Death Has No Tongue
A review of Death Has No Tongue by Joan Cowdroy – 250708
The third and final book in Joan Cowdroy’s Mr Moh series, originally published in 1938 and reissued by Dean Street Press, is on the face of it a simple enough and fairly conventional murder mystery. A spinster, Ellen Shields, who has a habit of collecting information and, therefore, knows too much, is murdered and is found in the garden of Lewis Hardwicke just as he returns home from abroad unexpectedly.
There are a number of peculiar features to the murder, Ellie’s body having been stripped save for the man’s jacket in which she has been draped, her beret with a curious cut and its feather missing found in the garage of the Hubberds, a house in which she is employed in a domestic capacity, and he disappearance and then subsequent injury to Miss Hyde’s dog, another occupant of the small row of houses in a lane in the village of Finnet. And shortly before, there had been the shocking vandalism of Miss Hyde’s garden next door to where the body is found, an act so senseless that it has outraged Mr Moh, working there as a gardener, to such an extent that he persuades his friend and host Inspector Gorham of the Yard to investigate.
There are a number of credible suspects with alibis resembling colanders and enough evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, for the two sleuths to get their teeth into, Gorham doing most of the legwork while Li Moh maintains an inscrutably discreet presence, observing and using his local knowledge to good effect. At some personal cost to his good looks he succeeds at the death to prevent a second murder and allow Gorham to get his hands on the culprit, a chain of events precipitated by an advert placed in the newspapers by the Inspector containing a passage in Chinese, presumably Mandarin, faithfully translated by Moh.
There is more than a little whiff of the Orient in this tale with several of the characters, Moh aside, who have spent time out there and are familiar with the language. The message was intended to advise one suspect that they were no longer in danger of arrest but Gorham had not reckoned on another being au fait with the language, tipping the real culprit the wink and almost ruining Gorham’s plans.
On the other hand this is a tale of two women who are trapped by circumstances. Ellie Shields is not particularly liked. She has a strong moral code, fuelled by her Christian beliefs, a collector of improving verses and maxims. She is clumsy and inefficient as a home help but is willing and is tolerated by her employers for that and because she is cheap. Working at the Hubberds she is treated like a skivvy but appalled by what she considers the loose morals and shameless behaviour that goes on under the roof, she has collected information enough to be valuable and dangerous to others. Ellie also got her hands on some interesting information during her spell working at the Hyde’s.
Elvie Hyde, too, is trapped, working as a housekeeper and unpaid secretary and literary agent to her brother, Sydney, the renowned writer L V Hyde. However, she is clearly not happy and the shock of Ellie’s murder and a couple of seemingly trivial incidents are enough to decide her to sell the house from under her brother’s feet and move on, although to where she is not quite sure. In the week following the murder, she grows close to another and she finds her path to freedom and happiness through love. For poor Ellie, though, the information she had accumulated did not lead to freedom or happiness but her death at the hands of someone who had much more to lose.
Cowdroy has come up with a fascinating take on a murder mystery that requires the space she grants it to work.
