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This is Pennington Wise #8. The title is taken from Ezekiel's vision, as recorded in Ezekiel 1:16 of the Old Testament; in which he saw a wheel turning inside another wheel. This expression has come to describe a complex, many-layered mechanism or situation.
About the author: Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) was married to Hadwin Houghton, the heir of the Houghton-Mifflin publishing empire. Like Mary Roberts Rinehart, being in a publishing family created an easy pipeline for getting her works into print. She wrote a total of more than 170 books. See this Wikipedia article.
Major characters:
- Ralph Howland, millionaire businessman
- Mary Howland, his fragile wife
- Leonard Swift, his cousin and heir
- Ida Holmes Campbell, or is she the missing Angela Howland?
- Rob and Sally Peters, house guests
- Conrad Stryker, the village "half-wit" and peeping tom
- John Stryker, Conrad's father, the undertaker
The Howlands's staff:
- Edith Mills, the short-skirted silk-stockinged blonde stenographer
- Austin Magee, the secretary and business manager
- Amy Lane, a no-nonsense nurse
- Etta, Mary's maid
- Martin, the butler
- Charles, the second man (assistant butler)
The officials:
- Dr. Avery, G.P.
- Dr. Mason, medical examiner
- Police Chief Weldon
- Detective O'Brien
- Detective Green
- James Esterbrook, attorney
Locale: Connecticut
Synopsis: Millionaire Ralph Howland and his wife Mary have a summer home in Connecticut (in addition to their winter home in New York City, a mountain retreat, and a seaside cottage). Sixteen years ago their only child, Angela, then five years old, died from sleeping sickness (encephalitis lethargica) and Mary has never been quite herself again. Also living there: Ralph's cousin and heir Leonard Swift, and house guests Rob and Sally Peters who are trying to get Ralph to buy into a mining scheme.
The Howlands have quite a retinue: Slinky stenographer Edith Mills, secretary/business manager Austin Magee, nurse Amy Lane, as well as the usual maids and butlers.
Ralph's will has an unusual clause. Leonard Swift is his residual legatee, unless daughter Angela can be found, in which case she inherits instead. But Angela is dead and buried.
One morning there is a knock at the servant's entrance. It is Conrad Stryker, the village "half-wit". He reports he can see through the library window that Ralph Howland is dead. The staff investigate, and sure enough, he is. Conrad is anxious they call his father, undertaker John Stryker, right away.
Doctors and police arrive, and are stymied that there is no apparent cause of death evident. In the midst of this, a young lady appears at the door looking for Ralph. It is Ida Holmes Campbell, and she claims she is really his long-thought-dead daughter Angela - who would now be 21. The cemetery reveals Angela's coffin was exhumed and found to be empty. Now if this is really Angela, she inherits; not Leonard Swift. Leonard is not too happy.
Review: This would be a great Halloween read, with empty coffins being moved around, buried, and exhumed, and lots of creepy funeral home skulduggery.
There are two parallel mysteries here: who murdered Ralph Howland (if indeed, it was murder), and is Ida Campbell the long-lost Angela? Both solutions are withheld until the very end.
Things are at an impasse until, true to formula, Pennington Wise arrives with his muse Zizi, who flits around like a wraith, extracting valuable clues. Zizi is always enjoyable, especially her saucy repartée with "Penny".
I had expected the mining deal to be part of the motive of all this, but that story line was dropped early on and not mentioned again.
Another odd aspect was the detailed description of the house layout given at the beginning. I expected this to be important somehow, but it wasn't. I had sketched it out anyway. No idea where all those servants live, perhaps on an unmentioned third floor.
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