Clouds of Witness Part IV

 Peter returns to Yorkshire to cheer up Jerry and to pursue his investigations.  He is frustrated at his brother's determination not to say where he was on the night of Denis' death.. at his claiming that the prosecution have to prove that he did it. 

After pursuing some enquiries in the local town, Peter and Bunter go up on the moors to visit a shepherd who might have some information for them and on their way home to the lodge they encounter a fog which comes down over the ground and makes it impossible to see where they are going.  Peter has forgotten his walking stick which has a compass in its head and he and Bunter are soon hopelessly lost.  They stumble into a bog known locally as Peter's Pot and Wimsey is soon sinking in the mud. Bunter tries to pull him out and thankfully they hear voices.  

One of the local men has found them and goes for help.  They manage to pull Peter out, bruised, shaken and wet, and he finds that the nearest farm in Grimethorpes, and the grumpy farmer agrees to take him in for the night though he clearly does not want to.  The following morning, Peter awakens and he and Bunter decide to make a quick exit form the farm as they know how jealous Grimethorpe is of any man approaching his beautiful wife.  

While Bunter is getting water for him to wash, Peter opens the window (they are sleeping in the main bedroom) and finds a piece of paper stuck in the sash.  When he looks at it, he realises that it is the missing letter from Gerald's friend Freeborn.  Gerald had spent the night with Grimethorpe's neglected wife.. and must have stuck the paper into the windowframe to keep it from rattling......

Beds and Blue Jeans BY NADINE SUTTON

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_1?crid=POWWOAX6F91J&keywords=beds+and+blue+jeans&qid=1648319614&s=books&sprefix=beds+and+blue+jeans%2Cstripbooks%2C59&sr=1-1

Sam is a small time country singer, singing in the Nashville bars, he lives with Patty, a high school drop out and they have a baby.  Sam hopes to become a success and on the way he has a lot of fun with pretty women who go to his gigs.  But he can't quite forget about Patty......

Rough Music on Amazon

 this is a short story set in the USA, in the late 1970s.     It is not a love story but one about two friends who work in a band together and who both have marital problems. 

I’ve based it on what I’ve read about country and rock singers in the days when touring was a constant part of their lives.  It was hard work and took its toll on the marriages of many singers.   Women were just beginning to look for more in their lives than marriage but marriage to rock and country singers was likely to be an up and down ride for both genders.   Rock stars still amused themselves with groupies and expected their wives to tolerate it. 
 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Music-Nadine-Sutton-ebook/dp/B01AEQS0G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452977780&sr=8-1&keywords=nadine+sutton

Clouds of Witness Part III

 Peter meets a woman in London who is a friend of Marys' from her socialist activism days.. and he goes to dinner with her at the Soviet Club, to try and find out more about Mary's life. He is sceptical about Mary's sympathy with the workers since she has rarely had to work in her life but wonders how she would have managed as the wife of a Tory diplomat, like Cathcart.  During dinner, Mary's friend points out Goyles who has just come into the club and Peter calls to him.. but Goyles runs away.  Peter follows him and Goyles shoots him.  Clearly there is a lot of drama in Mary's life. 

Meanwhile Parker is in Peter's flat waiting for him to come back and is interrupted by Mary, who has just come down from Yorkshire.  She tells him that she engaged in a struggle with Denis, and shot him herself. 

The message that Peter has been shot comes through before Parker can make up his mind if he believes Mary and they hurry to the hospital.  Peter tells Mary that he's not pressing charges against Goyles but that he wants to talk to him and for Goyles to talk to the police  Mary is very shaken and then resolves to tell the truth.  She admits that she and Denis were not at all in love and that it was a marriage of convenience.. She was unhappy that George Goyles had been told to stay away from her, and that Gerald had refused to give them any money to marry.  She decided to marry someone who would give her a position as a married woman and they would leave each other alone.   She thinks that it is possible that Denis was having an affair with another woman while courting her because he had "French" ideas about marriage.   

Peter remarks that for a red revolutionary Goyles seems to be a nervous person who  was quick to shoot and run away.  Mary explains that she got increasingly unhappy about her engagement to Denis, that he was too cold even to suit someone who only wanted a marriage of convenience..  Then she had heard from Goyles who told her he had found a new job and if she was willing he would marry her now that he was able to support her in a modest way.  Mary agreed to elope with him, that night of the shooting.  So she was up and ready to run away when the incident happened.  When she found that Denis had been killed she believed that Goyles had met him when he came to the house, panicked and shot him in a struggle and then run away. 

