The Introductory Allingham Box Set: Look to the Lady, Police at the Funeral, Sweet Danger

by Margery Allingham

Impelled by the very force of her vigorous personality, the little company followed her. At least three of the party were bristling at her outrageous monologue, but she was superbly oblivious of any effect she might create. It was this quality which had earned her the unique position in the county which she undoubtedly occupied. Everybody knew her, nobody liked her, and most people were a little afraid of her. Her astounding success with any species of horseflesh earned her a grudging admiration. Nobody snubbed her because the tongue capable of it had not yet been born. Her rudeness and studied discourtesy were a byword for some fifty square miles, yet she came and went where she pleased because the only way of stopping her would have been to hurl her bodily from one’s front door, no mean feat in itself, and this method had not yet occurred to the conservative minds of her principal victims.