RogerBW's Blog

1930 classic English detective fiction; fifth of Sayers's novels of Lord Peter Wimsey. Philip Boyes, writer on atheism, anarchy and free love, died of quite a lot of arsenic; Harriet Vane, who had lived with him without benefit of clergy for nearly a year until they had quarrelled three months earlier, is accused of having poisoned him. Wimsey, seeing the trial, is convinced of her innocence, not to say smitten by her; when the jury cannot agree on a verdict, he makes it his business to save her from the gallows in the month before the new trial.

Yes, I said "without benefit of clergy", and for a reason. This is an era when that was a profoundly shocking thing to have done, and indeed that's a large part of why the case against Harriet is so convincing to the jury: she is obviously an Immoral Woman, and therefore capable of anything. This is particularly relevant given that Sayers had been in a similar situation, though of course that wasn't known until rather later. (That the man was immoral too is irrelevant, of course.) So when Lord Peter proposes marriage, Harriet must answer, among other things:

"[...] But, by the way, you're bearing in mind, aren't you, that I've had a lover?"

"Oh, yes. So have I, if it comes to that. In fact, several. It's the sort of thing that might happen to anybody. I can produce quite good testimonials. I'm told I make love rather nicely—only I'm at a disadvantage at the moment. One can't be very convincing at the other end of a table with a bloke looking in at the door."

If Harriet didn't do it, then where did the arsenic come from? Suicide? Nobody seems to think it likely; Boyes thought too much of himself. Murder? But why – Boyes had neither money nor expectations – and how – at what must have been the fatal meal Boyes shared every dish with his cousin, and most of them were finished off by the servants afterwards? In fact, that cousin seems to have gone out of his way to make sure the meal was above suspicion…

There's not much whodunnit in this, given that all but one of the suspects is polished off fairly immediately; it's more of a why and how dunnit, as the principal suspect's motivation and method must be discovered and proved, not just to introduce reasonable doubt, but to leave Harriet untainted by scandal of the "she got away with it" flavour.

(And, of course, Wimsey wants Harriet to agree to marry him, but has to go to extreme pains not to link that with the work he's doing on her behalf, at least insofar as it's possible to separate the two: which it isn't, really, and they both know it, which is in part why they don't leap into each other's arms at the end of the book, though two other couples introduced in previous Wimsey novels have got together.)

"Curious," mused Wimsey, as he pattered along Bedford Row, "everybody is so remarkably helpful about this case. They cheerfully answer questions which one has no right to ask and burst into explanations in the most unnecessary manner."

Moreover, unlike Wimsey's first few outings, here he often has to sit back and let others work, when he'd much rather be doing things for himself. After a bit of poking around, including an introduction to some of Harriet's friends and a splendid snapshot of Bloomsbury life among the second-raters, he sends his man Bunter off in one direction, and two of the spinster ladies he employs (mostly to answer fraudulent advertisements and get the placers prosecuted) in others, then has to wait for them to report back and assemble their information into something like a case. And at the same time to try to keep up Harriet's spirits, as she waits in prison for the retrial.

And then there's a long divergence into how to fake spiritualism, which serves multiple purposes: it's amusing in itself, but it helps us share Wimsey's frustration, as this sudden slackening of pace mirrors his own inability to make any progress himself.

As far as the puzzle goes, all the clues for "how" are presented to the reader in a scrupulously fair manner. But this is much more of a character story than a puzzle story, and it's the better for it. Even a minor character:

[...] was a kitten-faced child with an inviting manner and a shrewd eye. She made no bones about accepting her client's invitation to dine and showed no surprise when he confidentially murmured that he had a little proposition to put before her. She put her plump elbows on the table, cocked her head at a coy angle, and prepared to sell her honour dear.

As the proposition unfolded itself, her manner underwent an alteration that was almost comical. Her eyes lost their round innocence, her very hair seemed to grow less fluffy, and her eyebrows puckered in genuine astonishment.

This is, to my mind, a masterpiece. There's only one logical flaw in the whole business, and rather than hope the reader won't notice Sayers admits the problem and has a character ask explicitly "why didn't he do X". She has the trick of writing a character cleverer and better-read than herself (don't try to do it as fast as he does, and don't be shy of spinning off references without filling in all the gaps for the reader; they can go and look up "the Seddon trial" or "Mithridates he died old" or "the Bravo case" for themselves), and the prose in general is sheerly lovely.

"Under her stage name of Cremorna Garden, she went from one disreputable triumph to another. And, mind you, she had brains—nothing of the Nell Gwyn business about her. She was the take-it-and-keep-it sort. She took everything—money, jewels, appartements meublés, horses, carriages, all the rest of it, and turned it into good consolidated funds. She was never prodigal of anything except her person, which she considered to be a sufficient return for all favours, and I daresay it was."

I'm reading Allingham and Marsh, and enjoying them; I've read all of Christie and enjoyed her, though I'm unlikely to reread any time soon. But for me Sayers is on a whole separate level, especially the Harriet books. This is what mystery stories should be.

I reread this for Past Offences' 1930 month. Followed by Five Red Herrings.