A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery

[Harriet calls Peter to talk at a restaurant with a dance hall]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Tell me, what's the matter?

Harriet Vane:
I'm not sure I should.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Tell me or tango.

Harriet Vane:
You know I can't tango!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
You've no choice then, have you?

Miss Burrows:
Excuse my saying so, Miss Vane, but given your own terrible experience, I wonder that you should still decide to write the sort of books you do.

Harriet Vane:
You're saying that anyone with proper feelings would rather scrub floors for a living? Well, I should scrub floors very badly, and I write mysteries rather well.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
This bowtie is a mess.

Bunter:
Yes, too perfect. Quite like a made-up affair.

[Wimsey pulls off the tie and begins to re-tie it]

Bunter:
Ah.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Bunter, what does "ah" mean?

Bunter:
I have observed, my lord, that on the few occasions when our sangfroid slips, it means we have a rendezvous with Miss Vane.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Bunter, you have a wonderful gift for impudence.

Bunter:
Thank you, my lord.

[Wimsey finishes re-tying]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Bunter, how's that?

Bunter:
Perfect. That is to say, slightly flawed. The mark of a true gentleman.

[Wimsey and Bunter present their papers to the German border policeman]

Border policeman:
Ah! An Englischer aristokrat.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Put like that, it sounds like an insult.

Border policeman:
In Germany, it is the people who rule.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I see from the paper that there will be elections soon?

Border policeman:
Ja, it is likely.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Chancellor Bruning's emergency powers will be short-lived?

Border policeman:
You are interested in our domestic politics?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
If no man is an island, then assuredly no country can be.

Border policeman:
Except yours, Lord Wimsey.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[after realizing a new lead] Oh, frabjous day! Miss Vane, will you marry me? Or, failing that, will you accompany me to Darley's garage?

Harriet Vane:
I will.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Let us be gone.

[they get up and start to head out, but Peter stops]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Uh...

Harriet Vane:
The latter.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
May I come into your parlor?

Harriet Vane:
Peter! What on earth are you doing here?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[holds up newspaper] "Famous Mystery Author Finds Body on Beach" So, here I am, like a bird that hears the call of its mate.

Harriet Vane:
I didn't call you...

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I meant the body. But talking of mates, will you marry me?

Harriet Vane:
Certainly not.

Harriet Vane:
I'm sorry, I know I'm being horribly ungrateful...

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Oh, *hell*! Am I never to hear the end of that hateful adjective? I keep telling you, I don't want gratitude! I don't want kindness, I don't want sentimentality! I just want common honesty.

Harriet Vane:
But that's all I ever wanted! I don't think it's to be had.

[silence]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Harriet, I do understand. I know you don't ever want to have to depend on another person for your happiness ever again.

Harriet Vane:
That's true. That's the truest thing you've ever said.

Bunter:
What the eye don't see the heart can't grieve for.

[Peter demonstrates a throat-cutting on Bunter, then sees Harriet's shock]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I'm so sorry.

Harriet Vane:
No, no, it's all right.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
No, no, I'm an ass. And in a moment I shall get down on my knees and apologize, and probably propose to you as well.

Harriet Vane:
Oh, Peter! What an idiot you are!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Aren't I, though?

Salcombe Hardy:
You wouldn't be here for the suicide of a foreign gigolo. There's something more to it than that... unless it's just the girl? Oh, for God's sake, Wimsey, say it isn't the girl! You wouldn't play a joke like that on a hard-working journalist. Look, how about you give me a story about you and Harriet Vane? "Romantic Engagement of Peer's Son and Crime Novelist!"

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Pull yourself together, Sally, and keep your inky paws off my private affairs.

[Thinking about Harriet Vane]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
She has a sense of humor... and brains... life wouldn't be dull. One would wake up, and there would be a whole day full of jolly things to do. And then we would come home and go to bed... and that would be jolly too.

Harriet Vane:
Have I got this right? You are proposing marriage to me?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I don't positively repel you or anything like that, do I?

[Peter is visiting Harriet in prison, meeting her for the first time]

Lord Peter Wimsey:
But, um, you're not opposed to matrimony on principle? I mean if offered on terms not already compromised, and by the right person, naturally.

Harriet Vane:
Oh, no.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Oh, that's good.

Harriet Vane:
Might I ask why?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Makes it easier for me, you see.

Harriet Vane:
[after a pause] Have I got this right? You are proposing marriage to me?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Absolutely right.

Harriet Vane:
[laughing] Do you do this all the time, Lord Peter?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Only when I'm serious.

