Charles Parker (detective)

He is first introduced in Whose Body?^[1] as a Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard. In the next book, Clouds of Witness,^[2] he is summoned to assist the local police in the North Riding of Yorkshire who are investigating the death of Captain Dennis Cathcart, the fiancé of Peter's sister, Lady Mary Wimsey, apparently at the hands of Wimsey's brother, the Duke of Denver.

Parker first sees Lady Mary at the inquest into Cathcart. Travelling to Paris, where Cathcart had lived previously, he uncovers evidence which implicates Lady Mary in Cathcart's death, leading to Parker becoming very depressed, since he is clearly in love with her. Lady Mary later confesses to killing Cathcart. Lord Peter, however, proves that Mary was lying to protect her secret lover Goyles, with whom she had been planning to elope on the night of Cathcart's death. Parker is happy to see Mary break off the relationship, as Goyles proves to be unreliable and cowardly.

At the end of the case, when Denver is proved innocent, Wimsey, Parker and another of Wimsey's friends, the financier the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, all become roaring drunk when celebrating the outcome.

Parker subsequently assists Wimsey in his investigations in Unnatural Death^[3] and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.^[4] In the latter, Parker is promoted to Chief Inspector. He has meanwhile invited Lady Mary to dinner several times, but is nervous of making their relationship public, in spite of Wimsey's encouragement.

In Strong Poison, Parker has apparently made a good case against mystery writer Harriet Vane for the murder of her former lover Philip Boyes. Wimsey, who has instantly fallen in love with Harriet, forces Parker to re-examine the case. Parker's investigations are inconclusive, but Wimsey, with Parker's help, discovers and unmasks the true murderer. Meanwhile, Parker has finally proposed to Lady Mary. The Duke and Duchess of Denver are very surprised by the match, but Wimsey insists that "one of these days he'll be a big man, with a title, I shouldn't wonder, and everything handsome about him."

In Five Red Herrings,^[5] Parker assists the Dumfriesshire constabulary by easily tracing a suspect who has fled to London in disguise (although he proves to be innocent). In Have His Carcase,^[6] Parker and Lady Mary are married; Parker has a very minor role, responding by mail when Wimsey inquires about possible Communist affiliations of one suspect, and providing witnesses to the identity of another.

By the time of the next book, Murder Must Advertise,^[7] he and Mary have two small children, Charles Peter and Mary Lucasta. Wimsey is investigating the death of a copywriter, which proves to be linked to Parker's official enquiries into a drug-trafficking ring. Parker is attacked and injured by a suspect when he is mistaken for Wimsey.

The book also notes an ingenious solution to the problems inherent in a marriage where the wife is far richer than her husband: Mary's money was placed into a trust fund, administered by her brothers on behalf of her children, from which she gets every three months a sum equal to that earned by her husband in the same timeframe. Mary, once an outspoken left-winger embarrassed by her aristocratic status, is quite happy with the arrangement.

In The Nine Tailors, Parker once again assists a county police force, this time the Lincolnshire Constabulary, in Wimsey's investigation into the case of an unlawfully buried body. One suspect is a former burglar from London; two other suspects (who are brothers) flee to London or attempt to conceal evidence there. Parker uses questionable tactics when he places a hidden microphone in the interview room where they are waiting (or in the TV adaptation, leaves a desk intercom "live"). However, the brothers' unguarded conversation absolves them both of the crime of murder.

Parker does not feature in Gaudy Night, and appears only very briefly at the wedding of Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Busman's Honeymoon. The Duchess of Denver is snobbishly opposed to that match as well, and writes to a friend, "Mary's policeman was bad enough, but he is at any rate quiet and well-behaved..."

In A Presumption of Death, the World War II Wimsey novel by Jill Paton Walsh, Harriet takes the three children of Charles and Mary to Talboys, together with her own children – both to keep them safe from bombed London and to free their parents to help the war effort.

The Attenbury Emeralds, Walsh's next addition to the Wimsey series, Parker is now Sir Charles Parker. The story includes a flashback to Wimsey and Parker's first meeting in 1921, never described in the original Sayers books. As depicted here, Wimsey was a shell-shocked World War I veteran who accidentally discovered in himself a talent for detection while present in the house of another aristocratic family when emerald heirlooms mysteriously disappeared. Parker was a police sergeant assigned to the case, and Wimsey is struck by the sergeant's odd choice of spare time reading: Origen.