Machines and Murder Mysteries

Another trip to Paris in the company of Chief Superintendent Maigret and an English honeymoon with Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane offered unexpected reading joys when I popped into the library to take some books back. Having tried (and failed) to find anything by Georges Simenon (with the exception of The Hotel Majestic, reviewed here), I was staggered to spot a copy of Maigret and the Ghost on the ‘Returned Books’ shelves. And there, alongside it, was a copy of Dorothy L Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon. So I pounced on them, and put them in the magical machine which is supposed to check books in and out. But nothing happened. Nix. Nada. Zilch. Fortunately we still have real people working as librarians, as well the machines, so I appealed for help, only to be told the books did not actually come from Tamworth... For one terrible moment I thought I would have to leave empty-handed, but it turned out there was no problem and once the assistant had fiddled around on the computer back I went to the machine, scanned in the card and books – and hey presto, the books are mine for the next few weeks.

Back home of course, I had to read them immediately, ignoring the Books in Progress and Ninepins, the latest novel from Rosy Thornton (sorry Rosy – you’re next, I promise!)

The Simenon, as ever, was wonderful. In this one Inspector Lognon – known as Grumpy to his colleagues – is shot in the street outside the apartment of a beautiful young woman where, apparently, he has spent the night. Before losing consciousness the wounded detective whispers the word ‘ghost’. By the time Chief Superintendent Maigret appears on the scene the beautiful young woman has disappeared, and no-one knows if Lognon was working on a case...

On the other side of the street is the home of wealthy art wealthy art collector Norris Jonker and his glamorous wife Mirella, but routine questioning convinces Maigret that the couple are not what they seem, and that the facts gathered so far may also have another interpretation. As usual the chief superintendent uncovers the truth in his usual methodical way, painstakingly fitting the pieces of the jigsaw together, aided by a dose of intuition based on his vast knowledge of people and they way behave and react, especially when under pressure. He himself remains cool, calm and polite, supervising his team as they check out every lead and examine every detail, however small and unimportant it may be – and he refuses to let himself be rattled or pushed around by people with money or position.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that his wife plays a larger role in this novel, providing help for the injured policeman’s carping, hypochondriac wife, and collecting vital information as she does so. All in all this was a really satisfying read.

Busman’s Holiday was excellent – it is the final, and I think, the best of the books featuring crime novelist Harriet Vane. I've written about Lord Peter Wimsey before in a review of The Nine Tailors (here), which I enjoyed immensely - but I always prefer the stories with Harriet Vane.  Here, she and Lord Peter are finally married and set off for their honeymoon at Talboys, a beautiful old house in the village where Harriet lived as a child. The sleuthing aristocrat has bought the house for her as a wedding gift and they decide to spend a quiet honeymoon there, away from the prying eyes of the press. But nothing goes as planned: when they arrive (accompanied by the incomparable Bunter and crates of vintage port), the house is shut up and the owner, who has told no-one of the sale, has disappeared... then he turns up dead, in the cellar, and the newly-weds find themselves in the spotlight as a murder investigation gets under way.

The dead man turns out to have been a thoroughly nasty piece of work, and trying to establish how he died and who killed him proves extraordinarily complicated as the plot twists and turns, and there are plenty of suspects, including the dead man’s niece, a policeman who was being blackmailed by the victim, and a gardener who was owed money by the dead man but has a cast-iron alibi.

Peter and Harriet set about solving the crime, aided and abetted by police inspector Kirk, who is as fond of literary quotes and allusions as the couple themselves, and there is a cast of local ‘characters’ with the most wonderfully apt names - the sweep is Mr Puffett, the niece is Miss Twitterton, which tells you exactly what she is like.

This novel is particularly interesting because it opens with a series of letters and diary entries from those who know Peter and Harriet, giving their view of the couple and the marriage, and it ends with an exploration of the effects of bringing a killer to justice. We see Lord Peter tortured by the knowledge that by catching the murderer he himself must carry responsibility for man’s death, and that knowledge is difficult to cope with. 

