Part of Series
For the second time in her career, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley is called upon to solve the mystery of murder in a convent. After a series of anonymous letters have been received by the Sisters and also by members of the staff at a school run by the nuns, the supposed writer of the letters is found drowned in the school pond, together with her own Family Bible. At the inquest a verdict of accidental death is returned, but Dame Beatrice regards this as unsatisfactory for reasons which she passes on to the local Inspector of Police. With some help from him and some evidence supplied by two of the schoolchildren, she unmasks a heartless and cowardly murderer.
Author
Aka Malcolm Torrie, Stephen Hockaby. Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie. She was educated at Rothschild School, Brentford and Green School, Isleworth, before attending Goldsmiths College and University College, London from 1919-1921. She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939. She earned an external diploma in European history from University College in 1926, beginning to write her novels at this point. Mitchell went on to teach at a number of other schools, including the Brentford Senior Girls School (1941-50), and the Matthew Arnold School, Staines (1953-61). She retired to Corfe Mullen, Dorset in 1961, where she lived until her death in 1983. Although primarily remembered for her mystery novels, and for her detective creation, Mrs. Bradley, who featured in 66 of her novels, Mitchell also published ten children's books under her own name, historical fiction under the pseudonym Stephen Hockaby, and more detective fiction under the pseudonym Malcolm Torrie. She also wrote a great many short stories, all of which were first published in the Evening Standard. She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger Award in 1976.
