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  Have His Carcass

  ( Lord Peter Wimsey - 8 )

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  A young woman falls asleep on a deserted beach and wakes to discover the body of a man whose throat has been slashed from ear to ear…The young woman is the celebrated detective novelist Harriet Vane, once again drawn against her will into a murder investigation in which she herself could be a suspect. Lord Peter Wimsey is only too eager to help her clear her name. Murder brings Lord Peter and Harriet together again: when walking on a Dorset beach, Harriet discovers a corpse, the throat cut from ear to ear. Lord Peter comes to her assistance, and their inquiries lead from a distinctive razor blade to the salons of London's fashionable Jermyn Street, from a Russian émigré and professional dance-partner to a mysterious man with one shoulder higher than the other. As they investigate the trail of coded messages and secret agents, Harriet and Lord Peter's relationship becomes as tangled as the cat's-cradle of hints and clues that they are trying to unravel.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Have His Carcase

  About The Author

  Born in Oxford in 1893, Dorothy Leigh Sayers was later to become a classical scholar and honours graduate in modern languages. Between 1921 and 1.932 she was employed as a copywriter in an advertising agency.

  But in 1923 she put into print a character who was to become one of the most popular fictional heroes of the century — Lord Peter Wimsy, who features in a dozen novels and numerous short stories. Several of the novels have been adapted for radio and television.

  Dorothy Leigh Sayers died in 1957.

  Note

  In The Five Red Herrings, the plot was invented: to fit a real locality; in this book, the locality has been invented to fit the plot. Both places and people are entirely imaginary.

  All the quotations at the chapter heads have, been taken from T. L. Beddoes.

  My grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr John Rhode, who gave me generous help with all the hard bits.

  — Dorothy L Sayers

  Contents

  About The Author

  Note

  Chapter I. The Evidence Of The Corpse

  Chapter II. The Evidence Of The Road

  Chapter III. The Evidence Of The Hotel

  Chapter IV. The Evidence Of The Razor

  Chapter V. The Evidence Of The Betrothed

  Chapter VI. The Evidence Of The First Barber

  Chapter VII. The Evidence Of The Gigolos

  Chapter VIII. The Evidence Of The Second Barber

  Chapter IX. The Evidence Of The Flat-Iron

  Chapter X. The Evidence Of The Police-Inspector

  Chapter XI. The Evidence Of The Fisherman

  Chapter XII. The Evidence Of The Bride’s Son

  Chapter XIII. Evidence Of Trouble Somewhere

  Chapter XIV. The Evidence Of The Third Barber

  Chapter XV. The Evidence Of The Ladylove And The Landlady

  Chapter XVI. The Evidence Of The Sands

  Chapter XVII. The Evidence Of The Money

  Chapter XVIII. The Evidence Of The Snake

  Chapter XIX. The Evidence Of The Disguised Motorist

  Chapter XX. The Evidence Of The Lady In The Car

  Chapter XXI. The Evidence At The Inquest

  Chapter XXII. The Evidence Of The Mannequin

  Chapter XXIII. The Evidence Of The Theatrical Agent

  Chapter XXIV. The Evidence Of The L.C.C Teacher

  Chapter XXV. The Evidence Of The Dictionary

  Chapter XXVI. The Evidence Of The Bay Mare

  Chapter XXVII. The Evidence Of The Fisherman’s Grandson

  Chapter XXVIII. The Evidence Of The Cipher

  Chapter XXIX. The Evidence O F The Letter

  Chapter XXX. The Evidence Of The Gentleman’s Gentleman

  Chapter XXXI. The Evidence Of The Haberdasher’s Assistant

  Chapter XXXII. The Evidence Of The Family Tree

  Chapter XXXIII. The Evidence Of What Should Have Happened

  Chapter XXXIV. The Evidence Of What Did Happen

  Chapter I. The Evidence Of The Corpse

  ‘The track was slippery with spouting blood’

  — Rodolph

  Thursday, 18 June

  THE best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth. After being acquitted of murdering her lover, and, indeed, in consequence of that acquittal, Harriet Vane found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal; and although Lord Peter Wimsey, with a touching faith in tradition, persisted day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it

  Work she had in abundance. To be tried for murder is a fairly good advertisement for a writer of detective fiction. Harriet Vane thrillers were booming. She had signed up sensational contracts in both’ continents, and found herself, consequently, a very much richer woman than she had ever dreamed of becoming. In the interval between finishing ‘Murder by Degrees’ and embarking on ‘The Fountain-Pen Mystery’, she had started off on a solitary walking-tour: plenty of exercise, no responsibilities and no letters forwarded. The time was June, the weather, perfect; and if she now and again gave a thought to Lord Peter Wimsey diligently ringing up an empty flat, it did not trouble her, or cause her to alter her steady course along the south-west coast of England.

