A Shilling for Candles

by Josephine Tey

“No. I—not much in my line, I’m afraid: swimming before breakfast. I—I’ve always been a rabbit at games and things like that.”

“What have you done with her—with the body, I mean?” she asked. “At the mortuary.” This seemed to bring home tragedy for the first time. “Oh, deary me.” She moved the end of her apron over a polished table, slowly. “And me making griddle cakes.” This was not a lament for wasted griddle cakes, but her salute to the strangeness of life. “I expect you’ll need breakfast,” she said to Tisdall, softened by her unconscious recognition of the fact that the best are but puppets.

My real name is Stannaway, but Uncle Tom asked that I should take his name with the money. I didn’t mind. The Tisdalls were a much better lot than the Stannaways, anyhow. Stamina and ballast and all that.

Charm. The most insidious weapon in all the human armoury.

“A girl who’d pushed her way from a lace factory in Nottingham to the top of the film world couldn’t be very vulnerable.” “It’s because she was from a lace factory that she was what-d’you-call-it. Every six months she was in a different social sphere, she went up at such a rate. That takes a lot of living up to—like a diver coming up from a long way below. You’re continually adjusting

Just one of those rather ordinary specimens of humanity from some poor corner of Europe who believes he’s being continually exploited and persecuted by his fellow men, self-pitying, ill-educated, emotional, and ruthless. Not good-looking, but attractive to women, no doubt.

Oh my gawd, Jo

Charming gentleman calls in a perfectly friendly way about breakfast time, apologizing for disturbing you and hopes he isn’t going to be a trouble to you but he’s an inspector of police and would you be so very kind as to give some information because last time your information wasn’t as accurate as it might have been. It’s lovely, that’s what it is. And you get results with it, too. Perhaps they just break down and sob, on account of all the friendliness. Pie like mother made. What I’d like to know is if that method goes in Pimlico or if you keep it for Park Lane.”

If he’d called her ‘kid’ and ‘chocolate’ the way old Joe Myers used to back in the States, she’d have laughed and worked like a black for him.

jesus

That he could commiserate with Grant on his non-success without making Grant want to hit him, was a test of his worth.

And don’t forget, discretion is the better part.

I like that. I'm adopting that.

A pleasant enough woman, but without force of character. I couldn’t persuade her. Weak people can be very stubborn.

watching Grant with amused and friendly eyes.

if there was one emotion that the British public loved to wallow in it was being righteously indignant. So he, Jammy, had provided a wallow for them.

It is said that ninety-nine people out of a hundred, receiving a telegram reading: All is discovered: fly, will snatch a toothbrush and make for the garage.