1939 classic English detective fiction; eighth of Marsh's novels of
Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Miss Campanula was killed by a
booby-trapped piano, but was she really the intended victim?
Marsh, a successful theatrical director when not writing, turns
her blowtorch on the world of amateur dramatics. In order to raise
money for a new piano in the village hall at Pen Cuckoo in deepest
Dorset, a one-night show is being put on. So we are introduced to
Jocelyn Jerningham, the Squoire; Henry, his son, who plans to marry;
Eleanor Prentice and Idris Campanula, spinsters of the parish with
their eyes on the rector; the rector and his daughter, the latter the
object of Henry's affections; the village doctor with a bedridden
wife, and the Scarlet Woman with whom, everyone assumes, he's having a
shameless affair.
Those are pretty much the victim and the suspects. Marsh does a great
job of keeping everyone well-distinguished, with quirks of personality
that affect the reconstruction of events after the crime is committed,
and compared with say Vintage Murder or even Artists in Crime
there's never any sense of feeling lost as to who's who.
There's repressed sexuality all over the place as the spinsters
compete for the favour of the rector (who's not inclined to favour
either of them, thank you very much), not so much because they want
him in particular but because he's the only form of companionship ever
likely to become available to them. There's a local small boy who
likes playing tricks. There's the matter of drawing-pin holes in the
piano. By the end of the book I had the right party very much at the
top of my suspect list, but that list still had more than one person
on it.
Nigel Bathgate makes a surprising return after his absence from Death
in a White Tie, and alas there's no Troy here, though Alleyn does
write her a rather fine letter that's a mixture of summing-up and
romantic. For my taste, with Alleyn away from London, there's not
enough of him as a person; the young lovers get a bit more time, and
may hide a dark secret, but whether or not one of them is guilty we
know we'll never see them again.
It's a good solid piece, one of Marsh's more conventional ones, but it
gets the job done.
Followed by Death at the Bar.
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