Crime Stories PDF

SH O R T S T O R IE S BY
Edgar Allan Poe

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
G K Chesterton
Ruth Rendell
Alexander McCall Smith
Crime Stories
/i i l l a n L i t e r a t u r e C o l l e c t i o n s
MACMILLAN LITERATURE COLLECTIONS
Crime Stories
edited by Ceri Jones

Contents
M acm illan Literature Collections 4
Introduction 6
Using a dictionary 10
T he genre of Crim e . 12
T h e Tell-tale H eart 15
by Edgar A llan Poe
A cold blooded killer plans the perfect murder
T h e Red-headed League 35
by Sir Arthur C on an Doyle
Sherlock Holmes solves an unusual case
T h e B lue C ro ss 81
by G K Chesterton
The French head of police is on the trail of a famous thief
M other’s H elp 121

by Ruth Rendell
History repeats itself for a nanny and the family she works for
N o Place to P ark 167

by A lexander M cC all Sm ith
A crime writer attempts a new kind of crime story
Essay questions 192

Glossary 195
Language study index 207
Macmillan Literature Collections
Welcome to Macmillan Literature Collections - a series of advanced-level
readers containing original, unsimplified short stories written by famous
classic and modern writers. We hope that these stories will help to ease the
transition from graded readers to reading authentic novels.
Each collection in the series includes:
In tro d u ctio n
- an introduction to the short story
- tips for reading authentic texts in English
- an introduction to the genre
T h e stories
Each story is presented in three parts: the introduction and pre-
reading support material; the story; and post-reading activities. Each
introduction includes the following sections:
- About the author - in-depth information about the author and their
work
- About the story - information about the story, including background
information about setting and cultural references
- Summary - a brief summary of the story that does not give away the
ending.
P re-read in g activities
- Key vocabulary - a chance to look at some of the more difficult
vocabulary related to the main themes and style of the story before
reading the story
- Main themes - a brief discussion of the main themes, with questions
to keep in mind as you read.
T h e sto ry
You will find numbered footnotes in the stories. These explain
cultural and historical references, and key words that you will need to
understand the text. Many of these footnotes give definitions of words
which are very formal, old-fashioned or rarely used in modern English.
You will find more common, useful words and phrases from the stories
in the Glossary at the end of the book. Words included in the Glossary
will appear in bold.
4 | Macmillan Literature Collections

P o st-read in g activities
- Understanding the story - comprehension questions that will help
you make sure you’ve understood the story
- Language study - a section that presents and practises key linguistic
and structural features of authentic literary texts (you will find an
index of the areas covered at the end of the book)
- Literary analysis - discussion questions that guide you to an in-depth
appreciation of the story, its structure, its characters and its style.
In addition, at the end of each book there are:

- suggested Essay questions
- a comprehensive Glossary highlighting useful vocabulary from each
story
- an index for the Language study section.
How to use these books

You can use these books in whatever way you want. You may want to
start from the beginning and work your way through. You may want
to pick and choose. The Contents page gives a very brief, one-line
introduction to each story to help you decide where to start. You may
want to learn about the author and the story before you read each
one, or you may prefer to read the story first and then find out more
about it afterwards. Remember that the stories and exercises can be
challenging, so you may want to spend quite a long time studying each
one. The most important thing is to enjoy the collection - to enjoy
reading, to enjoy the stories and to enjoy the language that has been
used to create them.
Answer keys
In many cases you can check your answers in the story by using the
page references given. However, an Answer key for all the exercises is
available at www.macmillanenglish.com/readers.
Macmillan Literature Collections | 5

Introduction
What is a short story?
A short story is shorter than a novel, but longer than a poem, usually
between 1,000 and 20,000 words long. It tells a story which can usually
be read quite quickly. It often concentrates on one, central event; it
has a limited number of characters, and takes place within a short
space of time.
History of the short story

Stories and storytelling have existed as long as people have had
language. People love, and need, stories. They help us explain and
understand the world. Before people could read or write, storytellers
travelled from village to village, telling stories.
The first written stories developed from this storytelling tradition.
Two of the best known examples of early, written stories in Europe
appeared in the 14thcentury. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Bocaccio’s
Decameron are both based on the same idea. A group of people who are
travelling or living together for a short space of time, agree to tell each
other stories. Their individual short stories are presented together as
one long story.
The first modem short stories appeared at the beginning of the 19th
century. Early examples of short story collections include the Fairy
Tales (1824-26) of the Brothers Grimm, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales
of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840). In the late 19th century, printed
magazines and journals became more popular and more and more
short stories were published. Nineteenth-century short stories often
reflected the literary interest of the time in realism, in stories based on
contemporary situations that explored the reality of life at all levels of
society.
Short stories in the twentieth century

By the 20th century most well-known magazines included short stories
in every issue and the publishers paid a lot of money for them. In 1952,
Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Old Man and the Sea helped sell
over 5 million copies of the magazine Life in just over two days. In the
first half of the 20th century, some writers managed to make a good
6 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction

living solely out of writing short stories. Later in the same century,
short stories became the starting point for novels, or the basis of
successful films.
Short stories throughout the 20th century reflected a growing
interest in psychology and the inner thoughts and feelings of their
characters, echoing literary trends in novels of the same era. As the
century progressed, writers also became interested in people’s reactions
to science and technology and to modem, urban settings. Plots and
narratives became less linear. Novels and stories often had open or
ambiguous endings, asking questions rather than offering answers,
and the reader was called on to form their own interpretation of facts
and motives. Beliefs and social structures were often questioned as
the emphasis shifted to the individual and the individual’s actions,
reactions and thought processes.
The short story today

Today, short stories are often published in collections called anthologies.
They are usually grouped according to a particular category - by
theme, topic, national origin, time or author. Some newspapers and
magazines continue to print individual stories. Many short stories are
first published on the Internet, with authors posting them on special-
interest websites and in online magazines.
Reading authentic literary texts in English

Reading authentic literary texts can be difficult. They may contain
grammatical structures you have not studied, or expressions and sayings
you are not familiar with. Unlike graded readers, they have not been
written for language students. The words have been chosen to create
a particular effect, not because they are easy or difficult. But you do
not need to understand every word to understand and enjoy the story.
When you are reading in your own language you will often read so
quickly that you skip over words, and read for the general effect, rather
than the details. Try to do the same when you are reading in English.
Remember that looking up every word you don’t know slows you down
and stops you enjoying the story.
Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction I 7

When you’re reading authentic short stories, remember:
- It should be a pleasure!
- You should read at your own pace.
- Let the story carry you along - don’t worry about looking up every
word you don’t understand.
- Don’t worry about looking up difficult words unless they stop you
from understanding the story.
- Try not to use the Glossary or a dictionary when you’re reading.
You might want to make a note of words to look up later, especially

key words that you see several times (see Using a dictionary on page 10
for more tips on looking up and recording new words). But remember,
you can always go back again when you have finished the story. That is
the beauty of reading short stories - they are short! You can finish one
quite quickly, especially if you do not worry about understanding every
single word; then you can start again at the beginning and take your
time to re-read difficult passages and look up key words.
Preparing yourself for a story

