Rereading
Death at the Bar has reminded me of the high quality of Ngaio Marsh’s writing.
It is not just that the characters are intriguing and the plot keeps you
guessing, it is also that the book is a pleasure to read.
The
gentlemanly Detective ChiefInspector Roderick Alleyn has travelled to Devon
with his subordinate officer, Detective Inspector Fox, to investigate the death
of a well-known barrister, Luke Watchman, who has been staying at a village pub
in Devon for a holiday with his cousin and a friend.
The post
mortem analysis has shown the presence of some kind of cyanide in Watchman’s
blood and so the local police have called in Scotland Yard to help them.
Alleyn and
Fox are glad to get away from the summer heat in London and they go to stay at
the traditional Devonshire inn, The Plume of Feathers, while they conduct their
investigation. Marsh presents the reader with a beautifully described setting,
some interesting characters and a complex investigation, that keeps you turning
the pages until she finally reveals the truth.
The death
occurs during a game of darts in one of the bars at the pub and it is not clear
whether the cyanide was on one of the darts or in a glass of brandy. The lights
went out because of a storm that evening and the floor ended up covered with
broken glass that had been trodden on by
the people in the bar.
Patrick Malahide played the part of Roderick Alleyn in the 1990s BBC TV adaptation
Thorough
detective work, including weighing the fragments of glass, help Alleyn to arrive
at the truth about whathas happened.
Death at the
Bar, the ninth book in the Roderick Alleyn series by Ngaio Marsh, was published
by Collins in 1940. It was written in the spring of 1939 before the start of
World War II. Contemporary reviews were all positive about the novel and many of
the reviewers praised the plot and characters and said they had enjoyed the
humour.
Marsh had been
on a long visit to England in 1937 and 1938 and had visited Devon and Cornwall.
She was drawing on her memories of staying in Polperro when she created the
fictional village of Ottercombe, which is the setting for the novel.
The
story of a theatrical entertainment that starts with a bang
Ngaio Marsh was one of the four 'Queens of Crime' in detective fiction's Golden Age
Two
ageing spinsters, who are both vying for the attentions of the rector of their
church, are united in just one thing: their hatred for Selia Ross, an
attractive newcomer to the village who they think is having an affair with the
local doctor.
In
Overture to Death, when the main characters get together at a meeting at the village Squire’s house to plan an amateur theatre production to raise money for a new
church piano, it becomes obvious to the reader that the story can end in only
one way…
In
this eighth Chief Inspector Alleyn novel, Ngaio Marsh draws on her own
theatrical background when she describes the preparations the organisers make for
the performance of a play in the Parish Hall in the vale of Pen Cuckoo in
Dorset.
She
sets the stage cleverly, giving examples of the extent of the rivalry between
the two old women in the past and how far they are prepared to go to get the rector’s
attention.
Her
characterisation of the spinsters is excellent as she reveals how both women
disapprove of the blossoming relationship between the Squire’s son, Henry, and
the rector’s daughter, Dinah, who is a young professional actress.
The
artist, Agatha Troy, does not appear in this novel, published in 1939, but she is
always present in the background.
After
the explosive murder scene, Detective Chief Inspector Alleyn and Detective
Inspector Fox are sent by Scotland Yard to investigate.
Ngaio
includes a letter Alleyn writes to Troy, while he is away from London working
on the case, in which he reveals that they are engaged and speculates on what
their marriage will be like.
The HarperCollins 2001 edition of the 8th Inspector Alleyn mystery
Alleyn’s
original Watson, the journalist Nigel Bathgate, is sent to Dorset to cover the murder
story and he assists Alleyn in the investigation.
Ngaio
Marsh, who died on 18 February 1982 in her native New Zealand, contributed to both
art and the theatre during her life. She was also judged to be one of the four Queens
of Crime during the Golden Age of detective fiction.
Her
32nd and final crime novel, Light Thickens, was completed only a few weeks
before her death. The story revolves around one of her greatest theatrical
passions, Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth.
Ngaio
began writing detective novels in 1931 after moving to London to start up an
interior decorating business. The idea for her first crime novel, A Man Lay
Dead, came to her when she was living in a basement flat off Sloane Square.
In
the preface to an omnibus edition of her first three novels - A Man Lay Dead,
Enter a Murderer and The Nursing Home Murder - Ngaio describes how she came up
with the character of Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn.
It
was a wet Saturday afternoon and she had been reading a detective story borrowed
from a library, although she says she couldn’t remember whether it was ‘a
Christie or a Sayers.’ After she finished it, she wondered whether she could write
something similar and braved the rain to go to a stationer’s shop to buy exercise
books, a pencil, and a pencil sharpener.
She
sat down to write what was to be the first of a series of crime novels
featuring the gentleman detective Roderick Alleyn. Her fictional detective works
for the Metropolitan Police in London even though he is the younger brother of
a baronet. She named him after an Elizabethan actor, Edward Alleyn.
Several
of her novels are set in the world of the theatre, which she knew well because
she was a times an actress, director, and playwright.Along
with Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh was
to dominate the genre of crime fiction for the next 50 years.
I
would recommend Overture to Death as a good example of a classic Golden Age
mystery set in a respectable English village. It stands out because of its clever plot, which involves a highly
ingenious and shocking murder method.
