I remember how pleased I was, early in his career, when one of the reviews called him ‘that nice chap, Alleyn’, because that was how I liked to think of him: a nice chap with more edge to him than met the eye – a good deal more, as I hope it has turned out. The popular press of his early days would refer to him as ‘the handsome inspector’, a practice that caused him acute embarrassment.
On this day of his inception I fiddled about with the idea of writing a tale that would explain why he left the Diplomatic Service for the Police Force, but somehow the idea has never jelled.
His age? Here I must digress. His age would defy the investigation of an Einstein, and he is not alone in this respect. Hercule Poirot, I have been told, was, by ordinary reckoning, going on 122 when he died. Truth to tell, fictional investigations move in an exclusive space-time continuum where Mr Bucket in Bleak House may be seen going about his police investigations cheek by jowl with the most recent fledglings. It is enough to say that on the afternoon of my detective’s arrival, I did not concern myself with his age, and I am still of the same mind in that respect.
His arrival had been unexpected and occurred, you might say, out of nothing. One of the questions writers are most often asked about characters in their books is whether they are based upon people in the workaday world – ‘real people’. Some of mine certainly are but they have gone through various mutations and in doing so have moved away from their original begetters. But not this one. He, as far as I can tell, had no begetter apart from his author. He came in without introduction and if, for this reason, there is an element of unreality about him, I can only say that for me, at least, he was and is very real indeed.
Dorothy L Sayers has been castigated, with some justification perhaps, for falling in love with her Wimsey. To have done so may have been an error in taste and judgment though her ardent fans would never have admitted as much. I can’t say I have ever succumbed in this way to my own investigator but I have grown to like him as an old friend. I even dare to think he has developed third-dimensionally in my company. We have travelled widely: in a night express through the North Island of New Zealand, and among the geysers, boiling mud and snow-clad mountains of that country. We have cruised along English canals and walked through the streets and monuments of Rome. His duties have taken us to an island off the coast of Normandy and to the backstage regions of several theatres. He has sailed with a psychopathic homicide from Tilbury to Cape Town and has made arrests in at least three country houses, one hospital, a church, a canal boat and a pub. Small wonder, perhaps, that we have both broadened our outlook under the pressure of these undertakings, none of which was anticipated on that wet afternoon in London.
At his first appearance he was a bachelor and, although responsive to the opposite sex, did not bounce in and out of irresponsible beds when going about his job. Or, if he did, I knew nothing about it. He was, to all intents and purposes, fancy-free and would remain so until, sailing out of Suva in Fiji, he came across Agatha Troy, painting in oils, on the boat deck of a liner. And that was still some half-dozen books in the future.
There would be consternation shown by editors and publishers when, after another couple of jobs, the lady accepted him. The acceptance would be a fait accompli, and from then on I would be dealing with a married investigator, his celebrated wife, and later on, their son.
By a series of coincidences and much against his inclination, it would come about that these two would occasionally get themselves embroiled in his professional duties, but generally speaking he would keep his job out of his family life. He would set about his cases with his regular associate, who is one of his closest friends; Inspector Fox, massive, calm, and plain-thinking, would tramp sedately in. They have been working together for a considerable time, and still allow me to accompany them.
But ‘on the afternoon in question,’ all this, as lady crime novelists used to say, ‘lay in the future.’ The fire had burnt clear and sent leaping patterns up the walls of my London flat when I turned on the light, opened an exercise book, sharpened my pencil, and began to write. There he was, waiting quietly in the background ready to make his entrance at Chapter IV, page 58, in the first edition.
I had company. It became necessary to give my visitor a name.
Earlier in that week I had visited Dulwich College. This is an English public school, which in any other country would mean a private school. It was founded and very richly endowed by a famous actor in the days of the first Elizabeth. It possesses a splendid picture gallery and a fabulous collection of relics from the Shakespearean-Marlovian theatre: enthralling to me who has a passion for that scene.
My father was an old boy of Dulwich College – an ‘old Alleynian’, as it is called, the name of the Elizabethan actor being Alleyn.
Detective-Inspector Alleyn, CID? Yes.
His first name was in doubt for some time, but another visit, this time to friends in the Highlands of Scotland, had familiarized me with some resoundingly-named characters, among them one Roderick (or Rory) MacDonald.
Roderick Alleyn, Detective-Inspector, CID?
Yes.
The name, by the way, is pronounced ‘Allen’.
NGAIO MARSH
For My father and in memory of My Mother
Contents
Chapter 1 ‘And There Were Present...’
Chapter 3 ‘You Are the Corpse’
Chapter 6 Alleyn Does His Stuff
Chapter 7 Rankin Leaves Frantock
Chapter 8 Following Information from a Baby