various contributors

“ Of course it would be rather too much to expect the story to treat of the Belgium we all love and admire to-day. Indeed, Margaret Baillie Saunders, writing in the old times of six weeks ago, permits herself some good-natured humour at the expense of the little red-trousered army. To-day it sounds oddly archaic. But, this apart, there is enough topical and local colour in the setting to secure success, even without an interesting story such as is told here. One may perhaps fairly easily detect its inspiration in certain actual happenings. ”

“ Some people have all the luck! Fancy preparing for publication this summer a novel whose scene is laid in Belgium. The picture of Bruges Tower on the cover of The Belfry (Hodder and Stoughton) should alone be enough to sell it like the hottest of hot cakes. ”

“ How, when he could achieve that kind of luck, could he be expected to take more than a languid interest in a tale where the most impossible people behave more impossibly; where, for example, a missing peer posts a letter to his wife at the back of a picture-frame for no earthly reason ”