Th think that Miss Climpson should have been in The Nine Tailors

[Jemima232]

Miss Climpson did not appear in this book.

The purpose of this thread is to examine why this oversight occurred.

The Chalet School books may be mentioned if people wish.

Wasn't the To Have His Carcase problem a biological inheritance issue rather than the consequences of that specific condition?

The key point about timing of the murder was wrong because the illness wouldn't have had the effect DLS believed. Hard to explain in more detail without spoilers. In fairness to DLS, the physiology of what she describes is phenomenally complicated.

IDK if there are people reading this thread who haven't read all the DLS books? If not, I'll explain in more detail. I'd just hate to ruin the books for anyone.

Am v touched by offers to help me secure Bed That Is Rightfully Mine. The usurper-interloper ESSENTIALLY treated us to “vulgar ranting hymns” over breakfast; & has, using her phone that rings at a volume seemingly set to alert members of the House to her receiving a call, been holding prayer meetings by phone.

EXCEPTIONALLY rudely I got no time at all to read yesterday. I finally rang haematology to let them know I was in hospital as repeated requests to staff to do so had gone nowhere & think I actually heard the nurse specialist levitate with rage... saw my consultant (who is vg & who had his own quiet moment of Very Cross over the whole Them Starving Me situation); had blood clot scan; had specialist IV team remove midline because they found a clot & declined their kind offer to provide me with some more horrific bruises but not actually manage to place a cannula; ended up with multiple joint dislocations because I fell in the bathroom (& greatly disturbed some poor innocent visitor with my yells for help [the one emergency alarm being unreachable & it not really being safe for me to try to move without help; hurrah for my having got to point of decency before accident]) as “help” = HCA putting a sign on the door saying it was in use & knocking on the door st intervals between other jobs; I spent several hours of quality time with collar + blocks (I at least got to lose the board relatively early in proceedings) as had to wait for CT report to clear my head & neck injuries; obviously had said CT & also some x-rays of joints I’d sent sideways to be certain I’d not broken any of them instead of just bouncing them out; I missed yet another meal (but had some hummus & crisps at Late O’Clock; Emergency Rations = glorious); had my tubefeed restarted at a higher rate; remembered I’d not slept at all last night so have had a couple of hours just now.

Oh yes, & it turns out that my midline clot (that it got left a bit late to check & then was only ultrasound checked today because they’d a spare 5 minutes) ISN’T superficial at all as apparently people had been told, but DVT. At least at midline ends significantly further from the heart than a PICC does. And because I’d dragged haematology into things THEY’VE worked out a plan to zap the clog (because they don’t like me having usual stabby solution at best of times; but we also have exciting situation of my weighing 20kg less than acceptable weight for oral tablets). Director of haemostasis & thrombosis Centre (or whatever the badger’s called) has come up with Plan using an oral medication, after a fun round of Which Medication Is Safest.

But yes, all go here. And just now probably I ought to make the most of pain medication & antiemetic & try for some more sleep.

Am paying close attention to book recs, naturally. Persephone books is a thing of beauty (& thus hopefully a joy forever, naturałly) & OH Rumer Godden! I read The Diddakoi so SO often when I was at Junior School.

On an unrelated note, have been wondering if Storage Knickers could be reintroduced. Perhaps in Daring Postmodern style (though from sound thread some of you might think more Dastardly Dystopian).

All the above was written around fourish but then I fell asleep. For added fun, my phone is declining to let me reread it. So please enjoy The Babblings, now I’ve managed to get help for The Window Thief after she woke up with a drowning-in-own-lungs coughing fit & my obs are done (including a blood sugar level: discovery of my superpower of stealth!hypos has left me with VERY bruised fingers)...

This is a wonderful thread. Thank you everyone. Hope you are feeling better MarieVanGoethen.

Reading the thread, I realised that I have never paid any attention to the books’ publication order, other than the obvious Harriet/Peter relationship in Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night. Now I’ve discovered that Miss Climpson could have been in The Nine Tailors. I really like TNT. It might even be my favourite.

