The internet and AbeBooks has taken a lot of the fun out of shopping so I was pleased to come across Hurlingham Books near Putney Bridge on Monday. It is a browsers’ paradise, stacked high with a marvellous miscellany of everything under the sun.
Of course I do not need any more books, especially after the FT Oxford Lit Fest where I bought two to add to the unread stack. But you know how it is …
“A Final Message from Scotland Yard
Campion glanced at his mail with a slowly growing sense of satisfaction, the sight of his own name on several envelopes gave him, however unreasonably, a certain faith in his own identity.
He looked at the one headed baldly: ‘My office, The Yard. Tuesday.’ It ran on: ‘Dear A. C. For God’s sake get busy. Keep your eye on the calendar. The figures 15 turn my belly whenever I see or hear them. Forced to rely on you now. Every other line has gone slack, and time is so short. If this thing happens, it is the END. I’m not a religious chap, but I’m praying now literally. Damn you, succeed. S.’
Mr Albert Campion read the letter twice. There were cold waves playing up and down his spine. Some terrible responsibility rested upon him and he had no recollection at all of what it was.” (Traitor’s Purse, Margery Allingham, 1941)
If you are not acquainted with Albert Campion he is “a tall thin man with overly large spectacles, he is deceptively unobtrusive when tracking down a killer and uncannily capable of predicting the deadly twists of a criminal’s mind. He is unquestionably a gentleman, but even Lugg, his dauntless valet, and his friends at Scotland Yard don’t know all the secrets in Campion’s past – or the confidential cases he has covertly solved while in His Majesty’s Service”. (Traitor’s Purse, back cover)
I couldn’t resist and willingly parted with £2. Classic detective stories are a genre I often return to with great pleasure. What’s for pudding?