Death and the Dancing Footman

Needless to say, Dame Ngaio Marsh can write some riveting mysteries: Death In A White Tie, A Man Lay Dead, and Enter A Murderer come immediately to mind. However, at times, Marsh becomes so enthralled with ridiculing some of her characters that she spends entirely too much time on the back story and her writing veers into tiresome parody. Such was the case in Overture To Death, first published in 1939. So, too, with Death and the Dancing Footman, published two years later.

The flamboyant Jonathan Royal cruelly invites six guests who are mortal enemies to a house party, counting on an upcoming wintry storm to keep them housebound and at each other's throats. Such is the twisted Royal's idea of fine entertainment. So far, so good. However, show more some of the other characters never transcend into three-dimensional characters: the Complines, Francis Hart, and Madame Lisse descend into exaggerated archetypes rather than real people. By the time of the murder, halfway through the book, I was ready to chuck it in, and I very nearly didn't finish the book! I never thought I'd say that about a Ngaio Marsh book! Additionally, Inspector Roderick Alleyn doesn't put in an appearance until two-thirds of the way through the book. The book could have easily be trimmed by 50 pages and have been vastly improved.

If you're looking to skip a Ngaio Marsh book, make it this one. show less

A Classic Locked-Room Mystery
Review of the Fontana paperback edition (1976) of the 1942 original

While I still have a considerable number of new releases to read during the current lockdown, I have also been turning to several of the classics of the Golden Age of Crime, especially due to their cozy housebound type of narratives. The typical story of the genre has an assorted variety of guests snowbound or in an otherwise isolated location, so that the culprit definitely has to be found within the limited cast of characters. Another convention is that the victim not be too likable, so that no time is spent in mourning but instead the crime-solving can immediately begin.

Ngaio Marsh's Death and the Dancing Footman sticks to many of these show more conventions and even goes further by making most of the house-guests unlikable. The murder is committed in a seemingly locked room situation where the victim is heard to turn on the radio and the outside hallway is occupied by a servant who happens to take a private moment to dance along to the music on the radio while unobserved. They are able to testify that no one entered the room with the victim during the crucial time period. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard doesn't appear until about 2/3rds of the way through the book to disentangle the events and to provide a solution. show less

Summary: A staged house-party amid a snowstorm consisting of mutual enemies ends in a death and a suicide that Alleyn must sort out.

Now doesn’t this sound like fun? Gather a group of people who despise each other, only they do not know that their enemies will be present. Then mix them up for a weekend and see what drama results. Add a blizzard that snows them in, allowing no escape, and what do you have. Jonathan Royal of Highfold Manner thinks he has created the perfect drama for his playwright friend, Aubrey Mandrake. Events will sadly unfold otherwise.

Royal has invited Sandra Compline, a wealthy but disfigured widow, and her two sons, William and Nicholas. Nicholas is the playboy, the “flash” one who attracts the ladies, show more William, the diligent elder son. Nicholas is his mother’s favorite. William brings along his fiance’, Chloris Wynne, who had been engaged to Nicholas but couldn’t abide his skirt chasing. Sandra disapproves of Chloris because she broke the engagement to her beloved Nicholas. Lady Hersey Amblington is a distant cousin of Jonathan who owns a beauty salon. Jonathan has also invited her rival, Madame Elise Lisse, who has been stealing Lady Amblington’s cousins. Completing the number is Dr. Francis Hart, an accomplished plastic surgeon, who accompanied Madame Lisse and appears romantically connected to her. Under a slightly different name, Dr. Hart many years earlier was the young surgeon whose mistake left Sandra Compline’s face permanently disfigured.

Things begin badly despite Jonathan’s ministrations as Nicholas pays undue attention to Madame Lisse, enflaming Dr. Hart. Later, in a table game, Nicholas receives an extra game sheet with a threatening warning. Later in the evening Nicholas accepts a not-so-friendly bet from his brother William involving an early morning dip in the outdoor pool in the winter cold despite mother’s fears for his heart. Mandrake goes to witness and is pushed by someone from behind into the deep end of the pool. He was wearing a cape similar to Nicholas, and Nicholas and others believe it was meant that he be pushed into the deep end, where he couldn’t swim. Having received a threat and seen his friend in the drink, he tries to leave in the snowstorm to no avail. Then later in the day, after a rendezvous with Madame Lisse in her room, Nicholas returns to his own to be struck on the arm, narrowly missing his head, with a brass Buddha set atop the door as a booby trap. Alibis point the finger at the jealous Dr. Hart.

