The Great Mistake by Mary Roberts Rinehart, 1940

 

The original

This reprint edition features the standard-issue "Fleeing clip-art woman looks back over her shoulder at creepy Victorian house with lighted windows" No diaphanous nightgown and candleabra, so we call tell it's not a Gothic.

About the author:  Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876 – 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1920. Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing, with the publication of The Circular Staircase (1908). (from a Wikipedia article).

Major Characters:

• Patricia “Pat” Abbott, Maud’s social secretary, our narrator
• Maud Wainright, a wealthy widow
• John Wainright, her husband (dead prior to story)
• Tony Wainright, Maud’s son by her first marriage
• Bessie Wainright, Tony’s estranged wife
• Audrey Morgan, Pat’s friend
• Lydia Morgan, her mother
• Don Morgan, her runaway father
• Dr. Bill Sterling, Audrey’s fiancé
• Julian & Margery Stoddard, neighbors to The Cloisters
• Dwight Elliott, Maud’s attorney
• Amy Richards, a nurse
• Jim Conway, chief of police
• Larry Hamilton, Audrey’s friend
• Evan Evans, night watchman

Locale: 1930’s Beverly (state not specified)

Synopsis: It is the tail and of the Depression, and rumors of war in Europe abound. The city of Beverly is divided in two society enclaves: the wealthy estates on The Hill (dominated by The Cloisters), and the village (home of the middle class). The Cloisters is a magnificent estate, comprising over 50 rooms and 20+ servants in a three story manse, square, surrounding an open courtyard; with an adjacent “playhouse” consisting of an indoor pool, indoor tennis courts, bar, and guest suites. Matriarch of The Cloisters is aging widow Maud Wainright, who lives there with her son Tony Wainright. She recruits young Patricia “Pat” Abbott from the village to serve as her social secretary.

Told in recollection, Pat describes her friendship with Audrey Morgan, daughter of Lydia and Tom Morgan. Tom had run away when she was a child and has not been seen since, and Lydia had divorced him in absentia. Pat fits in at the Cloisters, handling all Maud’s social affairs and correspondence with efficiency. There is concern when a prowler is seen lurking about The Cloisters and the adjacent Stoddard place, The Farm. The family dog, Roger, comes home one night with blood on his paws, having apparently walked through it. Checking about, they find the night watchman, Evan Evans, unconscious next to the pool, his trousers missing. His keys had been locked to a belt loop of the trousers, so the prowler now has all the keys to The Cloisters. Evans recuperates in the hospital, but escapes through a window and cannot be found.

Two long-forgotten people suddenly reappear in town. Bess, estranged wife of Tony, shows up at The Cloisters and begins to lord it over everyone. Don Morgan, Audrey’s father, comes home but is quite ill and seems near death; just looking for a place to rest quietly. Then he is missing - and turns up dead on a distant roadway, in his pajamas.

In the dark, Pat steps into an open elevator shaft and falls onto someone lurking at the bottom. This injures her ankle, but now it appears the lurker has used his keys to gain entry to The Cloisters. Tragedy will again occur - again at the swimming pool.

Review (Possible spoilers ahead): 

This is my second journey through this novel. I always enjoy Mary Roberts Rinehart, and this one does not disappoint, except for the "detective's list" trick pulled on the reader noted below. 

One thing which makes for easy following in the Had I But Known (HIBK) tradition, is that the important things are highlighted by the author for us to remember, such as:

“Perhaps I should explain here the elaborate telephone arrangement at the Cloisters … the library had its own outside connection. All our private talks took place over it, a fact which was to be important later on” (Chapter V).

By the final chapter, I had quite a list of loose ends awaiting closure. They all got resolved, although a couple were just red herrings. In particular, the explanation of the cemetery vandalism incident was a real stretch and I was hoping for something relevant to the plot (plot - cemetery - get it?)

I was amused at the description of “the playhouse”. Indoor pool, indoor tennis courts, bar, and guest suites? Today we would call it a YMCA! (Well, the bar rules that out, I suppose)

One  annoying point: The suspects are all nicely listed, reviewed, along with motives and opportunities, in the “detective’s list” in Chapter XXXV (page 317 in my 1946 edition). However, the killer is not on the list. Ouch! 

As for the “Great Mistake” of the title: We are teased in the first chapter (page 11 in my edition) when Pat writes “Someone has said that murder is the great mistake, the one irrevocable error any individual can make,” but the real Great Mistake is finally revealed  in Chapter XXXIX (page 348 in my edition). Maud’s first husband had been reported killed in the war (WWI in France), and she had remarried before waiting out the seven year period for him to be declared dead. That was the great mistake. Not a big deal, plot-wise, but there it is.