Miss Morton Takes the Waters
Miss Morton is the (paid) companion of Mrs. Frogerton, a lady not quite to the manor born but possessing sufficient industrial wealth to buy a few of her own. Understandably fatigued after the previous four mysteries in the series, Mrs. Frogerton travels to Bath to take the waters and recover her health. There, the pair joins a temporary community of ladies, ladies’ companions, and local household staff, a perfectly Victorian microcosmic English society complete with formal teas and a series of damaging poison-pen letters. The amateur sleuths have barely begun to investigate the letters when a lady is found dead, in a locked room no less, slumped over one of the letters on her writing table.
The best part of this engaging book is the interplay between Morton and Frogerton. The two women collaborate enthusiastically, bouncing ideas off one another with equal intensity and insight and letting the reader watch as they work out the puzzle. Neither is a Holmes and neither is a Watson. They work as partners to manage the local authorities, as well as over-entitled ladies with whom they share accommodations. Much time is spent interviewing suspicious household staff and other suspects who, it is no spoiler to say, are not the murderer. The inevitable parlor room reveal ties it all up neatly at the end, but as a reader I did not feel we had spent enough time with the true culprit for a fully satisfying conclusion.
