Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
1922
On that particular November evening, Viner, a young gentleman of meansand leisure, who lived in a comfortable old house in Markendale Square,Bayswater, in company with his maiden aunt Miss Bethia Penkridge, hadspent his after-dinner hours in a fashion which had become a habit. MissPenkridge, a model housekeeper and an essentially worthy woman, whosewhole day was given to supervising somebody or something, had aninsatiable appetite for fiction, and loved nothing so much as that hernephew should read a novel to her after the two glasses of port which sheallowed herself every night had been thoughtfully consumed and he and shehad adjourned from the dining-room to the hearthrug in the library. Hertastes, however, in Viner's opinion were somewhat, if not decidedly,limited. Brought up in her youth on Miss Braddon, Wilkie Collins and Mrs.Henry Wood, Miss Penkridge had become a confirmed slave to thesensational. She had no taste for the psychological, and nothing butscorn for the erotic. What she loved was a story which began with crimeand ended with a detection—a story which kept you wondering who did it,how it was done, and when the doing was going to be laid bare to thelight of day. Nothing pleased her better than to go to bed with a braintitivated with the mysteries of the last three chapters; nothing gave hersuch infinite delight as to find, when the final pages were turned, thatall her own theories were wrong, and that the real criminal was somebodyquite other than the person she had fancied. For a novelist who was solittle master of his trade as to let you see when and how things weregoing, Miss Penkridge had little but good-natured pity; for one who ledyou by all sorts of devious tracks to a startling and surprisingsensation she cherished a whole-souled love; but for the creator of apl