The Black Abbot by Edgar Wallace — Read

In all the City of London there was perhaps no office more elegant than that in which Mr. Arthur Gwyn spent his leisurely business hours. It was a large room, panelled in white wood, with pink-shaded wall brackets of frosted silver. Its floor was covered with a deep rose carpet into which the feet sank as into an old lawn; and such furnishing as the room held was of the most costly description. Visitors and clients who had business with this dainty lawyer were warned not to smoke in his sacred presence. The windows were doubled to keep out the noises of Holborn; there were exterior sun blinds to exclude the fugitive rays of pale sunlight which occasionally bathed the City; and long velvet curtains, in harmony with the carpet, to shut out the horrid world that roared and palpitated outside Mr. Gwyn's exquisite chamber. In this room was a faint aroma of roses -- he was partial to the more expensive varieties of perfume, and had a standing order with the best of the Grasse houses.

He was a fair man with an unblemished skin and a small yellow moustache; a credit to his hosier and shirtmaker. His wasp-waisted morning coat fitted him without the suspicion of a wrinkle; his gray waistcoat, the severe dark trousers with the thinnest of white stripes, the patent shoes, the exact cravat, were all parts of a sartorial symmetry.