  On the morning of the 18th June, she set out from Lesston-Hoe with the intention of walking along the cliffs to Wilvercombe, sixteen miles away. Not that she particularly looked forward. to Wilvercombe, with its seasonal population of old ladies and invalids and its subdued attempts at the gay life, seeming somehow themselves all a little invalid and old-ladyish. But the town made a convenient objective, and one could always choose some more rural spot for a night’s lodging: The coast-road ran pleasantly at the top of a low range of cliffs, from which she could look down upon the long yellow stretch of the beach, broken here and there by scattered rocks, which rose successively, glistening in the sunlight, from the reluctant and withdrawing tide.

  Overhead, the sky arched up to an immense dome of blue, just fretted here and there with faint white clouds, very high and filmy. The wind blew from the west, very softly, though the weather-wise might have detected in it a tendency to freshen. The road, narrow and in poor repair, was almost deserted, all the heavy traffic passing by the wider arterial road which ran importantly inland from town to town, despising the windings of the coast with its few scattered hamlets. Here and there a drover passed her with his dog, man and beast alike indifferent and preoccupied; here and there a couple of horses out at grass lifted shy and foolish eyes to look after her; here and there a herd of cows, rasping their jawbones upon a stone wall, greeted her with heavy snufflings. From time to time the white sail of a fishing-boat broke the seaward horizon. Except for an occasional tradesman’s van, or a dilapidated Morris, and the intermittent appearance of white smoke from a distant railway-engine, the landscape was as rural and solitary as it might have been two hundred years before.

  Harriet walked sturdily onwards, the light pack upon her shoulders interfering little with her progress. She was twenty-eight years old, dark, slight, with a skin naturally a little sallow, but now tanned to an agreeable biscuit-colour by sun and wind. Persons of this fortunate complexion are not troubled by midges and sunburn, and Harriet, though not too old to care for her personal appearance, was old enough to prefer convenience to outward display. Consequently, her luggage was not burdened by skin-creams, insect-lotion, silk frocks, portable electric irons or other impedimenta beloved of the ‘Hikers’ Column’. She was dressed sensibly in a short skirt and thin sweater a
nd carried, in addition to a change of linen and an extra provision of footwear, little else beyond a pocket edition of Tristram Shandy, a vest-pocket camera, a small first-aid outfit and a sandwich lunch.

  It was about a quarter to one when the matter of the lunch began to loom up importantly in Harriet’s mind. She had come about eight miles on her way to Wilvercombe, having taken things easily and made a detour to inspect certain Roman remains declared by the guide-book to be ‘of considerable interest’. She began to feel both weary and hungry, and looked about her for a suitable lunching-place.

  The tide was nearly out now, and the wet beach shimmered golden and silvery in the lazy noonlight. It would be pleasant, she thought, to go down, to the shore — possibly even to bathe, though she did not feel too certain about that, having a wholesome dread of unknown shores and eccentric currents. Still, there was no harm in going to see. She stepped over the low wall which bounded the road on the seaward side and set about looking for a way down. A short scramble among the rocks tufted with scabious and sea-pink brought her easily down to the beach. She found herself in a small cove, comfortably screened from the wind by an outstanding mass of cliff, and with a few convenient boulders against which to sit. She selected the cosiest spot, drew out her lunch and Tristram Shandy, and settled down.

  There is no more powerful lure to slumber than hot sunshine on a sea-beach after lunch; nor is the pace of Tristram Shandy so swift as to keep the faculties working at high pressure. Harriet found the book escaping from her fingers.

  Twice she caught it back with a jerk; the third time it eluded her altogether. Her head drooped over an an unbecoming angle. She dozed off.

  She was awakened suddenly by what seemed to be a shout or cry almost in her ear. As she sat up, blinking, a gull swooped close over her head, squawking and hovering over a stray fragment of sandwich. She shook herself reprovingly and glanced at her wrist-watch. It was two o’clock. Realising with satisfaction that she could not have slept very long, she scrambled to ‘her feet, and shook the crumbs from her lap. Even now, she did not feel very energetic, and there was plenty of time to make Wilvercombe before evening. She glanced out to sea, where a long belt of shingle and a narrow strip of virgin and shining sand stretched down to the edge of the water.

  There is something about virgin sand which arouses all the worst instincts of the detective-story writer. One feels an irresistible impulse to go and make footprints all over it. The excuse which the professional mind makes to itself is that the sand affords a grand opportunity for observation and experiment. Harriet was no stranger to this impulse. She determined to walk out across that tempting strip of sand. She gathered her various belongings together and started off across the loose shingle observing, as she had often observed before, that footsteps left no distinguishable traces in the sand region above high-water mark.

