Published
by The Oleander Press, 14 December 2022. ISBN: 978-1-91547518-3 (PB)
Murder
on the Marsh
(originally published in 1930) is another issue in the Oreon Golden Age series.
Ferguson (1871-1952) was a Scottish railway clerk who became a clergyman. He
wrote a number of novels and was also a successful playwright.
The tale starts when Ann Cardew
visits the Daily Record ’s crime
reporter (and Ferguson’s regular sleuth) Francis McNab to tell of concerns
about her father’s recent peculiar behaviour. McNab has a reputation for
journalistic scoops, and he invites his younger colleague Godfrey Chance to the
meeting. Both men (particularly McNab) think that Miss Cardew’s worries are
exaggerated (Mr Cardew had given his daughter the impression that he was afraid
of something or someone in the garden, and at particular times), but before
they have time to consider the matter further Mr Cardew is found dead on his
front lawn with no apparent signs of foul play. McNab, however, has his
suspicions and sends Chance to Romney Marsh to find out why an inquest has been
called.
Chance (and subsequently McNab)
find themselves in a close-knit community interwoven with family relationships.
A young and keen local policeman is the second victim. He is found clutching a
torn half page from his notebook, and it becomes clear from this that he had
solved the first murder. The problem for Chance and McNab is to work out what
was on the rest of the page before they can identify the murderer. It becomes a
case of treading in a dead man’s shoes.
There are the usual Golden Age
touches, with plenty of pipe-smoking and policemen on bicycles. Chance narrates
the novel and comes across as rather humourless, but he acts as a foil to the
more idiosyncratic McNab. ‘One of your chief uses, Godfrey,’ he [ McNab ] said in a lighter tone, ‘is that
you so often take it upon yourself to act as devil’s advocate. It is most
helpful. You force me to clarify and purge my thinking processes.’ McNab, a
proud Scotchman, has his prejudices: ‘His dislike of an Anglicised
fellow-countryman was almost ferocious in its intensity,’ Chance observes.
McNab takes against two residents of the marsh, considering them guilty of ‘the
crime of trying to be more English than the English.’ Not that Chance is free
of his own prejudices: he refers to McNab’s ‘cautious Scotch traits ... that I
heartily disliked’, and later says ‘What a man he [ McNab ] would have been if only he had been an Englishman!’ And the
local inspector has a dig at Scotchmen right at the end.
At one point there is a hint of almost
supernatural forces (the other-worldly ambience of the marsh helps this), and
it brought to this reader’s mind the work of John Dickson Carr and particularly
The Crooked Hinge , to Ferguson’s
advantage as Carr’s novel did not appear until 1937. One wonders idly whether
Carr had read Ferguson! The denouement is fairly convoluted but convincing.
In summary, then, Murder on the Marsh is not perhaps an
outstanding novel, but it is a perfectly readable and enjoyable example of the
Golden Age genre. ------ Reviewer: David Whittle
John Ferguson (1871-1952) was born at
Callander, Perthshire. As a dramatist Mr Ferguson is probably best known for
his now famous play Campbell of Kilmohr , which at its first Royalty
Theatre production was hailed by the dramatic critic of the Glasgow Herald
as 'a new and significant type of Scottish drama'. He is the author of Death and Mr Dodsley, The Man in the
Dark , and Murder on the Marsh .
David
Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was
Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always
enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce
Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin,
about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the
Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.
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