The Mystery at Orchard House

 The Mystery at Orchard House (1946) by Joan Coggin

All Lady Lupin Hastings wants is to have a quiet little rest at her friend Diana Turner's country house turned country hotel. Lady Lupin has just come out of a bout of influenza and the doctor has advised she leave her husband, the vicar of Glanville, and young son at home so she can recover. But the quiet life just doesn't seem to exist around Lupin. Her fellow guests seem attracted as if by magnets to her side...and even to her bedroom...in an unseemly rush to tell Lupin their life stories. Diana's cousin Paul Ramsden, an engineer turned artist, who assures Lupin that the only things worth painting are the most depressing subjects she's ever seen. There's the decidedly odd female author, Lavinia Dyson-Drake, who write books Lupin would never read and the "real" vicar's wife, Mrs. Smythe, who is sure to spot that Lupin isn't (or at least Lupin doesn't feel like a real vicar's wife). Arthur Smythe is her son, a poet who longs to be an engineer--or at least a motor mechanic. There's the domineering and always on the verge of a "spell" Mrs. Mydleton and her down-trodden daughter Grizel who would love a husband, house, and children of her own, but who is unlikely to get them while mama is still in the picture. And there's Ruth and Charles Rennie, a young couple who spend all their time together bickering. And, finally, Colonel Robert James who Lupin is sure will wind up marrying Grizel...or maybe he's after Ruth Renni...or maybe someone else.

As if listening to everyone's chatter isn't tiring enough, a kleptomaniac starts stealing things--Lavinia's manuscript, Mrs. Mydleton's pearls, Mrs. Smythe's brooch, Paul's notecase, and even a very ugly brooch that belonged to Lupin's Great-Aunt Jemima. And everyone seems to expect that Lupin will figure out who did it. But things get really serious when someone tampers with Lavinia's car and she and Diana are in an accident. They could have been killed, but fortunately the worst injury is Diana's broken arm. It all rounds out with a fire set in Diana's office--is someone really out to get Diana? If so, why? Soon the place is swarming with policemen and private detectives and insurance men--Lupin will have to work fast if she's going to figure it out before the professionals.

I seem to be working my way backwards in the Lady Lupin mystery series. I read #3 (Penelope Passes or Why Did She Die?) and #4 (Dancing with Death) and enjoyed them very much. I thought Coggin had achieved a delightful comic touch in the classic cozy mystery. But this one has fallen flat--I found it very hard to keep up with Lupin's circuitous conversations and the comic episodes just didn't seem as funny. It didn't help that the mystery really isn't much of one and there's no murder. None. Now, that isn't to say that a mystery can't be good without a murder (take Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, for example). But, honestly, I think a good murder would have livened this mystery up quite nicely. It definitely needs something. A full ★★★ may be a bit much. But I'm feeling generous

First line: "This is absolutely perfect, Di, exactly what I have been longing for."

Last line: "I like Indian tea best," said Miss Wintham.