The Echoing Strangers — Gladys Mitchell

Most people overlooked the sullen deaf-mute teenager Francis Caux…until he led police to the scene of a murder. It was psychoanalyst and detective Mrs. Beatrice Lestrange Bradley who found a clever way to communicate with Francis, thus learning that his recent fear of water stemmed from a body chained to the underside of a boathouse dinghy. But how did Francis know the location of the body? Even more puzzling is the discovery of a second murder linked to another Caux teen, Derek, in a nearby village. Mrs. Bradley suspects that the teenage Caux boys are somehow related, and soon must consider the possibility that they are coconspirators…in murder.

The beloved eccentric detective Mrs. Bradley pieces together details from a tragic past and a troubling present in this delightfully deceptive classic mystery.