is, she also has quite a lot of jealousy, superiority and she's just plain mean. She's also smart, smarter than Mrs. Nash anyway. She is described this way:

At one time the woman might have been handsome, but the lines of her figure were lost in bulk, while her face had sagged and deepened in tint to the color of port wine. Her eyes - violet-blue - were bloodshot and set in dark pouches. Her lips were coarse, her nose an heirloom of Norman period.

I wonder if that means she has a nice nose, nothing else sounded very good. Then there is Yaxley-Moore's sister, Mrs. Bat of Bat House, she's nothing like her sister, but just as strange. She will become important in the second half of the book. Here's a clue as to what hold Miss Yaxley-Moore has on Mrs. Nash:

"In that case, I do not need to tell you that everyone has an undeveloped third eye. It still survives in some of us as an extra sense which is denied to others. You can call it second-sight...I, for one, can foretell the Future."

Sure she can, she talks to Mrs. Nash's dead husband almost every night. Then again, she does say some people will die, and some people do die, so maybe she does have a third eye, or maybe she's just a murderer. But then one too many things happen and Caroline realizes she has evidence, she can prove who has been doing what in the Abbey school. I find it strange that she hides her find and goes on a trip to Switzerland before returning to turn her evidence in to the police or other important people. You wouldn't want to have to postpone your vacation I guess. So now Caroline is on her way back to the school, still planning to expose those who are guilty. It isn't so easy to get to the school though, her bus ride is like no other bus ride I've seen before. After all, there are people out there who would prefer she never return. She should have taken the train. And to find out all the perils she goes through on her long ride, read the book. Did you know being exposed to mumps can be dangerous? You will when you read this. I liked the book, I will read it again, someday, maybe. Happy reading.

[dmayr · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Caroline Watts takes up a post at Abbey School, she crosses paths with the horrible Miss Yaxley-Moore and the latter's equally horrid half-sister Miss Bat of Bat House. Seances, power plays, bullying, whispers about a former games mistress who died of fright, further prophecies of death, all make up for a doom-laden atmospheric story, as Caroline threatens to expose Miss Yaxley-Moore, who with her sister will do anything in their power to stop her. Sometimes the foreboding gets too much, but still there were some really pretty creepy scenes in the end.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure that Ethel Lina White quite got the hang of the mystery writing business – at least not in this novel, dubbed a “chilling thriller” on the cover by someone who clearly never read it.

The heroine is a young gym mistress in a girls’ school with a dodgy matron who holds the headmistress in thrall and has secrets perilous to reveal. If we’d stuck with the gym mistress throughout the book, there might have been some mystery (what’s going on?) and suspense (what’ll happen next?). But instead we are treated to the conversations, thoughts, and plans of the matron, her co-conspirators, and anyone else who strays into the novel. So, no surprises for us.

This wouldn’t matter if the writing crackled and sparked. It doesn’t. A fog-bound journey takes up most of the second half of the book and almost achieves a dreamlike quality as the ill-named Streamline Coach motors interminably through the mist-shrouded hamlets of 1920’s England. The passengers seem strange, things are looking up...and then the author chews her pen and the moment is lost.

Hitchcock spotted a film in one of Ethel Lina White’s other novels. He did a lot better than me. I spotted no more than a poorly conceived potboiler.

[Kelly Lorang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Vintage Suspense!

The author gradually builds up suspense throughout the book . She does it through descriptive atmosphere , which was common in the Golden age of Mystery writing. This book has all of the elements of a Gothic novel , without the main focus being a romance.

[Neer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A terrifying, brilliant ride.

More here:

http://inkquilletc.blogspot.in/2017/0...

[Rosebud · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of two halves/two stories with one protagonist, not really connected.

But gripping (if far fetched in places), and an enjoyable read. I will read more by this author.

