Swing, Brother, Swing

Swing, Brother, Swing
Ngaio Marsh

Another classic Ngaio Marsh novel reissued.The 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

Swing, Brother, Swing

Copyright (#ulink_bde9c276-f95f-548d-81ed-d5f1f71ad991)

Harper

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

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

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009

Swing, Brother, Swing first published in Great Britain by Collins 1949

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

Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1949

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 2009 ISBN: 9780007344628

Version 2018-03-06

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Dedication (#ulink_b8315b45-4093-5751-a308-bb9410044bc6)

For Bet who asked for it

And now gets it with my love

Contents

Cover (#u77cc53c7-9730-5c58-8c80-fe8d325da97e)

Title Page (#u37548009-6d16-5f3a-a986-1bfcf7044689)

Copyright (#ucdac2c65-5e08-593a-9159-f9a31913c12b)

Dedication (#uf3a770bb-db44-5dfc-97d1-9e69b7359848)

Cast of Characters (#uff8d08e8-15f1-5aa3-8397-600ece83f2e6)

1 Letters (#u6d14a757-5f03-5419-bf28-6131acf08c5d)

2 The Persons Assemble (#u48bb76a9-81c8-51a1-98c9-983b6da9ae9e)

3 Pre-Prandial (#ua2db9338-32ce-5149-8594-3b84080d700f)

4 They Dine (#u1a02d0f8-cb3a-5916-91d2-98f6d403b53e)

5 A Wreath for Rivera (#u0a8462bf-7d37-56b5-af7c-a14611ca5114)

6 Dope (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Dawn (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Morning (#litres_trial_promo)

9 The Yard (#litres_trial_promo)

10 The Revolver, the Stiletto and his Lordship (#litres_trial_promo)

11 Episodes in Two Flats and an Office (#litres_trial_promo)

12 GPF (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Cast of Characters (#ulink_e5c8646c-71b5-5c02-b7e0-49cbcb835a62)

CHAPTER 1 Letters (#ulink_337ff1c5-bb55-574b-894d-3ce50239164a)

From Lady Pastern and Bagott to her niece by marriage, Miss Carlisle Wayne:

3 DUKE’S GATE,

EATON PLACE,

LONDON. SW1

MY DEAREST CARLISLE, – I am informed with that air of inconsequence which characterizes all your uncle’s utterances, of your arrival in England. Welcome Home. You may be interested to learn that I have rejoined your uncle. My motive is that of expediency. Your uncle proposes to give Clochemere to the nation and has returned to Duke’s Gate, where, as you may have heard, I have been living for the last five years. During the immediate post-war period I shared its dubious amenities with members of an esoteric Central European sect. Your uncle granted them what I believe colonials would call squatters’ rights, hoping no doubt to force me back upon the Cromwell Road or the society of my sister Desirée with whom I have quarrelled since we were first able to comprehend each other’s motives.

Other aliens were repatriated, but the sect remained. It will be a sufficient indication of their activities if I tell you that they caused a number of boulders to be set up in the principal reception room, that their ceremonies began at midnight and were conducted in antiphonal screams, that their dogma appeared to prohibit the use of soap and water and that they were forbidden to cut their hair. Six months ago they returned to Central Europe (I have never inquired the precise habitat) and I was left mistress of this house. I had it cleaned and prepared myself for tranquillity. Judge of my dismay! I found tranquillity intolerable. I had, it seems, acclimatized myself to nightly pandemonium. I had become accustomed to frequent encounters with persons who resembled the minor and dirtier prophets. I was unable to endure silence, and the unremarkable presence of servants. In fine, I was lonely. When one is lonely, one thinks of one’s mistakes. I thought of your uncle. Is one ever entirely bored by the incomprehensible? I doubt it. When I married your uncle (you will recollect that he was an attaché at your Embassy in Paris and a frequent caller at my parents’ house), I was already a widow, I was not, therefore, jeune fille. I did not demand Elysium. Equally I did not anticipate the ridiculous. It is understood that after a certain time one should not expect the impossible of one’s husband. If he is tactful, one remains ignorant. So much the better. One is reconciled. But your uncle is not tactful. On the contrary, had there been liaisons of the sort which I trust I have indicated, I should have immediately become aware of them. Instead of second or possibly third establishments I found myself confronted in turn by Salvation Army Citadels, by retreats for Indian yogis, by apartments devoted to the study of Voodoo; by a hundred and one ephemeral and ludicrous obsessions. Your uncle has turned with appalling virtuosity from the tenets of Christadelphians, to the practice of nudism. He has perpetrated antics which, with his increasing years, have become the more intolerable. Had he been content to play the pantaloon by himself and leave me to deplore, I should have perhaps been reconciled. On the contrary, he demanded my collaboration.

For example, in the matter of nudism. Imagine me, a de Fouteaux, suffering a proposal that I should promenade without costume, behind laurel hedges in the Weald of Kent. It was at this juncture and upon this provocation that I first left your uncle. I have returned at intervals only to be driven away again by further imbecilities. I have said nothing of his temper, of his passion for scenes, of his minor but distressing idiosyncrasies. These failings have, alas, become public property.