Harriet Vane:
And you're serious now?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Oh, I know I've got a silly face, but I can't help that. And I am. Serious, I mean.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I-I-I'm not, um, trying to blackmail you into matrimony. I mean, I would investigate this case for the fun of the thing.

Harriet Vane:
That's very good of you.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
No, no, no, not at all, it's my hobby. I mean investigating things, not proposing to people.

Harriet Vane:
Being a writer of detective fiction, I have naturally studied your career with interest.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Well, that's good, because then you'll understand that I'm not such an ass as I'm appearing at present.

Chief Inspector Charles Parker:
[writing a note] "Boyes - query arsenic." Anything else?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Yes. Find out if Boyes visited any pub, in the neighbourhood of Doughty Street between 9:50 and 10:10 on the night of January 20th, if he met anybody, and what he took to drink.

Chief Inspector Charles Parker:
[keeps writing] "Boyes - query pub."

Lord Peter Wimsey:
And thirdly, find out if any bottle or paper that might have contained arsenic was picked up in that district.

Chief Inspector Charles Parker:
Oh, is that all? Well, perhaps you'd also like me to trace the bus ticket dropped by Mrs. Brown outside Selfridge's in the last Christmas rush?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go see a man about a dog - or I should say, a parson about his son.

Chief Inspector Charles Parker:
[about Harriet] I don't give much for her chances.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Where there's life, there's hope!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[to Freddy about Harriet's trial] She's innocent, my pessimistic chum, and prove it I'm going to.

The Dowager Duchess of Denver:
[Referring to Harriet Vane] Curious to write about murder and be accused of murder oneself!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Referring to the Vane Murder Trial] What did you think of the verdict?

Pond:
Ooo, very surprised... surprised indeed! Seemed a clear enough case, but then juries are so unreliable - especially nowadays, my lord with women on them.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Seemingly agreeing or understanding] Mmm.

Pond:
We see a good deal of the fair sex in the profession, and very few of them are remarkable for possessing the... uh... legal mind.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
However true that is, still without them, there'd be much less litigation, so it's all good for business.

Pond:
[Chuckles] Very good, my lord. Very good. I am and old-fashioned man. The ladies - when they adorned and inspired - did not take any active part in affairs.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Upon seeing the white powder that Urquhart had] My word! What have we here?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Quick, Bunter, pour the champagne! Parker's about to pour the cold water!

Harriet Vane:
You're such a romantic, Peter... a sort of latter day knight errant searching for opportunities to perform deeds of valor... rescue damsels in distress.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
What's wrong with that?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Last lines - a dialogue flashback after Harriet walks away silently] At least I can make love.

Harriet Vane:
...and surely that's better than tears.

Harriet Vane:
You are bearing in mind, aren't you, that I've had a lover?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Oh, yes, so've I. Several, in fact. It's the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. I can produce quite good testimonials. I'm told I make love rather nicely. Though I am at a bit of a disadvantage at the moment. One can't be too convincing at the other end of the table with a bloke looking in the window.

Harriet Vane:
I'll take your word for it.

Harriet Vane:
If anybody does marry you, Peter, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle.

Harriet Vane:
Peter, people have been wrongly condemned before now.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Only because I wasn't there.

Harriet Vane:
Oh, I never thought of that.

Bill Rumm:
We all are like sheep who have gone astray, and well I may say so, for I was a dark and wicked sinner myself, until this here gentleman laid his hand upon me as I was a-bustin' of his safe, and became God's instrument for turning me away from the path that leadeth to destruction.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I don't suppose you have the faintest idea how to pick a lock, Miss Murchison?

Miss Murchison:
[Clearly shocked at the question] I'm... afraid... not - no idea whatsoever!

Lord Peter Wimsey:
[Shaking his head ruefully] I sometimes wonder what we went to school for.

Sylvia Marriott:
Sugar?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
No, thanks.

Sylvia Marriott:
I thought all men liked to make their coffee with syrup.

Lord Peter Wimsey:
I'm rather unusual. Haven't you noticed?

Sylvia Marriott:
I've not had time to observe you, but I'll take the coffee as a point in your favor.

Chief Inspector Parker:
[Reprovingly] Your vision is clouded because of her - Harriet Vane! Peter, can you tell me in all honesty that you're not allowing your judgement to be affected by your emotions?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Yeah, I can.

Harriet Vane:
[as Peter walks in for a prison visitation] Can't help being a gentleman, can you?

Lord Peter Wimsey:
Afraid not... drilled in when I was too young to resist.

Bunter:
[to Peter] As you've so often said, my lord, when there's money, there's a motive for crime.