Out of the Past by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder, 1959)

I went to the Lifeline Bookfair this weekend, where I turned to crime.  Fortunately it was of the paperback kind:

 

A huge ugly old house, hordes of friends and relations--and a young man with information to sell and suppress.

A perfect setting for a murder--and for

MISS SILVER.

With a cover like this you'd certainly expect your detective to be more than a little hard boiled--drinking neat whiskey in his lonely office between romancing dangerous dames and fighting it out with toughs on the waterfront.  Instead the detective in this story is a retired Victorian governess with a fondness for knitting and Lord Tennyson.

Ah well, at least there's blackmail and murder to liven things up!