I also truly admire Miss Climpson and was delighted she has replied to this thread. My theory is this. There are a few negative references to rural communities in TNT - eg the rector’s wife says that there will be fewer Potty Peakes now that people travel further and everyone is related to Will and Mary Thoday. Would Miss Climpson have found it harder to operate in a more enclosed community than in Unnatural Death where Wimsey says she is much better placed to get information than a policeman? Similarly, in Strong Poison Miss Climpson’s understanding of the life of the live in nurse is key to making her acquaintance and gaining her trust.

Xxcstatic I had not realised there were flaws in the Have his Carcase plot. I knew about the problems with Unnatural Death so I’d love an explanation - or direction on where to look.

(For avoidance doubt, rudeness = that of my body & it’s absurd antics; absolutely NOT meaning hospital staff. This ward is constantly understaffed but that is not fault of the staff & - apart from when I had to bshuffle to loo last night to avoid wetting myself & even with that I was rescued before I got to bathrooms - they’ve all worked really hard to ensure we still get the best treatment they can stretch to with as much privacy/dignity as they can furnish us with. Have even had nurses bob in to see how I’m improving when they’re working elsewhere on the ward & have a free moment & could be, you know, actually-properly having their break/waiting for the loo in peace/generally doing a wee bit of self-care.)

Heavens MarieVanGoethem - that’s far too much incident for 24 hours.

As there is nothing I can actually do to improve your current situation - I will try to read The Diddakoi as an act of support. (It’s one of the few Godden books I haven’t read.)

Hugely attracted to the idea of Storage Knickers - but then, I like voluminous clothes. They’d never catch on with the MN constituency, for whom ‘skinny jeans and a nice top’ is some sort of compulsory uniform. Unless worn over said jeans?

Have just realised that my (I hope beautiful,vintage) copy of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them should have arrived by now. Can’t recall where it was recommended but I downloaded the sample and completely fell in love. After only a few pages I can confidently say it contains some of the most beautifully crafted storytelling I’ve ever come across. Such astonishing, razor sharp editing (or did she write like that straight off?), such mischievous wit. I haven’t read anything else of hers (recs welcome) But she’s already re-shaped my ideas regarding fictional narrative.

Quarter I'd strongly recommend ' Lolly Willowes'. Weird but wonderful. I agree with you about STW's writing style. Staggeringly good: elegant, precise, understated and profound.

I think, XXcstatic that everyone who has contributed to the thread has read the DLS books.

You could write SPOILER ALERT at the head of your post explaining the medical inconsistencies in the plot of HHC.

OK SPOILER ALERT

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THE NEXT POST. STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T READ HAVE HIS CARCASE OR UNNATURAL DEATH.

Sorry - will have to pause for dramatic effect as DH is annoyingly asking me questions about groceries

Give him an arsenic-laced omelette XXcstatic.

DH has been disposed of...

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Unnatural Death first because it's the easiest. The murder method is injecting air into the victims’ veins, creating an air embolus link. This is definitely potentially fatal because it can cause major damage to the lungs and heart, in the same way as a pulmonary embolus caused by a blood clot (DVT) can . But it’s hard to do in practice because you need a lot of air. Wikipedia reckons that it would take 100ml of air to kill an adult human. The largest syringe commonly used for injections in the community is 20ml. (There are larger ones in use in hospital but they wouldn’t be practical in this scenario and I suspect they were probably not available in DLS’ day, as they are mainly used with modern anaesthesia equipment). Injecting 5 lots of 20 mls probably won’t work because you need the air to be in one solid block to be effective.

Injecting air into an artery would be more reliable but won’t work for the killer’s purpose because there is no legitimate reason for her to be injecting an artery so she would be given away by the injection mark. She needs to use a vein, so that she can claim that the injection marks are from giving medication.

Have His Carcase: the plot hinges on Paul having haemophilia, meaning - according to DLS - that his blood does not clot as fast as normal after he has been murdered. But this is not correct: a haemophilia’s blood clots at the normal rate. Blood clotting is insanely complicated: there are 12 clotting factors involved, plus other chemicals such as vitamin K – good explanation here.

Haemophilia A – which is the type Paul had – is caused by an inborn lack of clotting factor VIII. This leads to spontaneous bleeding from minor injuries but does not affect bleeding time. Once you start bleeding, you will stop at the same speed as anyone else, because factor VIII is not involved in the part of the clotting mechanism that controls bleeding time. The problem for haemophiliacs is that their bodies’ threshold for starting to bleed in the first place is much lower than normal. So DLS is right that Paul would be fearful of minor injuries, but not that he would bleed for a longer than normal time.

