It was Sunday morning, and they had finished breakfast. The day lay before them. It came to Katharine with a tremendous sense of relief that it wasn’t for her to say what the next step was to be. She had done it all these weeks, but she didn’t have to do it any more. It was very restful. She said...
All the Taverner cousins were there, but Mr. Castell was not. She took a chair and got out her knitting. Little Josephine’s dress was now a complete skirt and bodice, and she was half way down the left sleeve. She had chosen a chair beside Florence Duke. After a moment or two she remarked, “It’s ...
Packer dangled the heavy bunch of keys for a moment before laying it on the table. “Four years is a long time to be away,” he said. His voice was so drily polite that Charles Moray could not fail to be aware that in the eyes of his solicitor four ye...
Justin Leigh if he would come and speak to the Chief Inspector, Sergeant Abbott said, “Plenty of suspects, sir.” If he had thought this the moment to provoke a reprimand, he might have added, “Embarras de richesse.” Quotations from foreign languages being so many red rags ...
He had to swallow his anger, and that wasn’t easy. It was in fact quite surprisingly difficult. Surprisingly? Yes, that was it. Why should he have flashed into that sudden state of anger with Mac? He had a hot temper, but it very seldom got away with him like this—not since he had learned to cont...
Emma Meadows had made some of her feather-light scones, there were two kinds of sandwiches, and a highly ornamental cake with almond icing which nobody could have told from the real thing. All this for the benefit of Detective Inspector Frank Abbott who had come to tea on this Sunday afternoon. &...
Caddie back to Rectory Cottage had, after the first ten minutes, subsided into a drizzle. Mrs. Caddie, who had hung her coat in the scullery in order that it might not drip on the kitchen floor, now put it on again and, accepting the loan of Miss Alvina’s second-best umbrella, went out into the d...
He was in a box with the Trevors at the Royalty, and he looked across the theatre and saw her. She was sitting in the second of the stiff gilt chairs which faced them from the opposite box. She wore a white dress and a little white fur coat which she had slipped off and pushed back. She leaned fo...
Affection for her had survived his schooldays. His respect for her character and his appreciation of the quality of her mind increased steadily with the years which had from time to time brought them to close quarters over some case on which they were both professionally engaged. But there were m...
Her mother had recalled her three times already. Perhaps this time she would really get away. But before there was time for her to think that it looked as if it was going to be fine, there was Mrs Graham’s sweet high voice with its note of urgency – ‘Thea! Thea!’ She turned back. Mrs Graham, havi...
If she hadn’t been very nicely brought up she would have used a worse word. Early association with a great-aunt whom she had really loved with all her heart was still a handicap when it came to availing herself of a free modern idiom. Well, here she was at Merefields—here they all were, Wilfrid, ...
Oh, happy envied fate that this affords, Firmly to dam with strong and silent stops The flowing torrent of a woman’s words!” CHAPTER 1 She looked into the dead unbroken dark and had neither memory nor thought. She was not conscious of where she was, or of how she had come ...
Now that she was alone there, the house was too big for her and she was thinking of taking a lodger. Only of course she would have to be very particular about the sort of person she would take. A man was not to be thought of, and a female lodger must neither be so young as to have the slightest i...
The trees were leafless overhead and the earth soft and damp underfoot with the thick carpet strewn there by the autumn winds. There had been so much rain in the last few days and nights that the dead leaves no longer rustled as she walked. The wood lay at the bottom of the garden, but once you h...
The two girls were in Ina’s bedroom with the door shut, but Richard went to it and knocked. They came out at once. A resourceful woman can do a good deal in five minutes. He had heard water splashing in the basin, and guessed at a vigorous sponging of Ina’s drawn face and tired eyes. She certainl...
Latter when she came in, but that was because everything in it was black. The carpet on the floor, the hangings covering the walls, the long straight curtains were all of the same even velvety blackness. But it was not as dark as she had thought. Through the one unscreened window, light shone in....
Her hand was raised and her lips primmed in reproof. “Oh, dear, dear, dear! That was very bad,” she said. “Very bad indeed, Miss Treherne. If I had not come in when I did—oh, dear me! You were, I am afraid, about to commit a very grave imprudence.” ...
‘I have known them all my life, and Mary Anne is such a sad invalid.’ Miss Silver smiled, and spoke the simple truth. ‘I shall be delighted to call on the Miss Doncasters.’ ‘Then I will just finish the letter I was writing to my cousin Sophy Ferrars. It will not take me lo...
When she answered, there were the sort of preliminaries in which he had learned to participate. ‘You are well, my dear boy?’ ‘Oh, yes. And you, Cousin Louisa?’ There was some dalliance with Miss Arnold’s suspicion, contracted last night, that she might have taken a slight ...
She liked a good-sized table, and was grateful for the room afforded by a bulging bay which broke the front wall of the dining-room. She stayed there, the dining-table at her back—one of the old-fashioned Victorian kind built to take a family and much too large for its present surroundings. Neith...
It was Henry’s fault that she was in the wrong train — indisputably, incontrovertibly, and absolutely Henry’s fault, because if she hadn’t seen him stalking along the platform with that air, so peculiarly Henryish, of having bought it and being firmly determined to see that it behaved itself, she...
She had moved nearer to the fire, and stood there facing the door through which he would come. She had not been alone in a room with him for thirty years—not since the brief bitter interview in which she told him that she knew about Carrie Lintott, and gave him back his ring. Across the gap of th...
It was a sound, but she did not know what sound it was. There was the vibration of it on the air and in her mind. If it had been an ordinary sound, she would not have given it a thought at all. An owl crying, a dog barking, or the wind blowing about the house, any of these might have waked her, b...
MARCH GOES OUT I thought I saw the Grey Wolf's eyes. The sun was gone away, Most unendurably gone down, With all delights of day. I cried aloud for light, and all The light was dead and done away, And no one answered to my call. &n...
@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; } CHAPTER XXI As Miss Silver walked down towards the station to wait for her bus she reflected gravely upon the conversation which she had just had with Frank Abbott. It had not clarified anything, it had not led them anywhere, but it had...
Part of her gratitude arose from the fact that she regarded it as a privilege to thwart the designs of the evil-doer and to serve the ends of justice, which she would certainly have spelt with a capital letter. Her experience provided many occasions on which through her agency the innocent had be...
He was not alone, and his companion was Detective Inspector Abbott. She had been about to go upstairs, but she paused and waited for them with a smiling face and an outstretched hand. Frank Abbot took the hand and reciprocated the smile. Adrian Grey having mentioned that t...
She was very comfortably settled in her corner, with her back to the engine to avoid smuts and the magazine presented by her niece laid face downwards on the seat beside her. She gazed with amiable interest at the family parties which came and went, hurrying into sight and then hurrying on again....
Something had waked her—some sound—but she did not know what it was. It had startled her back from a dream in which she walked with Giles Armitage—Giles who was dead. But in her dream he wasn’t dead, but warm and alive, and they walked together and were glad. She listened ...
A little earlier or a little later, and things might have happened differently for her, and for Tanis Lyle, and for Carey Desborough, and for some other people too. It had to be that time because of her twenty-first birthday and having to see Mr. Metcalfe, who was the family lawyer and her truste...
The family was introduced — Geoffrey Ford and Mrs Geoffrey; the dark girl Miss Silver had seen crossing the hall; Miss Janet Johnstone and the little girl Stella. Star Somers, it appeared, was up in London on business – ‘She is just over from America and has so much to attend to.’ A rather daring...