"The Play's the Thing" - The Queens of Crime and The Theatre

I have written elsewhere on this blog about how the setting of a mystery story has become a major part of my enjoyment of the genre. There are plenty of great mystery novels set in isolated country mansions or sleepy English villages, but I find the more unique the setting, the more unique the novel. The Golden and Silver Age of Mysteries are littered with fine examples: the advertising agency of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise; the snowbound train of Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie; the forensic laboratory of P.D. James’ Death of an Expert Witness. The more insular the setting, complete with its own systems and populated by its own characters, the circumstances are all the riper for compelling suspects and intricately-plotted murder schemes. The reverence which Colin Dexter showed to the university and surrounding city of Oxford in the Inspector Morse novels proves the success of this approach to mystery writing and it’s born out in the success of the screen adaptations of his books along with the related media. The success of The Residence on Netflix takes this idea to its extreme setting a Golden Age-style mystery plot in the White House!

For me, there is one setting which rises above all the others. The theatre! As you will have doubtlessly seen by now, there is a tab on this very website devoted to Theatre. I have had a passion for theatre all my life and I have continued to be involved in live performance both on the stage and behind the scenes to this very day. Naturally, I have always taken a keen interest in mystery stories that revolve around live theatre. Today, I examine three examples from the Queens of Crime: Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie, Vintage Murder by Ngaio Marsh, and Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham. Two of these novels were first-time reads for me while one is a firm favorite in the genre.

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie (1935)

“You have the actor’s mind, Sir Charles, creative, original, seeing always dramatic values. Mr. Satterthwaite here, he has the playgoer’s mind, he observes the characters, he has the sense of atmosphere. But me, I have the prosaic mind. I see only the facts without any dramatic trappings or footlights.”

To any listener of the All About Agatha Podcast, they know that actors pop up a lot in the works of Agatha Christie and we should usually be wary of their presence (cue the klaxon). To that end, it is interesting that Three Act Tragedy (also published as Murder in Three Acts) is one of the only novels in the Christie Canon that is anchored to the theatrical milieu. Indeed, uniquely, it is an actor who is the novel’s central character: the aging former star of the West End, Sir Charles Cartwright, who has returned to the seaside and is hosting a cocktail party for a few of the locals as well as some friends of an artistic persuasion. Among them is Hercule Poirot, the distinguished detective himself, and he is one of the witnesses to a suspicious death: the death of the Reverend Babbington, the local vicar, a man without an enemy in the world. While the death appears to be a natural one, Sir Charles has his suspicions; suspicions which are only compounded when, some time later, his friend, the distinguished psychologist, Sir Bartholomew Strange, dies under nearly identical circumstances at another dinner party for the same guests. Having played many a detective on stage, Sir Charles now must assume the role in real life alongside Poirot to determine who among them is a coldhearted killer.

Three Act Tragedy has long been one of my favorite Agatha Christie novels. It is neither her most ingenious nor her most well-written book, but it occupies a firm position near the top of the second tier of her novels. Perhaps part of the novel’s appeal comes down to its unusual structure. True to its title, the novel is broken into three parts: the first centered around the first death; the second part on Sir Charles’ investigations with the help of Mr. Satterthwaite, a society effete with a taste for death; and the last part bringing Poirot back into the fold and to eventually reveal the truth. As a result, you could say that Three Act Tragedy is a very back-heavy book. The “suspects” are not questioned under the novel is well underway. There is little done to establish alibis or motives from the persons involved. The central question at the heart of the novel is what connects the seemingly disparate deaths of a well-liked clergyman in Cornwall and a wealthy physician in Yorkshire. Christie would play the same game with her readers the very next year to no-doubt stronger effect in The A.B.C. Murders, but Three Act Tragedy makes for an interesting forerunner to that later stone-cold Christie classic.

