William Trehern is an epileptic boy, the son of two drunkards: his father is a fisherman, his mother a constant gin drinker. William is mocked by his classmates not only for his simplicity, but also for the lumps on his hands, which have caused him serious psychiatric distress. One day, while he's at the spring on the island, where he likes to stay, he sees a blond-haired woman in a green dress who tells him to wash his hands in cold water and go home immediately, because the lumps will disappear overnight.
The next day, he finds his hands blackened and his hands free of lumps. The first to notice is his teacher, Jenny Williams. Soon, everyone knows about it, and people begin to fantasize about the spring, the spring fairy, and the miraculous powers of the water. So much so that the news spreads, journalists arrive, and then crowds of onlookers and sick people flock to the spring, as if it were the pool of Lourdes. Before you know it, Major Barrymore, owner of the Boy and the Lobster Inn, Miss Elspeth Cost, owner of a shop on the island, Rev. Carstairs, pastor of an abandoned Methodist church, and Nankivell, the mayor of Portcarrow, sense an opportunity to benefit from the situation, and soon everyone becomes rich: the inn is always full, those who believe they have been healed make large donations to the church, the junk shop sells like hotcakes, the whole island benefits, and even Dr. Maine is able to expand his medical practice. One day, however, one of the hopeful people who come to the island is persuaded to trust the miraculous cures of the magic water rather than what her doctor recommends, and subsequently dies. Shocked by this death, Miss Emily Pride, the island's owner, travels there with the intention of having the spring resized and returned to its pre-miracle state. She allows anyone who wishes to visit, but prohibits any profit-making activity. It's clear that this is a disaster for Major Barrymore, Miss Cost, Mr. Nankivell, and even William's parents. And soon a series of unpleasant events unfold: threatening letters, rocks are thrown at her, a rope is strung across her usual path to cause her to fall or worse, and even in her room she finds a green card with the threat "Death," even though the eighty-three-year-old Miss Emily had already turned to Scotland Yard Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, her former student.
Given this premise, it's easy to imagine the most obvious consequence would be that someone might make an attempt on Miss Emily's life, something Roderick intends to avoid. However, what everyone fears happens, and at the spring, Alleyn himself discovers a person facedown in the water one morning, lying on the ground: someone had thrown a large rock at her head, and the victim fell unconscious into the spring and drowned. What a surprise! It's not Miss Emily, but Miss Elspeth Cost, the one who had the most bitter hatred for her and who had stirred up the Portcarrow community against her.
The first question Alleyn asks is: was Cost killed by mistaken identity, or was it her own intention? And it's a question that the rest of the investigation hinges on.
Many things happen, but we can summarize them mainly as follows:
- Miss Emily Pride is identified by the community as the person responsible for Cost's death.
- Major Barrymore is discovered to be abusing his wife.
- Mrs. Barrymore, Alleyn discovers, is the spring fairy, something no one knows: why does she impersonate a fairy? What was she doing at the spring? Why does she beg Alleyn not to tell her husband?
- Miss Cost used to spy on lovers who met near the spring, for two main reasons: a phobia of sex and a sexual urge.
- In a diary hidden in her house, she noted all the most secret events of the last few years, from William's miracle, to the arrival of the pilgrims, to the creation of the Festival she wanted, complete with theatrical production, which went haywire due to a furious downpour that disrupted all the plans of the main actors in the drama.
Then there are the times that don't match, according to which someone lied about where he was and the time he left the island.
With patient detective work and astute deductions, aided by Superintendent Coombe, Sergeant Pender, and his assistant, Inspector Fox of Scotland Yard, Alleyn will nail the killer.
A superb novel from 1963, it is a concentration of splendid descriptions (Ngaio Marsh has always been admired for the descriptions of places and people she inserted into her works), sharp psychological deductions, and sentimental adventures, which intertwine to form an intricate tangle of facts and trivia, lies, and unsaid things, which lies at the root of a crime that can be attributed to an event external to the island (Miss Pride's will caused by the death of her friend, Miss Thorpe, who died of gullibility) if not to an event internal to the island.
In essence, we have:
a trigger: the miracle of the spring
a secondary situation: the island's fortune
a secondary situation: the death of Mrs. Thorpe, which leads to Miss Pride's decision to prohibit the exploitation of the spring;
a series of actions directed against Miss Pride aimed at frightening her, intimidating her, and making her desist from her decision;
the effect: someone's death. All of this constitutes the plot.
Then we have three major subplots, linked to two possible antithetical truths: was Miss Cost killed on purpose or because she was confused with Miss Pride?
First subplot: the extramarital affair between Elspeth Cost and Major Barrymore
Second subplot: the extramarital affair between Mrs. Barrymore and Dr. Maine
Third subplot: the secret revealed by Mayor Ives Nankivell about Miss Elspeth's nymphomania.
These three subplots intertwine, providing answers to all the questions surrounding Miss Elspeth's death.
The title "Dead Water" it refers to the water that is "dead" after the crime, whereas before it was "alive."
I was talking about Ngaio Marsh's descriptions, which, however, are not ends in themselves; they are not limited to describing events, places, and people, intended to create a basic atmosphere, but are functional to the people and the interpersonal relationships that are formed. It would seem that the main force is Emily Pride, who influences the unfolding of everything that happens: her strength of character overwhelms all the actors in the drama, but this intensity is especially noticeable BEFORE the events caused by her decision become fully evident in their dramatic force: it is as if this "Burmese female deity," as Marsh calls her ("She looked, Patrick afterwards suggested, like some Burmese female deity"), loses her omnipotence with the death of Elspeth Cost, fearing she was the cause of her death, and in that moment rediscovers her intimate human soul, her fragility.
But other elements contrast, in character and strength: Barrymore, his wife, Dr. Maine, Rev. Carstairs, Nankivell, William's father, the miracle boy, and William himself. Each is beautifully drawn.
The style is elegant, almost like an operetta, before it turns into tragedy. And the description of the festival brings it closer to many descriptions of other celebrations narrated for example by Agatha Christie (The Macabre Quiz or The Rite of Murder) or in the TV series based on the novels by Caroline Graham, Inspector Barnaby.
One thing that intrigued me is the story of the spring fairy. It's a theme intertwined with the Arthurian Lake Fairy, and especially with Scottish and Irish legends: it's no coincidence that a green fairy is mentioned in many places, especially in Scotland, at Crathes Castle. Other examples include Ashintully Castle, Knock Castle, and so on. The green lady is essentially a nymph, and is almost always associated with water, like the green fairy in Ngaio Marsh's novel. But I also note an additional derivation: Les Larmes de Sybil, that Paul Halter discusses in his novel, a magical spring.
Pietro De Palma
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