Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 5: Died in the Wool, Final Curtain, Swing Brother Swing
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?
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NGAIO MARSH
Ngaio Marsh Volume 5
HARPER
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
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
| Florence Rubrick | Of Mount Moon |
| Arthur Rubrick | Her husband |
| Sammy Joseph | Wool buyer for Riven Brothers |
| Alf | Storeman at Riven Brothers |
| Roderick Alleyn | Chief Detective-Inspector, CID |
| Fabian Losse | Nephew to Arthur Rubrick |
| Douglas Grace | Nephew to Florence Rubrick |
| Ursula Harme | Her niece |
| Terence Lynne | Her secretary. Later gardener atMount Moon |
| Mrs Aceworthy | Housekeeper at Mount Moon |
| Markins | Manservant at Mount Moon |
| Tommy Johns | Working manager at Mount Moon |
| Mrs Johns | His wife |
| Cliff Johns | Their son |
| Ben Wilson | Wool sorter |
| Jack Merrywether | Presser |
| Albert Black | Rouseabout |
| Percy Gould | Shearers’ cook |
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.
The man glanced over his shoulder into the hall. ‘There are seats at the back,’ he said. ‘Behind the buyers’ benches.’
‘I know there are. But I don’t want to see the backs of the buyers. I want to watch their faces. I’m Mrs Rubrick of Mount Moon and my wool clip should be coming up in the next half-hour. I want to sit up here somewhere.’ She looked beyond the man at the door, through a pair of scenic book-wings to the stage where an auctioneer in shirt-sleeves sat at a high rostrum, gabbling. ‘Just there,’ said Flossie Rubrick, ‘on that chair by those painted things. That will do quite well.’ She moved past the man at the door. ‘How do you do?’ she said piercingly as she came face-to-face with a second figure. ‘You don’t mind if I come in, do you? I’m Mrs Arthur Rubrick. May I sit down?’
She settled herself on a chair she had chosen, pulling it forward until she could look through an open door in the proscenium and down into the front of the house. She was a tiny creature and it was a tall chair. Her feet scarcely reached the floor. The auctioneer’s clerks who sat below his rostrum, glanced up curiously from their papers.
‘Lot one seven six,’ gabbled the auctioneer. ‘Mount Silver.’
‘Eleven,’ a voice shouted.
In the auditorium two men, their arms stretched rigid, sprang to their feet and screamed. ‘Three!’ Flossie settled her furs and looked at them with interest. ‘Eleven-three,’ said the auctioneer.
