Edgar Wallace

“ The car pulled up, according to instructions, a little distance from Lord Pinlow’s residence. He got out, closing the door behind him, and admitted himself to the flat.
The storm had circled round London. The lightning was vivid and incessant, and overhead the thunder crashed and cracked. He went to his room, opened the gun-case, and took a second pistol from its case. He loaded it with the same care as he had devoted to the first weapon, then stood waiting, the Colt in his hand, his finger on the trigger. With one hand he unfastened the catch of the window and raised it. ”

“ As it broke, Pinlow fired and the noise of the explosion was drowned in the overwhelming artilleries of the heavens. He drew down the window and slipped the pistol into his pocket, and made his way back to the waiting taxi.
He found Caggley in a state bordering upon panic.
“Let’s get out of this, for God’s sake,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve never been out in such a storm.”
Pinlow gave some fresh directions to the driver and the cab moved on.
“It is nothing,” he said, and truly the storm was in harmony with the storm which raged in his own heart. ”

“ Lord Pinlow turned the matter over in his mind, as you might consider the abstract problem of planting out geraniums, and he decided that the world was too small a place for Brian Pallard and himself.
Only those who knew the man could appreciate such cold-blooded reasoning ”