1937, when this was published in Great Britain, was a good Marshian year, and cognoscenti will recognize the vintage as soon as the first ""damn'"" appears with an apostrophe. Inspector Allyn, elegant as a left-hand parenthesis, stumbles on a murder in New Zealand when the manager of a troupe he train-travels with is bashed terminally with a jeroboam of champagne dropped from the flies. A nice collection of theatrical originals and local constabulary with Allyn discreetly intervening.