Death In A White Tie

A review of Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh

It is over a year since I read Ngaio Marsh’s Artists in Crime. Although I enjoyed that book, I had found some of her earlier novels a bit of a struggle. Absence may make the heart go stronger as I thoroughly enjoyed her seventh book in her Inspector Alleyn series, originally published in 1938, set in the world of London’s high society and the world of debutantes.

Quite often in so-called Golden Age detective fiction, the victim of the murder is so unpleasant a character that no one sheds a tear at their demise, reckoning instead that they got their just desserts. Here, though, Marsh’s victim, Lord Robert Gospell, Bunchy to his friends, was a thoroughly good egg, tremendous company, garrulous, witty, sympathetic, alive to the nerves of the girls being introduced to society. His death, knocked on the head with a cigarette case and then suffocated in the back of a taxi, is felt by his close circle of friends, especially Inspector Alleyn who vows to work tirelessly to bring his killer to justice, as, of course, he does.

There is something de nos jours about the high and the mighty being interviewed about a crime and their whereabouts by the police, even if the officer is one of their peers. They may live in a gilded cage, their every want met by a hidden army of servants – only the butlers are worthy of a mention – but they are subject to the constraints and rigours of the law, just like the reader.    

Bunchy’s death occurs as the final guests are leaving the eagerly anticipated ball given by Sir Herbert and Lady Evelyn Carrados, for Evelyn’s daughter, Bridget. Even Alleyn’s mother, Lady Alleyn, is going as she is tasked with bringing out her niece, Sarah. Bunchy, though, is on a special mission. There is a blackmailer operating, targeting society ladies and their victims include Evelyn Carrados and the marvellously named Mrs Halcut-Hackett and Alleyn has asked his friend to keep his eyes open. He does his job too well, sees a bag of money change hands, and while he is ringing up Alleyn at the yard with the information he has obtained, he is interrupted, the call is curtailed, and shortly afterwards Bunchy’s body is found at the Yard, dead in the back of a cab.

In truth, it is not difficult to work out who the pantomime villain is, but the murderer and the motivation is trickier. There are intriguing subplots, the relationship between Bridget and Bunchy’s wayward nephew, a gambling den in Leatherhead of all places, the curious behaviour of the husbands of the blackmailed women, the art enthusiast who is also a doctor, the enigmatic secretary to Evelyn, Miss Harris, who clearly knows more than she lets on, and not least, the continuing relationship between Alleyn and the artist, Agatha Troy, which could have been derailed by the unpleasantness at her home in the previous book, but is going from strength to strength.  

Marsh is in her element, writing in a vivid and engaging style, not without humour, and taking the time to set the scene and paint her characters. Much of the book is episodic, full of little scenes as if it was a play – an effect enhanced by the lengthy dramatis personae at the front of the book – testament to Marsh’s theatrical background.

Alleyn solves the case in 48-hours and brings all the suspects and protagonists to the Yard for a meeting in which he drip feeds the solution, adding to the drama by bringing in person after person as he reveals to Evelyn and Sir Herbert Carrados the identity of the blackmailer and Bunchy’s murderer.

It is a great read and has reignited by enthusiasm to follow Alleyn’s exploits further. I can see why it is considered to be one of Marsh’s better books and, if you just want to sample one of her books, this may just be it.

Artists In Crime

Artists In Crime – Ngaio Marsh

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been struggling with Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn books. This is the sixth, published in 1938, and is the best so far. Perhaps it is because it is almost as much a love story as a piece of detective fiction. We are introduced to Agatha Troy, later to become Mrs Roderick Alleyn.   

The book starts with Alleyn making his way back from his sojourn in New Zealand, a busman’s holiday as he was dragooned in to solve the murder featured in Vintage Murder. It being the 1930s he makes his journey by boat and after leaving Fiji the sleuth has an awkward encounter with a young artist, a Royal Academician no less, who is painting a scene of the harbour. Despite the awkwardness of the first encounter, they strike a friendship of sorts and discover that they will not be too far from each other when they get to Blighty. Troy has an art school at her country home, Tatler’s End, which is near the home of Alleyn’s home with whom he will be staying to complete his recuperation.

So what you will of Marsh, but her murders are nothing short of ingenious. The artist’s model, Sonia Gluck, is impaled on a knife driven through the modelling dais in a reconstruction of a scene that one of the artists is illustrating for a book? There is the usual collection of suspects each with a set of plausible motives. Was it the down-on-his-luck, drug addict sculptor who had an eye for Gluck? Was it one of the female artists in a fit of jealousy because of Sonia’s apparent success with the men? Was it even Troy herself? Blackmail, poison and red herrings galore make for a tricky puzzle for the police to solve.

Inevitably, Alleyn, even though he is on sick leave, is dragged in to investigate, presenting him with a considerable dilemma. Will his growing affections for Agatha Troy cloud his judgment and impede his investigations? What if she is the murderer?

Inevitably, Nigel Bathgate puts in an appearance. As a member of the fourth estate Bathgate has access to some pretty sensitive information which, surely, no senior police officer would allow to happen, and is deployed to interrogate the suspects in an unofficial and clearly inappropriate manner. Nevertheless, Alleyn and his team, with Bathgate in tow, get their collective minds around the problem, sort the wheat from the chaff, and unmask the culprit.

Marsh keeps the mystery going and there are enough twists and turns to satisfy all but the most demanding reader. I had guessed who the likely culprit was but was not quite sure until the denouement. That is the hallmark of a successful crime novel.

The love interest progresses apace and it is fairly easy to anticipate the eventual outcome of that strand of the story. A heart-warming aspect of the story is Alleyn’s relationship with his mother, that sheds a light on a different and softer side of his personality. The characterisation of Alleyn seems to have moved on and he seems a more rounded individual than in earlier books. Again, another reason to like the book.

Surprisingly, for a writer who went out of her way to denigrate the racist attitudes of her country folk, she hailed from New Zealand, in Vintage Murder, Marsh lapses into lazy stereotyping and unfortunate racist language early on in the book. Perhaps she wrote it in a hurry and her lapses failed to be picked up by her editor. Unfortunately, these things go with the territory of books from the early 20^th century and if you are going to be offended to the point of throwing the book down in disgust, you perhaps would be better off not reading fiction from this era. Literature opens a window to the attitudes of the time, not those that prevail today.

I enjoyed this book.