The Nine Tailors
| Early paperback edition cover VHS Video Cover | |
| Author | Dorothy L. Sayers |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Lord Peter Wimsey |
| Genre | Mystery Novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
Publication date | 1934 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Preceded by | Murder Must Advertise |
| Followed by | Gaudy Night |
The Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
Plot introduction
For this novel, set in the Fens, Sayers had to learn about change ringing. In it, Lord Peter rings one of eight church bells in a record-setting series of sound patterns called "changes", and later uses his knowledge of bell-ringing to solve a 20-year-old mystery involving a stolen emerald necklace.
Explanation of the novel's title
The title refers to the ringing of a church bell to signal a death in the parish. There is a ring of eight bells at the local church, each with its own name and history. The largest, the tenor bell, is Tailor Paul, the great bell on which are rung nine "tailor" or "teller" strokes at the death of a man in the parish, six for a woman and three for a child. One stroke then follows at intervals of 30 seconds for every year of the deceased's life.
The name of the tenor bell is a tribute to Paul Taylor of Taylor's bell foundry in Loughborough, England. He provided detailed information on all aspects of ringing to Sayers during the writing of the book.
Plot summary
Stranded in the Fenland village of Fenchurch St. Paul on New Year's Eve after a car accident, Wimsey helps ring a nine-hour peal of bells overnight after Will Thoday, one of the ringers, is stricken by influenza. Lady Thorpe, wife of Sir Henry Thorpe, the local squire, dies next morning and Wimsey hears how the Thorpe family has been blighted for 20 years by the unsolved theft of jewels from a house-guest by the butler, Deacon, and an accomplice, Cranton. Both men were imprisoned, but the jewels were never recovered.
At Easter, Sir Henry himself dies and his wife's grave is opened for his burial. A body is found hidden in the grave, mutilated beyond recognition. It is first thought to be the body of a tramp labourer calling himself "Driver" who arrived and then vanished just after the New Year. An odd document found in the bell chamber by Hilary Thorpe, Sir Henry's daughter, proves to be a cipher. Acting on a hunch, Lord Peter enquires at the Post Office for any uncollected letters addressed to "Driver". Bunter, Wimsey's Butler, inveigles a postmistress into handing over a letter posted in France, which confirms a link with the body, which was wearing French underclothes. The letter is addressed not to "Driver" but to "Paul Taylor", a reference to "Tailor Paul", the tenor (largest) bell in the ring at Fenchurch St. Paul. When the writer of the letter is traced, the dead man is assumed to be Arthur Cobbleigh, a British soldier listed as missing in action but who evidently deserted and stayed in France after the war. Cobbleigh appears to have known where the emeralds were hidden, and to have plotted to recover them, probably with "Driver". "Driver" is discovered to be an alias of Cranton, the accomplice in the original theft.
Wimsey assumes the two men did recover the emeralds and Cranton then killed Cobbleigh for them, but cannot prove it. However, when he decodes the cipher (which requires knowledge of change-ringing) it leads him to the emeralds, still untouched in their hiding place in the church.
Without any particular purpose, Wimsey shows the cipher to Mary Thoday, Will's wife and Deacon's widow. The Thodays abscond to London. Wimsey guesses the true identity of Cobbleigh, and confirms this through the Sûreté in France. He also discovers the Thodays' whereabouts through the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Cranton is interviewed by Wimsey and his brother in law, Detective Inspector Charles Parker. Much becomes clear when Cobbleigh turns out to have been Deacon, the thieving butler. In 1918 he murdered a warder and escaped from prison. A body, apparently his, was later found, but in fact Deacon had murdered a soldier and swapped identities with him. He married bigamously in France and waited several years to return for the emeralds, which he had hidden before his arrest. Since he risked hanging if caught, he finally asked Cranton to help, sending him the cipher as a clue to the hiding place as a token of good faith. Cranton could not solve it but knew it related to the bells, so he came to Fenchurch as "Driver" on New Year's Day. He went to the bell-chamber on the night of 4 January, but found Deacon's dead, bound body in the chamber and fled, dropping the cipher.
Parker then places a hidden microphone in the interview room where Will Thoday and his sailor brother Jim are waiting. It becomes apparent that both brothers thought that the other was guilty of killing Deacon, but were willing to take the blame themselves or at least shield the other. When they are interviewed, Will relates that he encountered Deacon, who had come to retrieve the emeralds, in the church on 30 December. Will had married Mary after the war, believing her a widow. Now he realised Deacon was still alive, making his and Mary's marriage bigamous and their daughters illegitimate. Desperate to prevent Deacon exposing his family to pain and scandal, Will tied him up in the bell-chamber, planning to bribe him to leave, but became helpless with Spanish influenza next day (which is why Wimsey rang Will's bell in the New Year peal). Will's delirious talk led Jim to find Deacon's body in the bell-chamber on 2 January. He assumed that Will had murdered him. Appalled but loyal, he waited until the night after Lady Thorpe's funeral on 4 January, made the body unrecognisable and hid it in the new grave, then left for sea. When the body was discovered, Will assumed Jim had killed Deacon. Neither can explain how Deacon died. Both are released. Will marries Mary (who had recognised the cipher as being in Deacon's handwriting) again in Bloomsbury under Archbishop's licence, and returns to Fenchurch St. Paul.
