Editing Lord Peter Views the Body (section)

===The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face===
Several passengers on a train are excitedly discussing a recent murder, in which a man was found on a beach, strangled, with his face cut off. Lord Peter Wimsey is among them, and cleverly deduces several facts about the case based on details mentioned by the passengers. A policeman, Inspector Winterbottom,  overhears the conversation and takes Lord Peter's calling card.

Shortly afterwards, newspapers announce that police have identified  the faceless victim as the studio manager of an [[advertising agency]]. The policeman from the train visits Wimsey and professes his theory that the murder was committed by an Italian over a love affair.

Peter meets with an old journalist friend and learns that the murder victim had had his portrait recently painted by one of his employees at the advertising agency. He goes to investigate, and finds that the portrait is a striking piece of art but an unflattering likeness, and purchases it from the artist. He interviews a woman working at the agency and learns that the victim was loathed by his employees, and that he commissioned the portrait but refused to buy it.

Meeting with Inspector Winterbottom again, Wimsey recounts his final theory of the murder, in which the frustrated artist opportunistically kills his manager and destroys the face he grew to hate while painting his portrait. Winterbottom congratulates him on his theory but reveals that the Italian suspect was found dead by suicide with an apparent confession, and that the case is closed.

Afterwards, Peter muses to himself that he could have proved that the artist was indeed the murderer, "but the man had a villainous face, and there are few good painters in the world."