Sayers mentioned a similar situation in her books, where Peter Wimsey ends up hiring Miss Climpson to do investigative work (and later she starts an employment agency for women, which she evidently thought was needed). Crime writer is another thing she'd have been good at! It didn't occur to me until recently, that the Carnaby sisters had a similar background to Dorothy L. maybe she could have become a detective herself, or a consultant advising governments and businesses about security issues. Amy Carnaby was smart and hard-working enough to have been successful in a lot of different fields, but she didn't have the opportunity. that wasn't the case until fairly recently, and a lot of women were unable to get university degrees or jobs in the professions (or in the trades). I have heard that most undergraduate students in the UK today are female. And I was struck by her description of elderly relatives who aren't well off and are increasingly in need of care, in "Pricking of My Thumbs". (If she'd been as financially secure back then as in later decades, she wouldn't have had to sell her beloved childhood home.) Certainly she would have known people who ended up in dire financial circumstances, especially in the Depression or after the war. and her success as a superstar author wasn't assured, back when she and Archie divorced.
AC herself might have wondered if that might happen to her, after her father died. Especially if they were unmarried or widowed, back before social assistance programs were available.
It wasn't until after I read about their situation that I started thinking about the plight that a lot of women faced back then, if they were from families that weren't well-off. I would have liked to hear about them having more adventures.
I wonder what happened to them after their encounters with Poirot. I've always liked the Carnaby sisters (Amy and Emily), from the Labours of Hercules.
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