Murder, Gothic Castles and Undine

Death on Tiptoe by RC Ashby

published 1931 (reprtinted 2007)

The Listening Eye by Patricia Wentworth

published 1955

 

When I saw the title Death on Tiptoe – the book was reprinted by the estimable Greyladies Press, and I found my copy in the wonderful Bodies in the Bookshop in Cambridge – I thought it might be a ballet-related mystery, something like

Death Goes Dancing by Mabel Esther Allan

also published by Greyladies, and that post says more about the publishing house, as does this one.

But it is far from that – the setting is an ancient Welsh castle and the mystery is rather Gothic. The title is only explained in the final pages, and manages not to be a spoiler - because information is held back from the reader.

RC Ashby is better known as Ruby Ferguson, known for writing the 'Jill' books  – pony stories for teenagers. She also wrote Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary – a dark romantic tale which was very successful in its day, and lives on. It was supposedly a favourite book of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. I read it in pre-blog days – it was reprinted by Persephone books, another wonderful publishing house – and it was enjoyably melodramatic, deep, dark but leaving little impression. My main memory is that some review or other said ‘this book has the most awful letter in all literature in it’, and my problem was that I couldn’t tell which horrible letter they meant.  But every reference I can find to it online says it is light and charming. (I am not quite interested enough in this difference of opinion to read it again.)

To the book in hand: this is a quite nonsensical murder mystery, in which nobody talks or behaves like a real person. But it is readable and nicely short. 

A house-party has gathered in the ancient castle: the new family who has bought it, some old friends and new ones, a governess, a vicar’s daughter (Pandora! Like Adrian Mole’s treacle-haired love), an heiress, a member of the family that previously owned it, blah blah. Various tensions and arguments are uncovered, and someone’s dubious past is revealed. There is a game of hide-and-seek in the dark.

And then something goes badly wrong….

The book is full of literary allusions, and if you want a #spoilernotspoiler using my patent system, there is a similar mode of death in this book, featured in my post (you will only find out method, and associated folktale, not murderer, victim etc).

More: the lady of the castle is called Undine, and here we will have to make a diversion to a Patricia Wentworth book which is here:

The Listening Eye by Patricia Wentworth

Busybody Miss Silver explains all to a character with the admirable name of Moira:

‘Undine was a water spirit. It’s a German legend. She fell in love with an earthly knight and married him, but in the end he was false to her and she disappeared in a cloud of spray from a fountain. One of the Chopin ballades puts the story into music.’.

‘You do know a lot, don’t you?’ said Moira Herne. And then, ‘What would she wear?’

If I were the Moira in the book (- and I quite wish I was, ‘she wore dark blue slacks and a tight scarlet jumper, and she didn’t look as if she had a heart to break’) I would be SO HAPPY to be the person who had said to Miss Silver ‘You do know a lot, don’t you?’

I have my tone of voice completely ready.

***ADDED LATER: I got this wrong, it is another character who puts Moira right, not Miss Silver. See comments below -  a long way down ***

Here, it is being suggested that Moira should go to a fancy-dress ball dressed as Undine (an idea I die for – truly this is my favourite Moira in all literature, although there isn’t a great deal of choice).

This may seem irrelevant, but in fact Death on Tiptoe shares another feature with the Wentworth: a fancy-dress ball that doesn’t happen, something I take a very stern line on.  

Undine turns up on the blog in a couple of other posts – it’s a book Jo March wants to read in Little Women, and there is another fancy dress costume where Undine the watersprite looks like ‘an outsize codfish or perhaps a trout’.

And I still haven’t managed to do a post on the best Undine of all: Undine Spragg from Edith Wharton’s Custom of the Country.

I am paying undue attention to Undine because the rest of the book really doesn’t give me a lot to talk about. (And I do recommend the Wentworth post). Someone dies, many people have a motive, a ring goes missing, some silver trinkets also disappear, one of the posho guests is called on by the policeman to take part in the investigation. It’s OK, but it’s not a great lost masterpiece.

There is a hide-and-seek game gone wrong in this entry

Xmas Fancy Dress Hide-and-Seek, and Murder

-now there’s a author (Moray Dalton) who is really trying, putting them in costume and enabling me to use this splendid picture.

And another one in this Dorothy L Sayers short story:

Xmas in a Country House, with Party Games

 

The vision of Undine is a book illustration in a collection at Maastricht University.

The house-party group comes from Clover vintage.