The Indian Bangle by Fergus Hume — Read

Sandbeach is a rising watering-place on the south coast. It has been rising for the last ten years, yet, in the opinion of its inhabitants, it has not yet reached that pitch of elevation to which its merits entitle it. The guide-book emphatically declares that it is healthy, pleasantly situated, within easy distance of London, and inexpensive. But for all this eulogy, Sandbeach remains unpopular. A sand and shingle beach curved between headlands of crumbling chalk, a stone-faced esplanade with wooden shelters like dolls' houses, three or four dozen Queen Anne residences fronting some public gardens -- a courtesy term, surely -- such is Sandbeach. In the rear huddle a score or more of untidy cottages. These represent the original village of thirty years back. There is the usual monster hotel, invariably "under entirely new management," for each season it succeeds in bankrupting its unhappy proprietor.

There is also an aggressively ornate band-stand, where play local musicians who seemingly vie with their predecessors in the staleness and worthlessness of their music. Golf-links, tennis-courts, bicycle-track, all are there, but all are more or less deserted. Sandbeach possesses every attraction of the modern seaside "resort," yet people, for some inscrutable reason, decline to fill its hotel or to occupy its apartments. Even in what is facetiously termed its "season" it is but sparsely populated. 'Tis a marine Doctor Fell, and no man knoweth the reason of its unpopularity.