Marsh, Ngaio - Death and the Dancing Footman (1942)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

Seven guests are chosen by their fiend-like host by reason of their mutual enmity and are imprisoned in a snowbound country house to see what results from their tension and mounting hysteria: which is, of course, murder. One is conscious throughout of the author straining for effect, and, until the murder, this is one of Marsh’s most tedious and uninspired jobs since the early ones. The matter is not helped by a particularly irritating hero, a snobbish and precious aesthete, nor by Alleyn’s late appearance, after which he does little except talk to witnesses. After the murder, if one can accept the large doses of hysteria, both masculine and feminine, the book becomes quite solid, and there is a novel twist on the alibi by wireless gimmick.

Review by Nick Hay

Jonathan Royal, rich, eccentric and lonely, assembles a cast of characters linked by various enmities for a country-house weekend. Snow falls, the house is cut off, various accidents happen leading, inevitably, to murder. The book's protagonist is one Aubrey Mandrake (nee Stanley Footling), whom Royal has brought along to applaud the real-life drama that he has created. As so often with Marsh it is the setting up of the murder, the characterisation, the location, the elements of the bizarre which appeal; once Alleyn himself appears and detection begins ennui tends to set in. Here , fortunately, Alleyn does not appear for a long time.

The book is fascinating for many reasons. It is perhaps worth noting that it is set in Dorset, very near to the location of Overture to Death and a couple of characters from that book make a minor appearance. But of far more interest is the fact that this is a War book. It is set very precisely in the winter of 1939/40, the period of the 'phoney war' but written after the events of that time. It certainly has none of the propaganda (and thriller) elements of Margery Allingham's Traitor's Purse or Agatha Christie's N or M but there are repeated references to the war, with the two brothers at the centre of the story both being involved, and various wireless bulletins being mentioned. The sense of impending doom and of things being frozen are perhaps rather obvious metaphors for the political situation but effective nonetheless. Alleyn makes a number of remarks towards the book's conclusion as to the fact that they are devoting such time to solving a single killing, when a year from now there will be thousands upon thousands dead with no-one to investigate; whether this is Marsh using hindsight to boost her detective's perspicuity and status is probably a matter for the reader's own judgement.

The bizarre elements include most obviously the Dancing Footman of the title, whose dance it should be noted is 'Boomps a daisy'! There is also a romantic sub-plot involving Mandrake and one of the house-guests, which serves to tide events along, and alleviates the forensic boredom which threatens to set in when Alleyn arrives on the scene. But the book's great strength is the way in which Marsh sets up a classic GA situation - the country-house mystery with a wonderful set of motives and mutually antagonistic characters; she does this by using Jonathan Royal as a stand-in for the author herself. It is a wonderfully modern and knowing piece of writing which yet remains wholly believable within the bounds of the convention. With Royal, Marsh is in part teasing herself - but also in my opinion teasing Sayers. There is a wonderful passage near the start of the book where Royal conducts Mandrake on a tour of the house pointing out the flower arrangements he has made for each room and adding various more or less obscure literary allusions. It is very whimsical (geddit?) but also somewhat absurd. This assertion - that there is a Sayers tease taking place here - is given weight by the fact that Marsh makes a direct allusion to Busman's Honeymoon later in the book - she talks of a Busman's Honeymoon type of device.

To sum up, I would place this very near the summit of great GA country-house mysteries, given added interest and poignancy by its precise historical setting.