RogerBW's Blog

Death in a White Tie, Ngaio Marsh 06 November 2016

1938 classic English detective fiction; seventh of Marsh's novels of Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Someone's blackmailing London's high society as the Season begins, and Alleyn asks a friend who moves in those circles to look into it; murder will be done.

When you know something about a crime, never say to someone "I have more information but I'll tell you later". This never ends well.

I think I may need to back off a bit on my Marsh/Allingham chronological reading, and mix in more books of other sorts. I've been enjoying these, certainly, but shortly before the murder I was confident, and the moment Alleyn first interviewed a particular suspect I was absolutely sure, that that specific person was the murderer. And I was right. That's the sort of feeling, watching the various clues fall into place and admiring the misdirections, that one's supposed to get on a second reading of a book.

It's always good to get contemporary atmosphere: this is still the era of London fogs (the Clean Air Act wasn't until 1956), and when oriental porcelain was all the rage. And there's a distinct feeling that the whole Season is probably obsolete anyway, starting when Alleyn's mother finds herself with a granddaughter to bring out since the intermediate generation is posted to Fiji:

"Why has Sarah got to come out? Why can't she simply emerge?"

"That I cannot tell you, but George and Grace certainly could. I rather see it, I must say, Roderick. A girl has such fun doing her first season. There is nothing like it, ever again. And now we have gone back to chaperones and all the rest of it, it really does seem to have some of the old glamour."

"You mean debutantes have gone back to being treated like hothouse flowers for three months and taking their chance as hardy perennials for the rest of their lives?"

This feels in places like an counterpart to The Fashion in Shrouds, published earlier in the same year: there's that same feeling of decaying, overheated, desperate fun, and the sense that things can't last. I'm going to quote at length, because this is a key passage for the sensibility I'm picking up from this particular year:

… as he edged past dancing couples and over the feet of sitting chaperones he suddenly felt as if an intruder had thrust open all the windows of this neat little world and let in a flood of uncompromising light. In this cruel light he saw the people he liked best and they were changed and belittled. He saw his nephew Donald, who had turned aside when they met in the hall, as a spoilt, selfish boy with no honesty or ambition. He saw Evelyn Carrados as a woman haunted by some memory that was discreditable, and hag-ridden by a blackmailer. His imagination leapt into extravagance, and in many of the men he fancied he saw something of the unscrupulousness of Withers, the pomposity of Carrados, and the stupidity of old General Halcut-Hackett. He was plunged into a violent depression that had a sort of nightmarish quality. How many of these women were what he still thought of as "virtuous"? And the debutantes? They had gone back to chaperones and were guided and guarded by women, many of whose own private lives would look ugly in this flood of hard light that had been let in on Lord Robert's world. The girls were sheltered by a convention for three months but at the same time they heard all sorts of things that would have horrified and bewildered his sister Mildred at their age. And he wondered if the Victorian and Edwardian eras had been no more than freakish incidents in the history of society and if their proprieties had been as artificial as the paint on a modern woman's lips. This idea seemed abominable to Lord Robert and he felt old and lonely for the first time in his life.

Some people are in no doubt about what is wrong with the world:

"Every guest! Every guest! But, damn it, sir, the man was murdered in a bloody cab, not a bloody ballroom. Some filthy bolshevistic fascist," shouted the General, having a good deal of difficulty with this strange collection of sibilants. He slightly dislodged his upper plate but impatiently champed it back into position. "They're all alike!" he added confusedly. "The whole damn boiling."

Others have their own opinions, like the Jewish girl being brought out by a reluctant matron:

"Yesterday she told me there was a good deal to be said for the German point of view, and asked me if I had any relations among the refugees because she heard quite a number of English people were taking them as maids."

Meanwhile there is of course a murder to be solved. One man is clearly a Bad Hat ('On one wall hung a framed photograph of the sort advertised in magazines as "artistic studio studies from the nude".'), but while he's obviously capable of blackmail and murder, is he actually guilty? There's the caterer to have in Society this season, who certainly had access to various compromising information, but did he use it? There's the victim's heir, who quarrelled with him; is he less of a young idiot than he appears? And the victim was a good friend of Alleyn's; he always tries to solve the case to the best of his ability, but here he's personally affected as well. There's perhaps a little much of the who-was-where for my taste, but it's all well-handled.

And on top of all that there's the return of Agatha Troy; she also moves in this part of Society, and is repeatedly thrown into Alleyn's company in various awkward ways. This progress is often understated, and never as convincing as that of Wimsey and Vane, but it has some good moments nonetheless.

I wouldn't recommend this to someone who isn't already fairly steeped in the conventions of this sort of mystery, but with that background I enjoyed it greatly. Followed by Overture to Death.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

See also:
The Fashion in Shrouds, Margery Allingham

Previous in series: Artists in Crime | Series: Roderick Alleyn | Next in series: Overture to Death

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1