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One of too few novels by a Scottish writer who died far too young, like her others Miss Pym Disposes almost certainly influenced later writers such as Agatha Christie.
Lucy Pym is a mousy little woman who awakes to the sound of school bells and chattering children, wondering how on earth she has ended up in a physical training college for young girls. Josephine Tey was the pen name of the Scottish writer Elizabeth MacKintosh, who also wrote acclaimed plays such as Richard of Bordeaux, under the pen name Gordon Daviot. In 1929 she entered a detective novel,The Man In The Queue, into a competition, but it was another seven years before she would publish a follow-up, A Shilling for Candles. Both featured the gentleman detective, Inspector Grant, who cropped up in all but one of her books (and the one in which he does not is linked by another character). But it was not until after the Second World War that Tey began to publish -- in an all too brief flowering -- a half dozen of the finest crime novels of that period. During the space of few brief years she wrote Miss Pym Disposes, The Franchise Affair, the re-telling of an eigteenth century mystery, Brat Farrar -- perhaps her finest novel, To Love and Be Wise, The Daughter of Time, and finally, The Singing Sands, published soon after her death in February 1952. Miss Pym Disposes was the first of this post-war burst of creativity, and as outlined in Cat Among the Pigeons, almost certainly influenced Agatha Christie. Lucy Pym has had an unexpected best-seller with a treatise on psychology that has led to an invitation from her old school friend Henrietta, now headmistress at Leys Physical Training College, to speak to the pupils. She has agreed to stay overnight, but when the Head Girl, Pamela (Beau) Nash begs her to stay for a few days, she reluctantly agrees. As the days turn into a week, and then a fortnight, Miss Pym becomes friend and confidante to many of the staff and pupils alike. While helping to invigilate an exam, Miss Pym catches one of the girls cheating, but decides to take no action against the errant girl, Rouse, allowing her to destroy the tiny note that she has written. It is a mistake that it is to prove costly. Each year the senior girls have to find jobs, and certain plum jobs are arranged. In the face of all reason Henrietta allocates one of the plum jobs to Rouse, rather than to the expected recipient, Innes. Inevitably, tragedy strikes. Tey's novels rely on character rather than incident to drive their plots. The characterization is warmly-drawn, each character is fully rounded and sympathetic, and the mystery and it's solution entirely down to that same characterization. A marvellous book.
The copyright of the article Miss Pym Disposes in Modern American Fiction is owned by Colin Harvey. Permission to republish Miss Pym Disposes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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