Monsieur Judas by Fergus Hume — Read

The residence of Mr. Spolger, situate about a mile beyond the town, was a large and particularly ugly building constructed on strictly hygienic principles. The inventor of the "Soother" had lived in an ancient mansion, badly drained and badly ventilated, which had been erected many years before; but when his son entered in possession of his inheritance, he had pulled down the old house, and built a barrack-like structure in which beauty gave way entirely to utility. Square, aggressively square, with walls of glaring white stone, it stood in the midst of a large piece of ground perfectly denuded of trees, as Mr. Spolger deemed trees damp and unhealthy, so the bare space was gravelled and asphalted like a barrack-yard. Plenty of staring plate-glass windows admitted light into the interior, which was composed of lofty square rooms, lofty oblong corridors, all smoothly whitewashed.

The floors of polished wood, innocent of carpets, were dangerous to the unwary, and the furniture, all of solid oak, was made for strength rather than loveliness. There were few pictures on the walls, as Mr. Spolger thought that looking at works of art strained the optic nerve, and there were no draperies on the windows in case any disease might lurk in them. The bare inside looked out on to the bare barrack ground, and the treeless barrack ground looked into the glaring inside, so it was all very nice and healthy and abominably ugly.