[James Hold · Rating 2 out of 5]

Caroline, who confesses to not being very bright, takes a job as Phys Ed teacher at a girl's academy. The academy is run by Mrs Nash, who is under the spell of Miss Yaxley-Moore, a phony spiritualist trying to get control of Nash's pocketbook. Yaxley is responsible, directly or indirectly, for three deaths at the school, only nobody seems wise to it. Until Caroline finds incriminating evidence and hides it where Yaxley cannot get to it. End of Part One.

Part Two introduces Miss Bat, the sister of Yaxley. The sisters despise each other, so Miss Bat upon learning of her sister's predicament sets out to waylay and if necessary to bump off Caroline. Her motive? If Yaxley loses her position at the academy then Miss Bat will be forced to take her in. And that is something she refuses to let happen.

Now Part One set up an interesting premise which Part Two drags out to exhausting length. Of the 17 chapters that make up Part Two, 10 are given over to an unending bus ride through the fog. Caroline is convinced something is going to happen to her yet she stupidly hands herself over to the very people who act the most suspicious. After which she escapes, makes her way back to the bus, and rides some more. The entirety of Part Two can be summarized as: Ride, Fidget, Drink Tea, Repeat. I swear these people take so many tea breaks they must wear rubber diapers. Once Miss Bat finally gets Caroline into her clutches and to her home she sets a trap for her to fall down a well. Caroline still does not pick up on the obvious clues staring her in the face. For instance, she sees a family tree on the wall informing her that Yaxley and Miss Bat are sisters. Does it set off any alarm bells? No.

Caroline is not a likable heroine. In addition to being slow on the uptake, she is vulgar and uncouth. She describes herself as 'modern' although she is more disrespectful and ill-mannered than anything else. She thinks nothing of insulting the elders around her or of dropping her cigarette ashes on another person's carpet. Truthfully it was difficult to find anyone to root for in this tale.

Part Two is sloppily written. Characters come and go. They appear to pose a brief threat only to be casually dismissed or dropped completely. The most interesting character on the bus ride was a woman whom some of the passengers believed was a man in drag. The character offers Caroline a drink from her thermos. Caroline declines, and that's the last we hear of her-him. It would have been quite easy to set this man-in-drag up as Caroline's brother-in-law who was fearful for her safety. But no, he disappears 2 or 3 paragraphs into Part Two and that's the last we hear of him.

Ethel Lina White also has difficulty with scenes involving more than three characters at a time. During the bus ride Caroline encounters an elderly lady, a woman in brown, and someone she calls Mother Bear. The problem is I couldn't make out if these were three different people or if they were one and the same. ELW also tries very hard to dish up arresting images or phrases. Some work, but most of them come across as forced.

My enjoyment of the book was further hampered by the formatting of the version I downloaded from Gutenberg Australia. All Words that begin with a 'W' are capitalized no matter Where they occur Within a sentence. There are frequent misspelling where contractions are concerned, using '!' in place of 't', the em-dashes are inconsistent, '$' often appears in place of capital 'S', and line breaks between paragraphs are hit and miss. You often find two people being quoted in a single paragraph. Worst of all a character named 'Flora' is spelled 'flora' thruout.

Poor formatting is something you have to live with. What I disliked most about the book was that Part Two was so slap-dash and repetitive. It reads as if the author was writing against a deadline and at the same time trying to pad it for length. People come and go and contribute nothing. The ending comes in the final few paragraphs and feels like an afterthought, as though the author just gave up on it and called it quits. I won't tell you the ending, not because I want to avoid spoilers, but because it's so dumb you'd end up saying, 'You've got to be kidding me.' I'll just say if you imagine a variation on 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' you wouldn't be too far amiss.

The book was not a total loss however because at one point the heroine uses the term 'lounge-lizard' which I didn't know dated back that far.

This was a very disappointing experience. I've read other works by ELW which were better. I would recommend readers try out her other works, but skip this one. Or read only Part One and then lay it down.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read sixty years ago, and still lingers in my memory! A thriller/mystery,quite exciting at the time of reading, which has left me with a yen to read it again.