‘The Black Shrouds’ by Constance & Gwenyth Little

Reprinted by The Rue Morgue,
7 November 2002.
ISBN: 978-0-915230-52-6 (PB)
Originally published 1941.

The action is all set in a New York a boarding house. Diana Prescott has aspirations to the stage and has run away from her rich domineering father to fulfil her ambitions. She has met a soul mate in Barbara Markham, the daughter of the boarding house owner, who is keen to become an actress.

To the delight of Grace Firebuck and Mary Eustace, two school teachers who fear they are on the shelf, a young man checks into the boarding house. Diana recognises him from her father’s pea canning factory and is convinced that he has been sent by her father to bring her back to the family home. She devises a plan to make the most of the situation, but before she can put it into action, corpses start to appear.

Hearing of the Murders, Quincy Prescott tears himself away from canning peas and comes to take his daughter home. But he is quickly sucked into the boarding house life, frantically pursued by Camille, an aging actress who insists she is 40. The search for the murderer is conducted whilst Quincy Prescott plays bridge with anyone he can coerce into a game.

When elderly pensioner Alvin Mott disappears in someone else’s hat and overcoat, Sergeant Schmaltz says, ‘it will be easy to pick him up as his clothes are too big for him’. Mary shook her head, ‘how is Schmaltz to tell when a man’s clothes don’t fit him, when his own coat won’t button across his front and hangs down to just above his knees, whilst his hat covers both his eyebrows and his ears’. With that wonderful picture of a policeman on the job, it’s good that Diana Prescott is keen to do a bit of amateur sleuthing.

The characterisation is marvellous, the writing wonderful, and the humour sparkling. A real fun mystery. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Jessie Constance Little (1899-1980) co-authored with her sister Gwenyth mysteries in the screwball-comedy fashion. The Little sisters are referred to as "queens of the wacky cozy." They were sometimes published as Conyth Little, a portmanteau of their names. Their youngest sister Iris wrote under the pseudonym Robert James  
Constance Little married Lawrence Baker, a men's clothing designer for the Dubois Uniform Company in New York City.