Black as He's Painted

Black As He's Painted (1974) is a detective novel by Ngaio Marsh, the 28th to feature Roderick Alleyn.

The plot concerns the newly independent fictional African nation of Ng'ombwana, whose president and Alleyn went to school together, and a series of murders connected to its embassy in London.

Development
The novel was written in New Zealand in the late Spring and Summer of 1973, and a year later was on the Sunday Times best-seller list in the UK, as well as proving a best-seller in the USA.

Marsh's first biographer Margaret Lewis quotes a letter Marsh wrote in March 1973: "I've gone into purdah with a new book. It's always a huge effort to get back into harness after an interval in the theatre and this time it's been uphill all the way... I've saddled myself this time with a complicated and hideously exacting mise-en-scene and am just crossing the halfway mark, full of black forebodings laced with pale streaks of hope." Dr Lewis quotes Marsh's editor at Collins, Robert Knittel, writing in September 1973: "I have just finished reading your latest novel and I think it is splendid. A real vintage Ngaio Marsh."

The cat in this novel has the same name as one owned by Marsh, per her biographers. [Living] “In this colorful remnant of traditional England, Marsh, a cat person as you might expect, adopted a stray feline, whom she named Lucy Lockett after a character in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and an English nursery rhyme Lucy Locket:

Lucy Lockett lost her pocket

Kitty Fisher found it

Not a penny was there in it

Only ribbon round it”

Plot summary
The novel is set in the 'Embassy quarter' of London's Knightsbridge and South Kensington.

Sam Whipplestone retires from the Foreign Office and buys a charming house at No 1 Capricorn Mews, not far from Palace Park Gardens where a palatial Georgian mansion now houses the Embassy of Ng'ombwana, a newly independent African republic. Sam Whipplestone had lived in Ng'ombwana for some years, speaks the local language; he is a Foreign Office expert on that nation. Mr Whipplestone buys the property from Mr Sheridan, who remains as tenant of the basement flat, and acquires the services of Mr & Mrs Chubb, resident on the top floor, to cook and clean for him. He adopts an abused stray black cat he names Lucy Lockett, who plays a role in the story, dashing home with ceramic medallions.

Sam is a friend to Alleyn and translates for him when needed. Sam describes his new neighbors to Alleyn throughout the story.

Alleyn admits it is unusual that the new republic having an embassy rather than a High Commission, while remaining within the British Commonwealth, an arrangement insisted upon by the new president.

The Ng'ombwanan president, Bartholomew Opala, is an intelligent and formidable former barrister. He was educated at "an illustrious public school", where his best friend was Roderick Alleyn and his nickname was 'The Boomer'. As president, he is making a state visit to London. The Special Branch is alarmed about the security of this president; they send Alleyn out to Ng'ombwana beforehand to use the "old school tie" to persuade the president to comply with necessary security arrangements. Alleyn succeeds.

At a major reception in the London Embassy, an attempt is made on the President's life, but it is the Ambassador, standing beside him, who is murdered by an African spear on embassy premises. That killer, not identified, faces justice in that nation. All that is known in England thus far is that the personal guard of the President has been attacked and injured when his spear was taken from him.

Alleyn's wife Agatha Troy is painting a portrait of Boomer at his request, which she senses will be the magnum opus of her illustrious career.

The Capricorn Mews are home to a cast of suspects with colonial Ng'ombwanan connections. They seek a change of régime there in hopes of bettering their own financial positions. Some are deeply unpleasant racists. All attended the Embassy reception as staff or guests.

They meet in the basement flat to plan a conspiracy against the president. These include Mr Sheridan and Mr Whipplestone's domestic, Chubb. His only daughter was raped and murdered six years earlier in London by a black man never arrested by police; Chubb cannot come to terms with her death. There is Colonel Cockburn-Montfort, formerly head of the Ng'ombwanan colonial Army and his wife, both alcoholics, who cannot bear his dismissal from the country. Last are an obese and oddly attired brother and sister, formerly wealthy business owners in colonial Ng'ombwana, now running a small pottery in the Capricorn Mews, "K & X Sanskrit: Pigs". The brother has a police record in England.

The investigation is headed by Alleyn and his Scotland Yard support team of Fox, Bailey and Thompson and his Special Branch colleague Fred Gibson. They concentrate on these characters and their hatred of the President. Mr Sheridan is an alias for Mr Gomez, released from prison in Ng'ombwana a few years earlier, and guilty of crimes in England as well. Boomer was the barrister whose work put Gomez in prison for murder.

Mrs Cockburn-Montfort shot a blank from a pistol in the ladies room as distraction from activity at the pavilion, then tossed the pistol into a pool. She lies about a man attacking her there.

Alleyn has undercover agents and uniformed police watching the street and the embassy. A scene develops at the Pottery, with all neighbors at its front door. A bomb scare causes a diversion of police attention. Alleyn has a warrant and enters the building to find the sister and brother dead, each bashed on the head with one of their heavy pottery pieces. The neighbors are brought in to see the ugly sight. Alleyn describes their plot to kill the president at the reception, foiled by the president’s guards and by Alleyn’s actions.

Alleyn has in hand the passports of the Sanskrits, with visas from the Ng'ombwana embassy, because the pair were ready to flee England. The Sanskrits were double agents, reporting the group's plan to the Ng'ombwana government.

Further, the Ambassador had been their contact in the Embassy; he would take over when the President was killed. Instead, the Ambassador was killed.

Alleyn arrests Colonel Cockburn-Montfort for his murder of the Sanskrits. He entered while police were diverted and committed murder in his fury at finding them packing up to leave. Remains of his blood-stained gloves were found in the kiln.

Alleyn plans to find a way to be easier on Chubb, whose efforts at murder during the reception failed, intercepted by a black waiter. Perhaps he will confess the whole scheme.

Gomez has a forged passport and a dubious trade in diamonds, deserving any punishment he gets.

Boomer cuts his visit short, after giving thanks to Troy and then to Alleyn.

Sam gets a new tenant for the basement unit, and continues to enjoy his retirement.

Characters

 * Samuel Witherspoon, retired from the Foreign Office, lives in Capricorn Mews
 * Lucy Lockett, his black cat
 * Mr Sheridan, in the basement flat
 * Chubb, house servant
 * Mrs Chubb, his wife
 * The Ambassador in London for the new republic of Ng'ombwana
 * President of Ng'ombwana, the Boomer, Bartholomew Opala
 * Colonel and Mrs Cockburn-Monfort, retired military
 * Kenneth Sanskrit, merchant
 * Xenoclea Sanskrit, his sister
 * Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn, CID
 * Agatha Troy, his wife and a well-known painter
 * Inspector Fox, CID
 * Superintendent Gibson, Special Branch, CID
 * Detective-Sergeant Bailey, finger-print expert
 * Detective-Sergeant Thompson, police photographer

Reception
Kirkus Reviews referred to Dame Marsh as “perdurable”, in choosing the title. The brief review seems to say the novel is an acquired taste, closing with “As indispensable as that anchovy toast which appears at teatime if it's the taste you once acquired.”

Allusion to real places
The fictional Baronsgate and Capricorns (Place, Square, Mews, etc), designated variously as SW3 or SW7, are clearly based on Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate in London. The fictional places also reference the nearby Montpeliers where Marsh had rented homes during her frequent London stays. It is an unusual setting and plot for a classic whodunit of the kind Ngaio Marsh wrote.