The Listening Eye

by Patricia Wentworth

A deaf woman learns something she shouldn’t, and she asks Miss Silver for protection

Paulina Paine was buried under her house during the Blitz. She spent twenty-four hours trapped underneath the rubble, where the silence was absolute as the grave, and only after she escaped did she realize that the bomb that spared her life had taken her hearing. With difficulty, she learned to read lips—an invaluable skill that may soon get her killed. 

She is at an art gallery when, quite by chance, she spies an interesting conversation across the room. Without meaning to, she eavesdrops, and learns of a shocking plan to commit a most fearsome robbery. She doesn’t know what to do until she learns that, after she left, the two men asked after her, and learned about her special talent. Now only the demure detective Maud Silver can halt the robbery and save Paulina’s life.

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

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Patricia Wentworth--born Dora Amy Elles--was a British crime fiction writer.

She was educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. She married George Oliver Turnbull in 1920 and they had one daughter.

She wrote a series of 32 classic-style whodunnits featuring Miss Silver, the first of which was published in 1928, and the last in 1961, the year of her death.

Miss Silver, a retired governess-turned private detective, is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie. She works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson.

Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series.

Reviews

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the past 4 or 5 Miss Silver novels, Patricia Wentworth definitely hits her stride as a writer of mysteries. I have enjoyed being witness to her growth as a writer, and even more – I have enjoyed this series for itself. This story is also more textured and multi-layered than her earlier works, and is a well-crafted and intriguing mystery with a dollop of light romance for the finishing touch.

[Bobby Underwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

“People do these things in melodrama, not in real life.” — Lucius Bellingdon

“Can you pick up a newspaper without finding material for a melodrama? The passions of greed and lust are essentially crude. They do not change.” — Miss Silver


Dense and complex, atmospheric of village life and all the twisting relationships such claustrophobic surroundings give birth to, and filled with the charm of a burgeoning romance, I’ve always felt The Listening Eye to be underrated among Wentworth's Miss Silver entries. The opening is sterling, Wentworth taking the time to set up the circumstance of a murder that creates sympathy for the victim, and a need to know the why and who as relationships and situations are slowly revealed. The ending has an ironic twist, and the romance is everything the reader hoped for when all is revealed. Typical of Wentworth’s style, the unobtrusive, Tennyson quoting, ever knitting Miss Silver doesn’t even appear until chapter four, when Paulina Paine must tell someone what she’s “overheard”.

The overheard is in quotes, because Paulina was buried beneath a bomb in ’41 during the war, stuck for twenty-four hours in the debris. She lost her hearing, but lip-reads. She lip-reads the conversation of two men at a distance in a gallery as she gazes upon a portrait of her painted by young David Moray. She can’t get it all, but there is enough to greatly alarm her. Worse, is that through happenstance, one of the men has discovered she can lip-read, and she knows it.

Enter Miss Silver. Regretfully unable to persuade Paulina to go to the police, because the woman feels like she’ll be ridiculed, Miss Silver’s regret becomes palpable when Paulina is run over by a bus. And then Arthur Hughes is murdered while transporting the Bellingdon necklace. But he was not meant to be the courier, another man was. A snuff box, and the general knowledge that the Lucius Bellingdon’s necklace was to be transported at that time, create a picture with too many suspects, and unclear motives.

Rich in character, and dense with various tangental goings on by a number of people, all of it will eventually help Miss Silver figure out this mystery. This entry in the Miss Silver series is actually quite involved beneath the cozy-style trappings. The charming and slow-developing romance between young Sally Foster and David Moray plays out as an intriguing backdrop to mystery and murder. Miss Silver will insinuate herself into this world when she takes the place of the murdered courier. Lucius Bellingdon is himself involved in a romance with lovely Annabel Scott, and is dealing with fiery daughter Moira. Racy photos which could lead to blackmail, another attempted murder, and the man Arthur’s aunt, Minnie, saw speaking with Mr. Pegler are just a scant few of the tiles in a very involved and dangerous mosaic.

Miss Silver’s eventual hypothesis is startling, because the reader would never have thought of it. A dangerous plan is set in motion to trap a killer. It creates an exciting ending, with a very ironic twist. Justice is brutal in this one, and comes from an unexpected direction. As in nearly all the Miss Silver entries, she is seemingly in the background, rather than front-and-center. Inspector Frank Abbott is around, but not as much as in some. The mystery is allowed to unravel through the various characters, as the observant yet unobtrusive Miss Silver takes it all in. Both the mystery and the romantic conclusion in this intricate and warmly woven tapestry of murder and romance from 1957 are top-notch for this genre. An excellent and enjoyable read, especially the ending.