The Nine Tailors

The opening of The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L Sayers, has to be one of the most atmospheric of any novel. Here we are in the wintry, bleak, isolated East Anglian fens with Lord Peter Wimsey:

Coming a trifle too fast across the bridge, blinded by the bitter easterly snowstorm, he had overshot the road and plunged down the side of the dyke into the deep ditch beyond, where the black spikes of a thorn hedge stood bleak and unwelcoming in the glare of the headlights. Right and left, before and behind, the fen lay shrouded. It was past four o’clock and New Year’s Eve; the snow that had fallen all day gave back a glimmering greyness to a sky like lead.

He and his man Bunter set off to seek help.

They wrapped their coats about them and turned their faces to the wind and snow. To left of them, the drain ran straight as a rule could make it, black and sullen, with steep bank shelving down to its slow, unforgiving waters. To their right was the broken line of the sunken hedge, with, here and there, a group of poplars or willows. They tramped on in silence, the snow beating on their eyelids. At the end of a solitary mile the gaunt shape of a windmill loomed up upon the farther bank of the drain, but no bridge led to it, and no light showed.

They are rescued by the Rector of  Fenchurch St. Paul, who puts them up while the car is repaired, and Lord Peter sees in the New Year by replacing a sick campanologist so a marathon bell ringing session can go ahead. Before continuing on his journey he hears the story of 20-year-old crime involving a missing emerald necklace, a jail-break and a murder…

Months later the body of a man with his hands cut off is unearthed while a grave is being dug. The corpse is recent, but no-one knows who the man is, or how he died – so the Rector writes to Lord Peter appealing for help. The plot is complex and there are dead ends and red herrings aplenty as Lord Peter tries to unravel the truth. Finally a coded message is cracked, an old mystery solved, and the identity of the dead man is revealed, but the cause of his death and the name of his murderer remain unknown. However, when Lord Peter makes a third visit to the village the stage is set for the final, shocking explanation during an apocalyptic flood.

Dorothy L Sayers

Wimsey himself is a wonderful creation, with his slightly foppish and diffident manner masking a keen intellect, but it is the bells which dominate: Sabaoth, Gaude, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas, and Tailor Paul. From the outset they are faintly sinister and disturbing as they sound the death-knell of the old year. Then we learn that according to local legend, Tailor Paul has been responsible for two deaths. And there’s a premonition of danger when Hezekiah, the oldest bell ringer, warns: “They bells du know well who’s a-haulin’ of ’un. Wunnerful understandin’ they is. They can’t abide a wicked man. They lays in wait to overthrow ’un.”

Wimsey feels ‘the patient watchfulness of the bells’ and stands beneath them.

There he stood for a moment, gazing up into their black mouths while his eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness. Presently their hooded silence oppressed him. A vague vertigo seized him. He felt as though they were slowly collapsing together and coming down upon him. Spell-bound, he spoke their names: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul. A soft and whispering echo seemed to start from the walls and die stealthily among the beams. Suddenly he shouted in a great voice: “Tailor Paul!” and he must somehow have hit upon a harmonic of the scale, for a faint brazen note answered him, remote and menacing, from overhead.

Apparently, Sayers kept meticulous notes on her research into change ringing, and the novel has many details about the history and customs of bell ringing, while the terminology and lists of instructions have a mesmerising, magical quality – like the strange far-off places of the shipping forecast, or the peculiarly named teams you only know from the football results. In addition, Sayers includes quotations about the tradition, and her chapter headings reference the techniques involved in this ancient art, as well as reflecting the action.

Like all her plots, The Nine Tailors is as well constructed as a good cryptic crossword – and as fiendishly difficult to solve. I’d read it before, and the ending still took me by surprise. But it’s a ‘slow burn’, for Sayers takes her time setting the scene and, like the pattern of the bells, the story cannot be hurried along, but must move through various permutations before the final note is sounded.

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