Lord Peter Wimsey

Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a fictional character in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which he solves mysteries—usually murders. A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective. Lord Peter is often assisted by his valet Mervyn Bunter, and later by his future wife Harriet Vane.

Born in 1890 and aging in real time, Wimsey is described as being of average height, with straw-coloured hair, a beaked nose, and a vaguely foolish face. Reputedly his looks were patterned after those of academic Roy Ridley. He also possessed considerable intelligence and athletic ability, evidenced by his playing cricket for Oxford University while earning a First. He created a spectacularly successful publicity campaign for Whifflet cigarettes while working for Pym's Publicity Ltd, and at age 40 was able to turn three cartwheels in the office corridor, stopping just short of the boss's open office door (Murder Must Advertise).

Have His Carcase

Have His Carcase is a 1932 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and her second novel in which Harriet Vane appears. The title is taken from William Cowper's translation of Book II of Homer's Iliad: "The vulture's maw / Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones."

Plot summary

During a hiking holiday to Wilvercombe after her acquittal on murder charges in Strong Poison, Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man, with his throat cut and the blood still liquid, on an isolated rock on the shore. There are no footprints in the sand other than the man's and Harriet's. She takes photos and preserves some evidence, but the corpse is washed away before she can fetch help.

Alerted by a reporter friend about Harriet's discovery of the body, Lord Peter arrives shortly after to offer his help, and he and Harriet make investigations alongside the police. The dead man is quickly identified as Paul Alexis, a professional dancing partner at the local seaside resort hotel, who was of Russian extraction and engaged to a rather foolish rich older widow in her fifties, Mrs. Weldon. The death, staged to look like suicide (as if Alexis had cut his own throat), is gradually revealed by Wimsey and Harriet to be the result of an ingenious and complex murder plot: The romantic Alexis, an avid reader of Ruritanian romances, had believed himself a descendant of Russian royalty, and the widow's son, Henry Weldon (himself ten years older than his mother's would-be lover), appalled at the prospect of his mother's remarriage to a gigolo and the loss of his inheritance, conspired with a friend and his wife in a cunning plot that would play into Alexis's fantasies. Convinced that he was being called to return to Russia in triumph as the rightful Tsar, Alexis was lured to the rock and murdered by Henry, who rode a horse along the beach through the incoming tide to avoid leaving tracks, whilst his co-conspirators supplied his alibi.

Lord Peter

Lord Peter is a collection of short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. First published in 1972 (ISBN 0-380-01694-X), it includes all the short stories about Lord Peter written by Dorothy L. Sayers, most of which were published elsewhere soon after they were written, and some related writings.

Contents

Lord Peter (fairy tale)

Lord Peter or Squire Per is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 545B.

Synopsis

A couple died, leaving their three sons a porridge-pot, a griddle, and a cat. The older two took the porridge-pot and griddle, so they could lend them and get something to eat, but the youngest, Peter, took the cat, because otherwise she would starve at the old home. They all set out to seek their fortune.

The cat caught game and had Peter present them to the king as gifts from Lord Peter. The king wanted to visit Lord Peter; when Peter refused, he insisted on Lord Peter's visiting to him. Peter complained to the cat that he was in trouble now, but the cat provided clothing and a coach for him. On the visit, the king declared that he would go home with Lord Peter. Peter told the cat, and it went ahead, to bribe all the people along the way to describe their flocks as Lord Peter's. Then they came to a troll's castle, but the troll was gone, so they went in. When the troll arrived, the cat distracted it with a story until sunrise, and the sunlight made it burst.