It is always a good idea to prepare yourself, mentally, before starting a
story.
- Look at the title. What does it tell you about the story? What do
you expect the story to be about?
- If there is a summary, read it. This will help you follow the story.
- Quickly read the first few paragraphs and answer these questions:
Where is it set?
When is it set?
Who is the main character?
- As you read, concentrate on following the gist (the general idea) of
the story. You can go back and look at the details later. You can use
the questions at the end of the story (see Understanding the story) to
help you understand what is happening.
8 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction

Tips for dealing with difficult passages
Some stories include particularly difficult passages. They are usually
descriptive and give background information, or set the scene. They
are generally difficult to follow because they are full of detail. Try to
read these passages quickly, understanding what you can, and then
continue with the story. Make a note of the passage and come back to
it later, when you have finished the whole story.
If, at any time, you are finding it difficult to follow the story, go back
to this difficult passage. It may hold the answers to your questions.
Read through the passage again carefully and underline all the
words you don’t know. Try to understand as much as you can from the
immediate context and what you now know about the story. Then,
look up any remaining words in the Glossary at the back of the book,
or in your dictionary.
Tips for dealing with difficult words

- Decide if the word (or phrase) is important to the overall message.
Read the whole paragraph. Do you understand the general meaning?
Yes? Then the word isn’t important. Don’t worry about it. Keep
reading!
- If you decide the word is important, see if you can work out its
meaning from the context. Is it a verb, a noun or an adjective? Is
it positive or negative? How would you translate it into your own
language? Underline the word or make a note of it and the page
number, but keep reading. If it really is important, you’ll see it again.
- If you keep seeing the same word in the story, and you still can’t
understand it, look in your monolingual dictionary!
Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction I 9

Using a dictionary
Looking up words
Before you look up the word, look at it again in its context. Decide
what part of speech it is. Try to guess its meaning from the context.
Now look it up in your dictionary. There may be more than one
definition given. Decide which one is the most appropriate. If the word
is something very specific, eg the name of a flower or tree, you can use
a bilingual dictionary to give you the exact translation.
Let’s look at how this works in practice. Look at this short extract
and follow the instructions below.
...there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of
the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just
murmur enough to lull one to repose*
Hiterary: sleep or rest
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irvine
1 Look at the words in bold and decide what part of speech they are -
noun, verb, adjective, etc.
2 Try to guess what they might mean.
3 Look at the extracts below from the Macmillan English Dictionary for
Advanced Learners. Choose the most appropriate definition.
Words with more than one entry brook1noun
Sometimes the same word belongs “ j a sm all river
1 j i r^ brook2verb
to more than one word class: for not brook — to definitely not allow or accept
example, brook can be both a noun som ething
and a verb. Each word class is shown Ja p 1 noun ,
.. . 1 the top halt of your legs above your knees s
as a separate entry. 1he small number w^en you sit j own
at the end o f the head'WOrd tells you 2 one com plete turn around a course in a race j
th at a word has m ore th an on e e n try ^ the lap of luxury in very comfortable I
and expensive conditions
Idioms and fixed expressions lap2verb
if an anim al laps water, it drinks it gently with
Some words are often used in idioms its tongue j
and fixed expressions. These are shown lull1noun
at the end of the entry, following the a quiet period during a very active or violent j
situation
small box that says PHRASE. — lull2verb
Words with more than one meaning ► 1 to make som eone feel relaxed and confident j
so that they are not prepared for som ething j
Many words have more than one unpleasant to happen to lull someone into a false j
meaning, and each different meaning sense of security
is shown by a number. - 2 to make som eone relaxed enough to go to j
sleep
Dictionary extracts adapted from the Macmillan English Dictionary © 2002 Macmillan Publishers Ltd
www.macmillandictionary.com
10 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Using a dictionary

Keeping a record
When you have looked in your dictionary, decide if the word is
interesting or useful to you. If it is, make a note of it, and write down
its definition. Make a note of the sentence where you found it in the
story, then write one or two more examples of your own. Only do this
for those words you think you will need to use in the future.
Here is an example of how you might record the word lull
(iwitlJust wurwur ewuyl to lull owe to repose’

Lull - to wake you feeI related ey\ouyl to yo to sleep
e.y. Tie ejuiet souwd of tie wax/es lulled we to sleep.
Tie wotler sawy to ler baby to lull it to sleep.
Literary analysis
The Literary analysis section is written to encourage you to consider
the stories in more depth. This will help you to appreciate them better
and develop your analytical skills. This section is particularly useful for
those students who are studying, or intending to study, literature in the
medium of English. Each section includes literary terms with which
you may or may not be familiar.
Macmillan Readers website

For more help with understanding these literary terms, and to find
Answer keys to all the exercises and activities, visit the Macmillan
Readers website at www.macmillanenglish.com/readers. There you
will also find a wealth of resources to help your language learning in
English; from listening exercises to articles on academic and creative
writing.
Macmillan Literature Collections: Using a dictionary | 11

The genre of Crime
What is a crime story?
A crime story is, as the name suggests, a story that describes how a
crime is committed - and often, how it is solved. There is a wide range
of different types of crime stories, describing a wide range of crimes,
though the most popular are theft or murder. As there are various types
of crime, there are also various types of criminal - cold-blooded killers,
gangsters, gentlemen thieves, bank robbers and supposedly ordinary
people leading supposedly ordinary lives.
There is also a wide range of different ways of describing and
approaching the crimes. Many classical crime stories focus on detection
- finding out who the criminal is and how the crimes were committed.
The novels of Agatha Christie are a classic example of this type of
crime story. These ‘whodunnit’ (who did it?) crime stories often feature
a detective or private investigator, and the character of the detective
is as important to the story as the nature of the crime. There are many
famous fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown or
Miss Marple, who solve crimes as a hobby or a passion. There are other
detectives who solve crimes as part of their job. They may be police
officers such as Valentin in The Blue Cross in this collection, or private
detectives (also known as ‘private eyes’) such as Philip Marlowe in the
famous Raymond Chandler stories in the U SA .
Another type of crime story focuses on the personality and
psychology of the criminal. These stories look at why the criminals
commit their crimes and their attitudes to their victims. In this type of
crime story, we are not necessarily interested in whether the criminal
gets caught or not, but rather in understanding the criminal mind.
Other stories focus on the actions and reactions of the victim as they
become aware of the crimes being planned or committed against them.
Why do we like crime stories?

