Danger point by Patricia Wentworth

 

Danger point by Patricia Wentworth

 also published as In the Balance

published 1942

I am filling in the gaps in my list of Miss Silver books read/blogged on, and on re-reading this one I could see why I had missed it out – it is a sad disappointment as a Miss Silver novel, even though it contains several classic features of the oeuvre.

So – on the plus side there is a very distinctive coat, which doesn’t suit the heroine: ‘all gay stripes and checks of green and yellow and red on a cream ground.’

It is the subject of  some discussion. And to be fair, for a newish bride to overhear this from an old friend of her husband -

‘Pity Dale doesn’t teach her how to dress. That ghastly coat!’

Well anyone might quail.

But that’s not the point is it? The point IS that someone else wearing the coat could be mistaken for its owner. And someone is going to die.

Miss Silver is in the opening pages, and then disappears till a good way through the book – that’s not always a bad thing but in this case there is another issue, which is that she has no effect on the plot whatsoever, does no investigating, uncovers nothing. She meets the heroine, listens to her, and gives her some advice which is ignored. But she contributes nothing to the case. This is most odd. The plot was perhaps intended as a standalone and then Miss S was added? It is a classic of Wentworth World – a young wife in jeopardy doesn’t know who she can trust. I don’t think it is a spoiler to say there is an extremely small number of people in the frame for villain, and when it comes down to it you choose between two, with absolutely nothing in the way of clues or genuine sleuthing.

On to the patent Miss Silver Checklist (compare with previous lists elsewhere on the blog)

I will start with knitting, not because it is particularly important here, but because it gives me the chance to make a most splendid recommendation. Blogfriend Aubrey Hamilton has produced a wonderful article about Miss Silver and knitting - she wrote it for The Mystery Readers' Journal, and you can find it on her blog here.  It is highly recommended - and lists all Miss Silver's knitting projects. 

My addition is a comparison with Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley in St Peter’s Finger – Mrs B takes out her ‘mangled length of knitting’: she is knitting ‘a shapeless garment slowly and very badly’. She does ‘some rapid decreasing which she felt she would regret later on’. You would never get that with Miss Silver.

Because of her non-appearance, the cough-count is very low -  Miss Silver coughs 13 times.

The weird names: A small but perfect haul. The married couple at the centre of the story, Lisle and Dale Jerningham, have about the most archetypical Wentworth names ever. You can just roll those names over in your mind can’t you? And do you know for sure which is the man and which the woman?

Not much in the way of ladylike occupations, although in this  book as in the recent read from Gladys Mitchell, St Peter’s Finger, a busybody lady tries to help a low-class young woman by finding her a job with a friend, helping looking after children. (In one case this is successful, in the other it never happens) Perhaps this was a standard trope of the time.

Unusual words: ‘privet whiteness of neck and cheek’ – I would expect privet to be green, but apparently the flowers are white.

‘He felt a pringling in his bones.’ A rare word (although it seems to have taken on a recent modern meaning) but you feel you can understand the sense of it.

There is a lot about clothes, apart from the distinctive coat, but nothing of great interest: there is a peripheral character who dresses very vulgarly, but somehow I had lost the will to search for that. Lisle is very fair (washed out by the sound of things, and no wonder with everything that is going on) so a lot of very tasteful frocks in pale linen. Frankly the ‘ghastly coat’ sounds as though it would cheer things up.

Altogether, an undistinguished outing from Miss Silver.

Suit from the Ladies Home Journal. Dress – ‘straw-coloured to match her hair’ – from a French fashion magazine of the era. Coat from NYPL.