The Birth of Roderick Alleyn

Ngaio Marsh

He was born with the rank of Detective Inspector CID on a very wet Saturday afternoon in a basement flat off Sloane Square in London. The year was 1931.

Ngaio Marsh had been reading a mystery novel either a Christie or a Sayers. It was the time in London when the Murder Game was popular and Marsh began to think of a character that would be a solver of crimes. At that time there were many detectives identifiable by their mannerisms. There was Hercule Poirot with his moustaches and grey cells, Peter Wimsey, excruciatingly facetious, Reggie Fortune a character of H.C. Baileys who repeated “My dear chap, Oh, my dear chap”, and Philo Vance who spoke in a strange language attributed to Balliol College, Oxford.

March hoped to avoid mannerisms and wanted him to be a civilized, attractive man with whom it would be pleasant to talk but much less pleasant to fall out. That is a nice chap with more edge to him than met the eye. She also tried to avoid the issue of age. Hercule Poirot by ordinary reckoning was 122 when he died.

His name was not too difficult. Her father was an old boy of Dulwich College, an English public school. Old boys were called old Alleynians. Now for a resounding first name, something Scottish -Roderick.

 

Roderick Alleyn, Detective Inspector CID yes!