Crime stories offer a safe way to explore and examine the criminal
mind and the criminal world. Their appeal lies in being able to look
in detail at the mechanisms of a crime without having to be personally
involved, in being able to enter the mind of a criminal without actually
having to meet one in the flesh. They also offer an element of mystery,
about how a crime has been committed, who committed it and why, as
12 | Macmillan Literature Collections: The genre of Crime

well as the challenge of solving the mystery. Good whodunnit stories
slowly reveal the clues and information necessary to solve the mystery,
if the reader is careful enough to see and understand them.
People who love whodunnits enjoy the element of competition.
They like to compete against the intelligence and observations of the
great detectives, such as Holmes and Hercule Poirot. There is also a
strong appeal in seeing a criminal caught and brought to justice, of
good triumphing over evil.
Lovers of psychological crime stories enjoy exploring the .reasons
behind a crime being committed, and the social and psychological
conditions that drive people to crime.
Modern crime fiction in English

Stories about crime have always existed. There are examples of crimes
in all the religious writings, as well as in classical poetry in all cultures
- Sophocles, Chaucer and Shakespeare are just a few of t l ^ jr e a t
authors who wrote about crime. But the first modem crime stories in
English were written in the 19th century. Published accounts of real
crimes and court cases were very popular in the second half of the
19th century as were graphic serialized stories about famous criminals.
The American author Edgar Allan Poe wrote what is considered to be
the first detective novel, The Murders of the Rue Morgue, in 1841. His
famous detective, C. Auguste Dupin, is said to have influenced the
creation of possibly the most famous detective of all time, Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
In the 20th century, crime stories and novels became more and more
popular. In the first half of the century Agatha Christie was the Queen
of Crime. Her two famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple,
helped make crime stories popular with a wide range of readers.
At the same time in the U SA a new genre was becoming incredibly
popular. Known as pulp fiction, the stories were readily available
to everyone, published in cheap magazines. They featured private
investigators, beautiful blondes, violent criminals and violent crimes.
In the second half of the 20th century, police procedurals - stories
describing the work of police detectives in fighting and solving crimes
- also became very popular and continue to be so today. Stories about
other professionals whose work involves solving crimes have also
become very popular. Stories about doctors, lawyers, journalists and
forensic scientists give a new perspective of crime and how to solve it.
Macmillan Literature Collections: The genre of Crime | 13

Other forms
Crime stories are not only found in literature, they are also very
popular in the cinema and on television. Many films have been based
on crime novels and short stories. Famous examples include The
Godfather series about the Italian mafia in the U SA , and The Silence of
the Lambs about a policewoman working with a mass murderer to find
a serial killer. There are also numerous films depicting the mysteries of
Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. TV crime series
such as C Sl (Crime Scene Investigation), The Sopranos and The Wire
are also incredibly successful, and are watched by millions all around
the world.
14 | Macmillan Literature Collections: The genre of Crime

The Tell-tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe
About the author

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor and literary critic. He
was one of the earliest American short story writers, best known for
his mystery tales. He is considered to be the inventor of the detective
story as well as a major influence on the development of science fiction
as a genre.
Edgar Poe was bom in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1809, the son of
two actors. His father abandoned the family while Poe was still a baby,
and his mother died from tuberculosis1 shortly after. Now an orphan,
two-year-old Edgar went to live with John Allan, a tradesman living in
Richmond, Virginia. Allan gave Edgar his name, even though he was
never officially adopted. The family was quite wealthy and Edgar lived
a happy life with them. He travelled with his new family to England
where they lived for five years. He went to a series of English schools
before returning to the States. Poe began his studies at the University of
Virginia, but was forced to leave after the first year because of financial
difficulties. He then joined the army, but he didn’t enjoy military life
and eventually left the services in 1831, having been dismissed from
the prestigious West Point military academy for neglect of duty and
disobedience. During his time in the army he published his first work,
a collection of poems called Tamerlane and Other Poems (published
anonymously in 1827).
After leaving West Point Poe worked hard at creating a full-time
career for himself as a writer, not an easy task at the time. He published
a few short stories and started work as a literary critic for a journal
called the Southern Literary Messenger, based in Richmond, Virginia. In
1835 he secretly married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. They
made their marriage public a year later. In 1839 he became assistant
editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, a literary journal based in
Philadelphia, but a year later he left to join Graham’s Magazine, a
similar publication. In 1842 his wife, Virginia, developed tuberculosis.
She made a partial recovery but her health was permanently affected.
1 a com m on, and often deadly, infectious disease, usually o f the lungs
The Tell-tale Heart | 15

Shortly afterwards Edgar and Virginia moved to New York, where
he worked first for the Evening Mirror and then became editor of the
Broadway Journal, a serious intellectual magazine, featuring reviews
of the arts. In 1845 Poe’s narrative poem The Raven, about lost love
and madness, was published in the Evening Mirror newspaper. It was
extremely popular and Poe became instantly famous, though he made
no money from the publication. In fact, it is reported that he was only
paid $9 for its publication, very little even at that time.
In the same year he bought the Broadway Journal from its founders,
but it failed after only a few months and finally closed down in 1846.
Having never fully recovered from tuberculosis five years earlier,
Virginia died a few months later. Poe was devastated by her death. On
7th October 1849 he died in a Baltimore hospital after having been
found four days earlier wandering the streets of the city in a terrible
condition. The exact cause of his death is not known.
During his life, Poe was mainly known as a literary critic, but he
was also known as a writer of fiction, both in the States and in Europe.
His crime stories, starring the fictitious detective C. Auguste Dupin,
are widely recognized as having created a new genre, the detective
story, and influenced later writers of great detective stories, such as Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes).
About the story

The Tell-tale Heart was first published in 1843 in the first issue of a
literary journal called The Pioneer. It is one of Poe’s most famous short
stories.
Background information
T ell-tale
The phrase to tell tales is normally used to describe children informing
an adult about something bad that someone else, usually another child,
has done, generally in the hope of getting that person into trouble.
Such a child might be called a ‘tell-tale’.
L a n te rn s
The story is set in the mid 19th century, when houses were lit with oil
lamps and lanterns. A hand-held lantern plays an important part in the
plot. A t that time, lanterns consisted of a metal box or cylinder with
16 | The Tell-tale Heart

glass side-panels which protected the flame inside from the wind and
draughts. Moveable metal covers were also fitted so that the light from
the lantern could be increased or reduced, or turned out momentarily,
without having to put out the flame.
Death watch beetles

When the narrator refers to the sound of ‘the death watches in the
wall’ he is referring to death watch beetles. These insects live in wood.
They make a tapping noise in summer when they want to attract mates
and this sound can be heard in the wooden frames of old buildings. The
sound can generally be heard at night and is associated with sleepless
nights and with bedside vigils, when relatives sit at the bedside of a
dying person, hence the name ‘death watch’. It was also believed that
the sound of the beetle was a sign that death was near, that the person
who heard it was soon going to die.
Summary
It may help you to know something about what happens in the
story before you read it. Don’t worry, this summary does not tell
you how the story ends!
Two men live in the same house. The younger man becomes obsessed
by the idea of killing the older man, although he has no real reason
or motive, except that he does not like the look of one of the old
man’s eyes.
The younger man, carefully and systematically, makes his
preparations to murder the old man. He does it in such a way that the
old man suspects nothing, and no one can prove what he has done.
However, a neighbour reports hearing a sound in the night, and the
police pay a call to investigate the reports.
To start with, the younger man is comfortable and confident. His
story seems to convince the police. But as they sit in the old man’s
room, the younger man hears a strange sound...

