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A Presumption of Death

Early paperback edition cover
Author	Jill Paton Walsh
Language	English
Series	Lord Peter Wimsey
Genre	Crime novel
Publisher	Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Publication date	November 2002
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
ISBN	0-340-82065-9
OCLC	59499647
Preceded by	Thrones, Dominations
Followed by	The Attenbury Emeralds

A Presumption of Death is a mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The Wimsey Papers were a series of articles published by Sayers during World War II, purporting to be letters written between the various Wimseys during the war (similar to Busman's Honeymoon, Sayers's last completed Wimsey novel, the novel's prologue consists entirely of selections from these letters).

Harriet has evacuated her family to the Wimseys' country house, Talboys (in Hertfordshire), taking her two children, along with the three children of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary, and Peter's venerable old housekeeper, Mrs. Trapp. Peter and Bunter are away on an undercover assignment.

During a practice air raid, a young woman is murdered in the village, and Superintendent Kirk recruits Harriet to help solve the murder, partly because the police are too busy organizing all the changes necessitated by the war and partly because as a crime novelist, and the wife of a detective, she is the best qualified person to find the murderer.

The murdered girl, Wendy Percival, had come from the city as a "Land Girl", to do agricultural work and help the war effort. She was killed in the village street while most people were underground for the practice, and much of the investigation turns on the issue of who had been, or could have been, outside the shelter when the murder was committed. Patient investigation leads Harriet to eliminate several potential suspects, including two young men in the village who Wendy flirted with, and the RAF pilot who was last with her on the night she died. She also establishes that everyone in the village's two air raid shelters is accounted for, and that there was no way for anyone to leave either shelter during the practice. Glumly, she reflects her possible suspects have been reduced to a random "wandering maniac."

While returning home from one of her investigations, Harriet encounters "Bungo," Peter's old school friend who is now a high-ranking official in British Intelligence, who has received a coded message from Peter which he said only she can decipher. The message is based on a book code, and, after thinking carefully, she realizes that the code key is the short sonnet Peter composed while they were sharing a punt in Gaudy Night. Through the decoded message, Peter states that he and Bunter have accomplished their mission, but their danger is now great and they must come home separately. It also instructs Harriet, in the event of his death, to read the letter he left for her in his bureau. Handling the unopened letter, Harriet reflects ruefully on the years she spent avoiding Peter's proposals of marriage, when all she wants now is to be with him again. Then she realizes that she married him when the time was right for her, and that to "settle" on the wrong terms would have been disastrous for both of them.

Making a brief trip to London to meet with the Wimsey family solicitor, Harriet is trapped in the basement of her old home by a sudden air raid, and is surprised to encounter a disheveled Bunter, abruptly returned home from his and Peter's mission. He says he has no word from Peter. The next week, he appears at Talboys to resume service with the household, since he has been denied permission to re-enlist in the army because of his age.

At the suggestion of Peter's sister Mary, Harriet summarizes her progress in the murder investigation in letters to Peter, which she does not send. In the midst of writing one of these letters, Harriet realizes that there is one person she overlooked: an RAF pilot named Alan Brinklow, billeted in the village while recovering from a broken ankle. Not being a villager, he would not have been in either of the air-raid shelters, but not being posted to any of the surrounding air bases, he would not have been expected there either. Although she has no reason to suspect Brinklow of having a motive to kill Wendy, Superintendent Kirk agrees to question him.

In the midst of writing her letters, Peter returns, alive and well, to her immense relief and joy. A short time later, Kirk returns to Talboys to report that Brinklow's dead body has been found buried behind a farmer's shed. Peter is confused, saying he recognizes the name Brinklow from his own mission and the man is already long dead.

Bungo is summoned to Talboys, and is present as Peter explains that Alan Brinklow was shot down over the North Sea some weeks ago; his body was recovered by a British patrol boat, whose captain decided to plant some false papers on the body and send it drifting into enemy territory, hoping to mislead the enemy. The ploy worked, but what no one realized at the time, is that the Germans decided to infiltrate an enemy agent into Britain, using Brinklow's name, since the Germans assumed the British were unaware that the real Brinklow was dead. The "Brinklow" who was living in Paggleham for the past few weeks was actually a German spy.

Bungo explains that "pseudo-Brinklow" is unlikely to have been killed by anyone from his "department," since they would prefer for any enemy agent to be captured alive. Kirk is at a loss for any other suspects, until Peter suggests the possibility that the real Alan Brinklow had an enemy for some reason. In Brinklow's records, Peter and Harriet trace the name of a young woman, Joan Quarley, living in Hastings. When they confront Joan's brother, an RAF pilot named Jeff, he admits that Alan was his squadmate, and that he and Joan fell in love, and she became pregnant with his child before his last mission.

