Detailed detective work restores order to convent
Mrs Bradley
shows no fear while staying in a sinister convent school in a remote spot on top
of some cliffs, even though attempts are made on her life while she is there.
Gladys
Mitchell often describes her sleuth as a ‘little old lady’, but Mrs Bradley is still very active and prepared to climb out of a window on to
a roof, carry a child’s body up a flight of stairs as an experiment, and sleep
in various rooms in the convent, even though she is quite sure there is a
murderer among the religious community.
While
describing the daily life of nuns living in the convent, as well as Mrs Bradley’s
painstaking investigation into the death of a boarder at the school, Gladys
Mitchell still manages to keep the reader engaged with the story because of the
skill of her writing.
She evokes
the atmosphere of the isolated institution and brings alive the personalities of
the various black-robed nuns who serve there, keeping the reader turning the
pages. No doubt drawing on her own experience as a teacher, she brings to life the
routine of the school and creates believable characters among the pupils.
St Peter’s
Finger, written in 1938, is Gladys Mitchell’s ninth novel featuring the
psychoanalyst and amateur detective Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley.
Called on by
her barrister son, Ferdinand Lestrange to investigate the death of a child at
the convent, who is the heiress to a fortune, Mrs Bradley, as a favour to him, willingly
enters the convent herself and lives like one of the nuns. However, she also has her
faithful chauffeur George, residing nearby, ready to take her out for the occasional
sustaining meal and to make enquiries further afield. He also helps out with
the investigation.
While Mrs
Bradley tests alibis, interviews suspects and witnesses, and holds long debates
with the nuns, Gladys Mitchell cleverly
points the reader in several different directions until the novel reaches an ingenious and satisfying ending.
