Five Red Herrings - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The story is set in Galloway, a part of Scotland popular with artists because of its landscapes. Sandy Campbell is a talented painter, but also a notoriously quarrelsome drunkard. When he is found dead in a stream, with a half-finished painting on the bank above, it is assumed at first that he fell in accidentally, fracturing his skull. Lord Peter Wimsey, who is in the region on a fishing holiday, points out the inconsistency which makes it impossible for Campbell himself to have worked on the painting. (Sayers is explicit in leaving the reader to work out what exactly the clue is.) Campbell's death is now a murder case.

Whoever killed Campbell also executed the painting in Campbell's distinctive style, to contrive the appearance of an accident. Six other artists in the region are talented enough to have achieved this, and had also had public brawls with Campbell in the recent past. Now Wimsey has to figure out "who done it" and who the five red herrings are. The task is made difficult because almost all the suspects are behaving in a suspicious manner; some have left the district unexpectedly and without explanation, others have given statements which are obviously inaccurate, or are clearly concealing facts. The policemen investigating other aspects of the case come up against inexplicable dead ends.

The Five Red Herrings is the Peter Wimsey story which is most obviously set as a puzzle for the reader. There is only a closed circle of suspects to deal with, and Wimsey has no emotional involvement, although, having alerted the Police to Campbell's murder, he subsequently reflects that Campbell was a man anyone might feel justified in killing, and that the six suspects are all generally decent people. He nevertheless resolves to uncover the truth, so that the five innocent artists should not live under lifelong suspicion.

The plot is told through the viewpoint of Wimsey, and of the various police investigating the case (including Wimsey's brother-in-law Charles Parker, involved because a suspect is in hiding in London). Large parts of the book follow the various Scottish police officers, who are shown as highly intelligent and competent, and for time seem to overshadow Wimsey. In contrast, Bunter (Wimsey's valet) plays a smaller role in this than in other Wimsey novels. Wimsey works in close cooperation with the police throughout the book; indeed, in one episode a character angrily accuses him of "entering people's homes as a police spy".

The six suspects are all eventually traced and give statements in which they deny killing Campbell. Some have convincing alibis, but others have none which can be verified. Finally, Wimsey, the Procurator Fiscal, the Chief Constable and the police officers involved in the investigation meet to review the evidence. Working from the knowledge the reader has been given, the police put forward several theories, implicating all of the suspects either as the killer or as accessories. Asked for his opinion, Wimsey finally reveals to the reader exactly what alerted him to the murder, and points the finger at the true killer. Although the police are sceptical, Wimsey offers to reconstruct the crime and over the course of twenty-four hours' strenuous activity, he demonstrates how the killer contrived the scene above the stream and established an alibi.

The killer finally realises that the case against him is unbreakable and confesses, but pleads that he killed Campbell in self-defence. When the case is tried, the jury decide that he is guilty of manslaughter (which carries a lighter sentence) rather than premeditated murder.