The Black by Edgar Wallace — Read

Jim Morlake had never driven quite so slowly as he did on his way home to Wold House. He could well imagine that Sussex society had been shocked to its depths. The vicars and the churchwardens, the squires and squireens, the heads of noble houses who, on the strength of their neighbourship, had offered him their hospitality, the villagers themselves, sticklers for propriety, would regard his arrest and the judge's remarks as something cataclysmic. He maintained a considerable style in the country. His house was a large one; he employed butler and housekeeper, a dozen maids, cooks and the like, and he had never been quite sure of the number of gardeners who were on his pay roll.

He smiled as he thought of the effect his appearance at the Central Criminal Court would have upon these worthy folk. They were well paid and excellently well treated. His butler, and the butler's wife, who was housekeeper, had grown tremulous in their gratitude for the little services which he had rendered them. What they were thinking now, he could not guess, as he had had no communication with Wold House since his arrest. He had instructed the local bank manager to pay their salaries and such monies as were necessary to carry on the household, and in response he had received only one letter, from the gardener, asking whether it was his wish, in view of recent happenings, that the daffodil bulbs should be planted on the edge of the wood as he had ordered.