Sublime

The “poor chap” of whom the Colonel was thinking was his son, Denis, now a prisoner of war in Japanese hands. Whether the Colonel’s epithet was due to Denis’s plight or to the wife he had married was uncertain, but Colonel St Cyres disliked his daughter-in-law as heartily as any well-bred man allowed himself to dislike a woman.

When I’m on to a scheme I’m always out to employ local talent, and, if a fellow’s got something to hide, in my opinion it’s policy to find out what that something is.”

He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point.