I am hesitant to divulge too much regarding the ultimate solution to the novel. Suffice it to say, the outcome of the mystery – and the reasoning for that elusive missing link – is one of my favorites in the Christie Canon. It also justifies the theatrical theming of the novel for a book which, otherwise, does not dwell utilize its theatrical theme. We do not ever once set foot in a theatre, Sir Charles’ acting career is only discussed in the broadest of strokes, and the rest of the characters are the usual society types that populate so many of Christie’s novels in the 1930s. (The one character of note, however, is playwright Muriel Wills who writes under the pseudonym Anthony Astor. On this read, I could not help but wonder if this character was a veiled reference to Christie’s contemporary – and some-time Crime Queen herself – Josephine Tey who had a prolific career as a playwright under the name Gordon Daviot.) Nevertheless, the final twist remains one of the most devious and ingenious in all of the novels of Agatha Christie and it deserves to share the accolades with her most revered shock twist endings.

First-time readers of Three Act Tragedy might also be surprised by the peripheral role that Poirot plays in the story. He is sidelined for much of the mystery, stepping back into the fray only as matters reach their crisis. However, unlike later Poirot novels in which his role is diminished, I do not feel myself yearning for more “stage time” with the Belgian detective. It speaks to the power of Sir Charles Cartwright as a protagonist as well as that of Mr. Satterthwaite who appears elsewhere in Christie’s stories as the associate of the vaguely supernatural Mr. Harley Quinn. These two – along with the novel’s female lead, Egg Lytton Gore – carry the book on their shoulders and, I think, they are all some of Christie’s more finely-developed characters of this period. When the novel was adapted for television in the eleventh season of Agatha Christie’s Poirot starring David Suchet, Mr. Satterthwaite was excised to build up Poirot’s role. Martin Shaw delivers a wonderful performance as Sir Charles in an adaptation that hues much closer to the original text than most other episodes of the show during that period, and which introduces a few moments of theatrically-themed surreality to a most pleasing effect.

I was happy to revisit Three Act Tragedy after nearly seven years for this project and I was so glad to see that it held up upon a reread. Rather lost in the shuffle during a period for Christie that includes Peril at End House, Murder on the Orient Express, and The A.B.C. Murders, Three Act Tragedy is deserving of its own moment in the spotlight.

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Vintage Murder by Ngaio Marsh (1937)

"To an actor on tour all theatres are very much alike. They may vary in size, in temperature, and in degree of comfort, but once the gas-jets are lit in the dressing rooms, the grease-paints laid out in rows on shelves, and the clothes hung up in sheets on the walls, all theatres are simply ‘theatre.’”

Of the three novels discussed here, it is fair to say that Vintage Murder is the one that makes the best use of its theatrical setting. It is no surprise, being a work of detective fiction written by Ngaio Marsh, who is well-remembered and well-regarded today for her novels set against the (literal) backdrop of the stage’s proscenium arch. In life, Marsh – who is today perhaps best remembered in her native New Zealand as a theatre actor, director, and teacher – was a member of the Allan Wilkie Company in 1916; a theatrical touring company that established deep roots in both New Zealand and Australia. She translated this experience into the novel Vintage Murder which begins in New Zealand (Marsh's first of several novels set in that country) and follows the Carolyn Dacres Comedy Company who are embarking on a tour of their own. Quite by happenstance, Carolyn, the leading player of the troupe, and her husband, Alfred Meyer, make the acquaintance of Chief-Inspector Roderick Alleyn en route who is enjoying a holiday from crime. His holiday will be cut short when, at a birthday party for Carolyn, an oversized bottle of champagne suspended in the theatre’s flies is booby-trapped; coming crashing down onto Meyer’s head and killing him instantly. As a guest of Dacres and Meyer, Alleyn is tapped by the local authorities to dig into the case and unearth who among the theatrical types might have wanted their company manager dead.

