Death at the Dolphin

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.

HARPER

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1967

Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1966

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

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 ebooks

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

Source ISBN: 9780006167914

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007344772 Version: 2016–09–22

For Edmund Cork in gratitude and with affection

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Cast of Characters

1. Mr Conducis

2. Mr Greenslade

3. Party

4. Rehearsal

5. Climax

6. Disaster

7. Sunday Morning

8. Sunday Afternoon

9. Knight Rampant

10. Monday

11. The Show Will Go On

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Mr Conducis

‘Dolphin?’ the clerk repeated. ‘Dolphin. Well, yerse. We hold the keys. Were you wanting to view?’

‘If I might, I was,’ Peregrine Jay mumbled, wondering why such conversations should always be conducted in the past tense. ‘I mean,’ he added boldly, ‘I did and I still do. I want to view, if you please.’

The clerk made a little face that might have been a sneer or an occupational tic. He glanced at Peregrine, who supposed his appearance was not glossy enough to make him a likely prospect.

‘It is for sale, I believe?’ Peregrine said.

‘Oh, it’s for sale, all right.’ The clerk agreed contemptuously. He re-examined some document that he had on his desk.

‘May I view?’

‘Now?’

‘If it’s possible.’

‘Well – I don’t know, really, if we’ve anybody free at the moment,’ said the clerk and frowned at the rain streaming dirtily down the windows of his office.

Peregrine said, ‘Look. The Dolphin is an old theatre. I am a man of the theatre. Here is my card. If you care to telephone my agents or the management of my current production at The Unicorn they will tell you that I am honest, sober and industrious, a bloody good director and playwright and possessed of whatever further attributes may move you to lend me the keys of The Dolphin for an hour. I would like,’ he said, ‘to view it.’

The clerk’s face became inscrutable. ‘Oh, quite,’ he muttered and edged Peregrine’s card across his desk, looking sideways at it as if it might scuttle. He retired within himself and seemed to arrive at a guarded conclusion.

‘Yerse. Well, OK, Mr er. It’s not usually done but we try to oblige.’ He turned to a dirty-white board where keys hung like black tufts on a piece of disreputable ermine.