Wimsey investigates, with some assistance from his friend in London, Charles Parker. One of the six is the criminal, and five are red herrings.Īll the suspects behave suspiciously: some leave the district without explanation, others give obviously inaccurate statements or conceal facts. Six talented artists in the area have had recent public brawls with Campbell: Farren, Strachan, Gowan, Graham, Waters and Ferguson. Whoever killed Campbell also executed the painting in Campbell's distinctive style, to contrive the appearance of an accident. A local doctor believes that the degree of rigor mortis suggests that Campbell died during the previous night. Sayers includes a parenthetical note at this point: 'Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the Sergeant what he was looking for and why, but as the intelligent reader will readily supply these details for himself, they are omitted from this page'. Lord Peter Wimsey, who is in the region on a fishing holiday, suspects murder when he realises that something is missing from the scene which makes it likely that another artist painted the picture.

When he is found dead in a stream, with a still-wet half-finished painting on the bank above, it is assumed that he fell in accidentally, fracturing his skull.

Sandy Campbell is a talented painter, but also a notoriously quarrelsome drunkard. The novel is set in Galloway, a part of Scotland popular with artists and recreational fishermen. Significant locations in the novel – a sketch map.

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers