The Brading Collection
A review of The Brading Collection by Patricia Wentworth – 230318
At their most basic Patricia Wentworth’s novels have two dominant themes – a murder mystery and some romantic interest. Sometimes the two are stitched seamlessly together while in others the joins are painfully evident. Miss Silver’s seventeenth outing, originally published in 1950 and which goes by the alternative title of Mr Brading’s Collection, is one where the two seem to run in parallel and it is difficult to determine whether it is a romance with a murder thrown in or whether the murder mystery was intended to be the main focal point.
The book opens with Miss Silver turning down a commission. Mr Brading, the owner of a large collection of valuable jewels which he houses in a specially built strongroom, seeks her help as he is convinced that there are some rum but unspecified goings on. She takes a dislike to him and feels that his behaviour towards his secretary, Moberley, is tantamount to blackmail and that he deserves what he gets.
Meanwhile Stacy Mainwaring is facing a dilemma. She has been commissioned to paint the portrait of a larger-than-life stage artist, but it means returning to the area which she fled from a month into her marriage and running the risk of meeting her estranged husband, Charles. Stacy decides to take the commission and, inevitably, runs into Charles. Despite her better instincts, she still has feelings for Charles, portrayed as a masterful character, and goes weak at the knees in his presence.
Stacy is an exasperating character, the sort of woman who does the cause of feminism no favours. She is weak, impressionable, and easily swayed. It turns out that the reason why she fled from her husband was down to a simple misunderstanding and she was too weak or not confident enough to confront him. As a result, the couple endured three wasted years. As far as I was concerned, they were welcome to each other.
As for the murder mystery, inevitably Lewis Brading’s suspicions are well-founded. By the time that Miss Silver receives his cri de coeur, he is dead, shot in his strongroom. On the day of the murder, he had been overheard having a couple of heated telephone conversation and in the afternoon, unusually, he had a string of visitors, the last of whom was Charles who upon finding him dead raised the alarm. Brading’s new will, which left everything to his fiancée, was found in ashes on the desk.
As the last person to visit him, Charles is the prime suspect and it looks black for him when it is discovered that it was his gun rather than Brading’s that was used to commit the murder. The growing sense of doom surrounding Charles sends Stacy into a tizzy as she fears the worst. Fortunately, Miss Silver is at hand and she directs her old charge from her governess days, Randall March, now Chief Constable, to pay particular attention to the two phone calls that put Brading into a bad mood and the two letters that he received that morning.
After all the fruitless testing of alibis, these hold the keys to unlocking the mystery. The resolution sees an increase in dramatic tension with a car chase, a plunge over a cliff near Catherine Wheel, the setting of the fifteenth novel, and a death bed confession. There are enough clues for the reveal not to be too much of a surprise and with Charles and Stacy finding a way to patch up their differences, Wentworth ensures a happy ending.
One of Wentworth’s strengths is her story-telling, he ability to engage her reader and keep them interested, even if the material is not the best. This book is a case in point.
