Madcap Mabel and the Maypole by Zamora Pridhoe

Thanks to Cobbs Auctioneers 

Title: Madcap Mabel and the Maypole 

Author: Zamora Pridhoe 

Publisher: not known 

Source book: Murder Fortissimo by Nicola Slade

Following an unspecified operation, retired headmistress Harriet Quigley decides to spend a week or so in a smart local convalescent/respite home for older people. Harriet’s cousin Sam thinks she might get bored. He knows her taste for school (probably schoolgirl) fiction, and brings her a book she has never read; Madcap Mabel and the Maypole, by an author Harriet has never come across before, Zamora Pridhoe. 

The book has a gilt and pictorial cover showing a vapid Edwardian teenager applying a lace-edged handkerchief to her brimming eye.

Once Harriet has had the opportunity to read the book, she is able to report that it’s about a girls’ school run by a poor but noble owner of a stately home. The girls are upset by a headless Elizabethan lady who wails around the great hall. Mabel eventually banishes the ghost by arranging an indoor maypole dance, and if you think that sounds improbable, she then turns out to be the owner’s long lost heiress.

Murder Fortissimo also features a pretty improbable murder by euphonium (a medium sized brass instrument). Naturally Harriet solves the case. And then covers up her conclusions before the authorities have even noticed it’s a crime. Well done Harriet.

Thanks to The National Portrait Gallery