Book Review: Murder at a London Finishing School by Jessica Ellicott

In the aftermath of the Great War, finishing schools for young ladies seem wildly irrelevant. The Oxford Dictionary defines a finishing school as “a private school where girls are prepared for entry into fashionable society,” and ultimately, a suitable marriage. Much-married American “adventuress” Beryl Helliwell and “prim and proper” Englishwoman Edwina Davenport became friends at Miss DuPont’s Finishing School for Young Ladies yonks ago, but they haven’t thought of Miss DuPont in ages. That changes when Edwina receives a letter from Miss DuPont, imploring her and Beryl, in their capacity as a successful enquiry agent team, to come to London straight away. The polite request thrums with urgency. 

I would not like for anyone to know that I have contacted you in a professional capacity and so hoped that I might convince you to attend the prospective students’ week with what I believe is referred to in detective novels as a cover story. I regret the last-minute nature of my request and would not have considered inconveniencing you if it were not a matter of some urgency. I thought if you are willing, you could say that you have a second cousin or a goddaughter overseas whom you are interested in enrolling, but that you wished to be sure the school was as you remembered before you did so.

 

Please send a reply posthaste and do give my regards to Beryl.

Duty—and London—calls. They are reluctant to leave Walmsley Parma, the bucolic village where they live. Now that Edwina isn’t teetering on the brink of genteel impecunity, she devotes herself to her little doggie Crumpet, her gardens, her secret Wild West writing career, and her burgeoning friendship with local solicitor and artist Charles Jarvis. Beryl has plans for a ripping vacation; “spending the next few days at a nearby golf hotel complete with golf course, in the company of a man she referred to as her favorite Viking.” They are not the same girls who met at school so many years ago. This is the seventh Beryl and Edwina mystery: they have a new lease on life since their inaugural mystery, Murder in an English Village.

What is it about returning to a place where you weren’t all that happy—is it remembering your former selves that makes it so hard? On the other hand, consider the satisfaction of conquering your fears, and learning that your assumptions and suppositions might have been off. Thomas Wolfe is famous for the phrase You Can’t Go Home Again but perhaps Beryl and Edwina will prove him wrong. 

Everyone—the teachers, the students, and the servants—seems on edge.  Justifiably so since “students have reported items missing, damaged possessions, and strange noises in the night.” Miss DuPont tells her former students that she is experiencing a “steep decline” in enrollment, and she fears that someone is trying to destroy the school’s stellar reputation. 

They try out their cover story on Mary White, a former classmate of theirs, now a teacher. 

“I see. Will you be with us for some time?”

 

“A day or two at most, I hope,” Beryl said. She could not say for sure, but she thought she detected a flicker of relief pass across Mary’s features. Surely, she was not one to be involved in the sort of mischief taking place at the school.

 

“Would it be possible to speak with one or two of the students?” Edwina asked. “Beryl would like to have a girl’s opinion as she considers the options.”

Mary suggests that students Adele and Lois would be good candidates. Miss Glover, Miss DuPont’s right-hand woman, has a snide reaction to that idea, labelling Adele, and Lois, as mischief makers.  Beryl retorts the girls didn’t seem like a “particularly unruly group.” Glover doesn’t take that comment lying down, saying “Adele and Lois are as thick as thieves, and I’ve caught them getting up to some of the same sorts of mischief I would have expected from the pair of you when you were students.” Beryl has learned a thing or two solving crimes in a little village.

It occurred to Beryl that Miss Glover had much in common with the postmistress back in Walmsley Parva, Prudence Rathbone. Both seemed entirely discontented with their own lots and incredibly inclined to stick their noses into the business of others, with enthusiasm.

There have always been mean girls at residential schools. Veronica DeLisle was a nemesis to Beryl and Edwina when they were classmates. “When they had attended the school, Veronica had been the most unrelenting bully she had ever met,” Edwina recalls. Veronica is considering placing her daughter at Miss DuPont’s. She wields considerable social influence; it would be a coup for the school if her daughter enrolled. Veronica is aware of the power she holds—in the opinion of her former classmates, the leopard has not changed its spots.

Shockingly, Beryl and Edwina discover Veronica’s body in a hidden grotto on the school grounds. 

The side of Veronica’s head was crushed in near the temple and her fair hair was darkened with blood. Even in the low light she could see that there was no hope left for Veronica.

The list of possible suspects is lengthy. Was Veronica’s death a murder and if so, why are why are the police so blasé about it? As Beryl and Edwina suss out how and why Veronica died, they develop a greater understanding of the role finishing school played in the women they became. There was much they didn’t discern at the time. When it comes to the enquiry agent team of Beryl and Edwina, it seems that you can go home again. Jessica Ellicott skillfully weaves the changing mores of women’s lives after World War I into another absorbing mystery.