Val frowned. "Aunt Di," he said, "was what Uncle Lionel's brother Adolphe used to call a freak of nature. I remember him saying to me, 'Val, my boy, you never get a woman who is a complete fool. Many men achieve that distinction, but never a woman. The exception which proves that rule is your Aunt Diana.' He didn't like her."
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
Mr. Israel Melchizedek was the miracle of good breeding, the refined and intellectual Jew. Looking at him one was irrestistibly reminded of the fact that his ancestors had ancestors who had conversed with Jehovah. He was nearing seventy years of age, a tall, lean old fellow with a firm delicate face of what might well have been polished ivory.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
"I think the sooner we get on the better. What i suggest is that we split up. Penny, you and I will take the precious suitcase in the two-seater. Val and Miss Cairey will follow close behind to come to our assistance if necessary. Have you got enough gas?"
Penny looked at him in surprise. "I think so," she said, but as he hesitated she added, laughing, "I'll go and see if you like."
Mr. Campion looked more foolish than before. "Twice armed is he who speeds with an excuse, but thrice is he whose car is full of juice," he remarked absently.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
"How on earth did you know?" she said. Mr. Campion sighed with relief.
"The process of elimination," said he oracularly as he picked up the suitcase and trudged back to the car with it, "combined with a modicum of common sense, will always assist us to arrive at the correct conclusion with the maximum of possible accuracy and the minimum of hard labour. Which being translated means: I guessed it."
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
"I'm going to London too," said Mr. Campion, climbing in. "It's a long way from here, isn't it?" he went on with apparent imbecility. "I knew I'd never walk it."
Penny stared at him, her cheeks flushing. "Surely you can't go off and leave the Tower unprotected," she said, and there was a note of amusement in her voice.
"Never laugh at a great man," said Mr. Campion. "Remember what happened to the vulgar little girls who threw stons at Elisha. I can imagine few worse deaths than being eaten by a bear," he added conversationally.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
Actor Joseph Crehan was noted for having played U. S. Grant in movies nine times between 1939 and 1958.
"Dad really had cause for a grievance, you see, only Professor Cairey himself doesn't shoot, so you can't expect him to understand. And anyhow, he only wants asking. Dad's so silly that way."
"Professor? said Campion thoughtfully. "What does he profess?"
"Archaeology," said Penny proptly. "But you don't think . . .?"
"My dear girl," said Mr. Campion, "I can't see the wood for the trees. 'And in the night imagining some fear, how easy doth a bush appear a bear.' You see," he added with sudden seriousness, "if your aunt met her death by someone's design, I'm not only out of my depth, but I might just as well have left my water-wings at home."
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
The slight signs of neglect which a sudden rise in the cost of labour combined with a strangling land tax had induced upon the lawns and gardens had only succeeded in mellowing and softening the pretentiousness of the estate, and in the haze of the morning it looked kindly and inviting in spite of the fact that the doctor's venerable motor car stood outside the square doorway and the blinds were drawn in all the front windows.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham. If you are a reader of the comic writings of Sir P. G. Wodehouse, you will find more than once that he uses this financial fact ("strangling land tax") as the backdrop for the plot, i.e., noble families in castles or large manor houses who have become virtually impoverished because of the high rates of taxation in the period.)
It was a fairy-tale village peopled by yokels who, if they did not wear the traditional white smocks so beloved of film producers, at least climbed the rough steps to the church on a Sunday morning in top hats of unquestionale antiquity.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
The village of Sanctuary lay in that part of Suffolk which the railway has ignored and the motorists have not yet discovered. Moreover, the steep-sided valley of which it consisted, with the squat Norman church on one eminence and the Tower on the other, did not lie on the direct route to anywhere, so that no one turned down the narrow cherry-lined lane which was its southern approach unless he had actual business in the village. The place itself was one of those staggering pieces of beauty that made Morland paint in spite of all the noggins of rum in the world.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
She was of a type not uncommon among the "landed gentry," but mercifully rare elsewhere. Superbly self-possessed, she was slightly masculine in appearance, with square flat shoulders and narrow hips. Her hair was cut short under her mannish felt, her suit was perfectly tailored and the collar of her blouse fitted tightly at her throat.
She managed to enter the room noisily and sat down so that her face was toward them. It was a handsome face, but one to which the epithet of "beautiful" would have seemed absurd.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
There was no one in sight, so he tapped the counter irresolutely. Almost immediately a door to the right of the stove was jerked open and there appeared a mountain of a man with the largest and most lugubrious face he had ever seen. A small tablecloth had been tied across his stomch by the way of an apron, and his great muscular arms were bare to the elbow. For the rest, his head was bald, and the bone of his nose had sustained an irreparable injury.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
A man who is literally destitute is like a straw in the wind; any tiny current is suficient to set him drifting in a new direction. His time and energies are of no value to him: anything is worth while.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
Not the least remarkable thing about a coincidence is that once it has happened one names it, accepts it, and leaves it at that.
(from The Gyrth Chalice Mystery, by Margery Allingham)
"Being one of the last of the old regime she had a tattood chin." (from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh. She is referencing the custom of Maori women of placing tattoo marks on their chins.)
"Don't you think it would be much pleasanter to go a little way towards tne sea and smoke a cigarette? This morbid desire to look at sinking ships! Isn't it kinder to let her go down alone? I feel that it would be rather like watching the public execution of a good friend."
(from Colour Scheme, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)
