AS MY WHIMSY TAKES ME Whose Body? DOROTHY L. SAYERS A Lord Peter Wimsey Novel HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS WHOSE BODY? Copyright, 1923, by Dorothy Sayers Printed in the United States of America All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Brothers 49 East 33rd Street, New York

“Oh, damn!” said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus. “Hi, driver!” The taxi man, irritated at receiving this appeal while negotiating the intricacies of turning into Lower Regent Street across the route of a 19 ’bus, a 38-B and a bicycle, bent an unwilling ear. “I’ve left the catalogue behind,” said Lord Peter deprecatingly. “Uncommonly careless of me. D’you mind puttin’ back to where we came from?” “To the Savile Club, sir?” “No—110 Piccadilly—just beyond—thank you.” “Thought you was in a h

“Excellent, Bunter,” said Lord Peter, sinking with a sigh into a luxurious armchair. “I couldn’t have done better myself. The thought of the Dante makes my mouth water—and the ‘Four Sons of Aymon.’ And you’ve saved me £60—that’s glorious. What shall we spend it on, Bunter? Think of it—all ours, to do as we like with, for as Harold Skimpole so rightly observes, £60 saved is £60 gained, and I’d reckoned on spending it all. It’s your saving, Bunter, and properly speaking, your £60. What do we want?

Lord Peter finished a Scarlatti sonata, and sat looking thoughtfully at his own hands. The fingers were long and muscular, with wide, flat joints and square tips. When he was playing, his rather hard grey eyes softened, and his long, indeterminate mouth hardened in compensation. At no other time had he any pretensions to good looks, and at all times he was spoilt by a long, narrow chin, and a long, receding forehead, accentuated by the brushed-back sleekness of his tow-coloured hair. Labour pape

“—So there it is, Parker,” said Lord Peter, pushing his coffee-cup aside and lighting his after-breakfast pipe; “you may find it leads you to something, though it don’t seem to get me any further with my bathroom problem. Did you do anything more at that after I left?” “No; but I’ve been on the roof this morning.” “The deuce you have—what an energetic devil you are! I say, Parker, I think this co-operative scheme is an uncommonly good one. It’s much easier to work on someone else’s job than one’

Mr. Parker was a bachelor, and occupied a Georgian but inconvenient flat at No. 12 A Great Ormond Street, for which he paid a pound a week. His exertions in the cause of civilization were rewarded, not by the gift of diamond rings from empresses or munificent cheques from grateful Prime Ministers, but by a modest, though sufficient, salary, drawn from the pockets of the British taxpayer. He awoke, after a long day of arduous and inconclusive labour, to the smell of burnt porridge. Through his be

It was, in fact, inconvenient for Mr. Parker to leave London. He had had to go and see Lady Levy towards the end of the morning, and subsequently his plans for the day had been thrown out of gear and his movements delayed by the discovery that the adjourned inquest of Mr. Thipps’s unknown visitor was to be held that afternoon, since nothing very definite seemed forthcoming from Inspector Sugg’s inquiries. Jury and witnesses had been convened accordingly for three o’clock. Mr. Parker might altoge

On returning to the flat just before lunch-time on the following morning, after a few confirmatory researches in Balham and the neighbourhood of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at the door by Mr. Bunter (who had gone straight home from Waterloo) with a telephone message and a severe and nursemaid-like eye. “Lady Swaffham rang up, my lord, and said she hoped your lordship had not forgotten you were lunching with her.” “I have forgotten, Bunter, and I mean to forget. I trust you told her

Lord Peter reached home about midnight, feeling extraordinarily wakeful and alert. Something was jigging and worrying in his brain; it felt like a hive of bees, stirred up by a stick. He felt as though he were looking at a complicated riddle, of which he had once been told the answer but had forgotten it and was always on the point of remembering. “Somewhere,” said Lord Peter to himself, “somewhere I’ve got the key to these two things. I know I’ve got it, only I can’t remember what it is. Somebo

Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 110 Piccadilly, arrived to find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly. “I am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the week-end,” she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his friend’s entrance with a brief nod. “He’s been doing too much—running about to Salisbury and places and up till all hours of the night—you really shouldn’t encourage him, Mr. Parker, it’s very naughty of you—waking poor Bunte

Mr. Parker, a faithful though doubting Thomas, had duly secured his medical student: a large young man like an overgrown puppy, with innocent eyes and a freckled face. He sat on the Chesterfield before Lord Peter’s library fire, bewildered in equal measure by his errand, his surroundings and the drink which he was absorbing. His palate, though untutored, was naturally a good one, and he realized that even to call this liquid a drink—the term ordinarily used by him to designate cheap whisky, post

“A regular pea-souper, by Jove,” said Lord Peter. Parker grunted, and struggled irritably into an overcoat. “It affords me, if I may say so, the greatest satisfaction,” continued the noble lord, “that in a collaboration like ours all the uninteresting and disagreeable routine work is done by you.” Parker grunted again. “Do you anticipate any difficulty about the warrant?” inquired Lord Peter. Parker grunted a third time. “I suppose you’ve seen to it that all this business is kept quiet?” “Of cou

The vile, raw fog tore your throat and ravaged your eyes. You could not see your feet. You stumbled in your walk over poor men’s graves. The feel of Parker’s old trench-coat beneath your fingers was comforting. You had felt it in worse places. You clung on now for fear you should get separated. The dim people moving in front of you were like Brocken spectres. “Take care, gentlemen,” said a toneless voice out of the yellow darkness, “there’s an open grave just hereabouts.” You bore away to the ri

Dear Lord Peter—When I was a young man I used to play chess with an old friend of my father’s. He was a very bad, and a very slow, player, and he could never see when a checkmate was inevitable, but insisted on playing every move out. I never had any patience with that kind of attitude, and I will freely admit now that the game is yours. I must either stay at home and be hanged or escape abroad and live in an idle and insecure obscurity. I prefer to acknowledge defeat. If you have read my book o