Pre-reading activities
Key vocabulary
This section will help you familiarize yourself with some of the more
specific vocabulary used in the story. You may want to use it to help
you before you start reading, or as a revision exercise after you have
finished the story.
Preparing the crime

The first part of the story explains how the murderer carefully prepared
for and, later, hid the evidence of the crime.
1 Look at the extracts below. Decide if the words in bold are

a) nouns, b) verbs, c) adjectives, or d) adverbs.
1 You should have seen how wisely I proceeded - with what caution - with
what foresight - with what dissimulation I went to work!
2 I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then
I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly
I thrust it in!
3 I undid the lantern cautiously - oh, so cautiously
4 Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers - of my
sagacity
5 ...the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.
6 So I opened it - you cannot imagine how stealthily
7 There was nothing to wash out - no stain of any kind - no blood-spot
whatever. I had been too wary for that
2 Look at the words again and match them with their definitions
below.
a) in a careful way so as to avoid problems and danger

b) the act of hiding something so it cannot be found
c) hiding your real thoughts, feelings or intention
d) the good judgement to think and plan before an event, so that you
are prepared for whatever may happen
e) to make progress by moving to the next stage in a series of actions
or events
f) good judgement based on practical knowledge and experience
g) in a quiet and secret way so that no one sees or hears you
h) to put something somewhere with a quick hard push

i) careful or nervous about someone or something because you think
they might cause a problem
3 What overall impression do you get of the murderer’s attitude to
his crime?
Sounds
Various sounds are described in the story which help to create and add
to the atmosphere of tension and suspense.
4 Look at the list of sounds below. Which two are adjectives? What
do they have in common? Which sounds are made by a) people,
or b) an animal or object?
[ beating a regular sound, like a drum or a heartbeat

j chirp when an in sect or bird chirps, it m akes a short, high sound
1 chuckle to laugh quietly, especially in a private or secret way
| creak to m ake a high n oise w hen som ethin g m oves or you put w eight on it
groan a long low sound a person m akes w hen they are unhappy or in p ain
muffled a muffled sound is n o t easy to h ear because it is blocked by som ethin g
shriek to shout in a high, loud v oice because you are frightened, excited or
surprised
stifled a sound w hich is stifled is silenced by som ethin g or som eone
tattoo a m ilitary ev en t where soldiers m arch to the sound o f a drum
yell to say som eth in g in a loud voice, or to m ake a loud n oise because you are
j angry, afraid, excited or in pain
Describing police procedures

When a neighbour reports hearing a strange noise, the police arrive to
investigate the reports. The language used is very formal and specific
to police procedures of the time, although you may still see these terms
used in formal language today.
5 Look at the following extract. Match the words in bold with their
definitions.
A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; ( I) suspicion of
(2) foul play had been aroused; information had been (3) lodged at the
police office, and they (the (4) officers) had been (5) deputed to search
the (6) premises.
a) chosen
b) violence or criminal actions that cause someone’s death
c) made a note of (in modern English we usually use this verb to talk
about a complaint)

d) members of the police force
e) the building
f) a feeling that someone has done something bad or wrong
Strong emotions
Towards the end of the story, the murderer’s mood changes dramatically,
as does the atmosphere of the story, as he becomes charged with strong
emotions.
6 Look at the expressions below, which all come from the same
scene. Then look at the definitions of the words in bold. What do
the extracts tell us about the storyteller’s emotions?
1 I talked more quickly - more vehemently...

2 I argued about trifles... with violent gesticulations...
3 I paced the floor...with heavy strides...
4 I foamed - 1 raved - I swore!
vehemently (adj) with extremely strong feelings

trifle (n) something that is not important
gesticulation (n) a movement of the hands and arms
pace (v) to walk quickly and impatiently
stride (n) long steps
foam (v) to produce white bubbles at the corner of your mouth; literary use implies
fury or frantic anger
rave (v) to talk in an angry and uncontrolled way
sw ear (v) to use words that are offensive
Main themes
Before you read the story, you may want to think about some of its
main themes. The questions will help you think about the story as you
are reading it for the first time. There is more discussion of the main
themes in the Literary analysis section after the story.
Madness and obsession

The story explores the psychology of a murderer as he prepares for,
commits and learns to accept and deal with his crime. There does
not seem to be a clear motive for the murder, yet from the opening
sentence of the story the murderer insists that he is not mad.

7 A s you read the story, ask yourself:
a) Why does he insist he isn’t mad?

b) In what way are his actions reasoned and rational?
c) In what way are his actions irrational?
d) Do you think he’s mad?
Guilt and repentance

The story also explores the theme of guilt, and the way a guilty
conscience influences the psychology and behaviour of the murderer
once the crime has been committed. It also looks at whether or not
the murderer feels sorrow or regret (repentance) once the crime has
been committed.
a) A t what point does he start to feel guilty for what he is planning to

do/has done?
b) How do his feelings of guilt affect his behaviour?
c) Do you think he feels sorry for what he has done?

The Tell-tale Heart
by Edgar Allan Poe
T R U E ! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been

and am; but why will you say that I am mad? T h e disease had
sharpened my senses - not destroyed - not dulled them . A bove
all was the sense o f hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven
and in the earth. I heard m any things in hell. How, then, am I
m ad? H earken !2 and observe how healthily - how calm ly I can
tell you the whole story.
It is im possible to say how first the idea entered my brain;
but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. O bject there
was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. H e had
never wronged me. H e had never given me insult. For his gold I
had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! H e had the
eye o f a vu lture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it. W henever
it fell upon3 me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very
gradually - I m ade up my m ind to take the life o f the old m an,
and thus4 rid myself of the eye forever.
N ow this is the point. You fancy5 me mad. M adm en know
nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen
how wisely I proceeded - with what caution - with what
foresight - with what dissim ulation I went to work! I was never
kinder to the old m an than during the whole week before I
killed him. A n d every night, about m idnight, I turned the latch
of his door and opened it - oh so gently! A n d then, when I had
made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern,
all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in
my head. O h, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I
thrust it in! I m oved it slowly - very, very slowly, so that I m ight
2 literary: listen
3 old'fashioned: on
4 formal: in this way
5 literary: to believe or im agine som ething is true

