A Murder of Quality (George Smiley Series Book 2)

by John Le Carré

They came in great cars that shone with mournful purity.

They were always in mourning at Carne; the small boys because they must stay and the big boys because they must leave,

You’re never allowed to thank him, you know. He says emotionalism is only for the lower classes.

I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.’

Such an effort being with people – on stage all the time.

I am not mad and I know my husband is trying to kill me. Could I please come and see you as soon as it’s convenient? I’m sure you’ll believe me, and understand that I am normal.

Because instinct was not evidence? They wanted fact. But the fact of murder was death. Must they wait for that?

He’s a down-to-earth man, see, although he’s a Minister.

Fielding seemed so dazzled by the footlights that he was indifferent to the audience behind them.

‘Boys love disaster. The further we are from death the more attractive it seems.

And suddenly he knew he was afraid – afraid of the house, afraid of the sprawling dark garden. The knowledge came to him like an awareness of pain.

He observed in alarm the first involuntary movement of panic. He was afraid, then suddenly the senses joined in one concerted cry of terror, where sight and sound and touch could no longer be distinguished in the frenzy of his brain.

‘These small, out-of-the-way villages are pretty strange places,’ he concluded. ‘Often only three or four families, all so inbred you can no more sort them out than a barnful of cats. That’s where your village idiots come from.

That little stiff voice with the corners carefully defined, like a hired morning suit,

He knew mankind as a huntsman knows his cover, as a fox the wood. For a spy must hunt while he is hunted, and the crowd is his estate. He could collect their gestures and their words, record the interplay of glance and movement, as a huntsman can record the twisted bracken and the broken twig, or as a fox detects the signs of danger.

I’m never quite sure about funerals, are you? I have a suspicion that they are largely a lower-class recreation;

Shane hated Stella – I think it was because Stella didn’t want to be a lady of quality. She was quite happy to be herself. That’s what really worried Shane. Shane likes people to compete so that she can make fools of them.’

York Gardens, as the square is called, will one day be discovered by the world, and its charm lost,