The mystery is almost over; Deacon's death alone remains inexplicable. It is only when Wimsey returns to Fenchurch the following Christmas that he understands. Floods inundate the countryside, and Wimsey climbs the tower as the bells are ringing the alarm. The appalling noise in the bell-chamber convinces him that Deacon, tied there for hours between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day while Wimsey helped with the all-night peal, could not have survived. Deacon was killed by the ringers - or by the bells themselves.
Will Thoday is drowned in the flood trying to save another man who has fallen from a failing sluice-gate. Wimsey speculates that Will may not have wanted to live, having guessed his part in killing Deacon.
Characters
- Lord Peter Wimsey
- Mervyn Bunter, his manservant
- The Reverend Theodore Venables, rector of Fenchurch St Paul
- Sir Henry Thorpe, the local squire; his wife Lady Thorpe; their only daughter Hilary
- Superintendent Blundell, a policeman
- Jeff Deacon, once the Thorpes’ butler, convicted of a robbery in their house 20 years previously.
- Nobby Cranton, a London jewel-thief and Deacon’s accomplice
- Will Thoday, a farmer and bellringer
- Mary Thoday, his wife, originally married to Deacon
- Jim Thoday, Will’s brother, a merchant seaman
Awards and nominations
- British Crime Writers Association - 1999 Rusty Dagger award for best crime novel of the 1930s.[1]
Literary significance and criticism
"For many reasons, no great favourite ... despite Dorothy's swotting up of bell-ringing and the two good maps. The cause of death, however, is original, and the rescue scene in the church amid the flood shows the hand of the master. It should be added that this work is a favorite with many readers. Sinclair Lewis judged it the best of his four "indispensables" ...".[2]
"Dorothy L. Sayers incautiously entered the closed world of bell-ringing in The Nine Tailors on the strength of a sixpenny pamphlet picked up by chance -- and invented a method of killing which would not produce death, as well as breaking a fundamental rule of that esoteric art by allowing a relief ringer to take part in her famous nine-hour champion peal."[3]
In his infamous essay attacking detective fiction, Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd, American critic Edmund Wilson decried this novel as dull, overlong and far too detailed; describing how he skipped a lot of the prose about bell-ringing (quote: "a lot of information of the kind that you might expect to find in an encyclopaedia article on campanology"), and also large amounts of Sayers’ focal sleuth character, "the embarrassingly named" Lord Peter Wimsey.
Autobiographical elements
As a child and young teenager, Sayers lived on the southern edge of the Fens at Bluntisham-cum-Earith, where her father was Rector.[4]
Hilary Thorpe, the resourceful and independent-minded 15-year old daughter of Sir Henry Thorpe - who bravely faces the loss of both parents during the book, and who provided vital help to Wimsey in solving the mystery - is mentioned as intending to study at Oxford and become a writer, just as the author did.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The Nine Tailors was adapted for television as a four-part series in 1973, one of several adaptations of "Lord Peter Wimsey" novels starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter.[5] In a significant plot difference, the original theft of the emeralds is introduced by showing a young Lieutenant Wimsey of the Rifle Brigade attending Henry Thorpe's wedding shortly before the War and unsuccessfully pursuing the fleeing Cranton. (In the books, Wimsey did not join the Army until after the outbreak of the War.) Deacon's escape from prison and the murder of the soldier Arthur Cobbleigh (renamed to Watkins) are also shown in the first episode.
Other parts were played by:
- Glyn Houston - Bunter
- Donald Eccles - The Rev. Theodore Venables, Rector of Fenchurch St. Paul's
- Elizabeth Bradley - Mrs. Venables
- Neil McCarthy - Will Thoday
- Elizabeth Proud - Mary Thoday, née Russell, formerly Deacon
- David Jackson - Jim Thoday
- Kenneth Thornett - Superintendent Blundell
- Gail Harrison - Hilary Thorpe
- Patrick Jordan - Cranton
- Keith Drinkel - Deacon
There were brief appearances by Geoffrey Russell (Sir Henry Thorpe), Desmond Llewelyn (Sir Charles Thorpe, father of Sir Henry); Mark Eden (Detective Chief Inspector Charles Parker, Wimsey's brother in law), John Duttine (Wally Pratt, bellringer) and Kenneth Colley ("Potty" Peake, local resident)
External links
References
- ^ J. Kingston Pierce. "The Rap Sheet". Retrieved 2008-04-30.
- ^ Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. A Catalogue of Crime. New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8
- ^ Keating, H.R.F. The Bedside Companion to Crime. New York: Mysterious Press, 1989. ISBN 0-89292-416-2
- ^ Alzina Stone Dale (2003). Master and CraftsmanThe Story of Dorothy L. Sayers. iUniverse. pp. 3–6. ISBN 9780595266036.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ ""The Nine Tailors" (1974) (mini)". imdb.com. Retrieved 2008-04-30.