n ot disturb the old m an’s sleep. It took me an hour to place my
whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as
he lay upon his bed. H a! would a m adm an have been so wise
as this? A n d then, when my head was well in the room, I undid
the lantern cautiously - oh, so cautiously - cautiously (for6 the
hinges creaked) - I undid it just so m uch that a single thin ray
fell upon the vulture eye. A n d this I did for seven long nights -
every night just at m idnight - but I found the eye always closed;
and so it was im possible to do the work; for it was not the old
m an who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. A n d every morning, when
the day broke, I w ent boldly into the cham ber7, and spoke
courageously to him , calling him by nam e in a hearty tone, and
inquiring how he had passed the night. S o you see he would
have been a very profound old m an, indeed, to suspect that
every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
U pon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in
opening the door. A w atch’s m inute hand m oves more quickly
than did m ine. N ever before that night had I felt the extent of
my own powers - o f my sagacity. I could scarcely con tain my
feelings o f triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door,
little by little, and he n ot even to dream o f my secret deeds8 or
thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me;
for he m oved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. N ow you may
think that I drew back - but no. His room was as black as pitch
with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened,
through fear o f robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the
opening o f the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when
my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old m an
sprang up in bed, crying out - “W h o’s there?”
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did
not m ove a m uscle, and in the m eantim e I did n ot hear him
lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; - just as I
have done, night after night, hearkening to the death w atches
in the wall.
6 mainly literary: because
7 old-fashioned.: bedroom or private room
8 literary: som ething that som eone does

Presently9 1 heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan
o f m ortal terror. It was not a groan o f pain or o f grief - oh, no!
- it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of
the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well.
M any a night, just at m idnight, when all the world slept, it has
welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful
echo, the terrors that distracted me. Lsay I knew it well. I knew
what the old m an felt, and pitied him , although I chuckled at
heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first
slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been
ever since growing upon him . H e had been trying to fancy them
causeless, but could not. H e had been saying to h im self - “It
is nothing but the wind in the chim ney - it is only a mouse
crossing the floor,” or “It is merely a cricket which has m ade a
single chirp.” Yes, he had been trying to com fort him self with
these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. A ll in vain;
because D eath, in approaching him had stalked with his black
shadow before him, and enveloped the victim . A n d it was the
mournful influence o f the unperceived shadow that caused him
to feel - although he neither saw nor heard - to feel the presence
o f my head within the room.
W hen I had waited a long time, very patiently, w ithout
hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little - a very, very
little crevice in the lantern. S o I opened it - you can n ot im agine
how stealthily, stealthily - until, at length a sim ple dim ray, like
the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full
upon the vulture eye.
It was open - wide, wide open - and I grew furious as I gazed
upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness - all a dull blue, with
a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones;
but I could see nothing else o f the old m an’s face or person: for I
had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned
spot.
A n d have I not told you that what you m istake for m adness
is but ovenacuteness o f the sense? - now, I say, there cam e to
my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a w atch m akes when
9 old-fashioned: soon

enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the
beating o f the old m an ’s heart. It increased my fury, as the
beating o f a drum stim ulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I
held the lantern m otionless. I tried how steadily I could m aintain
the ray upon the eye. M eantim e the hellish tattoo o f the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder
every instant. T h e old m an ’s terror must have been extrem e!
It grew louder, I say, louder every m om ent! - do you m ark me?
W ell10 I have told you th at I am nervous: so I am. A n d now at
the dead hour o f the night, amid the dreadful silence o f that old
house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable
terror. Yet, for som e m inutes longer I refrained and stood still.
But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must
burst. A n d now a new anxiety seized me - the sound would be
heard by a neighbour! T h e old m an ’s hour had com e! W ith a
loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.
H e shrieked once - once only. In an instant I dragged him to
the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily,
to find the deed so far done. But, for m any m inutes, the heart
beat on with a muffled sound. T his, however, did n ot vex me; it
would not be heard through the wall. A t length it ceased. T h e
old m an was dead. I rem oved the bed and exam ined the corpse.
Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart
and held it there m any m inutes. There was no pulsation. H e was
stone dead. H is eye would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I
describe the wise precautions I took for the concealm ent o f the
body. T h e night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence.
First o f all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the
arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the flooring o f the chamber,
and deposited all betw een the scantlings11. I then replaced the
boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no hum an eye - not even
his - could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing
10 old-fashioned: used to tell som eone to listen carefully to what you are saying
11 long pieces o f wood that hold up the floor

to wash out - no stain o f any kind - no blood-spot whatever. I
had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all - ha! ha!
W hen I had m ade an end o f these labors12, it was four o ’clock
- still dark as m idnight. A s the bell sounded the hour13, there
cam e a knocking at the street door. I w ent down to open it with
a light heart, - for what had I now to fear? T here entered three
men, who introduced them selves, with perfect suavity, as officers
of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the
night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; inform ation had
been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been
deputed to search the premises.
I smiled, - for what had I to fear? I bad e14 the gentlem en
welcome. T h e shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. T h e old
man, I m entioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors
all over the house. I bade them search - search well. I led them,
at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure,
undisturbed. In the enthusiasm o f my confidence, I brought
chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their
fatigues15, while I myself, in the wild audacity o f my perfect
triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which
reposed the corpse o f the victim .
T h e officers were satisfied. M y m anner had convinced
them. I was singularly at ease. T hey sat, and while I answered
cheerily, they chatted o f fam iliar things. But, ere16 long, I felt
m yself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and
I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted.
T h e ringing becam e more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid
o f the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness - until,
at length, I found that the noise was not w ithin my ears.
N o doubt I now grew very pale; - but I talked more fluently,
and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased - and
w hat could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound - m uch such
12 American spelling: labours, i.e. work

13 church bell ringing four tim es to tell the time
14 old-fashioned; past simple o f bid, to say or greet
15 old-fashioned: hard work
16 literary, old-fashioned: before

a sound as a w atch m akes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped
for breath - and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more
quickly - more vehem ently; but the noise steadily increased.
I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent
gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. W hy would they
not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if
excited to fury by the observations o f the m en - but the noise
steadily increased. O h G o d ! what could I do? I foam ed - 1 raved
- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting,
and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and
continually increased. It grew louder - louder - louder! A n d
still the m en chatted pleasantly, and smiled. W as it possible
they heard not? A lm ighty G od ! - no, no! T hey heard! - they
suspected! - they knew! - they were making a mockery o f my
horror! - this I thought, and this I think. But anything was
better than this agony! A nything was more tolerable than this
derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt
that I must scream or die! and now - again! - h ark17! louder!
louder! louder! louder!
“V illain s!” I shrieked, “dissem ble18 no more! I adm it the deed!
- tear up the planks! here, here! - It is the beating o f his hideous
h eart!”
17 old-fashioned: (see hearken, footnote 2) listen

18 literary: hide your thoughts or feelings

Post-reading exercises
Understanding the story
Use these questions to help you check that you have understood the
story.
1 Why do you think the storyteller is telling his story?
2 He refers to a ‘disease’. What disease do you think it is?
3 Why did the storyteller decide to kill the old man?
4 What did the younger man do in the week before the old man’s
death?
5 Why didthe storyteller visit the man’s room at night?
6 Why did the storyteller wait seven days before killing the old man?
Killing the old man
7 What was different about the eighth night?
8 What sound woke the old man?
9 Did he go back to sleep? Why/Why not?
10 What did the light of the lantern show?
11 What sound does the storyteller hear?
12 What effect does it have on the storyteller?
13 How did the storyteller kill the old man?
14 What happened to the old man’s body?
The police arrive
15 What time was it when the police knocked at the door?
16 Why had they come?
17 Why does the storyteller take the police into the old man’s room?
18 Do they suspect the storyteller of anything?
19 Why does the storyteller start to feel uncomfortable?
20 Why does the storyteller’s behaviour change?
21 Why does the storyteller eventually confess to his crime?

