I am informed—most passionately and even threateningly informed—that it is impossible that a sea-serpent should have luminous eyes. To this I reply that Charles Anstruther says he saw luminous eyes staring up at him out of the dark.
PATRICIA WENTWORTH
P.P.S.—This book was written in the autumn of 1932, before I had heard so much as a whisper about the Loch Ness Monster.
About The Author
PATRICIA WENTWORTH was born Dora Amy Elles in India in 1877 (not 1878 as has sometimes been stated). She was first educated privately in India, and later at Blackheath School for Girls. Her first husband was George Dillon, with whom she had her only child, a daughter. She also had two stepsons from her first marriage, one of whom died in the Somme during World War I.
Her first novel was published in 1910, but it wasn’t until the 1920’s that she embarked on her long career as a writer of mysteries. Her most famous creation was Miss Maud Silver, who appeared in 32 novels, though there were a further 33 full-length mysteries not featuring Miss Silver—the entire run of these is now reissued by Dean Street Press.
Patricia Wentworth died in 1961. She is recognized today as one of the pre-eminent exponents of the classic British golden age mystery novel.
By Patricia Wentworth
and available from Dean Street Press
The Benbow Smith Mysteries
Fool Errant
Danger Calling
Walk with Care
Down Under
The Frank Garrett Mysteries
Dead or Alive
Rolling Stone
The Ernest Lamb Mysteries
The Blind Side
Who Pays the Piper?
Pursuit of a Parcel
Standalones
The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith
The Red Lacquer Case
The Annam Jewel
The Black Cabinet
The Dower House Mystery
The Amazing Chance
Hue and Cry
Anna Belinda
Will-O’-the-Wisp
Beggar’s Choice
The Coldstone
Kingdom Lost
Nothing Venture
Red Shadow
Outrageous Fortune
Touch and Go
Fear by Night
Red Stefan
Blindfold
Hole and Corner
Mr. Zero
Run!
Weekend with Death
Silence in Court
Patricia Wentworth
Hole and Corner
Thief, kleptomaniac… or innocent victim of a malevolent plot to implicate her?
THAT’S SHIRLEY DALE. First there had been the strange appearance of someone else’s pocketbook on her person as she was getting on a crowded bus one evening. The next night when she was dining with the attractive Anthony Leigh, the flashy little purse of another woman mysteriously turned up in Shirley’s own black hand-bag.
When she finds her employer’s diamond brooch in the hem of her coat, Shirley flees in panic to Anthony for the help she so desperately needs. Anthony’s devoted efforts to aid her uncover a sinister, fast-growing plan. Now Anthony and Shirley must clear her name and unmask her tormentor before her very life is in jeopardy.
Hole and Corner was originally published in 1936. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
“When I pick up a book by Patricia Wentworth I think, now to enjoy myself—and I always do.” Mary Dell, Daily Mirror
Chapter One
William Ambrose Merewether was altering his will. This was his most constant recreation. It was also a steady source of income to the lawyers who managed his affairs. Whenever he had an ailment which confined him to the house, it was his practice to send for Mr Van Leiten or for his son Schuyler and play the fascinating game of curtailing legacies here and doubling them there, striking out a New York hospital and substituting one in Washington, deciding to give a year’s wages to all his employees, or to found a magnificently endowed retreat for superannuated members of the teaching profession, then doubling this with a stroke of the pen so as to provide two establishments, one male, one female, and finally sweeping the whole thing away in favour of hostels for sales-ladies. At one time or another he had bequeathed magnificent sums to practically every scientific, philanthropic, and educational body in the United States. High-sounding titles decorated a page of Mr Van Leiten’s foolscap for a brief space, and then gave way to other titles, other names.
To-day it was Schuyler Van Leiten who was in attendance, a man of about forty with a shrewd, pleasant face and a figure already tending to heaviness. He sat in one of Mr Merewether’s excellent and expensive chairs, and William Ambrose Merewether, wrapped in a dressing-gown of scarlet and blue silk, sat in another. Beneath the dressing-gown he was fully dressed. It served merely to advertise the fact that he was, officially, indisposed, as did the scarlet leather bedroom slippers which replaced his ordinary footwear. He sat forward in his chair with his very thick white hair standing up like the crest of a cockatoo and a bright dancing gleam in his pale blue eyes. His thin old face wore an expression of lively interest, and when he wished to make a point his forefinger shot out at Schuyler Van Leiten in a curious stabbing motion.
“The West Central Hospital comes out?”
William Ambrose nodded.
“They don’t get a cent,” he said. “No more do the whole lot of these,” He whisked a paper out of his dressing-gown pocket, leaned forward, and shot it at Schuyler, “Take ’em all out—the whole darned lot of ’em! They don’t get a cent, none of ’em—not a cent!”
Schuyler Van Leiten was well trained. He made a note, and waited. This was all in the day’s work. “Presently,” he thought, “when the old man’s run through all the lot of them, he’ll have to make a fresh start and work through again. When he dies, some will be lucky and some won’t. It’s a gamble, like roulette.” He looked up, pleasantly inquiring, and saw old William Ambrose sitting very taut, a hand on either knee and the oddest flicker of a smile about his thin lips.