Hart separates from the company, going to the “boudoir” and returning to his rooms. Shortly before 10 pm, Nicholas and William talk in the smoking room. Nicholas leaves William alone, joining others in the adjacent library. They ask William to turn on the war news. It’s early and a rousing dance song, plays on the radio, annoying Hart in the adjacent boudoir so that he goes to bed. A few minutes later, Lady Amblington takes a drink in to find William dead, the back of his head bashed in with one of the weapons Jonathan Royal’s family had collected that had been hanging on the wall.

Once again, it is believed to have been a case of mistaken identity with Nicholas the target. Despite his denials, most believe it is Dr. Hart, even with his heroic but futile efforts to save Sandra Compline, who has taken a fatal dose of sedatives and dies, leaving a note to her son Nicholas.

Perhaps the most edge of the seat part of the story is the attempt of Mandrake, Chloris Wynne, and James Bewling, and outside hand, to make their way to Great Chipping, where Alleyn and Troy are staying with the rector, whose portrait Troy is rendering. Bereft for a time of his team of Fox, Thompson, and Bailey, who eventually arrive, Alleyn begins to investigate the scene and interview the party. Surprisingly, one of the most interesting interviews is with Thomas, a young footman who danced outside the library when the music came on. Who he saw and didn’t were very important to the case as well as giving us our title.

This story seemed to take a lot of time to develop and the endless tabulating of alibis by the guests, who perhaps had nothing else to distract them from their enemies than to play amateur detective, seemed to drag out this story. Alleyn doesn’t come on the scene until two-thirds of the way through. Perhaps this was intended to simulate the interminable day of all these murder attempts in this household of enemies shut up with each other, but it seemed a bit drawn out.

There was a lesson in all this. Don’t try this at home. Don’t play with people’s lives, thinking it will be amusing and come out fine. People with a settled enmity may be civil, but with the right provocation, it can mean murder. That everyone in this party could be a suspect says something. Even the best of us are capable of murder. show less

I liked it. It's a English country house locked room type of whodunit murder mystery. The setting is a weekend party with several guests who get marooned due to a winter storm. Before long, trouble erupts among the guests who have secrets and undisclosed conflicts with one another. One of them is pushed into a swimming pool. (This pool episode results from a wager). Suspense builds as the guests try to sort out who did the pushing: it develops into a bit of chatty storytelling. Trouble comes to a head when one of the guests is killed. At that point, about two-thirds through the book, Scotland Yard detective Alleyn is brought into the story to investigate the crime. Most of it revolves around everyone's whereabouts at the time of the show more death. To heighten suspense, there's a suspected suicide of one of the leading characters. Thanks to Alleyn and his team (who manage to get to the scene through the storm to work their investigative magic) the mystery is solved and the identity of the killer is revealed. The role of the "dancing footman" is novel and added some flair to the story-telling at a point it was starting to sag.
It's an interesting read. The storytelling was tedious for me at a few points. I'd have liked more of Alleyn and Fox (his sidekick) and less histrionics from the "guests". show less

Jonathan fancies himself a student of psychology. He decides to conduct a living experiment (really an entertainment for himself) by having a house party for eight people. Each one has a secret (or three) and each has a deep antipathy for at least one other guest.
Of course Murder ensues.
The plot has similarities to some of Christie’s books. There’s also a device similar to Sayers’s Busman’s Honeymoon, which one character name checks.
Overall this is a good Inspector Alleyn book. He doesn’t appear until quite late, but there is more than enough emotion to keep one reading. Recommended.

Ngaio Marsh's take on the 'country house party shut in by snow' theme, covered by most Golden Age writers. Gets a bit bogged down in the middle with all the emotions and bad weather, but it is an intriguing variation on a locked room mystery. And there's a nice little nod to Dorothy L. Sayers when two characters are discussing the murder weapon.

(#3 in the 2003 Book Challenge)
3. Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh
I've read a few Marsh mysteries before, and I got a nice supply of them for Christmas. They're pleasant and everything, but (and I should be embarrassed to admit how long it took me to figure this out) I realized that they're all essentially the same book. If I recall, Light Thickens is the one that's considered her masterpiece, I think I better read that one last because I like to always be on the upward trajectory.

I do like this type of English mystery though, it's the mystique of the time period -- someone gets murdered, and everyone else still manages to dress for dinner.

Oh, I should add that the giver of these books assembled a nice little package of show more second hand paperbacks, with the ultra cool 1950s and early 1960s murder mystery cover art that make them look vaguely like soft core porn.

Grade: B
Status: Recommended for people who like Sayers, Tey, etc, only not quite so good. show less