A review of The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth – 230827

A Watersplash is a ford, a shallow crossing over a river, and while it can be inconvenient and should it have stepping stones, they can be slippery, but it is unlikely to be the locus of a couple of drownings, both inside eight days and both on Friday evenings. The watersplash at Greenings, though, with barely two feet of water, has seen the drownings of, firstly, the local soak and ne’er-do-well, William Jackson, and then Clarice Dean, a young woman who has returned to the village to nurse the hypochondriac Miss Ora Blake. Nevertheless, this is the set up for the twenty-first in Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver, originally published in 1951.

Of course, there is more to the deaths. Both the victims sustained blows to the head, and both had important information concerning the will of James Random. Believing that his son, Edward, was dead – he had been missing for five years, having served, we learn later, a prison sentence in Russia – James bequeaths everything to his brother, Arthur. However, just a week before his death James had a vivid dream in which Edward appeared, assuring his father that he was very much alive. Acting on this information, James made a second will in which he left everything to Edward.

However, the second will was either suppressed or misplaced and upon James’ death, Arthur inherits everything. When Edward returns to Greenings, something which rather discomforts his uncle, Arthur does not do the decent thing and share the estate with him. Both Clarice Dean, who had nursed James in his final days, and William Jackson, who was one of the document’s witnesses, knew of the second will’s existence. Indeed, Clarice tried to tell Edward of its existence but her manner, that of a desperate woman throwing her hat at him, made Edward reluctant to talk privately with her.

The situation in which Arthur finds himself leaves him open to blackmail or exposure as a suppressor of a will for his own advantage. With the second witness to the will having conveniently drowned at sea, the removal of the other two with knowledge of it would ease Arthur’s position. He was in the habit of practising on the church organ, which was near the watersplash, on Friday evenings.

However, and inevitably, although all roads lead to Arthur, the case is more complicated than that. Wentworth, in this entertaining page turner, takes us into cosy murder country, with a village stocked with eccentric characters and awash with rumour and tittle-tattle, aided by the ability of all to listen into the village’s party telephone line. I enjoyed her portrayal of the absent-minded cat lover, Emmeline Random, and the Blake sisters, one enjoying her alleged ill health, the other sour and disapproving.

Miss Silver is drawn into the case after a chance meeting with Clarice and an invite to stay in Greenings from the daughter of one of her innumerable school friends, the vicar’s wife, Mrs Ball. Inevitably, the officer leading the investigation for the Yard is Frank Abbott who once more has the opportunity to stand in awe at the perspicacity of the seemingly innocuous old woman.

Her close observation of people’s reactions leads Miss Silver to a somewhat different interpretation of events and a re-enactment of the crimes, at some risk to her safety, leads to the culprit’s arrest. The puzzle is not overly complicated, and Wentworth plays fair with the reader, sprinkling enough clues around, for the identity of the murderer not to come too much of a surprise at the end. As well as recovering his estate, in the inevitable bit of romantic interest, he gets the girl who found the missing will in the library.

Wentworth at her best.