Part of Series
Mr. Hugh Camber, claiming the family estate as his own following an inheritance, does not receive quite the warm welcome that he has expected. Housestaff members give their notice, the chauffeur is released following a wave of insubordination, and the villagers seem reluctant to account for the tension that accompanies the house. Slowly, Hugh gathers up enough information to draw some conclusions. It appears that upon Paul Camber's death, the household fears the inevitable arrival of a widowed aunt, Mrs. Hal Camber, to claim the estate for herself and her rather insufferable young son. There are rumours of unpleasantness between a dismissed Camber tutor and a local farm girl. Added to that, much speculation is given to the demise of Paul Camber: he was found drowned in a Scotland stream. Paul's son, master Stephen, had also drowned in a local river a few months earlier, and an eyewitness noted that the boy appeared to be drunk as he made his way along the bank. As prophesied by the Camber housemaids, Mrs. Hal arrives at the estate with her son in tow, and with the intention of settling in. Sympathetic but resolute, Hugh locks horns with this domineering relation and eventually sends her back to her home. Shortly thereafter, villagers start receiving anonymous letters which accuse Hugh of the murder of his relatives. When Hugh and his fiancée, the vicar's sister, are sent similar notes, Hugh asks Dame Beatrice to travel to the Norfolk estate and venture an opinion as to the writer's identity. Hugh already suspects the exiled aunt, but, as Dame Beatrice points out, it is curious that the letters specifically refer to murder when accusations of other ill behaviours would blacken a name equally well. After all, both Paul and Stephen Camber were accorded rulings of accidental death. And then there are the tomatoes. Parlourmaid Ethel lifted three from Paul Camber's dining room table and became quite sick after eating them. Master Stephen's final lunch was said to contain tomatoes. But from where did these intoxicating fruits originate? And how did they find their way into the Camber house? Dame Beatrice uses her knowledge of poisons, salmon fishing, agriculture, pig farming, and the deviousness of human nature to solve this agreeable countryside mystery.
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.
