Overture to Death
A classic Ngaio Marsh novel in which she more than lives up to her reputation as a crime writer of intelligence and style.It was planned as an act of charity: a new piano for the parish hall, an amusing play to finance the gift.But its execution was doomed when Miss Campanula sat down to play. A chord was struck, a shot rang out and Miss Campanula was dead.A case of sinister infatuation for the brilliant Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn.
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NGAIO MARSH
Overture to Death
This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Overture to Death first published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1939
Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1939
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Source ISBN: 9780006512585
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007344468 Version: 2016-09-12
For the Sunday Morning Party:
G. M. LESTER
DUNDAS AND CECIL WALKER NORMAN AND MILES STACPOOLE BATCHELOR & My Father
CONTENTS
14 According to the Jernighams
21 According to Mr Saul Tranter
| Jocelyn Jernigham | Of Pen Cuckoo |
| Henry Jernigham | His son |
| Eleanor Prentice | His cousin |
| Taylor | His butler |
| Walter Copeland, B.A. OXON. | Rector of Winton St Giles |
| Dinah Copeland | His daughter |
| Idris Campanula | Of the Red House, Chipping |
| Dr William Templett | Of Chippingwood |
| Selia Ross | Of Duck Cottage, Cloudyfold |
| Superintendent Blandish | Of the Great Chipping Constabulary |
| Sergeant Roper | Of the Great Chipping Constabulary |
| Mrs Biggins | |
| Georgie Biggins | Her son |
| Gibson | Miss Campanulaâs Chauffeur |
| Gladys Wright | Of the Y.P.F.C. |
| Saul Tranter | Poacher |
| Chief Detective-Inspector | Of the Criminal |
| Alleyn | Investigation Department |
| Detective-Inspector Fox | His assistant |
| Detective-Sergeant Bailey | His finger print expert |
| Detective-Sergeant Thompson | His camera expert |
| Nigel Bathgate | Journalist, his Watson |
Jocelyn Jernigham was a good name. The seventh Jocelyn thought so as he stood at his study window and looked down the vale of Pen Cuckoo toward that precise spot where the spire of Salisbury Cathedral could be seen through field-glasses on a clear day.
âHere I stand,â he said without turning his head, âand here my forebears have stood, generation after generation, and looked over their own tilth and tillage. Seven Jocelyn Jernighams.â
âIâm never quite sure,â said his son Henry Jocelyn, âwhat tilth and tillage are. What precisely, Father, is tilth?â
âThereâs no feeling for that sort of thing,â said Jocelyn, angrily, âamong the present generation. Cheap sneers and clever talk that mean nothing.â
âBut I assure you I like words to mean something. That is why I ask you to define a tilth. And you say, âthe present generation.â You mean my generation, donât you? But Iâm twenty-three. There is a newer generation than mine. If I marry Dinah ââ
âYou quibble deliberately in order to lead our conversation back to this absurd suggestion. If I had known ââ
Henry uttered an impatient noise and moved away from the fireplace. He joined his father in the window and he too looked down into the darkling vale of Pen Cuckoo. He saw an austere landscape, adamant beneath drifts of winter mist. The naked trees slept soundly, the fields were dumb with cold; the few stone cottages, with their comfortable signals of blue smoke, were the only waking things in all the valley.