  Soon, a little belt of broken shells and half-dry seaweed showed that the tide-mark had been reached.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Harriet to herself, ‘whether I ought to be able to deduce something or other about the state of the tides. Let me see. When the tide is at neaps, it doesn’t rise or fall so far as when it is at springs. Therefore, if that is the case, there ought to be two seaweedy marks — one quite dry and farther in, showing the highest point of spring tides, and one damper and farther down, showing today’s best effort.’ She glanced backwards and forwards. ‘No; this is the only tide-mark. I deduce, therefore, that I have arrived somewhere about the top of springs, if that’s the proper phrase. Perfectly simple, my dear Watson. Below tide-mark, I begin to make definite footprints. There are no others anywhere, so that I must be the only person who has patronised this beach since last high tide, which would be about — ah! yes, there’s the difficulty. I know, there should be about twelve hours between one high tide and the next, but I haven’t the foggiest notion whether the, sea is coming in or going out. Still, I do know it was going out most of the time as I came along, and it looks a long way off now. If I say that nobody has been here for the last five hours, I shan’t be far out. I’m making very pretty footprints now, and the sand is, naturally, getting wetter. I’ll see how it looks when, I run.’

  She capered a few paces accordingly, noticing the greater depth of the toe-prints and the little spurt of sand thrown out at each step. This outburst of energy brought her round the point of the cliff and into a much larger bay, the only striking feature of which was a good-sized rock, standing down at the sea’s edge, on the other side of the point. It was roughly triangular in shape, standing about ten feet out of the water, and seemed to be crowned with a curious lump of black seaweed.

  A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it. Harriet made for it without any mental argument, trying to draw a few deductions as she went.

  ‘Is that rock covered at high tide? Yes, of course, or it wouldn’t have seaweed on top. Besides, the slope of the shore proves it. I wish I was better at distances and angles, but I should say it would be covered pretty deep. How odd that it should have seaweed only in that lump at the top. You’d expect it to be at the foot, but the sides seem quite bare, nearly down to the water. I suppose it is seaweed. It’s very peculiar. It looks almost more like a man lying down; is it possible for seaweed to be so very — well, so very localised?’

  She gazed at the rock with a faint stirring of curiosity, and went on talking aloud to herself, as was her rather irritating habit.

  ‘I’m dashed if it isn’t a man lying down. What a silly place to choose. He must feel like a bannock on a hot girdle. I could understand it if he was a sun-bathing fan, but he seems to have. got all his clothes on. A dark suit at that. He’s very quiet. He’s probably fallen asleep. If the tide comes in at all fast, he’ll be cut off, like the people in the silly magazine stories. Well, I’m not going to rescue him. He’ll have to take his socks off and paddle, that’s all. There’s plenty of time yet.’

  She hesitated whether to go on down to the rock. She did not want to wake the sleeper and be beguiled into conversation. Not but what he would prove to be some perfectly harmless tripper. But he would certainly be somebody quite uninteresting: She went on, however, meditating, and drawing a few more deductions by way of practice.

  ‘He must be a tripper. Local inhabitants don’t take their siestas on rocks. They retire indoors and shut all the windows. And he can’t be a fisherman or anything of that kind; they don’t waste time snoozing. Only the black-coated brigade does that. Let’s call him a tradesman or a bank-clerk. But then they usually take their holidays complete with family. This is a solitary sort of fowl. A schoolmaster? No. Schoolmasters don’t get off the lead till the end of July. How about a college undergraduate? It’s only just the end of term. A gentleman of no particular occupation, apparently. Possibly a walking tourist like myself but the costume doesn’t look right.’ She had come nearer now and could see the sleeper’s dark blue suit quite plainly. ‘Well, I can’t place him, but no doubt Dr Thorndyke would do so at once. Oh, of course! How stupid! He must be a literary bloke of some kind. They moon about and don’t let their families bother them.’

  She was within a few yards of the rock now, gazing up at the sleeper. He lay uncomfortably bunched up on the extreme seaward edge of the rock, his knees drawn high and showing his pale mauve socks. The head, tucked closely down between the shoulders, was invisible.

  ‘What a way to sleep,’ said Harriet. ‘More like a cat than a human being. It’s not natural. His head must be almost hanging over the edge. It’s enough to give him apoplexy. Now, if I had any luck, he’d be a corpse, and I should report him and get my name in the papers. That would be something like publicity. “Well-known Woman Detective-Writer Finds Mystery Corpse on Lonely Shore.” But these things never happen to authors. It’s always some placid labourer or night-watchman who finds corpses….’

  The rock lay tilted like a gigantic wedge of cake, its base standing steeply up to seaward, its surface s
loping gently back to where its apex entered the sand. Harriet climbed up, over its smooth, dry surface till she stood almost directly over the man. He did not move at all. Something impelled her to address him.

  ‘Oy!’ she said, protestingly.

  There was neither movement nor reply.

  ‘I’d just as soon he didn’t wake up,’ thought, Harriet. ‘I can’t imagine what I’m shouting for. Oy!’

  ‘Perhaps he’s in a fit or a faint,’ she said to herself. ‘Or he’s got sunstroke. That’s quite likely. It’s very hot.’ She looked up, blinking, at the brazen sky, then stooped and laid one: hand on the surface off the rock, It almost burnt her. She shouted again, and then, bending over the man, seized his shoulder.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  The man said nothing and she pulled upon the shoulder. It shifted slightly — a dead weight. She bent over and gently lifted the man’s head.