Montague Egg

Montague Egg is a star of a series of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, better known for her Lord Peter Wimsey stories. Egg is a Traveling Salesman for Plummett & Rose Wines and Spirits, and usually has a couplet from his Salesman's Handbook to cover the situation. He is often embroiled in murder cases.

Tropes used in Montague Egg include:

• Asshole Victim: False Weight
• Bitter Almonds: Actually the title of one of his stories, where an elderly man was supposedly poisoned by his nephew after threatening to disown him over his engagement to an actress. In reality, after the young man had stormed from the table, the "victim" pulled out a bottle of almond liqueur that had sat in his liquor cabinet unopened for twenty years. The small amount of bitter almond oil in the liqueur had risen to the top and concentrated over the years, giving the first glass poured out a lethal dose of cyanide.
  • This is also a case of Ripped from the Headlines - such a liqueur actually did exist and at least one death was attributed to the phenomenon.
• Crying Wolf: In one story, the murderer invokes this in order to get off the hook. It doesn't work.
• Family-Unfriendly Death/Nightmare Fuel
• I Have Many Names: See Secret Other Family, below.
• Kick the Dog: Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz
• Once an Episode: A quote from the Salesman's Handbook.
• Secret Other Family: Wagstaffe from False Weight had married a woman (using various aliases) in every town his rounds took him to.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: A vital clue in A Shot at Goal
• Traveling Salesman
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz, once the ailurophobic old man had his heart attack, the murderers had no further use for the cats. Into the water barrel they went, and only one got away.
• You Just Told Me: Sleuths on the Scent