A review of Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh – 240118

You can take the girl out of the Theatre but you cannot take the theatre out of the girl. I have been plodding my way through Ngaio Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn series in chronological order and Death at the Dolphin, the twenty-fourth originally published in 1966, is at least the fifth set in the theatre, where she had worked as a director before taking up writing as a career. Naturally, this means that she can put her insider knowledge of how the theatrical world works into good use but there is a risk that by turning to the same relatively close knit community there is a risk that some of her books seem a bit samey.

This book, which went under the alternative title of Killer Dolphin in the United States, is more of a mystery than a murder mystery and has a promising opening. Peregrine Jay explores a disused London theatre, the Dolphin, and nearly drowns as he falls down a hidden well, only to be rescued by a mysterious millionaire, Vassily Conducis, who seems particularly shaken by the sight of Jay’s Gloved Hands Gripping for dear life to the rim of the well.

The pace of the book then slows down as Marsh sets up the story. Conducis, inspired by Jay’s enthusiasm for the theatre, decides to restore the Dolphin to its former glory, appointing Jay to be its creative director. The play for the opening night is written by Jay, The Glove, inspired by the glove said to have been belonged to Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, and owned by Conducis. The glove is to be the centrepiece of the foyer, flanked by two specially commissioned statues of dolphins. Inspector Alleyn oversees the security precautions for the glove which turn out not to be as robust as they should be.

The inevitable happens; when the theatre is supposedly cleared the glove is stolen, one of the theatre’s security men, Harry Jobbins, is battered over the head by one of the dolphin statues and the precocious eleven year old child star, Trevor Vere, who as a stereotypical boy in crime fiction is mischievous and a prankster and was lurking in the theatre, tumbles over the balcony suffering concussion and a broken leg. The glove is subsequently found in the theatre and Alleyn’s ability to explain what went on that night rests mainly upon the boy’s ability to recollect what happened at the time of the theft. Naturally, a staged visit by all the cast members to his hospital bed triggers his memory and enables Alleyn to solve the case. The culprit does not resist and confesses all.    

Aside from the central mystery of who stole the glove and caused Jobbins’ death, there are a couple of sub plots. One, was the glove on display genuine or was it a substitution and, if so who, who did it and how did Conducis get the glove and what was behind his phobia of gloved hands gripping on desperately and what hold did the odd ball actor, Hartley Grove, have on him? Alleyn, ably assisted by his sidekick, Fox, supply the answers in their phlegmatic, unshowy way.

As is to be expected, Marsh’s observations on the thespian community, their jealousies, pettiness, and feelings of self-importance are acute. The pompous lead actor, Marcus Knight, is well drawn and his feud with Hartley Grove, who has the ability to wind him up, is one of the highlights of a book that rarely moves above the moderately interesting. I did enjoy the relevance of Jay’s recollection of the ending of The Cherry Orchard as he left the theatre on that fatal night, a nice touch as was the arrival of the eminence grise, Mrs Guzman, in the final paragraphs.