“ ‘Beatrice Lady Cullumpton entered the long, dimly-lit drawing-room, her eyes blazing with a hope that she guessed to be groundless, her lips trembling with a fear that she could not disguise. In her hand she carried a small fan, a fragile toy of lace and satinwood. Something snapped as she entered the room; she had crushed the fan into a dozen pieces.’

“There, what do you think of that for an opening? It tells you at once that there’s something afoot.”

“I don’t read novels,” said Caiaphas sullenly.