The Locked Room: A Lord Peter Wimsey Short Story

Lord Wimsey is visiting Pidley Manor, the home of Arthur Deerhurst and his wife. The couple are not close friends of his but he knows Deerhurst through their club in London. He had asked Wimsey to visit in order to evaluate his personal library and its many antiquarian works, something with which the dilettante Wimsey has some expertise.

While there, a terrible incident occurs. Deerhurst is found one morning in the library dead from a bullet to the head. The room was locked from the inside. The police soon convince themselves and everyone that it was suicide. That is, all except our guest evaluator.

Librarian's note: this short story was recently published for the first time - long after Sayers death in 1957. It appeared with 14 other stories in Bodies from the Library #2 (2019) edited by Tony Medawar; it was found quietly residing at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois in the U.S. among papers by the author.