Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 5: Died in the Wool, Final Curtain, Swing Brother Swing

Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 5: Died in the Wool, Final Curtain, Swing Brother Swing
Ngaio Marsh

Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime’s first book, the second volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.DIED IN THE WOOLOne summer evening in 1942 Flossie Rubrick, MP, one of the most formidable women in New Zealand, goes to her husband's wool shed to rehearse a patriotic speech - and disappears. Three weeks later she turns up at an auction - packed inside one of her own bales of wool and very, very dead…FINAL CURTAINJust as Agatha Troy, the world famous painter, completes her portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, the Grand Old Man of the stage, the old actor dies. The dramatic circumstances of his death are such that Scotland Yard is called in - in the person of Troy's long-absent husband, Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn…SWING, BROTHER, SWINGThe music rises to a climax: Lord Pastern aims his revolver and fires. The figure in the spotlight falls - and the coup-de-théatre has become murder… Has the eccentric peer let hatred of his future son-in-law go too far? Or will a tangle of jealousies and blackmail reveal to Inspector Alleyn an altogether different murderer?

NGAIO MARSH

Ngaio Marsh Volume 5

Copyright (#ulink_038fa62a-c6e6-588e-88d4-14c65210168d)

HARPER

an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Died in the Wool first published in Great Britain by Collins 1945 Final Curtain first published in Great Britain by Collins 1947 Swing, Brother, Swing first published in Great Britain by Collins 1949 I Can Find My Way Out first published Great Britain in Death on the Air and Other Stories by HarperCollinsPublishers 1995

Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works

Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1945, 1947, 1949

I Can Find My Way Out copyright © Ngaio Marsh (Jersey) Ltd 1989 Cover design © crushed.co.uk

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780007328734

Ebook Edition © October 2013 ISBN: 9780007531394

Version 2018-02-08

Contents

Cover (#u6844c36e-bafb-5337-a894-d6ae65c73f3f)

Title Page (#u755c7380-7867-555c-a929-93ce519ffca6)

Copyright (#u1c8d182a-fea2-5dee-87fb-4b5549636ec9)

Died in the Wool (#u96e17286-e9ea-5ea3-8267-dfd75e6e1e77)

Final Curtain (#litres_trial_promo)

Swing, Brother, Swing (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt from: I Can Find My Way Out (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Died in the Wool (#ulink_7d5e57dd-44e1-5cad-8953-f62c8e06f7c7)

Contents

Title Page (#u96e17286-e9ea-5ea3-8267-dfd75e6e1e77)

Cast of Characters (#u8b0e151e-ebeb-5201-be7b-fcbe811128be)

Prologue – 1939–1942 (#ue9f6afa9-108c-5164-aed4-f1b1d6325d7a)

1 Alleyn at Mount Moon (#u3811c558-b71d-563a-9ff9-6090923a8cd3)

2 According to Ursula Harme (#ub081db79-68c9-5f0f-8675-996d8baefad0)

3 According to Douglas Grace (#u460bc118-0405-5aaf-a71e-01a5cab8c07b)

4 According to Fabian Losse (#u7fe43eed-89bb-5b6d-a370-1a9fd9547031)

5 According to Terence Lynne (#u1ac00a2b-fa17-5f27-bac1-918d6f8e8647)

6 According to the Files (#u8d257f99-a58f-5ad5-808b-10d9bea2c4cf)

7 According to Ben Wilson (#u3c124c05-b71d-51af-9800-050023d3671e)

8 According to Cliff Johns (#uf96e74fc-4908-5002-8be9-d46a3fb7eccb)

9 Attack (#udbd8edc9-7ecd-58e5-8efb-bf84aab9c42d)

10 Night Piece (#litres_trial_promo)

11 According to Arthur Rubrick (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue – According to Alleyn (#litres_trial_promo)

Cast of Characters (#ulink_ba253fee-5498-51a8-918d-02971fdaf284)

PROLOGUE (#ulink_9426c93b-b92b-56a2-90ed-877fce51f037)

1939.

‘I am Mrs Rubrick of Mount Moon,’ said the golden-headed lady. ‘And I should like to come in.’

The man at the stage-door looked down into her face. Its nose and eyes thrust out at him, pale, all of them, and flecked with brown. Seen at close quarters these features appeared to be slightly out of perspective. The rest of the face receded from them, fell away to insignificance. Even the mouth with its slightly projecting, its never quite hidden teeth, was forgotten in favour of that acquisitive nose, those protuberant exacting eyes. ‘I should like to come in,’ Flossie Rubrick repeated.