Officially they were told that Alan was missing, presumed dead, but then they heard rumors that an "Alan Brinklow" was living in Paggleham. Jeff went to the village to confront Alan, and forced "pseudo-Brinklow" to meet him in private, at night. Not seeing the man clearly, Jeff demanded to know what "Alan" was going to do about Joan, and when the man responded, "who is Joan?" he went berserk and attacked him. Finding himself in a fight to the death, Jeff drew a knife and attempted to cut Alan's hamstrings, but accidentally cut the man's throat instead. Seeing the man properly in the light, Jeff saw that it wasn't Alan after all, so he buried the body in a panic and fled Paggleham.

Before he is forced to repeat the story for Bungo, Superintendent Kirk, and his commanding officer, Jeff confides to Harriet that he is deathly afraid of his next mission, and a shamefaced part of him would prefer to be arrested rather than undertake it. Yet after he gives his confession, he is given a choice, and realizes that doing his job is what he really wants. Bungo tells Mrs. Quarley that Jeff will not be charged with any crime, and the real Alan Brinklow acted honorably and died bravely. Mrs. Quarley, who suspected Jeff's role in "pseudo-Brinklow's" murder, is vastly relieved, while Joan is triumphant, vindicated in her faith in the man she loved.

On their way back to Hertfordshire, Peter and Harriet make a brief overnight stop at Duke's Denver, where Peter reflects that his nephew, Lord St. George, also an RAF pilot, is unlikely to survive the war, which means Peter will have to step into his role as the heir to the dukedom. However, Peter is determined that he and Harriet will raise their sons as "normal" boys, not as aristocrats, since the privileges according to the nobility become harder to justify with each passing year, and will become even harder to justify when the war is over.

Over dinner with Peter's mother, the Dowager Duchess, the news service announces Neville Chamberlain's resignation as Prime Minister and his replacement by Winston Churchill, who promises only "blood, toil, tears and sweat."

Returning to Talboys, Harriet says she is unhappy to be coming home to a still-unsolved murder. Peter says, on the contrary, Harriet did solve Wendy Percival's murder, having eliminated all the possible suspects except pseudo-Brinklow. As to his motive for doing so, Peter says they may never know for sure, but he can make an educated guess: Wendy, who traveled extensively in Europe before the war and was drawn to handsome men of any nationality, must have met pseudo-Brinklow in Germany, and recognized him instantly when they encountered each other, by chance, in the lane outside the air raid shelter. He had no choice but to silence her, immediately. Harriet remarks that it is a strange inversion: pseudo-Brinklow killed Wendy because she recognized him for who he really was, yet he was killed himself because of who he was pretending to be.

The only mystery, Peter says, is exactly what pseudo-Brinklow's mission in Paggleham was. Yet this mystery is solved by, of all people, Peter's ten-year-old nephew, Charlie Parker, and his friend from the village, Sam Bateson. Charlie got a crystal radio set from Lord St. George as a present, but was frustrated because it never worked properly. Now he realizes it was working perfectly, but intercepting signals from a transmitter in the village - the last of which occurred just before pseudo-Brinklow was killed. Charlie and Sam borrowed a book on Morse code and wrote down their intercepts, even though they can't decipher them. Peter delivers the intercepts to Bungo, and, a few days later, one of the ultra-secret air bases near Paggleham is closed and relocated.

Peter is retired from active service and, while still involved in intelligence issues, assures Harriet he will not be sent abroad again. He confesses to Harriet his worry that being married to her, and fathering their children, has sapped his bravery, and made him unfit to undertake another assignment. Harriet shrewdly points out that this is not true: she recalls Bunter's account of his separation from Peter during the mission, when one of them had to go home by the safer of two routes, and they decided to flip a coin for it. Bunter suspected, and Peter now admits to Harriet, that Peter deliberately faked the coin toss to send Bunter home by the safer route. Peter is reminded of why he loves Harriet: she sees him more clearly than he sees himself. Embracing her, he recalls a poem by Shelley that states true love between two persons is not war, but it is the surest form of victory.

• Bungo was named, though did not appear, in Sayers's novel Have His Carcase, as an expert on codes. During his conversation with Harriet, she mentions her and Peter cracking the Playfair cipher message in that message.
• Harriet realizes that the key to Peter's cipher is the short sonnet Peter composed while they were sharing a punt in Gaudy Night.
• Harriet recalls her own trial for the murder of her lover, Phillip Boyes, depicted in [Strong Poison]].
• Miss Katherine "Kitty" Climpson and Dean Letitia Martin, previously appeared in Strong Poison and Gaudy Night, respectively.

• Annotations to "A Presumption of Death"