Language study
Fronting
Fronting is the act of bringing to the beginning of a sentence a word
or phrase which would normally be used later on. Fronting is used to
emphasize a particular piece of information, or to create a dramatic
effect.
Fronting with linking verbs

A linking verb is a verb such as be, seem, feel or look, which introduces
a description of the subject (this is called the complement). The
standard word order in a sentence with a linking verb is:
subject 4 linking verb 4 complement
The storyteller felt very nervous.
1 Look at how the order is changed in the first sentence of the
story. What word has been fronted? What effect does this create?
Nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.
Fronting with there

We usually use there + be at the beginning of a sentence, followed by a
noun phrase to talk about the presence or absence of a thing or person:
There was no object. There was no passion.
Notice how the order is changed in these sentences from the story
where the murderer talks about the motive for the murder.
Object there was none. Passion there was none.
2 What element of the sentences have been brought to the front?
What effect does this have?
Fronting a negative adverb or adverbial phrase

Adverbs are often used at the beginning of a sentence for emphasis or
dramatic effect.
Every night I visited the old man’s room.
Every night I shone my lantern on his face.
However, if the adverb is a negative adverb such as never, not only,
under no circumstances, the word order after the adverb changes.

3 Compare these two sentences. What happens to the subject and
verb in the second sentence?
I had never felt the extent of my own powers before.
Never before had I felt the extent of my own powers.
4 Rewrite the following sentences fronting the words in bold.
1 He was completely mad.
2 The old man’s eye looked evil.
3 He had never thought of killing anyone before.
4 He hadn’t only killed him, he had cut his body into small pieces.
5 There was no sound. There was no movement.
6 There was a motive, but there was no weapon.
7 He couldn’t look at the eye under any circumstances.
8 He was haunted by the sound of the old man’s heart.
5 Look at the extracts below. Underline any examples of fronting.

In which sentence has the word order of the subject and verb
changed? What effect is being created by each sentence? What
feature is being emphasized?
1 Above all was the sense of hearing acute.
2 For his gold I had no desire.
3 And this I did for seven long nights.
6 Rewrite the sentences without the fronting.
1 _ _ __ ............
2 ___
3

Past perfect simple and continuous
The storyteller tells the whole story from retrospect - from a moment
in time long after the events in the story are over. Sometimes he tells
the story in the past simple, but sometimes, in order to highlight
the sequence of events, he uses the past perfect or the past perfect
continuous.
Past perfect simple

To form the past perfect simple use had + past participle.
Use the past perfect simple to show that one action happened or was
completed before a given moment in time.
The disease had sharpened my senses.
(This happened at some point before the murder took place or was even
planned.)
Past perfect continuous

To form the past perfect continuous use had + been + verb + -ing
Use the past perfect continuous to show that an action was in progress
at some time before, or up to, a given moment in time.
I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting.
(Moments before, he had been sitting quietly on the chair, but then
he got up and started swinging the chair around. The past perfect
continuous helps to emphasize the dramatic change in his mood.)
7 Look at the extract below. Write the verbs in brackets in the past
perfect simple or the past perfect continuous. Use the continuous
where possible.
I knew that he ( I ) ........ ...................... (lie) awake ever since the first
slight noise, when he ( 2 ) ............................... (turn) in the bed. His fears
(3 ) (grow) upon him. He ( 4 ) ...............................
(try) to fancy them causeless, but could not. He ( 5 ) ...............................
(say) to himself - “It is nothing but the wind in the chimney - it is only
a mouse crossing the floor,11or “It is merely a cricket which has made a
single chirp.11Yes, he ( 6 ) ............................... (try) to comfort himself
with these suppositions: but he ( 7 ) ................................ (find) all in vain.
All in vain; because Death, in approaching him ( 8 ) ...............................
(stalk) with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim.

8 Compare your answers with the text on page 24. What is the
effect created by the use of the past perfect in this extract?
Past perfect passive

We can also use the past perfect with the passive voice: had + been +
past participle. We use the past perfect passive to show that something
had happened to someone or something before a given point in time:
A shriek had been heard by a neighbor...
9 Complete the extract using the past perfect passive. What effect
does the use of the passive have in this passage?
A shriek................................ (hear) by a neighbor during the
night; suspicion of foul play................................ (arouse);
information............................... (lodge) at the police office, and they
................................ (depute) to search the premises.
Literary analysis
Plot
1 Make a list of the main events leading up to the murder and the
main events that happen after it. Are they described in the order
they happen?
2 How much time passes between the beginning of the story and the
end? How much time passes between the murder and the arrival of
the police? How long do you think the police are with the storyteller
before the confession is made?
3 What preparations, if any, did the murderer have to make for the
crime? Why did the police visit the house? Do you think they
suspected the murderer? Do you think they were surprised by the
confession?
4 What do you think happened after the end of the story?
5 Whose is the tell-tale heart in the title of the story?
Character
6 There are only five characters in the whole of the story. Who are
they? What do we know about them?
7 How old do you think the storyteller is? What is his relationship
with the old man? Is there any evidence about what the relationship
between them is in the story? Is it important? Why/Why not?

8 What about the old man? What do we know about him? Is he
wealthy? Does he have a family? What information can you deduce
about him from the story?
9 Do you feel sorry for the old man? Does the fact that we don’t
know his name affect how you feel about him?
10 What is the storyteller’s state of mind as he tells his tale? What is
his state of mind when he looks in on the old man on the eighth
night? And when the police call at his door? And at the end of the
story? Do you feel any sympathy for the storyteller? Why/Why not?
Narration
11 Where do you think the storyteller is as he tells the story? Who is
he telling it to? Why is he telling it?
12 What is the first thing he says about his story? Why do you think
the storyteller starts his story here?
13 What does the narrator not tell us about the story? How do you
think the story might have been told differently if the narrator had
been an objective, third person narrator? Or if the story had been
told by one of the policemen who called at the house?
Atmosphere
14 There is always an element of tension and suspense in any crime
story What is the source of the tension in this story?
15 Look at the extract below. Notice and underline all the words and
phrases that are repeated at least twice.
I moved it slowly - very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the
old mans sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the
opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.. .And then,
when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously - oh,
so cautiously - cautiously (for the hinges creaked) - 1 undid it just so
much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.
What effect is created by the repetition?
Look back at the story again. Can you find any other examples of
repetition? Is it used to create the same effect?
16 Towards the end of the story the mood changes. Look at the last
three paragraphs. How is the mood different from the rest of the
story? What words and phrases are repeated over and over in
the penultimate paragraph? What effect does this create? What

