Sir Hamo Strange is one of the gold masters, an elite group of international financiers in late Victorian England whose stock-in-trade is unimaginable quantities of fine gold. Strange is also a collector of ancient books, a passion shared with his hated rival, the private banker Lord Jocelyn Peto...
It was good to escape from the forlorn atmosphere of the house in Chelsea, from the sense of desolation and lack of purpose, and pass an idle hour or so in the company of other European émigrés. The Apollo Cafe, run by a Belgian and his German wife, catered for such people. &nbs...
What a fuss and flurry the man made! There was the great, booming voice, and the inevitable opening and slamming of doors. Here he was, now. Adelaide Porteous closed the long dark lashes of her eyes while her husband pecked her cheek. He had all but thrown himself into the...
The fire in the dim mildewed office was burning smokily, and a sickly daylight filtered its way through the sooty windows facing across the cobbles to Whitehall Place. Mackharness thought: I was too short-tempered with him the other day. Mildred says I’m becoming ‘testy’. ...
In the early forties it had been the centre of the anti-slavery campaign, after which it became a focus for societies concerned with the supposedly oppressed nationalities of the Empire. To be ‘Exeter Hall’ was to be somewhere to the left of the Liberal Party. Box and Knol...
‘What enemies could so young a man have made? Murdered? I can hardly believe it.’ When Box arrived at Dorset House, he saw that all the blinds had been pulled down as the great mansion prepared to become a house of mourning. Both the entrance and the exit to the wide carriage drive giving on to D...
Box estimated their strength at over 200 desperate souls, all driven by the single desire to get their deposits back in gold. The traffic in the Strand had ground to a halt. Passengers on the open top decks of omnibuses were standing up to get a better view of the frightening scene. &...
How dare that arrogant foreigner call her stupid! She was not afraid of his ill-bred rages. Why, he looked like a comic parody of the Kaiser! And how dare Baron Augustyniak, her master, dismiss her from the room as though she were someone beneath his notice! It took her so...