by Mary Roberts Rinehart
This review based on the edition published by Dell Publishing, 1969.
The House of Evil…
It was to this house that the young lady known as Miss Pinkerton came. It was not her real name, nor was the position she held her real one. One thing, however, was undeniably real. Behind the shuttered windows and great barred oaken doors, prowling the dark corridors and circling stairways, was a force of faceless, fatal menace.
If you’re an aficionado of the current hit Gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows, and other novels of Gothic romance, you’ll perhaps buy this book, looking forward to the read. And, you’ll be disappointed. Because the plot synopsis provided to encourage you to buy the book has very little resemblance to the actual work!
Miss Pinkerton was a straight-forward mystery novel when it was first published in 1932, and it was a straight-forward mystery novel when it was reprinted by Dell in 1969. Thus one learns a lesson that book publishers are in the practice to deceive…would dupe be too strong a word? and one should never judge a book by its cover!
The mansion to which Inspector Patton dispatches Miss Adams belongs to the Mitchells, a once wealthy family who have fallen on hard times. The house, of varying stories along its rambling length, is inhabited by the last of the Mitchells, the extremely elderly Miss Juliet, rather deaf and infirm, and two faithful old family retainers, Hugo the butler and Mary the cook. Up until the night of Miss Adams’ arrival, it was also inhabited by Miss Juliet’s ne’er do well nephew, Herbert Wynne. He has met his Maker – whether by accident, murder or suicide the police are not sure. It is Miss Adams task, in addition to her nursing duties for Miss Juliet, to keep her eyes open and find out anything she can, while the police continue their investigation along more traditional lines.
Herbert Wynne is found dead in his bedroom, a revolver close by, but no powder marks on his body to indicate suicide. Considering the other occupants of the house, the police suspect accident, even though Wynne and his aunt never got along – for he was a wastrel, and it was his father whose bad investments caused the Mitchells to lose all their money. And Wynne had only recently taken out a large life insurance policy, with his estate (i.e., Miss Judith) as his beneficiary.
It is not until about a third of the way through the book that the action really ‘gets going.’ That’s when the rest of the cast of characters start parading on and off stage – Paula Brent, a girl of good family who loved Herbert Wynne, despite the adamant objections of her parents, and of her ex-boyfriend, Charles Elliott. There’s a rather bold secretary, Florence Lenz, whom Miss Adams doesn’t trust, Miss Judith’s lawyer, Arthur Glenn, and her doctor, Dr. Stewart. Out of all these possible suspects, which one would have given Wynne the money for his life insurance policy, and why?
Although slow moving to begin with, ‘Miss Pinkerton,’ is well written by Mary Roberts Rinehart, and it is an interesting period piece. Hilda Adams is a professional woman (nursing being one of the few occupations available to women during the 1930s – nursing had been Rinehart’s profession before she married.)) Hilda Adams is put into the house by Inspector Patton, but he doesn’t give her all the information she needs to know. Since she’s the narrator this helps to keep us, as well as her, in suspense, but it is irritating to think of his lack of candidness with her. (On the other hand, in real life professional people, i.e, spies are still hampered by the ‘need to know’ philosophy).
We also get an idea of the perception of police work during the 1930s. As Miss Adams puts it angrily to Patton, ‘’Why should you care whether he did it or not? You’ve got your case, and that’s what you want, isn’t it?’’ And later, ‘’You’ve got your case, but you have enough left over to make another one.’’ In other words, the perception is that the police take the simplest solution that they see, and ignore any other details that don’t fit in with the suspect they have to hand, and that is how Rinehart portrays the police in this novel.
Mary Roberts Rinehart is known as the Queen of the ‘had I but known’ school of mystery writing. In this case it’s Nurse Adams, constantly digressing from her narrative to second guess herself – ‘perhaps I only think this now in hindsight, maybe I only imagined all that, etc.’ Nevertheless she is a competent detective, intelligent, discovering clues, and perhaps if she’d known all that Inspector Patton knew, she would have solved the murders (for there is one more) quicker.
Narrator Hilda Adams is a professional nurse. On many occasions she has been drafted by Inspector Patton of the local police department to do some undercover work for him. He affectionately refers to her as Miss Pinkerton (after the famous private detective firm of the name of Pinkerton’s).
‘
Reviewers rant:
It’s 1969. You go into a bookstore, looking for a Gothic romance novel to read. You eye a long line of book spines, looking for interesting titles. You find one called Miss Pinkerton. That doesn’t sound like a promising title! You pluck it off the shelf and look at the cover: a beautiful blonde in a raincoat walking away from an old Gothic house. Beneath the title is a blurb, ‘a Gothic novel of romance and suspense.’ Well, okay. You turn it over and read the plot synopsis on the back.
That was the name the townsfolk gave the old Mitchell Mansion. Proud and strong as the family whose name it bore, it dominated the countryside. Yet there was something strangely warped in its magnificence, something that sent a shiver of dread through all those who feel its shadow.
This review copyright
May 24, 2000.
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Miss Pinkerton is currently out of print. It is available from used bookstores: www.abe.com.
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