1949 classic English detective fiction; fifteenth of Marsh's novels of
Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Lord Pastern and Bagott, sitting in on the
drums in a jazz band, has set up a bit of business where he "shoots"
the piano-accordionist, Carlos Rivera, who falls down and is carried
off stage. But Rivera's made himself offensive to everyone, and he's
not going to be getting up again. US vt A Wreath for Rivera.
The toff who wants to have a go on the drums seems to have been a
persistent idea in British jazz, as memorably parodied in the 1980s by
Andy Leggett and Henry Davies.
Here he's talked himself into a gig with the band, and is clearly
aiming for a permanent position… but he's been having enthusiasms for
years, and nobody but him expects that this will last any longer than
the others.
"Your uncle," Lady Pastern continued, "has, during the last sixteen
years, made periodic attempts to introduce prayer-wheels, brass
Buddhas, a totem-pole, and the worst excesses of the surrealists. I
have withstood them all. On one occasion I reduced to molten silver
an image of some Aztec deity. Your uncle purchased it in Mexico
City. Apart from its repellent appearance I had every reason to
believe it spurious."
…and that's one of the few things going on that isn't a motivation
for Rivera's murder.
'He was ripe for bumping off, was Mr Rivera.'
The victim is aiming to marry the Lord's step-daughter, he makes
himself profoundly offensive to everyone at a dinner before the show,
he's at outs with his fellow musicians, and one does rather start to
wonder what Félicité could ever have seen in him.
His lightest remark was pronounced with such a killing air that it
immediately assumed the character of an impropriety.
This is definitely an "everyone hated him" sort of mystery, though the
build-up to the death was more satisfying for me than the
investigation and resolution. Lord Pastern does his best to look
guilty (for reasons that never become entirely apparent), everyone
else does their not-very-good best to look innocent, and all sorts of
tangles (including a newspaper's Agony Uncle with whom several of the
suspects seem to have had correspondence) will end up being cut away
to get at the murderer.
'George,' Félicité whispered fiercely, 'do you want to do us in?'
'I want the truth,' her stepfather shouted crossly. 'I was a
Theosophist, once,' he added.
'You are and have been and always will be an imbecile,' said his
wife, shutting her lorgnette.
I found myself wondering about one particular test that would surely
have suggested itself, the result of which would have made obvious the
answer to a particular question that was, oh dear, carefully not being
asked and turned out to be quite important. But this is the main
shortcoming in an investigation that otherwise works well.
There is a romance of sorts; it's very clearly signposted and
carefully set up with a Big Misunderstanding, but just as one thinks
it's about to get its dénouement the book ends. Nobody else is a
particularly sympathetic character, and it's a shame this resolution
had to be omitted.
Alleyn is almost peripheral to his own investigation, though Inspector
Fox has more of a role, and we do get a brief bit of Troy as Alleyn
and Fox go back to Alleyn's after the night of the murder to get a
couple of hours' sleep before the business of the next day.
As for the music itself, it's clear that Marsh doesn't have much time
for this degenerate modern stuff, though it seems that another cliché
of the jazz world also has roots at least this old:
A young woman in a beautiful dress and with hair like blonde seaweed
came out of a side door and stood in the spotlight, twisting a
length of scarlet chiffon in her hands. She contemplated her
audience as if she was a sort of willing sacrifice and began to moo
very earnestly: 'Yeoo knee-oo it was onlee summer lightning.'
Carlisle and Edward both detested her.
Followed by Opening Night.
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