The Nine Tailors is a 1934 murder mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. It's the ninth in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. It's considered one of her best novels.
An emerald necklace was stolen and never recovered. Two men were convicted and sent to prison. One escaped, but died soon after. Twenty years later, a man's mutilated body is found in a woman's grave. Lord Peter comes to investigate.
The book has been adapted into a 1974 miniseries and three radio dramas.
Contains examples of:
- Absent-Minded Professor: The Reverend Venables is an amateur rather than a professional scholar, but is otherwise a textbook example.
- Accidental Murder: The death turns out to have been this. The victim was restrained and unable to escape a situation (the belfry during a nine-hour ringing marathon) that causes his death from exposure and shock.
- Asshole Victim: The initially unidentified victim, once his name and history have been discovered, is beyond an Asshole Victim, so foul and evil that he is by most readings the real villain of the book.
- Beardness Protection Program: Nobby Cranton grows a beard after being released from prison to avoid being recognised when he embarks on a new nefarious project.
- Busman's Holiday: Lord Peter's visit to friends in Lincolnshire is interrupted by a car accident... which, four months or so later, leads to his involvement in a murder mystery.
- The Butler Did It: A key part of the backstory involves a butler who stole a valuable emerald necklace from his employer's house and was sent to prison for it. The butler is a murderer (he killed a guard during a prison break), but not the murderer (he didn't do the murder that the plot revolves around, and is never even a suspect). In fact, as it turns out when the corpse is identified, he was the victim.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The alert reader will notice that one character is excluded from suspicion due to being dead— but that his body was identified only by the clothes it had on.
- Continuity Nod: While contemplating the renovations to the church at Fenchurch St Paul, Lord Peter recalls the renovation of the church at Duke's Denver, which was taking place in Whose Body?.
- Cramming the Coffin: The corpse at the centre of the plot is initially disposed of by concealing it in the grave (though not actually inside the coffin) of the recently deceased Lady Thorpe. It is discovered a few months later when Lady Thorpe's husband dies and the grave is re-excavated to bury him next to his wife.
- Dirty Business: Lord Peter explicitly calls it dirty but does recommend putting two suspects in a room together with a microphone to find out what they have to say to each other when they think nobody is listening.
- Epigraph: Each chapter is headed with a quotation from a work on bell-ringing.
- Faking the Dead: It's believed that Geoffrey Deacon died shortly after breaking out of jail, but it turns out he faked his death to get the authorities off his back.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: The title refers to a tradition in which a church's bell is rung nine times to announce a death in the parish. The church's bell tower plays a central role in the specific death that the novel revolves around.
- Foreshadowing:
- The epigraphs on the first few chapters — up to and including the one in which the corpse is discovered — all have something to do with death. The very first one is about the fact that bell-ringing can itself be lethal to the unwary, which foreshadows a revelation all the way off in the final chapter.
- Early on, Jack Godfrey warns Hilary Thorpe that bells can be dangerous if not treated with proper respect, and that his own bell has killed twice. And as it turns out, it was the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul that actually committed the murder being investigated.
- One of the early examples of the Reverend Venables' character as an Absent-Minded Professor is him misplacing the parish announcements, including the banns of marriage for an upcoming wedding. The banns for a different wedding become a plot point toward the end of the novel.
- In frustration at not being able to work out who did the murder, Lord Peter declares that he might as well say that he did it himself, or that the parish priest did it, or the man who rings the church bell to announce a death in the parish. It turns out in the end that all three of them were among those who inadvertently contributed to Deacon's death.
- Fowl-Mouthed Parrot: The Thodays have a pet parrot, given to them by Will's sailor brother — which, unfortunately, came with a sailor's vocabulary.
- Genre Shift: The novel hints at Magic Realism.
- Gentleman Thief: Nobby Cranton wants to be one, but he's more of an aspirational burglar and spiv, and is not well-spoken or -mannered.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Will Thoday dives into a flood to try to save a friend who fell. Neither of them make it. It's also a case of Death Equals Redemption, as Will is feeling guilty over his part in Deacon's death.