Behind Christie, Marsh is probably my favorite of the Crime Queens. Though, when trawling through Internet pages devoted to Golden Age Mystery Fiction, one is liable to find polarizing opinions of her work. As I have written about before, Marsh’s novels are far-less steeped in the fair play cluing and intricate puzzle making that marked so much of detective fiction of the time. Instead, her books are centered on her characters and settings; both of which are often more outre and eccentric than the typical murder mystery. Vintage Murder is no different and the book is at its strongest and most readable when Marsh breathes life into the literal stock company of characters that populate the suspect list. The sequence toward the end of the novel in which Alleyn is able to destroy the alibi of a suspect by questioning the theatre’s doorman, himself a former actor who is constantly waxing nostalgia about his glory days performing Shakespeare, is an easy highlight and smacks of a tableau that Marsh witnessed herself at some point in her illustrious theatrical career. What is, unfortunately, less successful is the mystery plot. Some mystery commentors like to employ the pejorative term, “To Drag the Marsh” when referring to the middle sections of mystery novels in which the detectives questions each suspect in turn; the name deriving from many a middle section of a Ngaio Marsh mystery. Ardent Marsh defender that I am, I cannot deny that Vintage Murder sags in its middle and, after a while, it is hard to keep track of just who was where backstage and when. Marsh helpfully includes a table of alibis and motives in a little Entr’acte, but it does not really enliven the novel to any great degree.

Part of the reason for this, no doubt, is the fact that Vintage Murder was only the fifth installment in detective Roderick Alleyn’s nearly-fifty-year career in print. Alleyn, though a professional detective, is still a son of aristocracy, and he was clearly written (like Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion) in the shadow of Lord Peter Wimsey. The Alleyn of the early books is airier, lighter, more dandyish, and, frankly, less compelling as a character.

This is no indictment of Marsh or her creation, however. Indeed, her very next novel, Artists in Crime, opens with an Alleyn who has undergone a great transformation of character. From there on out, Alleyn feels more down-to-earth and well-rounded; indeed, not too far a cry from the introspective and cerebral figure of Adam Dalgliesh as created by P.D. James. There is a lovely little coda right at the end of Vintage Murder which lends the finale an air of melancholy and one can almost sense Marsh champing at the bit to explore deeper territory with her lead character in that moment.

However, for all its deficiencies, Vintage Murder does an exemplary job of conveying both its theatrical setting - Marsh writes with the assured hand of lived experience - as well as the New Zealand countryside which is also born from first-hand knowledge. Much has been made in other commentary of the rather peripheral character, Dr. Rangi Te Pokhia, a native Maori doctor who Alleyn befriends, but the sensitivity and nuance with which Marsh renders this character is to be applauded in an otherwise white-washed time and genre. And, for readers with a taste for the grotesque, Marsh delights in the Grand Guignol nature of her murder method (bludgeoning by champagne bottle). Over the course of her career, Marsh would concoct some of the genre’s most unique deaths (skewer through the eye, thallium poisoning, exploding piano, and several decapitations...just to name a few) and Vintage Murder begins the trend.

For readers who are keen on a well-plotted, gripping mystery, I advise you to look elsewhere before settling on Vintage Murder. There are even better examples in Marsh’s own bibliography: Overture to Death lampoons amateur dramatics; Opening Night renders the theatrical setting as seen through the eyes of a backstage dresser; and even Marsh’s final book, Light Thickens, is built around an ill-fated production of Macbeth. However, as a necessary step in her evolution as a writer and her central character, Vintage Murder is still a fine Ngaio Marsh novel and there are several passages of her peerless prose that will linger in the memory long after the curtain is rung down. Er – make that after the last page is turned.

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Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham (1937)

“Theatrical people aren’t like ordinary people sir…They’re theatrical. Things mean more to them then would to you or me.”

