Dorothy Sayers: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

Oxford-educated Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893–1957) was one of the most popular authors of the Golden Age era. Born in England in 1893, Dorothy Sayers received her degree at university in medieval literature. Following her graduation, besides publishing two volumes of poetry, she began to write detective stories to earn money.

Her first novel, "Whose Body?" (1923), introduced Lord Peter Wimsey, the character for which she is best known. Wimsey, with his signature monocle and somewhat foppish air, appeared in eleven novels and several short stories. Working with his friend, Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard, Wimsey solved cases usually involving relatives or close friends.

Dorothy L. Sayers was well known for "combining detective writing with expert novelistic writing," and the imaginative ways in which her victims were disposed of. Among the many causes of death seen in her novels were, among others, poisoned teeth fillings, a cat with poisoned claws, and a dagger made of ice! (The Whodunit).

Dorothy Sayers also edited several mystery anthologies collected under the heading "The Omnibus of Crime" (1929), which included a noteworthy opening essay on the history of the mystery genre.

Later on in her life, Dorothy Sayers gave up detective fiction to pursue her other interests. She spent the last years of her life working on an English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, having always claimed that religion and medieval studies were subjects more worthy of her time than writing detective stories.

Dorothy L Sayers

Table of Contents

Lord Peter Wimsey

Chapter I:Old Mossy-Face

Chapter II:The Queen Is Out

Chapter III:Hearts Count More than Diamonds

Chapter IV:Lord Peter Leads a Club

Chapter V:—And Finds the Club Suit Blocked

Chapter VI:A Card of Re-Entry

Chapter VII:The Curse of Scotland

Chapter VIII:Lord Peter Leads through Strength

Chapter IX:Knave High

Chapter X:Lord Peter Forces a Card

Chapter XI:Lord Peter Clears Trumps

Chapter XII:Lord Peter Turns a Trick

Chapter XIII:Spades Are Trumps

Chapter XIV:Grand Slam in Spades

Chapter XV:Shuffle the Cards and Deal Again

Chapter XVI:Quadrille

Chapter XVII:Parker Plays a Hand

Chapter XVIII:Picture-Cards

Chapter XIX:Lord Peter Plays Dummy

Chapter XX:Ann Dorland Goes Misere

Chapter XXI:Lord Peter Calls a Bluff

Chapter XXII:The Cards on the Table

Post-Mortem

Lord Peter Wimsey

WIMSEY, PETER DEATH BREDON, D.S.O.; born 1890, 2nd son of Mortimer Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and of Honoria Lucasta, daughter of Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor, Hants.

Educated: Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford (1st class honours, Sch. of Mod. Hist. 1912); served with H.M. Forces 1914/18 (Major, Rifle Brigade).

Author of: “Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula,” “The Murderer's Vade-Mecum,” etc.

Recreations: Criminology; bibliophily; music; cricket.

Clubs: Marlborough; Egotists'; Bellona.

Residences: 110a Piccadilly, W.; Bredon Hall, Duke's Denver, Norfolk.

Arms: Sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper; motto: As my Whimsy takes me .

Chapter I

Old Mossy-Face

What in the world, Wimsey, are you doing in this Morgue?” demanded Captain Fentiman, flinging aside the “Evening Banner” with the air of a man released from an irksome duty.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it that,” retorted Wimsey, amiably. “Funeral Parlour at the very least. Look at the marble. Look at the furnishings. Look at the palms and the chaste bronze nude in the corner.”

“Yes, and look at the corpses. Place always reminds me of that old thing in Punch, you know—‘Waiter, take away Lord Whatsisname, he’s been dead two days.’ Look at Old Ormsby there, snoring like a hippopotamus. Look at my revered grandpa — dodders in here at ten every morning, collects the Morning Post and the armchair by the fire, and becomes part of the furniture till the evening. Poor old devil. Suppose I’ll be like that one of these days. I wish to God Jerry had put me out with the rest of ’em. What’s the good of coming through for this sort of thing? What’ll you have?”

“Dry martini,” said Wimsey. “And you? Two dry martinis, Fred, please. Cheer up. All this remembrance-day business gets on your nerves, don’t it? It’s my belief most of us would be only too pleased to chuck these community hysterics if the beastly newspapers didn’t run it for all it’s worth. However, it don’t do to say so. They’d hoof me out of the Club if I raised my voice beyond a whisper.”

“They’d do that anyway, whatever you were saying,” said Fentiman, gloomily. “What are you doing here?”

“Waitin’ for Colonel Marchbanks,” said Wimsey. “Bung-ho!”

“Dining with him?”

“Yes.”

Fentiman nodded quietly. He knew that young Marchbanks had been killed at Hill 60, and that the Colonel was wont to give a small, informal dinner on Armistice night to his son’s intimate friends.

“I don’t mind old Marchbanks,” he said, after a pause. “He’s a dear old boy.”

Wimsey assented. “And how are things going with you?” he asked.

“Oh, rotten as usual. Tummy all wrong and no money. What’s the damn good of it, Wimsey? A man goes and fights for his country, gets his inside gassed out, and loses his job, and all they give him is the privilege of marching past the Cenotaph once a year and paying four shillings in the pound income-tax. Sheila’s queer too — overwork, poor girl. It’s pretty damnable for a man to have to live on his wife’s earnings, isn’t it? I can’t help it, Wimsey. I go sick and have to chuck jobs up. Money — I never thought of money before the War, but I swear nowadays I’d commit any damned crime to get hold of a decent income.”

Fentiman’s voice had risen in nervous excitement. A shocked veteran, till then invisible in a neighbouring armchair, poked out a lean head like a tortoise and said “Sh!” viperishly.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Wimsey, lightly. “Crime’s a skilled occupation, y’ know. Even a comparative imbecile like myself can play the giddy sleuth or the amateur Moriarty. If you’re thinkin’ of puttin’ on a false moustache and lammin’ a millionaire on the head, don’t do it. That disgustin’ habit you have of smoking cigarettes down to the last millimetre would betray you anywhere. I’d only have to come on with a magnifyin’ glass and a pair of callipers to say ‘The criminal is my dear old friend George Fentiman. Arrest that man!’ You might not think it, but I am ready to sacrifice my nearest and dearest in order to curry favour with the police and get a par. in the papers.”

Fentiman laughed, and ground out the offending cigarette stub on the nearest ashtray.

“I wonder anybody cares to know you,” he said. The strain and bitterness had left his voice and he sounded merely amused.

“They wouldn’t,” said Wimsey, “only they think I’m too well off to have any brains. It’s like hearing that the Earl of Somewhere is taking a leading part in a play. Everybody takes it for granted he must act rottenly. I’ll tell you my secret. All my criminological investigations are done for me by a ‘ghost’ at £3 a week, while I get the headlines and frivol with well-known journalists at the Savoy.”