Unnatural Death

[sawyl]

Onwards to the third of Dorothy L Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, in the form of Unnatural Death, with its charming puzzle box plot and good cast of characters.

After a chance meeting with a doctor in a Soho restaurant, Wimsey decides to try and prove that an elderly cancer patient was bumped off a few months ahead of her time. Dispatched to Hampshire to investigate the circumstances, the capable Miss Climpson quickly discovers that the elderly Miss Dawson was put under pressure by her great-niece, Mary Whittaker, to make a will despite the lack of anyone else with a claim on the estate. Then, when Lord Peter advertises for members of the Dawson household to come forward, one of the former housemaids shows up dead in Epping Forest.

The central mystery works rather well, turning as it does on a charmingly abstruse point of law. (The scene in which Murbles and his colleague Towkington discuss the precise wording and meaning of a recent piece of legislation is very nicely done: "Intention? I'm astonished at you Murbles! The law has nothing to do with good intentions. What does the Act say?").

The cast of characters, is generally rather good but Miss Climpson stands out. Her breathless letters to Lord Peter, "ornamented with such a variety of underlinings and exclamation marks as to look like an exercise in musical notation", capture her enthusiasm and sharpness quite wonderfully. Both Wimsey and Miss Climpson get to have doubts over the case, especially whether killing someone who is terminally ill is really as bad as all that, especially when Peter realises that his impulsive decision to investigate the case — taken after making a bet with Parker — has led to a series of additional murders.

The attitudes of the central characters are generally rather tolerant towards difference, even if some of the language feels uncomfortably dated in places. Certainly no-one seems terribly bothered by the decision of Miss Dawson to set up home with her friend Clara Whittaker; and while Miss Climpson doesn't exactly approve of Vera Findlater's obvious crush on Mary Whittaker, she doesn't do much to discourage it beyond suggesting that Vera will probably change her mind when the right man shows up. Even Hallelujah Dawson, whose treatment by some of the minor characters is unpleasantly racist, gets a pretty fair deal: he comes across as an honest, caring, slightly over-trusting vicar in the mould of Amos Barton, who just happens to be from Trinidad rather than Shepperton.