Book Excerpt for the Day

    "The girl Elizabeth ... was preparing to retreat once more to the shelter of the broom-cupboard, when the door at the end of the passage opened and a terrible face looked out at her."

    Bunter appeared to be enjoying the sensation he was producing, and paused.

    "A terrible face," said Wimsey.  "Very well, I've got that.  A terrible face.  Next, please!"

    "The face, as I understand," pursued Bunter, "was enveloped in grave-clothes.  The jaws were closely bound up, the features were hideous and the lips writhed away from the protruding teeth and the apparition was of a ghastly pallor."

    "Look here, Bunter," said Wimsey, "could you not cut out some of the fancy adjectives and say plainly what the face was like?"

    "I had not myself the opportunity of observing the face," said Bunter, reprovingly, "but the impression produced on me by the young woman's observations was that of a dark-haired, clean-shaven man with protruding teeth under the affliction of some form of physical suffering."

    "Oh, it was a man, then?"

    "That was Elizabeth's opinion."


(from The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy L. Sayers)


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