Footsteps in the Dark

Footsteps in the Dark (1932) Georgette Heyer

‘No, don’t tell me I can go without you, Charles. I may be a bad wife, and wake you up to look in the wardrobe in the small hours, but I am not such a bad wife that I’d go away and leave you with a ghost and a planchette.’

He easily located the engine-room, went in, leaving the door open behind him, and found, as he had thought, that the engine drove the electric light plant. No one was there, and the first thing that struck him was the size of the plant.
…
Puzzled, he stood looking at it, wondering why such a powerful machine and such a large plant had been installed for the mere purpose of supplying light for the inn
…
But why has Wilkes installed such a large plant? Surely it’s generating far more electricity than you can possibly use?

Good Lord, I thought that type went out with the ’Nineties!’ murmured Peter.

She found a telephone-box disengaged, and after painstakingly reading all the alarming information about pressing buttons A and B, dropped two pennies into the slot, and gave the number she wanted.

‘I don’t like him,’ Charles announced. ‘Don’t marry him, Margaret. We can’t have a policeman in the family. What about our wireless licence? He’s bound to find out that it’s expired.’

Until she met Michael Strange she was almost sure that she was not the sort of girl who fell in love
…
she had, in her own words, ‘taken to him,’ as she could not remember ever having ‘taken to’ anyone before
…
Margaret was not in the habit of being thrilled by young men, however personable, and she felt slightly affronted to think that such an idea had even crossed her mind
…
For one who had the greatest objection to stray embraces, this was unheard of. Margaret put the thought hurriedly aside: in every other way she prided herself on her modernity, but when it came to letting men maul you about – no!

Characters: Celia Malcolm, Charles Malcolm, Peter Fortescue, Margaret Fortescue, Aunt Lilian Bosanquet, Mrs Emma Bowers, Mr Bowers, Michael Strange / Inspector Draycott, Mr James Fripp, Ernest Titmarsh, Colonel Ackerley, Dr Roote, Mrs Roote, Mr Pennythorne, Mrs Pennythorne, Jane, the housemaid, Mr Wilkes, Spindle, M. Louis Duval, Mr and Mrs Milbank, Inspector Tomlinson, Sergeant Matthews, Constable Flinders, Dr Puttock

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Rating: 8.5/10

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