Thank you for that XXCstatic I was also puzzled by the fact that he was still bleeding hours after being murdered - surely the dead do not bleed?

Now - has your DH finished that omelette?

Injecting air into an artery would be more reliable

Indeed. But nurses were not capable of securing arterial access in the 1930s.

Nurses did not perform venepuncture then either. I confess I was surprised that Miss Whittaker was so adept and before her time, so to speak.

DLS has a lot to answer for.

Thank you for that XXCstatic I was also puzzled by the fact that he was still bleeding hours after being murdered - surely the dead do not bleed?

The dead do not bleed at pressure - so blood won't spurt from wounds - but it will continue to ooze out for a while. Eventually, it thickens and stops oozing. This coalescing process also happens in blood that has already left the body, giving the blood a jelly-like consistency.

If I understand DLS correctly, she thought that (a) Paul would actively bleed for longer than normal immediately before, and after, death (b) that the blood that had already left his body would take longer than normal to coalesce. But neither is in fact true.

PS DH did in fact have eggs for breakfast..

Well if only I had known that at the time dear.....

On a different tack, I was wondering about the occasional religious inconsistencies in the DLS books.

Miss Climpson is described as a "Roaming" Catholic, but the vicar of the church she attends when she meets Miss Whittaker and Co. is married. I think he would be referred to as a priest in any case.

Sayers' father was a C of E vicar and she herself was a High Anglican by choice. I do not understand how she could have got this wrong. Did High Anglicans go to Confession (and this is how she figures out the machinations of MW)

As a Baptist I am familiar with vulgar, ranting hymns btw.

Rousing stuff.

Views?

I think she was just very High Church Anglican. Practically indistinguishable from RC except for married clergy and transubstantiation. .

Could she have been Anglo-Catholic? I’ve never quite understood what they’re about, other than getting to be part of the established church & to be frank HIGHER than anything that goes on in the Vatican. I had cause to be in the sacristy of an Anglo-Catholic church earlier this year & they’d a picture of the Pope up, which threw me completely.

(Was TRYING to FINALLY start reading while eating lunch, my granny, indeed my grannies would be horrified, lucky they’ve not lived to see such antics really after procession of HCPs seemed to have stopped only for haematologist to appear. Protected mealtimes are A Lie at this trust. Ho-hum.)

At this rate one of you is going to write & have published a book with Miss C as central character before I get my chance to innocently enjoy some Strong Poison...

Talking of AngloCatholics makes me want to bring the incomparable Barbara Pym into the thread. I reread Quartet in Autumn recently. So restrainedly sad.

My contribution to the religious debate. Has arrived perfect. Set in a 14th c Benedictine convent.

Only a million hours of tennis before I can start. Drat!

For those with a (purely theoretical, of course) interest in methods of murder, I highly recommend this book about Agatha Christie and poison. Christie trained as a pharmacy assistant in WW1 and used her knowledge to good effect in her novels.

I struggle with her turgid writing style and thin characterisation, but the BBC radio adaptions featuring June Whitfield as Miss Marple and John Moffat as Poirot are rather wonderful, and are available as audiobooks.

Fascinating Xxcstatic. I also liked the neat reference to omelettes and your complexion. May I offer you several large pieces of sugary Turkish Delight in appreciation?

I am sure Miss Climpson is a very High Church Anglican. Needed for the plot but also more realistic as there would have been very few English Roman Catholics then. They would also have mostly been converts. A bit like Mildred in Barbara Pym's Excellent Women who is CofE but still carries a biography of Cardinal Newman and a small tin of baked beans I think in her string bag.

How is move towards the window going, MarieVanGoethem?

Agree the audio BBC dramatisations of AC are good, better with June Whitfield than Joan Hickson imo. I seem to be on a good run of BBC stuff, re-listening to Falco with the wonderful Anton Lesser.

Visiting my DPs and look what I found on their bookshelves! Nobody tell me how it ends. I’ve read Miss Pym Disposes, Franchise Affair and Daughter of Time but am otherwise lacking in Josephine Tey expertise.