Part of Series
In this story, Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley finds herself in the unusual position of being involved with a shady professional boxing establishment run by a gang whose activities are a cover for something which Damon Runyon would call, "by no means a high-class business, and even considered somewhat illegal." Toby Sparowe, the nephew of one of the Dame's friends, has bought a derelict railway station opposite the public house where the gang have established their training quarters, and where a callow youth is being coached for a non-existent fight. In fact, the boy is being used as a cloak for the gang's profitable but nefarious enterprises. Toby befriends him and offers to help with his training but this does not suit the gang's plans and they rudely brush off Toby's offer. When a murder is committed and the youth charged, Toby's suspicions are aroused. He invokes the help of Dame Beatrice who uses her formidable wits to bring about a happy but not a highly ethical ending.
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.
