A Clue in Wax

Excerpt

CLIFFORD CHERITON emerged from the bathroom into his modest sitting-room in a blithesome frame of mind. For it was one of those perfect April mornings of which the poet Browning speaks so feelingly, and which seldom comes in what is traditionally a month of tender greenery and sunshine. But here was an afternoon—because it was afternoon—full of flickering lights and shadows and even in the dingy square outside the prim house in Bennett-street the lilacs were in full bloom, and here and there a laburnum about to burgeon into its yellow chains. An afternoon for youth and happiness and everything that goes to make life a joy even in a drab London street.