Harriet wished she knew more about times and tides. If Robert Templeton [her fictional detective] had happened, in the course of his brilliant career, to investigate a sea-mystery, she would, of course, have had to look up information on this point. But she always avoided sea-and-shore problems, just precisely on account of the labour involved.

The eighth Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy L. Sayers is Have His Carcase (a joke on “Habeus Corpus”). In this book, Lord Peter once again joins forces with Harriet Vane, mystery novelist, the woman he loves. Who continues to steadfastly refuse his marriage proposals.

Harriet is having trouble with her latest novel, and so has repaired to a (fictional) resort town on the southwest coast of England to concentrate. One day she takes a walk on a coastal road to clear her head, and stops for a picnic lunch on a beach below some cliffs. There she spies a human form lying immobile on top of a flat rock. Approaching to investigate, she finds a man dead, his throat cut, the blood still flowing freely. Knowing that the tide is coming in soon, she takes photos to document the body’s condition. By the time she makes it to the nearest town and gets the police to investigate, the body has washed away, not to be found for some days.

Harriet is a savvy businesswoman, and does not hesitate to tell the press about her discovery. She also starts asking questions about the victim. He was a “dancing partner” (gigolo) at one of the local hotels, and had recently become engaged to a very rich older woman. Which makes the woman’s son an obvious suspect in the murder, but he has a pretty good alibi.

Lord Peter soon shows up to help her investigate (the police don’t mind, of course, thanks to his reputation and political connections). Those police are inclined to dismiss the death as suicide, but Peter and Harriet find that theory improbable for several reasons. What they finally discover will be very strange indeed.

I hadn’t read Have His Carcase for nearly fifty years, and I liked it quite a lot, but not as much as I liked it the first time. I’d forgotten about the long section devoted to breaking a cipher (only interesting if you want to work it out on paper with the sleuths, which doesn’t appeal to me). And the final conclusion of the book was more ambivalent than I remembered. Nevertheless, Dorothy Sayers’ narrative skills are very strongly on display here, and there are some great scenes. The final twist is brilliant (in my opinion). And she includes a delicious, Dickensian policeman’s name in this book, too – Inspector Umpelty. You can’t hate a book with an Inspector Umpelty in it.