Dorothy L. Sayers

Name: Whose Body? — Chapter V
Author: Dorothy L. Sayers

Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

Summary

“Whose Body? — Chapter V”, published in 1923, is a work by Dorothy L. Sayers. It explores elements such as Crimplesham, Bunter and Balham.

Quotes from Whose Body? — Chapter V (Dorothy L. Sayers)

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Lord Peter took with him, for light reading in the train, Sir Reuben Levy's diary. It was a simple, and in the light of recent facts, rather a pathetic document. The terrible fighter of the Stock Exchange, who could with one nod set the surly bear dancing, or bring the savage bull to feed out of his hand, whose breath devastated whole districts with famine or swept financial potentates from their seats, was revealed in private life as kindly, domestic, innocently proud of himself and his belongings, confiding, generous and a little dull. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Assigning a motive for the murder of a person without relations or antecedents or even clothes is like trying to visualize the fourth dimension—admirable exercise for the imagination, but arduous and inconclusive. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Crimplesham really as old as that?" said Lord Peter. "Dear me! He must be very active for his years. A friend of mine was doing business with him in town last week."
"Wonderful active, sir," agreed the waiter, "and with his game leg, too, you'd be surprised. But there, sir, I often think, when a man's once past a certain age, the older he grows the tougher he gets, and women the same or more so."
"Very likely," said Lord Peter, calling up and dismissing the mental picture of a gentleman of eighty with a game leg carrying a dead body over the roof of a Battersea flat at midnight. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ The fact that you and I happen to be friends doesn't make it necessary to conclude that the two cases we happen to be interested in have any organic connection with one another. Why should they? The only person who thinks they have is Sugg, and he's nothing to go by. It would be different if there were any truth in the suggestion that the man in the bath was Levy, but we know for a certainty he wasn't. It's ridiculous to suppose that the same man was employed in committing two totally distinct crimes on the same night, one in Battersea and the other in Park Lane. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Parker, "it would afford strong presumptive evidence of Crimplesham's guilt, and anyhow, if he didn't get hanged for murdering the man in the bath he'd at least get hanged for murdering us."
"Well," said Lord Peter, "if he only murdered me you could still hang him—what's the good of wasting a sound, marriageable young male like yourself? Besides, how about old Levy? If you're incapacitated, do you think anybody else is going to find him?" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ There are several things that need doing."
"Well," said Parker, silenced but reluctant, "why can't I go, in that case?"
"Bosh!" said Lord Peter. "I am retained (by old Mrs. Thipps, for whom I entertain the greatest respect) to deal with this case, and it's only by courtesy I allow you to have anything to do with it."
Mr. Parker groaned.
"Will you at least take Bunter?" he said.
"In deference to your feelings," replied Lord Peter, "I will take Bunter, though he could be far more usefully employed taking photographs or overhauling my wardrobe. When is there a good train to Salisbury, Bunter?" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ In this case, Crimplesham, who is, in the words of an English classic, a man-of-infinite-resource-and-sagacity, correctly deduces that, of all people, the last whom we shall expect to find answering our advertisement is the criminal himself. Accordingly, he plays a bold game of bluff. He invents an occasion on which the glasses may very easily have been lost or stolen, and applies for them. If confronted, nobody will be more astonished than he to learn where they were found. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Lord Peter shook his head over the diary, and turned to the consideration of the Battersea Park mystery. Whereas in the Levy affair it was easy enough to supply a motive for the crime, if crime it were, and the difficulty was to discover the method of its carrying out and the whereabouts of the victim, in the other case the chief obstacle to enquiry was the entire absence of any imaginable motive. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ His book on Crime was entertainin' enough as far as it went, but the fellow's got a bee in his bonnet. Thinks God's a secretion of the liver—all right once in a way, but there's no need to keep on about it. There's nothing you can't prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited. Look at Sugg."
"I beg your pardon," said Parker, "I wasn't attending. Argentines are steadying a little, I see."
"Milligan," said Lord Peter.
"Oil's in a bad way. Levy's made a difference there. That funny little boom in Peruvians that came on just before he disappeared has died away again. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ He peered gratefully at the young man over a pince-nez obviously the fellow of that now adorning a dossier in Scotland Yard.
Lord Peter sat down. The lawyer sat down. Lord Peter picked up a glass paper-weight from the desk and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand. Subconsciously he noted what an admirable set of finger-prints he was leaving upon it. He replaced it with precision on the exact centre of a pile of letters.
"It's quite all right," said Lord Peter. "I was here on business. Very happy to be of service to you. Very awkward to lose one's glasses, Mr. Crimplesham." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Crimplesham, how were they to be brought into connection with a person apparently without a past, and whose present was confined to the narrow limits of a bath and a police mortuary?
"Bunter," said Lord Peter, "I beg that in the future you will restrain me from starting two hares at once. These cases are gettin' to be a strain on my constitution. One hare has nowhere to run from, and the other has nowhere to run to. It's a kind of mental D.T., Bunter. When this is over I shall turn pussyfoot, forswear the police news, and take to an emollient diet of the works of the late Charles Garvice." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Bunter and I've been makin' a night of it."
"What's the letter?" asked Parker.
"Never talk business with your mouth full," said Lord Peter, reprovingly; "have some Oxford marmalade—and then I'll show you my Dante; they brought it round last night. What ought I to read this morning, Bunter?"
"Lord Erith's collection is going to be sold, my lord. There is a column about it in the Morning Post. I think your lordship should look at this review of Sir Julian Freke's new book on 'The Physiological Bases of the Conscience' in the Times Literary Supplement. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ But there are other places in Battersea besides Thipps's bathroom. And he wasn't in Thipps's bathroom. In fact, come to think of it, that's the one place in the universe where we know definitely that he wasn't. So what's Thipps's bath got to do with it?"
"I don't know," said Lord Peter. "Well, perhaps we shall get something better to go on today."
He leaned back in his chair and smoked thoughtfully for some time over the papers which Bunter had marked for him.
"They've got you out in the limelight," he said. "Thank Heaven, Sugg hates me too much to give me any publicity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ She thinks of going abroad with Rachel." The name of the famous nerve-specialist occurred as a diner or luncher about once a month, and it came into Lord Peter's mind that Freke would be a good person to consult about Levy himself. "People sometimes tell things to the doctor," he murmured to himself. "And, by Jove! if Levy was simply going round to see Freke on Monday night, that rather disposes of the Battersea incident, doesn't it?" He made a note to look up Sir Julian and turned on further. On September 18th, Lady Levy and her daughter had left for the south of France. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ Milligan might or might not be disengaged. D and E are the thumb-marks of Mr. Milligan and his red-haired secretary. I'm not clear which is which, but I saw the youth with the chewing-gum hand the card to the secretary, and when I got into the inner shrine I saw John P. Milligan standing with it in his hand, so it's one or the other, and for the moment it's immaterial to our purpose which is which. I boned the card from the table when I left.
"Well, now, Parker, here's what's been keeping Bunter and me up till the small hours. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Dorothy L. Sayers, Whose Body? — Chapter V (1923)

“ His own small economies were duly chronicled side by side with extravagant presents to his wife and daughter. Small incidents of household routine appeared, such as: "Man came to mend the conservatory roof," or "The new butler (Simpson) has arrived, recommended by the Goldbergs. ”

Dorothy L. Sayers

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