Jane Shaw Guide: Miss Pershore

Miss Pershore, nicknamed Miss Plum or The Plum by the Carmichaels, is a character in Susan Pulls the Strings. She lives at Number 14 Tollgate Road. She is a petite woman who is always very elegantly dressed and uses a blue rinse in her hair. A culture vulture, she frequently attends the ballet and theatre and visits art galleries, appreciating modern art in particular. At the beginning of the story, Susan discovers that Miss Pershore has become a close friend of Aunt Lucy, whom she calls Lucia (pronounced Loocher), and that Aunt Lucy has come under her spell and is becoming something of a culture vulture herself, buying alternative-style Christmas cards and hanging strange paintings around the house. Although Miss Plum lavishes expensive Christmas presents like puppets and paintings on Susan and the Carmichaels, the children do not care much for her. Susan is especially put off her because of her blue hair. The Plum makes constant short visits to Paris, ostensibly to soak up the culture. However, Susan accidentally stumbles on a cache of smuggled watches and discovers that Miss Pershore is a member of an elaborate smuggling ring, the proceeds of which finance her expensive lifestyle. When Miss Pershore discovers that Susan knows about her criminal activities, she pretends she has a gun and ties Susan up, leaving her bound and gagged while she makes her escape. But Miss Pershore, for all her skill in the underworld, seems to be of limited intelligence and blabs her escape route to Susan before she leaves, making it easy for the police to arrest her. When she is arrested and out of their lives, the Carmichaels are happy that her cultural influence on Aunt Lucy is removed and life can go back to normal. Polite, well-to-do and thoroughly middle-class, Miss Pershore is the first of a long line of unlikely crooks in the Susan series. Her nickname is derived from the market town of Pershore in Worcestershire, famous for its plums.

Quote of the Day

"Well," said Susan, "it was in the paper. There seems to be a gang at work smuggling thousands of watches into the country."

"It's all perfectly clear to me," said Bill. "Someone, let's call him Mr. X-"

"Oh, yes," interrupted Susan, "I love a Mr. X-"

"Well, Mr. X," went on Bill, "smuggles in these watches, takes them to the house next door - in an Ivor Williams van, I shouldn't wonder, then packs them into the chest of drawers. Along comes a van and a couple of men who carry out the chest of drawers - Susan saw them-"

"Yes," said Susan eagerly, "I saw that chest of drawers going out and in, I told you!"

"-They take the watches to the shop, or to the person who is going to sell them, then bring back the chest of drawers for a refill. If anyone looks inside the van, there is only an empty chest of drawers in it, being delivered; and no one is going to pay the slightest attention to a chest of drawers being taken from a furniture store - I've seen men taking furniture in an dout of that house hundreds of times and never paid any attention. It was only bad luck for the gang that Susan was lying in bed with nothing to do and noticed that it was the same chest of drawers going in and out."

"Then is the gang Ivor Williams?" said Charlotte, more puzzled than ever.

"Gracious no," said Bill, shocked. "Ivor Williams are only being used as a - what's the word? A cover? Yes, a cover."

"Well, you seem to have worked it all out very successfully, young Bill," said Midge. "But who is Mr. X?"

"How should I know?" said Bill.

"But I know that," said Susan. "Mr. X is Miss Plum."

From SUSAN PULLS THE STRINGS, Chapter 9, Susan in Disgrace. This was readers' first exposure to what would become a staple of the Susan stories: Susan working out from very scanty evidence that the most unlikely person is a master criminal. She makes her wild accusation only to be in hot water with Aunt Lucy. However, she often turns out to be right.