The Wimsey Papers started flowing in, that the resiliency and true strength of Russia became apparent. Some of the letters included in "The Wimsey Papers" were used by Jill Paton Walsh as the preface for her own novel "A Presumption of Death", an authorized sequel continuing the Wimsey series where Sayers left it off. The letters provided much information which Walsh used in the book: Peter Wimsey and his servant Bunter being on a secret mission abroad, Harriet Vane taking her own children and those of her sister-in-law Mary to the country house Talboys in Hertfordshire, Peter's nephew Jerry an RAF combat pilot,
Lord Peter Wimsey for their evocation of that period as much as for the intrinsic detective mysteries. It was left to Jill Paton Walsh to extend Wimsey's career through and beyond the Second World War. In the continuations "A Presumption of Death" and "The Attenbury Emeralds" Wimsey and Bunter have returned successfully from their secret mission in 1940 and his nephew Lord St. George is killed while serving as an RAF pilot in the Battle of Britain. Consequently, when Wimsey's brother dies of a heart attack in 1951 during a fire in Bredon Hall at Duke's Denver, Wimsey becomes the Duke of Denver.