“It came into Miss Silver’s mind that there was always a place for returning and repentance.”

[BeccaJBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely little read, didn't take too long to get through. I've not read a Patricia Wentworth before, but I may do so again.

It was complex, a vast array of characters and locations. At points, it was tricky to keep up with the amount of people that were entering the narrative, but by the end I think I had it down!

Paulina Paine lip reads a murderous plan and enlists the help of Miss Silver, kind of... Once she's voiced her concerns out loud, she changes her mind about reporting it as she fears being ridiculed. However, Miss Silver can't let it go...

There are parties, jewels, bank robberies. There is a twist at the end, I hadn't guessed the outcome. There is romance, obviously murder, it is written superbly and it's not a mammoth book. A cosy read.

If you like Agatha Christie, authors like that, then you'll enjoy this one. It is very dated though, so be warned if you're not used to reading older books.

I would recommend this to fans of short, old school detective stories.

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[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel rather ambivalent about this late Miss Silver, 28/32 in the series. It had one of the best starts and one of the poorest solutions of all that I have read.

It contains its fair share of obnoxious people, and some very judgemental and unpleasant attitudes towards contemporary-mid 1950s-behaviour. It also fooled me, as I was convinced that the obvious solution could not be correct, yet it was.

The romances-there were several-are overdone and the was a lot of unenlightening repetition.

Unconvincing, but easy to read.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paulina is stone deaf, but her lip-reading skills let her "overhear" two men planning a crime. She confides in Maud Silver, but is afraid that the police won't believe her. Now Paulina is stone dead, after an unfortunate accident, and Miss Silver is determined to find the criminals. Her investigation leads her to a wealthy man who has just been robbed and his secretary shot. But was his secretary the real target?

[Teri-K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another delightful Miss Silver story. In the mood for an old-fashioned British mystery? Once you've read Christie and Marsh, Sayers and even Heyer, where can you go? Fortunately there's Miss Silver to the rescue, and I think this is one of the best. The premise is interesting - a deaf woman has read the lips of two men conspiring to kill someone, but doesn't have enough information to go on to help anyone stop the crime. So when it occurs Miss S. is called in to use her particular old-lady powers and help unravel the clues while crocheting baby clothes and quoting Tennyson. Delightful.

[Evelyn Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Complex Mystery that Is Timeless

I don't want to share any spoilers so I'll only say that if you enjoy a good old-fashioned mystery that gets your thoughts buzzing along the lines of what will happen next and who is behind all of the "incidents" (I promised: no spoilers!) you will really enjoy this tale set in London and a nearby village. For teens to adults.

[Adelais · Rating 4 out of 5]

З другої світової війни та з-під завалів будинку міс Пейн видобулася живою, але поглухлою, і навчилася бездоганно читати по губах, як і личить пристойній лондонській леді середнього віку. От і зараз у мистецькій галереї, де вона прийшла подивитися на свій портрет, намальований художником-пожильцем, вона мимоволі звернула увагу на підозрілих типів і прочитала їхню розмову про кримінальні плани. Своїм відкриттям вона поділилася з міс Мод Сільвер, яка тримає агенцію для приватних розслідувань, а невдовзі на дорозі під Лондоном вбили секретаря відомого багатія, коли той віз із банку знамените намисто Марії-Антуанетти. Сам багатій просить міс Сільвер порозслідувати, бо що з тих поліцейських візьмеш, а підозрілих у нього цілий будинок, бо збиралися на бал - і другий секретар, зненацька захворілий, і пихата донька, і свояк, що завжди в оборудках і без шеляга в кишені, і кілька дончиних залицяльників. Тому міс Сільвер береться за роботу, іноді повідомляючи про хід розслідування знайомого поліцейського, на якого як виняток можна покластися, і злодії не уникнуть кари - на цей раз дуже вдалої для всіх.
Класичний англійський детектив, де міс Сільвер копає проти всіх тихою сапою, але коли треба, то і в ночнушці вискочить на ворога. Памятаю, що намагалась читати з першої книги серії, але там міс Сільвер якраз мало, а сам роман занадто в конспірологію, а оцей дуже зайшов. Не хочу казати, що сподобалось найбільше з усіх читаних книг в цьому році, але cosy reading як воно є. Ну й свідчу - дуже помічний для заспокоєння нервів, коли дрони над будинком вже наче відлітали і повибухали (слава ЗСУ), а відбою тривоги ще нема. І між вибухами теж помічний, прекрасно відволікає.