Goyles is brought in by the police and does not cut  a very fine figure.  He says that he found Denis dead, and realising that he had no business being at the shooting lodge had run off, leaving Mary to try and cover up for him.   Mary, hurt and disillusioned, breaks off their engagement.   To Peter's surprise he notes that Parker is very admiring of his sister and hopes that perhaps his friend may console her for the loss of her fiance.  However, if Mary did not shoot Denis, nor did Goyles, it begins to look as if it must have been Gerald.  

Clouds of Witness Part II

 Wimsey and Parker start to investigate the death of Cathcart, but Gerald keeps insisting that he did not do it but he is not saying where he was that night.  He claims that he had a letter from an old  college friend telling him about Denis' card sharping but cannot produce it.  Peter tries to speak to Mary but she seems ill and hysterical, and he is concerned when he finds silver sand of the sort  that is in the conservatory, in the laundry chest just outside her room.

He feels sure that she is lying about what happened that night and that Gerald is lying too.  Then he and Parker find a small charm in the conservatory, a diamond and emerald cat -.  It is an expensive trinket but noone seems to admit to owning it.   On making inquiries in the village, the 2 detectives hear of a man who was riding a motor bike around the area.   Then Peter walking on the moors, talks to a local farmer, Mr Grimethorpe who is a ferocious and bad tempered middle aged man, and who has a much younger and more beautiful wife.   He begins to wonder if perhaps Cathcart was having an affair with Mrs Grimethorpe and that the man followed him and killed him but it seems impossible to prove.  

Bunter on Peter's instructions tries to find out more about Lady Mary, by chatting and flirting with her maid.  Ellen tells the valet that Lady Mary wasn't all that fond of Cathcart, and that she had only become engaged to him when her brother Gerald had put his foot down about her relationship with George Goyles, a socialist activist whom she had known in London.  Ellen is decidedly contemptuous of Mary's interest in socialism and does not believe that Mary had learned much about real life during her time working as a nurse in the War.   The maid finds her young lady moody and bad tempered and does not think that she is grieving over much about Denis. Ellen also mentions something that leads to Peter discovering that Mary had knelt in blood and got  a stain on one of her skirts.  He begins to wonder if possibly his sister might have been involved in Cathcart's death. 

Clouds of Witness by DL Sayers

 This is the first Dorothy Sayers book that I ever read, and I am still very fond of it.  It introduces us to Peter's family, en masse.. His brother the Duke of Denver, his sister in Law Helen, the Duchess and his sister Lady Mary Wimsey.  In the first novel Whose Body we have met Peter's mother the Dowager Duchess.

Peter returns from a holiday in Corsica - on  stopover in Paris, to learn that his brother has been accused of murder.  He is shocked  and appalled, his brother is an amiable idiot who is devoted to his estates, farming, shooting and hunting.  He has an English gentleman's horror of publicity and dislikes Peter's interest in detection.

When he gets back to England he rushes to Yorkshire where his brother was having a shooting holiday in a rented house. The murdered man was Denis Cathcart, a gentleman of leisure who had been studying diplomacy and was engaged to Mary Wimsey.  Gerald, the Duke is refusing to say where he was, when Cathcart was shot.  Peter's sister is in bed with hysterics, after the death of her fiance. 

Inspector Parker, of Scotland yard, Peter's friend is investigating the crime.  But the Coroner's inquest brings in a verdict of murder against Gerald, the duke, and he is to be tried by his peers in the House of Lords.  Gerald refuses to answer questions about where he was, saying that he had had a row with Denis Cathcart... and Denis had walked out of the house in a temper.. but that he had not killed him.  The row erupted because Gerald had a letter from a friend abroad, saying that Cathcart had cheated at cards in Paris and that he was not a suitable husband for Mary.  Cathcart tells Gerald that he is not answering any questions and that in any case, he is not going to marry Mary.. the engagement is off. 

Peter tries to persuade his brother to say where he was for part of the night but Gerald stubbornly refuses.