do you notice about the length of the sentences, and the use of
punctuation as the story builds to its climax? Read the sentences
aloud and notice the effect they create. How does this make you
feel as the story comes to its end?
Style
17 The storyteller often interrupts his story to address the reader, or
an unseen character in the story, using questions and exclamations:
Why will you say that I am mad?
Hearken! and observe how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the
whole story.
Why does he do this? What is he trying to prove? What effect does
this have on you as a reader?
18 Notice in the following extracts how the storyteller includes the
reader/listener. What is the storyteller inviting the reader/listener
to do? What response is he expecting from his audience?
.. .you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I
proceeded.
you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!
What response does it provoke in you?
19 The storyteller often repeats the same structure to create emphasis.
Look at the extracts below. What is being emphasized by the
repetition in each extract?
Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the
heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.
Object there was none. Passion there was none♦ I loved the old man.
He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult.
Can you find more examples in the story?
Guidance to the above literary terms, answer keys to all the exercises and
activities, plus a wealth of other reading-practice material, can be found at:
www.macmillanenglish.com/readers.

The Red-headed League
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
About the author

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known as the creator of the great
fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. As well as the Sherlock Holmes
stories, he also wrote science fiction and horror stories, historical
novels, and political pamphlets1. He led a full and public life, travelling
widely and often, and he was greatly admired and respected in his
own lifetime. Throughout his life he was interested in explaining the
unexplainable, and finding solutions to all kinds of problems: real life
criminal cases, political issues and even the question of whether there
is life after death.
Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was bom in Edinburgh, Scotland, on
22ndMay 1859 into a large Irish Catholic family. As a child, he was sent
away to school in England, where he was very unhappy. He rebelled
against the harsh discipline at the school, and so began his interest in
challenging accepted beliefs and authority. After finishing school, he
studied medicine. In his spare time, he began to write stories, which
were published in various magazines.
After serving two short periods as a ship’s doctor, once on a whaling
ship, Conan Doyle started working in a private medical practice, first
in Southsea and then later in London. But business was slow, he had
very few patients and he had to write stories to earn enough money to
live on.
In 1887 Conan Doyle’s first long work was published, A Study in
Scarlet. This was his first Sherlock Holmes novel. The second Sherlock
Holmes novel, The Sign of the Four (1890), was followed by the first
Sherlock Holmes short story, A Scandal in Bohemia (1891). Other stories
soon followed as regular monthly features in The Strand Magazine.
During the same period he also wrote a series of successful historical
novels. He soon realized that he could make more money writing than
working as a doctor and he decided to become a full-time author.
In 1900 Conan Doyle went to South Africa to work as a field doctor
during the Boer War. He wrote an account of the war, War in South
1 short books about political or social problems
The Red-headed League | 35

Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, defending the role of the British forces
in South Africa. In the same year he was given a knighthood2 for his
services to his country, and was given the title of ‘Sir’.
In the 1900s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became interested in politics.
He stood for parliament twice, but was not elected. He supported
the movement for women’s rights and wrote a book, The Crime of
the Congo (1909), describing the horrors in that country. He also
investigated two crimes that had already been ‘solved’ by the police. In
both investigations Conan Doyle discovered that the police had been
wrong and, as a result, two innocent men were freed from prison.
Conan Doyle married twice, first to Louisa Hawkins, with whom
he had two children, Mary and Kingsley. In the 1890s Louisa became
very ill and he nursed her for nearly ten years before her death in 1906.
In 1907, Conan Doyle married again, this time to the much younger
Jean Leckie, who he had known for many years. The two travelled to
the United States and Europe.
Conan Doyle suffered many tragedies in his personal life, both
before and during the First World War of 1914-1918, losing his father,
his son, his brother, two nephews and two brothers-in-law. These losses
affected Conan Doyle greatly and he became very depressed. He wrote
less and started to spend more and more time studying spiritualism, and
doing scientific research into the existence of life after death. Conan
Doyle died of a heart attack in 1930 at the age of 71. Remembered
for his literary achievements, his character and for public service, his
tombstone read: ‘Steel blue, Blade straight, Arthur Conan Doyle,
Knight, patriot, physician and man of letters’.
About the story

The Red-headed League is one of 56 Sherlock Holmes stories. It was
first published in August 1891 in the The Strand Magazine. It was
republished in 1892, along with eleven other Sherlock Holmes stories,
in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle himself reportedly
ranked the story as his second-favourite Sherlock Holmes story after
The Speckled Band.
2 an honour given by the British K ing or Q ueen that allows a m an to use the title ‘S ir’
before his nam e
36 | The Red-headed League

Sherlock Holmes and D r Watson
The great detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful assistant Dr
Watson first created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, have become
classic characters in their own right, familiar to many people who have
never read any of the original stories. To date, more than 75 actors
have played the part of the world’s most famous fictional detective in
more than 200 films. The stories have been adapted for all ages and
translated into several languages.
Holmes lived in London, at 22IB Baker Street, an address
that did not exist at the time, but now does and houses a Sherlock
Holmes museum. The Baker Street underground station nearby is
decorated with images of Holmes and Watson. Holmes is famous for
his intelligence, his powers of observation, his logical reasoning, his
scientific knowledge and his forensic skills.
Holmes is an eccentric figure. He had a classical education, probably
at Cambridge University, he plays the violin and smokes a pipe. He is
untidy and disorganized at home, is arrogant and often moody. He has
a thin face with a big, curved nose and long legs. He wears a deerstalker
hat, a kind of hunting hat with ear flaps that he usually wears tied up
at the top of the hat. He often carries a magnifying glass and, of course,
his famous pipe.
Dr Watson, a medical doctor who has a private practice in London,
is Holmes’s faithful friend and assistant; he is also the narrator of all but
four of the 56 short stories written about Holmes.
In Doyle’s stories Watson is intelligent (though not as clever as
Holmes), strong, brave and loyal. In some adaptations for both film
and television, his character is changed, and he is shown as both far
less intelligent and sometimes far cleverer than Holmes.
London at the end of the 19th century

This story is set in London at the end of the 19th century. A t the time,
London was one of the world’s largest cities, along with Paris and New
York. It was a global trading centre, and the home to a number of very
wealthy financial institutions. It had a population of about six million
inhabitants. Some were incredibly wealthy and lived in great luxury,
many were extremely poor and lived and worked in terrible conditions.