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pure comfort reading, one of a classic British mystery series featuring spinster detective Miss Silver. I think I read them all, or at least many of them, when I was growing up. The attitudes are very much of their time (this entry in the series is from the 50s, and the author was born in the 1870s), and the tales follow a certain delightfully predictable pattern. In this one, there’s a murderous plot to steal a famous diamond necklace and Miss Silver, a retired governess turned private enquiry agent, knits booties and quotes Tennyson as she elicits confidences and solves the mystery at a country house full of suspects. With, as always, a bit of light romance.

I’ve been picking up old Wentworth paperbacks from time to time for years, and the pandemic seems like an excellent time to finally dip into them, with the added benefit that, once finished, I can pop the lot of them in the mail to my mother,who remains a diehard fan and could use some extra reading material.

[Poiema · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a long time to finish this book, I think because it moved rather slowly and there were so many characters to remember. None of the characters particularly engaged me, except Miss Silver. She is the elderly amateur sleuth, under whose eye no detail escapes as she sits placidly knitting. The premise of this book was interesting, as a deaf woman”overhears” two men plotting a crime via lip reading. Thus, the title. But it unravels so slowly and I never felt suspense building. I did finish it but it was never the first book I wanted to pick up.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one might expect from the twenty-eighth novel in a mystery series, the story of The Listening Eye is not particularly compelling. It started off well, with a twist on the classic accidental eavesdropper, but there are not many surprises in the remainder of the book. Wentworth's characters are quirky and she has a reserved, tongue-in-cheek writing style that is engaging even when the story gets dull. She does fall into the trap of repeating the facts of the case unnecessarily to the reader in every instance that her detective character hears or shares them with another, which lengthens the material from what I think could have been a short novella to a full novel. The story also suffers from a surfeit of characters with no real part in the crimes under consideration, and neglect of some of those who are. In particular, there is a bit of a love triangle involving two rather interesting characters and one underdeveloped one that could lift right out of this tale and headline their own, their ties to the mystery itself are so tenuous and could easily have been assumed by other existing players.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a deaf lady who can lip read sees two men apparently planning a serious crime, she does not think the police will believe her. So she turns to Miss Silver for help. Miss Silver urges her to go to the police, but unfortunately she does not, and soon two murders have been committed. But what can Miss Silver do about it?
Fairly entertaining mystery, the main problem with this one for me is that by far the most interesting character is killed off early in the book, and there was nobody else I cared about enough to hold my interest. But it is always enjoyable to spend time with Miss Silver, with her knitting, her Tennyson, and her common sense observations.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably my favorite Miss Silver mystery. A deaf woman, an expert lipreader, watches a murder being planned, but without enough information to forestall the crime. Miss Silver, with this special knowledge, is called in to find the killer among the household of rich manufacturer Lucius Bellingdon. It wouldn't hurt either if she could trace the necklace of the Empress Josephine, lost to the killer.

I like the concept, and my sympathies were so engaged by the deaf woman that they carried through the entire book. The dance of personalities resolve themselves in Wentworth's best style.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deaf woman lipreads someone discussing a proposed crime. She consults with Miss Maud Silver about what she learned to try to prevent a murder.

November 2019. Reread. I know I read this before, but other than Miss Paine, I did not remember one single detail. This is one reason I can read and reread mysteries. I never remember whodunnit.

[Lisa Rathbun]

My first book by this author. Not bad at all, but a bit too repetitious - something would happen, then a character talks about it to Miss Silver, then Miss Silver talks to the police. The criminal was absurdedly obvious as well. Still though, it took me to another place and time, so it was relatively enjoyable as well as ultimately forgettable.

[Jody Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Upon completion of this book, I've also completed the entire Miss Silver series. No more Maudie Silver and her knitting and her quotes from Tennyson. No more "coughing" to make a point.

Now on to Patricia Wentworth stand-alone books....there are plenty of them, too.

[CLM · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a deaf women lip-reads two men across the room and realizes they are planning to commit a crime, she consults Miss Silver:

https://perfectretort.blogspot.com/20...

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite Miss Silver mysteries... I am not totally sure why, but for some reason the premise of the deaf woman "overhearing" a conversation just seems so interesting to me.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plot was a bit convoluted.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murder by Mouth

Great story! Love Miss Silver and how she uncovers the crimes she becomes involved with. The plot was quite original in that the initial main character was deaf, which led into the main action. Miss Silver uses all her sleuthing skills to unravel a theft, a murder and attempted murder with a host of complex characters. The story was interesting and enjoyable, as are all the stories in the series.

[krysti bush · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of her Best!!

