When retired Botany professor Andrew Basnett goes to stay with old friends, a local dinner party with a theme goes wrong when one of the guests dies.
With one hand she clawed at her hair, with the other she groped blindly for a cigarette. Basil put one into her mouth and lit it for her. ‘I’m awfully sorry, Fanny, awfully,’ Jean went on quickly. She looked down at the flowers now as if she were wondering why she had brought them. ‘It can’t be h...
It was as if the man outside whose shadow it was, were listening for voices from within the room. Then he moved, but his footsteps were almost without sound. Only the glass door creaked as he pushed it further open. As his short body filled the entrance, cutting off most of the sunlight, David Ob...
Nettle,” the child said. “Mrs. Nettle—it’s cold enough for snow, isn’t it?” The elderly woman, sitting in the armchair near the fire, went on with the swift darning of the grey sock stretched over her hand. “I shouldn’t wonder,” she agreed. “I think it’s going to snow,” the child said. “It is, is...
Her mouth hung a little open; her eyes were empty. A bewildered shake of her head came next, and then, starting to rub her forehead with the knuckles of one clenched fist, she found a few words. “Aunt Nelia, Roger—Roger’s been——” “Where’s Vanessa, E...
Yet on Friday morning there was a letter for Toby Dyke. He woke up to see it a few inches in front of his nose. Through the clouds of drowsiness and through his resentment at the fact that someone, contrary to instructions, must have wakened him, he saw an oblong of white with his own name writte...