- Homage: Has one to the Montague Rhodes James story "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas": both stories contain an encoded message that decodes to three Biblical texts, giving the location of a treasure.
- Huge Schoolgirl: Hilary Thorpe, described as "A red-haired girl of fifteen... tall and thin and rather gawky".
- Identification by Dental Records: Attempted, but it fails to identify the victim.
- Impoverished Patrician: The Thorpes, due to the theft of a houseguest's priceless emerald necklace that they insisted on compensating her for.
- Ironic Echo: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas, and Tailor Paul. Nine Tailors Make a Man.
- Long List: Peter rattles off a particularly impressive one, consisting of all the things he's figured out about the case. The only thing missing from it is the identity of the murderer.
- Loveable Rogue: Nobby Cranton.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Lord Peter convinces the Chief Constable to swear him in as a special constable so that he can follow up a clue with the French police in person (even though it wouldn't be part of a special constable's duties, and the proper course of action would be to send to Scotland Yard for a police officer who can speak French).
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The solution to the murder — rationally plausible, but spooky.
- More Hero than Thou: Two men try to shield each other from blame for murder, unaware that neither of them did it.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: At the beginning Lord Peter agrees to help with Fenchurch St Paul's new-year bell-ringing, which would otherwise have to be cancelled due to a shortfall of experienced bell-ringers. If the bell-ringing had not gone ahead, Deacon would not have died, and Lord Peter would not have the guilt of his part in the tragedy to add to all his other guilts.
- The Pardon: The post-World War I pardon of deserters is a plot point. In the backstory, a man deserted from a British regiment during a battle in France and settled down nearby. His French wife knew he was a deserter and helped him keep his identity secret.note However, he continued to keep his identity secret even after the pardon, showing he had something else to hide.
- Promotion to Parent: Peter becomes trustee of a fortune left to the orphaned Hilary Thorpe, letting him ensure she gets the best education and pursues her career, despite the objections of her old-fashioned uncle and guardian.
- Rats in a Box: Neither Wimsey nor the police can figure out which of two brothers murdered the victim, so they put the brothers alone in a room and secretly listen to what they say to each other. It turns out that neither of them did it, but both thought the other did, and so they had been unnecessarily covering for each other.
- Redemption Equals Death: Will Thoday dies at the end trying to rescue a friend from a flood. He had been (inadvertantly) responsible for the painful death of another character, and had been unable to forgive himself.
- Skewed Priorities: A minor example, as a sign of the Reverend Venables being an unworldly Absent-Minded Professor. On being introduced to Lord Peter Wimsey, he immediately recognises the name — from Lord Peter's other hobby of collecting antique books. He has no idea about Lord Peter's fame as a detective until somebody else tells him about it later.
- Spell My Name with a Blank: Part of the story takes place in a French town identified only as "C—y".
- Spousal Privilege: Will and Mary Thoday learn that their marriage is invalid because Mary's first husband faked his death and was still alive. They resolve to get married again/properly, but the police can't allow it until they've established that Will isn't the murderer/Mary doesn't know anything they might need to rely on in court.
- The Swear Jar: The bellringers have a noticeboard dating from the previous century, with a list of rules including a fine of sixpence for swearing. Later in the book, one of the ringers mentions that the Rector still enforces the fine.
- The Vicar: The Reverend Venables is High Church, energetic, long-winded and obsessed with his pet subject of campanology.
- Who's on First?: Lord Peter has great difficulty trying to explain the difference between Paul Taylor (a criminal's pseudonym), Tailor Paul and Batty Thomas (named church bells), and being batty (like trying to write a letter to a bell, rather than to a criminal using a pseudonym).
- Year X: The bell-ringing at the beginning of the novel is subsequently marked with a commemorative plaque; the year on the plaque is given as "19—".
