A review of Traveller’s Return by Patricia Wentworth

Picking up a Miss Silver book by Patricia Wentworth is the equivalent of comfort eating. You know it is going to be enjoyable, but undemanding. Traveller’s Return, which goes by the alternative and more Trollopian title of She Came Back in America, is the ninth in the series, originally published in 1945, fits the bill perfectly. In some ways it is a follow up from her previous book, The Key, as several of the characters in that book appear here.

The nub of the book is the similarity in appearance of two women, Anne, the wife of Sir Philip Jocelyn, and her cousin, Annie Joyce. Sir Philip and friends make an attempt to rescue the two from occupied France under enemy fire. In the mayhem, one of the women is shot, identified by Sir Philip as Anne and is buried as such in the family graveyard, while the other is accidently left behind to an unknown fate.

With immaculate timing three and a half years later, as Sir Philip is taking up a sensitive position in the War Office and about to propose to one of his wife’s bridesmaids, Lyndall, Lady Jocelyn, Lazarus-like, reappears. She claims that it was she and not Annie that had been left behind and had endured a miserable existence under German occupation. All she desires is to be reunited with her husband and return to normality.

Unsurprisingly, Sir Philip is shocked and is convinced that not only had he identified his wife correctly as the dead woman but that the new arrival is an imposter, likely to be Annie Joyce. However, at a family council summoned to decide the matter the woman is able to convince the family that she is Lady Anne because of the depth of knowledge she has of the minutiae of her former life. Sir Philip has no option but to agree to a trial reunion.

The mystery, if it can be called as such, is whether the woman really is who she says she is. If not, who is she and why has she returned? Lyn spots her going into the backroom of a hairdressers in London. When challenged about it, she convinces Lyn that she was mistaken. A young woman who grew up with Annie and talks to Miss Silver on a train on a way to an appointment to see Lady Anne under the clock at Waterloo station is killed, presumed murdered. She was convinced that she could have recognised Annie without a shadow of doubt. Indeed, anyone who has any intimate knowledge of Annie seems to be in danger of being killed.

Miss Silver, who does not appear until midway through the book and has no official role in the investigation, sets out to solve the conundrum while the police are represented by the familiar duo of Lamb and Abbott. The interaction and repartee between the three are the book’s highlights, Abbott continuing to be in awe of the astute, perceptive spinster while Lamb suffers her interference.

What might have been a case of inheritance seeking – Annie’s branch of the family missed out on its fair share of the estate – takes a much more sinister turn as we learn more about what goes on in the backroom of the hairdressers. It becomes a tale of traitors and secret agents. In the denouement the reincarnated Lady Anne is murdered and the eminence grise of the ring of collaborators is unmasked. The identity of the latter is about the only mild surprise in what is a third-rate mystery.

Wentworth’s female characters may be a little too insipid for modern tastes, but there is no getting away from the fact that she knows how to write a story. Even though it is fairly easy to spot what is really going on, she draws her readers in and keeps them entertained. Sometimes, it is good to give the grey cells a rest.