More Irish: A Hive of Suspects by Sheila Pim

A Hive of Suspects by Sheila Pim 

published 1952

I am just back from Dublin (hence low posting rate) and had a wonderful holiday there, so it seems time to do another Irish book, and also to use this stunning picture from the National Library of Ireland. I found it ages ago and have been waiting to use it. Is it me chatting on the cobbled streets of Dublin (I wish), or is it someone from this book? 

I have now read four crime novels by Sheila Pim – I think that’s all she wrote: there are a few more books listed by her, but not crime.  How to rank the four books is an interesting question: they are detective stories, following up on a death and other crimes. There is investigating, and at the end a resolution. But – honestly – she was no Agatha Christie: the plotting is intricate and interesting and has been well worked out, but it can be either not as serious a crime as implied, or they are demonstrating some quite arcane point  as to how it happened. Serial killers or psychological case studies they are not.

This is what I said in an earlier post:

they are light and gentle, might be considered cozies, but they are good-hearted and funny, full of witty observations and unexpected turns. They have the comedy-of-manners entertainment value of Angela Thirkell or EM Delafield, with a slight mystery overlaid.

But – as pictures of small-town life in post-war Ireland, they are wonderful. The main characters are very middle-class: down a couple of strata from Molly Keane or Annabel Davis-Goff books, say, but the servants are definitely a step down from that. Everyone has their place. I will probably have difficulty remembering the plots in future, but I will remember the charming and hilarious social events, flower shows, awkward picnic (no-one wants to eat the delicious-looking cake from the house where someone died of poisoning – what a waste of rations!). And that’s despite the fact that I have zero interest in gardens and gardening, while those are key features of the books.

This one is also, as you might guess, about beekeeping. And also ‘worthless’ mines – always a red flag for some readers. (See recent Tana French book also, as well as #spoilernotspoiler this one if you don't mind finding out now)

But it is also about someone who is poisoned (again). Was it the cake?

“Vera Byrne makes most of our cakes,” said Phoebe, in answer to a question from the Superintendent, “but not this one. I bought it myself at the parish fete. I got there late, and there was nothing left to buy but the leftovers after the tea.”

There seemed to be a piece taken and the others pushed together to make it look whole:

“What, at the parish fete?” said Edward.

Her dark eyes turned seriously on him. “Don’t you find that people who go in for doing good are capable of anything? They think it’s all right for them…Most of these old ladies who run fetes are vague enough to be a public danger.”

Edward coughed. “My wife was on the teas.”

The cake has green icing, indicative of who made it:

“Oh, yes. She always puts shamrocks and things on top because she’s such a strong Nationalist. She must use an awful lot of green colouring. How dreadful if that was it! You must warn them at once, or the Cafferkeys may die too.”

 

When it turns out one of the working men took a slice, he is asked severely by the superintendent “What business have you to be alive now?”

[Having borrowed this green cake from Pinterest, I should stress that it is of course perfectly safe and un-poisoned]

All splendid stuff. We were talking in the comments recently about jumble sales, fetes etc, and blogfriend Roger Allen mentioned the Graham Greene book The Ministry of Fear – the inciting incident in the book is a man winning a cake in a ‘guess the weight’ contest at a charity fete (a fortune-teller told him the correct answer, do keep up) so that fits in nicely here.

(below the line on this entry, you have to look through some very varied discussions to get to the comment…)

Back to the Hive of Suspects.

An old man has died while being about to change his will. (just like in previous Pim book, where it was an old lady). His niece Phoebe, who housekeeps for him, was formerly an actress, and her rather raffish Bohemian friends come to stay. Everyone mills round having excellent conversations and wondering what the bees may have to do with it. I think that’s all you need to know of the plot really.

There is a Mrs Teeley, another in the splendid line I have been collecting of awful older women who are there ‘to help’ after a sudden death. Niche, yes, but that’s what I like - see Creeping Venom. ‘Mrs. Teely was dressed in black jersey, she being the kind of woman who would always have something black in her wardrobe for emergencies, and she made Mollie, in flowered linen, feel several sizes too large.’ Mrs T is making much of her position post-death: ‘she was well-informed in spite of never having crossed the threshold in Jason Prendergast’s lifetime’.

The travelling group of actors provide more raffish joy:

The Humphry Madigan Company had by now infiltrated into Drumclash. The Gildeas had had glimpses of young women in trousers, young men in coats with belts or hoods or other peculiarities.

 

Phoebe was sitting sewing in a chic black linen frock. With her was a peach-skinned blonde, with plenty of skin in evidence, for she was dressed only in a pair of flowered cotton shorts and brassiere top to match. She was sitting on the table trimming a Victorian poke bonnet. A pair of stays, and other fragments of Victorian costume were littered about the room.

Shorts and top from clover vintage 1951

Later:

Grania [appeared] in the bolero-dress that topped her sunbathing suit. She gave a dazzling smile to the plainclothes man who intercepted them.

“I left something behind,” she said. “If you must know, officer, a pair of nylon step-ins. They should be hanging over a rail in the bathroom.”

We were only doing step-ins here on the blog very recently – a post on the John Dickson Carr book Below Suspicion.

Phoebe disappears late in the book, and everyone races round searching for her, fearing the worst – is she in an abandoned mine, has she been kidnapped or killed? I would guess that 90% of readers know exactly where she is, but it makes for quite the exciting climax to the book, as everyone goes underground looking for her.

And the policeman gives us a useful rule in life, when someone dares to suggest a simpler explanation for her disappearance:

Grace saw an innuendo in his assistant’s suggestion. He did not care for it. “You’re a great hand at a yarn, Mick Lemon,” he said, “but you ought to know a lady like Miss Prendergast wouldn’t elope without taking a nightdress.”

More interesting details – there is mention of the Cooneyites, a religious subdivision, new to me, well worth looking up on Wikipedia and chasing down the rabbit-hole. Not challenging any stereotypes on the nature of sects. I like the phrase go-preachers (true Cooneyites don’t call themselves anything, so there is a variety of phrases…)  (the recent book by the excellent Marion Keyes, My Favourite Mistake, has a character forever, and hilariously, called ‘the go-boy’  - quite different.)

There is this about the dead man’s belongings: 

I always admired the potato ring on the dining-room sideboard that was presented to Jason by his Masonic Lodge…

Luckily for us all I investigated this in a post on Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour – visit there for details, and here is a picture – I said then ‘they are much more elegant than that name makes them sound’:

There is almost too much joy in these books, I loved them. Thanks again CP.

Black dress clover vintage The Vintage (tumblr.com)