1930.
This book was unusual and qite nice, sweeet, in a way. There’s a mystery, there’s a robbery, there is, technically, a murder. There is a Scotland Yard detective and a private investigator, and yet there isn’t anyone arrested or chased. It’s not a love story, although there is a wedding of course, but it is a story of love more than anything.
Our protagonist is John Morlay, who is a private investigator, but he deals with financial matters, not murders. He knows Julian Lester, a man who is always perfectly dressed and comfortable in any social situation. Lester has friends in many areas of society, and always takes advantage of these acquaintances to get a free meal, or a free ride… he’s not a poor man by any means, buthe says he is. He hates to spend money, he likes to get more. His goal is to put together half a million, and live with thata. He is getting there through various clever investments. He asks John to invetigate Marie Fioli, a countess from Italy, and Mrs Carawood, the woman who’s taken care of her since her family died. Lester wants to know if Marie has money or if Mrs Carawood stole it from her… his aim is to marry her if she has enough money.
John is disgusted and refuses, but he is also intrigued and goes to meet them. Marie is just 18 and leaving her college to live in a house in Ascot, that Mrs Carawood bought for her.
John is convinced that Mrs Carawood is an honest woman, and he is also charmed by Marie.
Mrs Carawood is scared after knowing that he is an investigator, but instead of running away she hires him to protect Marie, so that he might get to know her and care for her.
This is the plot. The mystery is not who is the misterious lonely cat who steals jewels here and there, nor it is who robbed the bank. The real mystery is, does Marie has money? Who really is Mrs Carawood and what she did with Marie’s inheritance?
Well, it’s not really a book I’d like to read again, but I’m glad I read it once because it was different and touching.
Lester was an interesting character because he wasn’t evil, he wasn’t really bad or with bad intention. He is nice to all his friends, and he would have treated Marie extremely well, but he doesn’t really care for anyone but himself and money. He’s the one who stole jewels, but he never hurt anyone. On the contrary, when he found a robber in his house, he gave him food and let him go. He is really clever, so much that nobody knows what he does, and nobody thinks there’s really something worth investigating.
He does mysterious research for a book that will never be published, and we learn that he’s in touch with every manufacturer of safes and their keys… when he learns from the robber that he knows who robbed the bank, and more details like where they are now and what kind of safe they have, he asks those people he knows for a key saying he wasn’t given the second one when he bought the safe, or something like that.
Detective Pickles, called Peas for a bout of English humour I don’t really care about, is really really full of himself, always says how great he is, the best cop there is, and stuff like that, and yet he found Mrs Carawood suspicious, but he never thought the same of Lester. He even heped him carry the bag with the money…
Marie is the young Milady that attended great schools, made friends, and never wanted for anything in her life. Mrs Carawood is a widow who has various shops in the city, a business that she created by herself through hard work. Good clothes for people, so that even those who don’t have a lot of money can buy a pretty fashionable dress. She lives above one of these shops. Herman is an illiterate boy who works for her, and worships her because she’s the only one who treated him really well, she even reads here cheap novels aloud because he likes to hear it.
Joe Hoad, who sometimes goes by the name Smith, is an ex convict, the one who tried to rob Julian. He’s the one who tells Julian that he knows who robbed the bank because he saw the men and knows their method. Two men who took an apartment near Morlay, some time before the robbery, so to have a place to hide in plain sight, of course under another name.
Things take another turn when he finds himself face to face with Mrs Carawood. That’s when it all comes out. This Hoad was married to her, and she kept sendng him a bit of money all this time, but not too much. When he learns that she has money now, he gets angry because he wants her to use it for him and nothing else. When he sees Marie, this unpleasant man understands the truth that she is his daughter.
Mrs Carawood tries to explain everything to him. She worked for the countess Fioli, a kind woman, with a good education. She had lived her whole life trying hard to get by, and always afraid when she lived with Joe. When he was arrested, she took her chance. She helped him, making it so that he was sent to an asylum and not hanged, but other than that and the money she sent, she cut all ties. She had a daughter, but nobody knew it was hers. When the countess died, there was no big inheritance like Julian hoped, because Marie was not a Fioli. But Mrs Carawood gave her the title, and worked hardto build her business, and used the money to send Marie to school, give her a good education while keeping her away from all that Joe was. Mrs Carawood thought that if she knew, there would be that like calling her away. I mean, Joe followed his father’s path, it’s like he never had a choice knowing of his past and heritage, and she wanted a different life for Marie.
Everything she did was for Marie, and she did it, but now Joe is not at all touched by this. He’s an unpleasant man, cruel, selfish, and wants it all for himself now. Mrs Carawood doesn’t know what to do, he might ruin everything for Marie, so she talks to him, tries to calm him down, and thinks that the next day she might talk to Morlay and get his advice or something.
Herman heard them talk, heard enough to understand a few things, Mrs Carawood confirmed that the man was her husband, so Herman doesn’t really know what to do. But after she goes to her room to sleep, the man talks quite roughly to Herman, and Herman understands enough, that the man is not a good one, that this man is causing much distress to Mrs Carawood and will do even worse probably. So when the man has a heart attack, because he’s ill and always carries his medicine around because he might die without it, Herman considers the situation. Joe barks at him to give him the medicine, but Herman knows that the man showed no sympathy towards Mrs Carawood, and Herman would do anything, really anything for good Mrs Carawood, so he breaks the vials and throws them away, then he pushes the man’s body outside the shop, to be found on the street.
And that’s how it goes, a cop finds the body on the street. Joe Hoad is found dead because of his heart problem, and the matter is closed, nobody thinks there’s anything more behind this.
Mrs Carawood and John Morlay will know, but they will never say anything to anyone of course.
Marie is the only one who learned of Julian’s stealing activity, and told him to leave her alone, to leave Mrs Carawood alone and go away, leave England. Julian does, after he gets the bank robbery’s money for himself. It quite amuses him that Pickles helps him, never suspecting a thing…
John Morlay fell in love with Marie, of course, and he has enough money for himself, and even a Lord title from his family, so he never cared for Marie’s money. Marie understands that she has no money, so she needs to get married. Luckyly for her, she was quite happy to accept John’s proposal.
It ends right after the wedding, with Mrs Carawood having tea with Marie, and sending all the men away because she wants this meeting alone. There’s fond words, Marie now knows that all she ever got it came from mrs Carawood, and tells her she was like a mother for her… there’s much love between them, and being alone Mrs Carawood asks her to pretend just for once, and call her mother…
This is how it ends, letting us know that for the first and last time Mrs Carawood heard that word…
Mr Fenner is not really important to the story, but it’s a bit of color :lol: he spent his days talking about people being all equals, about workers’ rights, and stuff like that, until his boss dies and leaves his business to him. Slowly he changes his tune, having gone up from worker who needs to work to boss who employs others. Still, he’s not a bad man, he doesn’t become unpleasant or cruel, he just sees things from another perspective… :p
ITA la contessa di Ascot
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