“Ready, Schuyler?”
“Oh quite.”
“What we’ve just knocked off totals up to a million dollars, and I’m putting that into a trust. You’ll be one of the trustees, and your father’ll be another, and J. J. Wilson’ll be the third. Have you got that? A million in trust for the descendants, if any, of my cousin Jane Lorimer.”
“One r or two?” said Schuyler. His face remained impassive, but he raised a mental eyebrow. Never before had any relative figured in the long procession of William Ambrose Merewether’s legatees. Servants, employees, business associates, and institutions had passed, repassed, and jostled one another upon the pages of his will, but this was the first mention of any warmer claim.
Schuyler, an easy-going man with a wife as pleasant as himself and a cheerful, affectionate family of boys and girls growing up, had a momentary feeling of pity. If the only folks you could rake together were the hypothetical descendants of a cousin whom no one had ever heard of, it was a shade bleaker than having no folks at all.
He looked up, and found William Ambrose regarding him with amusement.
“One r—but you don’t need to trouble too much about it, because if she didn’t quit being Lorimer a good long time ago, there won’t be any descendants.”
“You don’t know if she was married?”
William Ambrose shook his head and emitted a short cackling laugh.
“She wasn’t the sort to stay single, but I don’t know anything. It’s fifty years since I saw her—fifty years since I’ve heard from her—fifty years since I heard of her. And what do you think was the last thing she said to me? ‘I should hate to marry you,’ she said, ‘but when you’ve made that fortune you’ve been bragging about you can send me some of it for a Christmas present.’ And she threw a rosebud at me, hard as a bullet, and hit me in the eye, and no thanks to her that I wasn’t blinded. And th
en she ran away, laughing at me, and if I could have killed her without getting hanged for it, I’d have done it then and there. And I cleared out and came over here and made the fortune I’d set out to make—and I’d had enough of asking young women to marry me, so I’ve managed to keep what I made. So now Jane’s going to get her Christmas present—she or her descendants. Better make it two million in case there are a lot of them. Yes, two million—and that’ll mean knocking it off somewhere else. Got a list of the legacies there? Just hand ’em over and let me see where we can get the other million.… Here we are!” He ran a pencil down the list of names, bending over it agog with interest.
The legacies began as it were to slide, to mingle, to interlace. Some disappeared altogether, others emerged like frail ghosts without weight or substance. In the end William Ambrose had collected his second million. He pushed the list back to Schuyler with a triumphant “There!” Then, hands on knees again, he said in his thin, dry voice,
“Two million dollars in trust for my cousin Jane Lorimer or her descendants—”
“One moment, Mr Merewether—do they share equally?”
William Ambrose considered this. The fingers of his right hand played a tune upon his knee, a slow tune which changed suddenly into a quick-step. He gave his cackling laugh again, stopped the dancing fingers, and said in a pleased voice,
“Equal shares—equal shares all round. No, no—wait a minute, Schuyler—cross that out. I can do better than that. Yes, yes, I can do a whole lot better than that. If Jane’s alive she can have the lot—but she isn’t alive.”
Schuyler Van Leiten preserved his patience.
“Don’t you know whether she’s alive, Mr Merewether?”
“I told you I didn’t, didn’t I? Told you I hadn’t heard of her in fifty years. You don’t attend—that’s what’s the matter with you, Schuyler. Now you sit right up and take notice, because I don’t expect to say everything twice! If Jane’s alive she can have the lot, but I’m pretty well sure she’s dead—I’ve got that kind of feeling about her.” The quick gleam danced in his eyes. “Jane’s gone, and if I’m wrong she can have the laugh of me.”
“Well, Mr Merewether?”
“Then we come to the next generation. If there are half a dozen sons and daughters, they get equal shares all round. If there’s only one, that one’ll take the lot. If there’s been half a dozen of ’em, the survivor gets it all. Have you got that?”
Schuyler nodded,
“You’re not putting in the grandchildren?”
“Not if there’s a son or daughter of Jane’s alive—unless—but we’ll come to that presently. And if there isn’t a surviving child, then the grandchildren divide, whether there’s two of ’em, or five, or fifty. And whether it’s Jane herself, or her children, or her grandchildren, they’ll all be under the same condition. If Jane breaks it, the whole goes down to the children. If one of ’em breaks it, that one loses his share to the rest. If there’s no one in that generation that complies with the condition, then the grandchildren come in.” He lifted up his hands and let them drop again upon his knees with a resounding smack. “I’d like to see Jane’s face when she hears about the condition! Pity I can’t! And a pity if she’s dead, because I’d like to get a bit of my own back on Jane—after fifty years.”
“What’s eating the old man now?” said Schuyler to himself. But aloud he said, “Oh—there’s a condition?”
“There’s a very important condition,” said William Ambrose Merewether.
Published by Dean Street Press 2016
Copyright © 1934 Patricia Wentworth
Introduction copyright © 2016 Curtis Evans
All Rights Reserved
The right of Patricia Wentworth to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 1934 by Hodder & Stoughton
Cover by DSP
ISBN 978 1 911413 26 4
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk
Fear by Night: A Golden Age Mystery Page 26