Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1963, Near fine book in intact but foxed dust jacket, dj good only, first edition stated, twenty-third novel in the Roderick Alleyn series. Published in the US in 1963 and not published in the UK until 1964, making this the true first edition. "Superintendent Roderick Alleyn listened carefully as Miss Emily Pride told him about an island she inherited with a miraculous spring, and her proposal to close the spring which has brought a flood of anonymous threatening letters" ; 244 pages "Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh DBE was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. Marsh is known as one of the "Queens of Crime", along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham." (Wikipedia)