Have His Carcase was published by Victor Gollancz in 1932. Harriet Vane, on a walking holiday along the Dorset coast, discovers a man’s body on an isolated beach — his throat cut, sitting on a rock surrounded by incoming tide. She photographs the scene (the body is washed away before police arrive) and contacts Wimsey, who joins the investigation. The dead man is Paul Alexis, a professional dance partner at a seaside hotel — a Russian emigrant (or perhaps not Russian) involved with a wealthy older woman.
The novel pairs Wimsey and Harriet as investigative partners for the first time — working together rather than separately — and this professional collaboration advances their personal relationship. Harriet remains resistant to Wimsey’s courtship (she will not marry from gratitude), but working alongside him she begins to see him as an intellectual equal rather than a rescuer. Their arguments about the case are simultaneously arguments about their relationship.
The puzzle is one of Sayers’s most intricate: it involves hemophilia (the dead man’s blood would not clot normally, complicating time-of-death determination), coded messages in a cipher that Wimsey and Harriet must crack, and a conspiracy involving multiple suspects with overlapping motives. The seaside setting (based on Weston-super-Mare) is rendered with Sayers’s characteristic precision.
Collecting Have His Carcase
First edition (Victor Gollancz, London, 1932): Black cloth, yellow Gollancz dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine/fine: $1,500–$4,000
- Very good: $400–$1,500
- US first (Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1932): $300–$800
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate-to-strong appreciation.
Harriet Finds a Body
Have His Carcase (1932) continues the Peter-Harriet relationship as Harriet, on a walking holiday along the coast, discovers a body on a rock with its throat cut. The novel is Sayers’s most elaborate puzzle, involving hemophilia, an alibi based on tide tables, and a cipher that the characters work out in real time. The investigation forces Peter and Harriet into close collaboration, developing the intellectual partnership that would culminate in Gaudy Night. Some readers find the cryptographic sections slow; others admire Sayers’s commitment to fair-play detection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the cipher plot really solvable? Yes — Sayers provides all the information needed for the reader to crack the code. The Playfair cipher sequence is one of the most detailed puzzle elements in Golden Age detective fiction.