The Late Scholar

By Jill Paton WalshMinotaur, 2014Oxford University is one of the most prestigious seats of learning in the world. Throughout the twentieth century it has frequently been used as a setting for crime and mystery fiction, and is, indeed, one of the most popular of all the academic milieus. This is certainly due to the fact that an impressive roster of detective novelists have been educated there, thus spawning a memorable array of mysteries set in and around it from the 1930s to the present.The Late Scholar is the latest addition to that array. After The Attenbury Emeralds (2011), it is Jill Paton Walsh’s second wholly original effort to feature Lord Peter Wimsey, the aristocratic sleuth and his detective-story writer wife, Harriet Vane. (Two earlier Wimsey/Vane works by Walsh, Thrones, Dominations (1998) and A Presumption of Death (2003), were based on material by Dorothy L. Sayers, their original creator.)The year is 1953. Agatha Christie’s latest success is After the Funeral. The American movies vying for British attention are The Robe and From Here to Eternity. Post-WWII England is gradually easing out of rationing, although there are still painful reminders of the Blitz. Wimsey has succeeded to the title of the Duke of Denver after the death of his elder brother, Gerald. The Duchess is better known for the mysteries she writes under her birth name, happily so. The redoubtable Bunter, Wimsey’s peerless manservant, remains a vital part of their lives. As does Wimsey’s mother, the deliciously alliterative Dowager Duchess of Denver. Bredon, the eldest of Peter and Harriet’s three sons, is 17 and is struggling with a future that will not include papa’s alma mater, Balliol.The novel opens with the arrival of a letter from Oxford’s St. Severin’s College. It seems that one of Wimsey’s ducal duties is to serve as the Visitor for the college. The Visitor, according to the St. Severin’s statute that Wimsey unearths in his library, serves as referee of last resort if there is an irreconcilable conflict among the college’s fellows and the Warden. A Fellow, as designated in the statute, is a member of the university’s governing board. The Warden is the governor.

“Ho hum”, said Peter. “And in all these years they have managed without needing a referee. I am wondering what might have happened now…”

But before he has a chance to say, “Bunter pack a bag,” two St. Severin fellows descend upon the family manse, Bredon Hall. A Mr. Troutbeck and a Mr. Vearing arrive at separate intervals and outline the current brouhaha in the groves of academe that must needs claim “Your Grace’s attention.” Needless to say, they have opposing views.The college’s finances are in a very precarious state. They have the chance to acquire a large tract of land that would get them out of the red. Money for the acquisition could be obtained by selling a tenth-century codex—a precious manuscript volume—securely housed in the college library and costing the earth to insure. The rare manuscript is Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy and it may have belonged to Alfred the Great, who translated the work from Latin into Anglo-Saxon. The fellows are evenly divided. As Vearing, who is opposed to the sale, puts it:

“The sale of the manuscript would deplete the resources of the college library. And it would announce to the world that St. Severin’s is no longer a safe place for treasures of the past. That it no longer values scholarship above money…”…“What about the Warden?” asked Peter. “Mightn’t his vote even things up again?”“…He’s just gone – nobody knows where.”“Does anybody know why?”“I don’t, certainly.”

Apparently, he took a powder three months ago and disappeared without a trace. The vote is to be taken at the end of June. It is now late May.

“I think,” said Peter, “That I can take neither the one side nor the other in the dispute that so divides you until I have investigated more fully. You are right Vearing, that it is time your Visitor paid you a visit. Expect me very shortly.”

So Peter and Bunter are off to what Matthew Arnold called: “…that sweet City with her dreaming spires…. Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties.”By the time Harriet joins them, they are in the midst of more madness and mayhem than even such a clever trio could have imagined. This is the first time Harriet and Peter have been back since Gaudy Night (1935), wherein Harriet attends her Oxford reunion. It was Sayers’ penultimate Wimsey/Vane novel, and at the end of it Harriet finally agrees (after a plethora of proposals through two books) to marry Peter. Appropriately, her final Wimsey book was Busman’s Honeymoon (1938).Walsh is spot on when it comes to depicting the internecine politics of the school. These hallowed halls of erudition harbor large and petty disagreements, both personal and professional, that then as now drive academe. Well before the finale, corpses abound, and motives are plentiful. There is more than enough wickedness to go around. Even more intriguing, the murder methods are copycats of some of Harriet’s most inventive cases culled from her crime novels. The alarmingly high body count and its ensuing complications allow Peter and Harriet and Bunter to do what they do best—unmask the villains. The Late Scholar abounds in choice asides. We see, for instance:Peter leaving the library with a light step, and skipping down the stairs like an elderly Fred Astaire.Later, Harriet says to Peter:

“Well, do you know that the Merton Professor of English here will not take women pupils for tutorials? With one exception, that is—he will tute girls sent to him by Miss Griffiths.”“Have I heard of this misogynist professor?”“Didn’t you read The Hobbit to the boys during an air-raid?”“Yes, I remember that.”“That’s him—the Merton Professor is Tolkien.”“Who makes an exception for Miss Griffith’s pupils?”…”She is supposed,” Harriet continued, “to send her tutorial pupils, on their arrival at her door, down to the buttery to bring a bottle of gin…. This may be at nine in the morning, tis said.”“Does she share the gin with the pupils?” enquired Peter.“Yes—that’s the scandal.”“It’s no less than manners if one is going to drink oneself to offer It to the company,” said Peter.

In another great scene, they join C.S. Lewis the eminent theologian and author of The Screwtape Letters, at a respectful distance, of course, when he takes lunch with his illustrious cronies at The Eagle and Child which Peter calls The Bird and Babe.Then there’s the Dowager Duchess’ priceless discussion with Harriet:

“But then in my day we were rather encouraged to be silly, in case being clever put off the men…a silly wife wouldn’t have suited Peter.”“Peter,” said Harriet thoughtfully “is unusual in that.”“Is there anything at all in which my second son is ordinary?”“If I detect him being ordinary I will let you know at once,” said Harriet.

And elsewhere the inimitable Bunter is invited to lecture to the College Photographic Society on the subject of Leicas. Also, to the College Wine Society on the subject of port.The ghost of Dorothy Sayers hovers over The Late Scholar with a smile. For it is truly a seamless, stylish continuation of the charismatic originals done with a contemporary sensibility.To quote Elizabeth George, creator of another aristocrat detective, Viscount Lynley, eighth earl of Asherton, known professionally as Inspector Thomas Lynley:

In time of dire and immediate trouble, one might well call upon a Sherlock Holmes for a quick solution to one’s trials. But for the balm that reassures one about surviving the vicissitudes of life, one could do no better than to anchor onto a Lord Peter Wimsey.

____Irma Heldman is a veteran publishing executive and book reviewer with a penchant for mysteries. One of her favorite gigs was her magazine column “On the Docket” under the pseudonym O. L. Bailey.