Death in Ecstasy
Another classic Ngaio Marsh novel.Who slipped cyanide into the ceremonial wine of ecstasy at the House of the Sacred Flame? The other initiates and the High Priest claim to be above earthly passions. But Roderick Alleyn discovers that the victim had provoked lust and jealousy, and he suspects that more evil still lurks behind the Sign of the Sacred Flame…
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For the family in Kent
Contents
2 The House of the Sacred Flame
3 Death of an Ecstatic Spinster
8 The Temperament of M. de Ravigne
10 A Piece of Paper and a Bottle
11 Contents of a Desk, a Safe, and a Bookcase
15 Father Garnette Explores the Contents of a Mareâs Nest
16 Mr Ogden Puts his Trust in Policemen
17 Mr Ogden Grows Less Trustful
| Jasper Garnette | Officiating priest of the House of the Sacred Flame |
| The Seven Initiates |  | Samuel J. Ogden Raoul de Ravigne Cara Quayne Maurice Pringle Janey Jenkins Ernestine Wade Dagmar Candour | Warden of the House. A commercial gentleman Warden of the House. A dilettante The Chosen Vessel Engaged to Janey Jenkins The youngest initiate Probably the oldest initiate Widow |
| Claude Wheatley | An acolyte |
| Lionel Smith | An acolyte |
| Dr Nicholas Kasbek | An onlooker |
| The Doorkeeper of the House | |
| Edith Laura Hebborn | Cara Quayneâs old nurse |
| Wilson | Her parlourmaid |
| Mr Rattisbon | Her solicitor |
| Elsie | Mr Ogdenâs housemaid |
| Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn | Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard |
| Detective-Inspector Fox | His assistant |
| Detective-Sergeant Bailey | His fingerprint expert |
| Dr Curtis | His Divisional Surgeon |
| Nigel Bathgate | His Watson |
In case the House of the Sacred Flame might be thought to bear a superficial resemblance to any existing church or institution, I hasten to say that if any similarity exists it is purely fortuitous. The House of the Sacred Flame, its officials, and its congregation are all imaginative and exist only in Knocklatchers Row. None, as far as I am aware, has any prototype in any part of the world.
My grateful thanks are due to Robin Page for his advice in the matter of sodium cyanide; to Guy Cotterill for the plan of the House of the Sacred Flame, and to Robin Adamson for his fiendish ingenuity in the matter of home-brewed poisons.
NGAIO MARSH
Christchurch, New Zealand
On a pouring wet Sunday night in December of last year a special meeting was held at the House of the Sacred Flame in Knocklatchers Row.
There are many strange places of worship in London, and many remarkable sects. The blank face of a Cockney Sunday masks a kind of activity, intermittent but intense. All sorts of queer little religions squeak, like mice in the wainscoting, behind its tedious façade.
Perhaps these devotional side-shows satisfy in some measure the need for colour, self-expression and excitement in the otherwise drab lives of their devotees. They may supply a mild substitute for the orgies of a more robust age. No other explanation quite accounts for the extraordinary assortment of persons that may be found in their congregations.
Why, for instance, should old Miss Wade beat her way down the Kingâs Road against a vicious lash of rain and in the teeth of a gale that set the shop signs creaking and threatened to drive her umbrella back into her face? She would have been better off in her bed-sitting-room with a gas-fire and her library book.
Why had Mr Samuel J. Ogden dressed himself in uncomfortable clothes and left his apartment in York Square for the smelly discomfort of a taxi and the prospect of two hours without a cigar?
What induced Cara Quayne to exchange the amenities of her little house in Shepherd Market for a dismal perspective of wet pavements and a deserted Piccadilly?
What more insistent pleasure drew M. de Ravigne away from his Van Goghs, and the satisfying austerity of his flat in Lowndes Square?
If this question had been put to these persons, each of them, in his or her fashion, would have answered untruthfully. All of them would have suggested that they went to the House of the Sacred Flame because it was the right thing to do. M. de Ravigne would not have replied that he went because he was madly in love with Cara Quayne; Cara Quayne would not have admitted that she found in the services an outlet for an intolerable urge towards exhibitionism. Miss Wade would have died rather than confess that she worshipped, not God, but the Reverend Jasper Garnette. As for Mr Ogden, he would have broken out immediately into a long discourse in which the words âuplift,â ârenooal,â and âspiritual regenerationâ would have sounded again and again, for Mr Ogden was so like an American as to be quite fabulous.
