Clouds of Witness

Clouds of Witness / Dorothy L. Sayers
London: Hodder, 2016, c1926.
320 p.

This book, the second in Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels, takes us right into the heart of Wimsey's family, when his older brother, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murder. 

Peter is visiting Denver when a dead man turns up in the garden -- a London radical with whom their younger sister Mary was having an affair. The Duke is charged with the murder, and won't say anything to support an alibi. Is he guilty? Or is he protecting someone?

Meanwhile Mary is acting very strangely, refusing to talk to her brothers. And the Dowager Duchess is overseeing it all. The Dowager is introduced to great effect here, with resplendent intelligence and dignity, a clear fondness for her odd son Peter, and the best lines in the book. Upon the topic of sleuthing, she says

“My dear child, you can give it a long name if you like, but I'm an old-fashioned woman and I call it mother-wit, and it's so rare for a man to have it that if he does you write a book about him and call him Sherlock Holmes.” 

And in reference to the Dowager, a policeman later notes that:

“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.” 

 So the introduction of Peter's family, and subsequently a little more background and colour to his character, make this a fine second book in this long series. There is lightness and humour among the more serious themes, but there are also a few more dangerous moments for Lord Peter. He nearly gets sucked into a bog; only Bunter's perseverance keeps him alive until help comes. He also comes close to an airplane crash when going to great lengths to bring exonerating evidence for his brother's trial at the last minute. 

The mystery circles around the fact of the dead body in the night, with a houseful of guests, and multiple motives and witnesses. Lord Peter, and Bunter of course, must sort and sift through the facts and the assumptions to save the Duke of Denver from hanging for something they are certain he didn't do.

There are a lot of curious features to this case, and a look at the trial of a peer -- and of the plight of a woman with an abusive husband -- and the oddity of Mary's Bohemian crowd which Peter of course finds entrée into and nearly gets himself killed by it -- it's full of event and drama and great touches in the plot and the characterizations. Really enjoyable, and one that holds up to rereading.