Fannish 50: 2024: Everything is Murder edition: #32: Inspector Alleyn mysteries

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I enjoy the Inspector Alleyn series by Ngaio Marsh (books only, I've not see the TV adaptations). I haven't read all of them, but I have read most of the early ones, those are the ones I prefer. I enjoy reading the stories set in her native New Zealand. Colour Scheme has an especially ingenious murder device. Much like Harriet Vane, I like Troy (who becomes Alleyn's wife) in herself, as an artist, much more than as 'wife of the detective.' I like reading about the way Marsh, who was also an artist, writes about her artistic process. I could do without the moralizing. And it's always struck me as odd that the sticking point in Alleyn & Troy is getting together is that Troy doesn't believe in capital punishment, and Alleyn as a detective sends people to the gallows. It always strikes me as a bizarre hurdle. I don't enjoy the ones with their son Ricky. I DNF one I tried recently (Spinsters in Jeopardy). I am just not a fan of Mom Pain as a major plot point and Ricky gets kidnapped in that one. Also the drug trade/drug crime is a difficult one for a traditional Golden Age of Crime writer to pull off. It never seems realistic. And there's always a tendency to moralize. One of the best parts of Alleyn is his friendship with Inspector Fox so I wrote a ficlet for vocab_drabbles which covers an 'Untold Case' mentioned in Artists in Crime.

Title: Fox's Arson Case
Fandom: Inspector Alleyn - Ngaio Marsh
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 550
Prompt: epistolary
Characters/Pairings: Fox & Alleyn
Warnings: None
Summary: At the beginning of Artists in Crime, Alleyn writes: Fox has written regularly. He seems to have done damn well over that arson case. So this is a letter from Fox to Alleyn about the arson case.


Dear Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn,

Thank you for your recent postcard. It has pride of place on my desk, and many of the lads have remarked on it. Everyone at the Yard sends their good wishes.

Your absence is always felt, but the gap has been acutely noted this past fortnight. The most extraordinary case of arson has presented itself, and I think it will be of interest to you. Here are the details:

The fire brigade was called to the home of Mister and Mrs. John Smith. It was determined that the cause of the fire was a gas explosion. The body of Mrs. Smith was recovered, but Mister Smith—the couple has no children and no one else living in the house with them—was out. He had an appointment with his accountant, then his dentist, then he visited a car showroom to discuss the purchase of a new vehicle. All these were verified. The couple’s relationship, while reportedly not very warm in general, had suffered no recent injuries. This was according to Mrs. Smith’s twin sister who visited Mrs. Smith every day like clockwork at eleven o’clock. It turns out on the day of the explosion the sister had left town to visit her son; her first trip away from home in more than two decades. The death of Mrs. Smith was declared an accident, but the sister visited me at the Yard—apparently my name has appeared alongside yours in some of Mister Nigel Bathgate’s accounts of our investigations—and implored me to have a look. She suspected her brother-in-law of causing the accident. Apparently, there had been an incident with gas in her mother’s home twenty-four years ago. No one had been killed, the explosion was too small, but she had suspected her brother-in-law of trying to kill her mother. She struck me as a most sensible individual, so I pledged to take a gander at the situation.

I visited the site of the explosion, and through some careful grunt work—I will not charge the Yard with the replacement of my ruined suit, but the thought did cross my mind—I was able to uncover the gas fitting. It had most curiously lodged in the charred remains of a mounted trout. Cherchez le poisson! Then, I was able to show that the fitting had been tampered with. When we brought Smith in, it was a bit of bluff work on my part, including the invention of a tiresome Mrs. Fox, but the nut cracked, as they say. Smith confessed. Apparently, he had been planning the murder of his wife for twenty-four years. What a hobby. He strangled her, then staged the explosion to cover the killing.

I dare say Smith thought himself the Napoleon of crime, but gas is a notoriously unreliable accomplice. Any professional villain could have told him that. At any rate, he consulted nothing but his own vivid imagination. How well I know that it doesn’t do to play a lone hand sometimes. There have been plenty of moments during the last months when I have longed for your consultation.

I look forward to your return and I remain yours respectfully, now, as a result of this successful resolution to the Smith case, Senior Detective-Inspector, but now, then, and ever your,

Fox


 


This is a challenge to post about 50 things I'm fannish about in 2024. I did the challenge in 2023 so to make it more interesting, in 2024, it's Everything is Murder edition. More info & to sign up here:https://alexcat.dreamwidth.org/1357645.html


The List (to date)

Fannish 50: 2024: #1: Jeeves & Wooster
Fannish 50: 2024: #2: Libraries
Fannish 50: 2024: #3: Facial Sheet Masks
Fannish 50: 2024: #4: Venom
Fannish 50: 2024: #5: jhope of BTS
Fannish 50: 2024: #6: the art of Edward Gorey
Fannish 50: 2024: #7: The works of Edgar Allan Poe
Fannish 50: 2024: #8: SUGA of BTS
Fannish 50: 2024: #9: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Fannish 50: 2024: #10: Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Fannish 50: 2024: #11: Honkaku & shin honkaku detective fiction
Fannish 50: 2024: #12: Audiobooks
Fannish 50: 2024: #13: Holiday blend coffee
Fannish 50: 2024: #14: Jazz
Fannish 50: 2024: #15: Jigsaw puzzles
Fannish 50: 2024: #16: Sherlock Holmes
Fannish 50: 2024: #17: Poetry
Fannish 50: 2024: #18: Chocolate
Fannish 50: 2024: #19: Detective Matthew Venn series - Ann Cleeves
Fannish 50: 2024: #20: Tarot
Fannish 50: 2024: #21: Poirot - Agatha Christie
Fannish 50: 2024: #22: The ocean
Fannish 50: 2024: #23: Hardboiled detectives/noir
Fannish 50: 2024: #24: Tea
Fannish 50: 2024: #25: Bees & honey
Fannish 50: 2024: #26: Campion - Margery Allingham
Fannish 50: 2024: #27: The language of flowers
Fannish 50: 2024: #28: The moon
Fannish 50: 2024: #29: Gervase Fen detective series - Edmund Crispin
Fannish 50: 2024: #30: James Bond
Fannish 50: 2024: #31: Jungkook of BTS
Fannish 50: 2023: #32: Inspector Alleyn series - Ngaio Marsh

Comments

[debriswoman]

Admirable detective work :-)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you!!

[smallhobbit]

Excellent. I've always liked Fox.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you!!