Part of Series
Depending on how one looks at it, Mr. Theddeus E. Lawrence manages to incur either terrible misfortune or celebrated windfalls. Relatives and family members have a habit of dying, but Lawrence is often compensated for his loss. His father perished in a car crash while his son was at the wheel; a sympathetic school benefactor failed to get medical attention in time and died of an aneurysm; and now it appears that Mr. Lawrence's first wife has turned up, only to go missing again. When a body is discovered, though, it belongs to the man's second wife, a college secretary who is found buried on the school grounds. Dame Beatrice first hears of the case from her son, who is investigating an embezzlement charge against the busy Mr. Lawrence. Ultimately, Lawrence is jailed—for drunken driving and resisting arrest. The years pass, and one night Dame Beatrice's secretary Laura Gavin attends a meeting of the local dramatic society. The question before the group: what to present at the Caxton festival, an affair celebrating printing-press innovator William Caxton. After much deliberation and theatrical argument, the society decides to mount a production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. Dame Beatrice is interested to hear Laura's news that a headstrong society member is determined to recruit a reluctant villager, a young printer sharing the name of William Caxton, to take part in the pageant. Remembering her acquaintance with the man named T.E. Lawrence and A.C. Swinburne, Dame Beatrice decides to watch over the festival activities, which is just as well: during The Beggar's Opera's final performance, the actor playing Macheath is fatally strangled by (what should have been) a prop noose. Laura and Dame B. talk reach a conclusion by assigning identities to the luckless roles of victim and 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.