Like Ngaio Marsh, one gets the sense that Margery Allingham had a fondness for eccentrics. Her casts of characters go beyond the stock types that so-often populated classic mysteries. Many of them are downright Dickensian, and Allingham’s books can often have an otherworldly quality to them in the same way that Dickens’ Victorian England can feel just a little removed from reality. Dancers in Mourning is no different and Allingham is able to apply her usual gently parodic skills of characterization to a motley assortment of vaudevillians. It is William Faraday, an old friend of series detective Albert Campion, who summons Campion for help after a series of pranks have befallen Jimmy Sutane, London’s number one song and dance man, and put his company in jeopardy. In order to get to the bottom of who the prankster is – and divine if he or she has malicious intent – Campion accompanies Sutane and others to Sutane’s country villa for an extended weekend of rehearsal. Tragedy soon strikes when Chloe Pye, an actress past her prime who has continued to cling onto Sutane’s act, is killed in what seems to be a tragic accident; run-down in the road in a car driven by Sutane himself. Campion, sensing something rotten, unwillingly begins to dive deeper.

Of all the Queens of Crime, Margery Allingham is the one for whom I have read the least and it is an ongoing effort of mine to delve into her bibliography more often because, every time I do, I find myself hugely rewarded. Allingham’s earlier Albert Campion novel, Death of a Ghost (1934), which is set in the world of art and artists, quickly became one of my all-time favorite Golden Age mysteries. Perhaps part of the reason that I have read comparatively little Allingham is that, unlike Christie, Marsh or Sayers, Allingham’s books are not always strictly speaking detective novels. Though Albert Campion is featured prominently in almost all, her books bridge the gap between mystery and thriller; Campion often unmasking criminal gangs or murderous psychos in plots that are predicated more upon happenstance and coincidence than careful plotting and decisive logical reasoning. Dancers in Mourning, however, is one of those select instances in which Allingham has thrust Campion into the middle of a traditional murder mystery and it is a delightful one at that. The plot, though hardly complex, still has room to unfold in a number of genuinely surprising ways, climaxing – quite literally – with explosive results. There’s still an element of criminal conspiracy and hired killers to be dealt with, but, for once, it would not have been out of place for Hercule Poirot or Inspector Alleyn to be on the case in this novel.

Yet, the characterization remains Allingham’s focal point throughout and she allows the characters room to breath and exist on the page. Those Dickensian touches are lovingly pushed to the forefront like Chloe’s former landlady, herself a former dancer who now has little more than her memories of her life on the stage, or one of Chloe’s young admirers who clings to Campion for fear that his idol has committed suicide. And, in doing so, he provides Campion with a major clue to the whole case. Campion himself, who in the earlier novels, was more airily characterized in the vein of Lord Peter Wimsey or Bertie Wooster, is incredibly introspective here. Throughout, he is unwilling to become involved in the case, and his allegiance is tested even further as he begins to fall in love with Suntane’s wife, Linda, just as her husband is becoming the number one suspect in the series of murders. The novel’s final pages, as Campion reluctantly confronts Suntane with the truth, though small-scale when compared to the baroque machinations of the preceding plot, are still powerful and effectively intimate for how well Allingham has built up the world and its characters throughout the book.

Readers who may wish for a backstage tour in Dancers in Mourning will be somewhat disappointed. Despite its theatrical cast, the novel really is more of a country house mystery and little time is spent in the theatre itself. Though, it’s obvious that Allingham is having great fun in conjuring up the one-of-a-kind characters that populate the world of live theatre. When the novel was adapted for television in 1990, it was boosted by a fine assortment of theatrical types with former Fifth Doctor Who Peter Davison (perfectly) cast as Campion himself and Ian Ogilvy as the impresario Sutane.

As has been the case with the last few Margery Allingham novels I have read, I was pleasantly surprised by Dancers in Mourning. Though it may be short on theatrical content, its strong characters and Allingham’s evocative writing push it into the upper strata of Golden Age Detective Fiction. I look forward to dipping into my next Albert Campion adventure sooner rather than later.  

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The three novels highlighted here are, but a few of the many mysteries set in the world of live theatre. Want me to take a deep dive into a few more? Let me know! And comment below the title of your favorite theatrical mystery!