The Spinster's Secret

Arthur Crook #19

by Anthony Gilbert

Forget The Girl on the Train - meet the woman who watches from her window, and finds herself caught up in murder...
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

'Watching, fascinated and horrified, she saw thin fingers creep around the edge of the black curtain. Someone from inside was tugging to loosen it . . .'

Miss Janet Martin, a 74-year-old spinster of small means and delicate health, finds her chief interest in observing people passing by while sitting at the window of her lone room in Kensington. One day, her attention is caught by a little golden-haired girl called Pamela, whom subsequently she gets to know. It is obvious this child comes from a comfortable home, where she appears to be in the care of a guardian and a charming young governess named Terry.

A little later, Miss Martin is taken ill, removed to hospital and finally sent to an Old Ladies' Home outside London. Here she is very lonely, but one day, again watching from the window, she sees a group of children from the Destitute Children's Orphanage coming down the street, and to her amazement and horror she recognizes Pamela. When she tries to make inquiries, however, she is repulsed on all sides and assured that she must be mistaken.

Profoundly dissatisfied with this explanation, the old lady persists in her efforts despite obstacles from the matrons and her unsympathetic niece, Doreen Blake. Eventually, she decides to take a risk and contacts private investigator Arthur Crook to explain her predicament. Crook, recognizing the unfamiliar territory, conducts some investigations and eventually unearths a most exciting plot involving murder, attempted murder, fraud and abduction . . .

Genres: Mystery

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Anthony Gilbert was the pen name of Lucy Malleson an English crime writer. She also wrote non-genre fiction as Anne Meredith , under which name she also published one crime novel. She also wrote an autobiography under the Meredith name, Three-a-Penny (1940).

Her parents wanted her to be a schoolteacher but she was determined to become a writer. Her first mystery novel followed a visit to the theatre when she saw The Cat and the Canary then, Tragedy at Freyne, featuring Scott Egerton who later appeared in 10 novels, was published in 1927.

She adopted the pseudonym Anthony Gilbert to publish detective novels which achieved great success and made her a name in British detective literature, although many of her readers had always believed that they were reading a male author. She went on to publish 69 crime novels, 51 of which featured her best known character, Arthur Crook. She also wrote more than 25 radio plays, which were broadcast in Great Britain and overseas.

Crook is a vulgar London lawyer totally (and deliberately) unlike the aristocratic detectives who dominated the mystery field when Gilbert introduced him, such as Lord Peter Wimsey.

Instead of dispassionately analyzing a case, he usually enters it after seemingly damning evidence has built up against his client, then conducts a no-holds-barred investigation of doubtful ethicality to clear him or her.

The first Crook novel, Murder by Experts, was published in 1936 and was immediately popular. The last Crook novel, A Nice Little Killing, was published in 1974.

Her thriller The Woman in Red (1941) was broadcast in the United States by CBS and made into a film in 1945 under the title My Name is Julia Ross. She never married, and evidence of her feminism is elegantly expressed in much of her work.

Reviews

[Terri Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1946 by a woman Lucy Malleson using a male pen name Anthony Gilbert, this mystery story is oh-so-British (and don't we just love that!!). An old lady, Miss Martin, lives alone in a small apartment and since her eyesight is too bad for reading, she spends her days looking out the window. The only family she has is a sorry piece of crap of a niece who has as much compassion as a Nazi would. The niece visits rarely and while she co-owns a business and lives with a female partner who is as much of a heartless creep as she is, she never thinks of how her aunt is cold, hungry, and lonely. She discourages her from doing anything.

One day 74 year old Miss Martin gets to meet a well-behaved child named Pamela who she had seen passing by with a sweet lady named Terry who is her nanny. She gets to know the two of them and is so happy. She even goes to eat at the mansion they live on where a nice older gentleman cares for them. His nasty sister resents their presence. She wants to inherit all the old man has and wants Pamela and Terry out. Miss Martin witnesses his new will for him as she leaves.

Miss Martin suffers a bout of pneumonia and her vile niece than moves her into a prison like home for old women with a nasty matron who won't even let her go to her room during the day and rigidly controls and dominates the women. She also has to share a room here with a woman who carries on with nutty stuff all the time.

Miss Martin is miserable but one day sees something that shocks her. It is Pamela, the ward of the rich man, dressed in ragged clothing and in a line of girls from an orphanage for the poor. Knowing the old man planned to provide for the child, she can't understand what has happened to her. Her spying gets her in trouble. Finally she finds out where Terry is- working as a teacher- and shows her Pamela. Terry immediately leaps into action but Miss Martin is dismayed when Terry disappears.

I have a lot of appreciation for writing like this. The story moves slowly but deeply and you have to care about Miss Martin, Terry, and Pamela.

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthony Gilbert is a woman named Lucy Malleson whose Mr Crook mysteries were published between 1936 and 1974, which is a pretty good run. Unfortunately all of her books appear to be out of print.

Which, judging from The Spinster's Secret, is a shame. Published in 1946, the story is about an old lady, Miss Martin, whose callous niece moves her out of her little one-room flat into a home for old ladies. When she realizes a little girl she had known in her happier life is now one of dozens of listless girls in a nearby orphanage she answers an ad in the paper for a private detective.

Mr Crook, who is dumpy, has an unfortunate accent, and wears loud plaids, is the first person who believes her suspicions and who takes seriously her worries about the little girl. The well-meaning lady who runs the home where Miss Martin lives stops her from making a crucial phone call and the results are disastrous.

I figured out what was going to happen before it occurred and could foresee what was coming, but the plot is not the heart of this wonderful little story. When I began reading it I thought the author was a man and I was astonished at his understanding of and empathy with an ageing lady who must rely on a relative who abuses her power. I was reminded of Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (which was published in 1971).

This title didn't appear to me out of thin air, but it may as well have as I can't figure out who wrote about it in a blog or Goodreads post. If you were that blogger, please let me know so I can thank you properly.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Good writing, believable characters, an interesting classic mystery with a touch of the thriller- but without the gore & terror & grittiness of modern novels.

For fans of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Patricia Wentworth, Ellis Peters...

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...