I've read all of the Maud Silver mysteries many years ago, and I'm really enjoying reading them again, in order, of course. The Listening Eye was very well done. I love it when I can't figure out who the killer is, right up to the last chapter.
This one has great characters and a believable plot... you should read it today!

[Felicity Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Sad Murder Mystery of complex Deaths

The first death disguised as an accident, the second a theft and the later efforts set to be unfortunate coincidences. But Miss Silver was not deceived and named the murders for what they were. Unusual in the innocence of the victims.

[M Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Miss Silver books vary in quality quite a lot. This is one of the best.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique premise, a great cast and a nice call back to her first case.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always good to check in with Miss Silver.

[Margaret E. Moffa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Miss Silver detection.

I love Patricia Wentworths mysteries featuring Miss Silver. These stories are light reading and very good reads. I so enjoy them.

[Noreen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[ShanDizzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just when I think that the Tennyson-quoting-continental-stitch-knitting Miss Silver stories feel formulaic then I read the next in the series and become so absorbed that I scold myself for disparaging this excellent series. It is for me like revisiting an old friend. This was by far one of the best stories in my opinion. I was riveted from the opening scene and simply could not stop reading until the last word.

Besides, the next question would be as to the identity of the man she had watched, or at the very least a description of them. Of the nearer one she had seen a turned shoulder, a dark raincoat, a black felt hat, and a profile. Of the other man she had had a better view. She supposed he could have been called quite good-looking, but by the time you came to make a list of anyone’s features, what was there left of that or of any other impression? The features themselves would sound so exactly like those of a great many other people. She had often wondered how a clever writer managed to convey the living presence of some character in a book. She had no such talent, and when she thought of herself trying to describe the man in the gallery. All she could think of was a bare inventory – a drab rain- coat as against the first man’s dark one, height medium, age somewhere about thirty, hair neither fair nor dark, eyes neither grey nor blue, no beard or moustache to blur the line of the lips when he spoke.

She picked up her knitting, drew on the blue wool, and said, ‘Mr Bellingdon, impossibilities do not occur. You will not ask me to believe that they do. This robbery and the resultant murder was no chance affair. It was very carefully planned, and every detail of the proposed transfer of the necklace was known to the people who planned it some nineteen hours before the crime took place. This is not in dispute. If the leakage did not occur in your own immediate circle, then it must have occurred at the bank.'

Every person in this household had some part in the problem she was here to investigate. Because one of them had talked young Arthur Hughes lay dead. The leakage could have occurred through inadvertence, heedlessness, lack of self-control. It could have been the result of fear, of some burst of confidence, or of malice aforethought, but somehow through one of these people it must have come about. She could not neglect Mr Bellingdon’s secretary, Mr Bellingdon’s daughter, or Mr Bellingdon’s guest.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the start of this book so much that I'm prepared to overlook the coincidence of a deaf lady who discovers a murder plot by lipreading, and who just happens to be connected both to three young people who end up being caught up in the murder mystery AND to Miss Silver who investigates it. Paulina Paine is one of the best characters Wentworth every produced, and I'm always sad that she only features in the first part of this novel. She sounds like the kind of person I would like to have known better.

Being a Wentworth novel, there has to be romance, and in this one, she gives us two couples. I liked Lucius and Annabel, and it's always interesting to see an older couple portrayed as being very much in love, in an era when so much emphasis was on youthful romance. As for the younger couple, Sally Foster is unusual for a Wentworth heroine in that she works for a living, while David Moray is a little less 'cave man' than many of her heroes.

As with most of Wentworth's novels, there are very few suspects, and the only real question is how many of the handful are involved in the plot. I felt that the ending was unnecessarily weak, and there was also far too much repetition, with different characters repeating the same information multiple times, so it loses a star for that.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paulina Payne is deaf, but is an excellent lip-reader. When she lip-reads two men discussing what sounds like murder, she seeks out Miss Silver for advice--but doesn't take it. Meanwhile, Lucias Bellingden's adopted daughter Moira has convinced him to let her wear Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace for a masquerade ball. Unfortunately, the young secretary who fetches it from the bank is shot, and the necklace stolen. Lucius hires Miss Silver to come to his country house, and find out what is going on.

This is another classic country house murder mystery, and at least one of the villains was painfully obvious from the start--perhaps that was the intention, but it did make for very little suspense. There were also a number of characters introduced as plot devices, then dropped with no further mention. I thought they should have been better tied in, with more consequences. All in all, though I enjoyed this, I thought there were too many loose ends and contrivances, and I also thought she missed a chance for a major revelation about someone's parentage, that would have added another layer of intrigue. Still, an engaging mystery.