This story shows both aspects of London, living side by side, within a
few streets of each other.
The action in the story takes place in three distinct settings in
the centre of London: a pawnbroker’s shop in Saxe-Coburg Square;
a basement in the next block on a busy street in the City; and Pope’s
Court, a small side-street off Fleet Street. The City is the financial
district of London. Fleet Street is a busy commercial street in the
centre of London, traditionally associate4 with its newspaper, printing
and publishing offices. Both Saxe-Coburg Square and Pope’s Court are
fictional addresses, as was 22IB Baker Street at the time the story was
written.
Other real landmarks of the city are mentioned in the story:
Aldersgate, once an underground station, now renamed the Barbican;
the Strand, a large, busy commercial street running into Fleet Street;
Oxford Street, one of the most famous shopping streets in London
today; and St James’s Hall, a concert hall that was opened in 1858
and demolished in 1904. The Picadilly Hotel now stands in its place.
Most famously for lovers of detectives stories, Conan Doyle mentions
Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan police, today
called New Scotland Yard.
Pawnbrokers
The red-haired client who comes to Holmes with his strange story is a
pawnbroker. A pawnbroker is someone whose job it is to lend money
to people in exchange for a valuable object. The original owner can
buy back the object if they have the money. If not, the pawnbroker can
sell it. The symbol for a pawnbroker’s shop is three spheres, or balls,
suspended from a bar. These shops are usually located in the poorer
parts of towns and cities.

Summary
Dr Watson calls on his friend, Sherlock Holmes, one day and finds
him talking to a red-haired man. The man is a pawnbroker and has
a strange tale to tell. Holmes invites Watson to hear the man’s story.
The man has taken a part-time job that is only open to him because
of his red hair. Holmes is fascinated by the story because he has
never come across anything like it before. It amuses him and arouses
his curiosity. Although no crime seems to have been committed
Holmes decides to investigate further. He asks the red-haired man a
number of questions and then, accompanied by Watson, starts on his
investigations.
First they visit the street where the pawnbroker lives and works.
Then they call at his house and see his assistant before continuing to
explore the area behind his house. Holmes seems satisfied with the
investigations and he and Watson go to a concert, where Holmes
enjoys the music, and takes the opportunity to gather his thoughts.
A t the end of the concert, Holmes and Watson go their separate
ways. Holmes says that he has some business to do and asks Watson
to meet him at 10 o’clock at his house, and to come armed with a
gun. Watson doesn’t question Holmes’s instructions, even though he
doesn’t know what’s happening, or what Holmes has in mind.
When Watson arrives at Holmes’s apartment, there are another
two men with him. One of them is a policeman. The second man, Mr
Merryweather, guides the group of four to a large, dark cellar not far
from the pawnbroker’s home, and there they sit, in the dark, waiting
for the mystery to unfold...

Key vocabulary
finished the story.
Describing the pawnbroker

Part of Holmes’s style as a detective is to look carefully at everything
he sees and, in particular, to observe people in great detail. Dr Watson
does the same in his storytelling, giving us a detailed description of
Holmes’s red-haired client.
There are two main physical features that are repeated in the
descriptions of the pawnbroker:
a) he is overweight
b) he has red hair and a red complexion.
1 Read the extracts below. Look at the words in bold. Which refer
to a) his weight, or b) his colouring?
[I] found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-faced,
elderly gentleman with fiery red hair.
The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of.. .pride '
Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British
tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow.
2 The pawnbroker’s clothes are also described in great detail. Look

at the extract, and the definitions of the words in bold, below.
What do the man’s clothes tell you about him?
a) he is/isn’t dressed quite formally

b) he is/isn’t quite wealthy
c) he does/doesn’t look after himself very well
He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s check trousers, a not over-clean
black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with
a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling
down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat
with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him.

I baggy slightly too big
j shepherd’s check a pattern made up of small squares in contrasting colours,
such as black and white, or dark blue and white
| frock-coat a knee length jacket worn by men over trousers - very common at
the time
j drab not colourful or interesting
j w aistcoat a jacket without sleeves, usually worn over a shirt
I Albert chain a fairly heavy gold chain, originally used to hold a watch, which was
kept in the pocket of a gentleman’s waistcoat
j frayed old and worn, with fibres coming apart from it
top-hat a man’s tall hat, shaped like a tube with a narrow brim -
faded having lost some of its original colour
overcoat a large coat worn when outside in cold weather
wrinkled with lots of lines on it because it has not been ironed or looked after well
velvet a kind of cloth which is very soft on one side
collar the part of a coat or shirt that goes round your neck
Words to describe red hair

As is suggested in the title, red hair plays an important part in the
story. A number of different shades of red are described.
3 Look at the list of adjectives and nouns below which are used to
describe red hair. Which shades are:
a) light?
b) dark?
c) strong?
1 fiery red
2 blazing red
3 a very full and rich tint
4 straw (dried grass, often used as bedding for horses and other farm
animals)
5 lemon
6 orange
7 brick (building bricks in Victorian times were traditionally a dark
red colour)
8 Irish-setter (a breed of dog with rich, red hair)
9 liver (the colour of the meat)
10 clay (the colour of a kind of heavy, wet soil that is used to make
pots and sculpture)
II flame-coloured

Describing Saxe-Coburg Square
Saxe-Coburg Square is where the pawnbroker has his shop, and where
a lot of the action in the story takes place.
4 Look at the description. Match the expressions in bold (1 -5 ) with
their explanations (a-e). What similarities are there between the
description of the pawnbroker and his home?
It was a (I) poky, little, shabby-genteel plpce, where four lines of
(2) dingy two-storeyed brick houses looked out into a small railed-in
enclosure, where a (3) lawn of weedy grass and (4) a few clumps of
faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight against (5) a smoke-laden and
uncongenial atmosphere.
a) dark and dirty, on two floors

b) a patch of ground where the grass which should usually be carefully
looked after is full of plants which should not be growing there
c) some small groups of dark green-leaved trees that have lost their
colour
d) small, dark and uncomfortable, used to be stylish but is now in old
and bad condition
e) unwelcoming; the air is heavy with pollution
Talking about crimes and solving them
5 Look at the words and their definitions. Which describe or

are associated with a) crimes and criminals, or b) methods of
detection?
accom plice (n) someone who helps another person to do something that is
illegal or wrong
conundrum (n) a difficult problem that seems to have no solution
deduce (v) to know something as a result of considering the information or
evidence that you have
forger (n) someone who makes copies of valuable documents or works of art, with
the intention of selling or using them as if they were the originals
fraud (n) obtaining money from someone by tricking them
hoax (n) a trick in which someone deliberately tells people that something bad is
going to happen or that something is true when it is not
motive (n) the reason for committing a crime
prank (n) a silly trick that you play on someone
reason (v) formal: to make a particular judgement after you have thought about
the facts of the situation in an intelligent and sensible way
rogue (n) old-fashioned: someone who is dishonest

6 Choose the correct word to complete the sentences.
1 The fraud/motive for the attack was still unknown.

2 He looked at his large, red hands and deduced/forger that he must
be a labourer of some sort.
3 She was sentenced to life imprisonment for acting as an accomplice/
rogue to the murder.
4 He must be digging a hole under the bank, he conundrum/reasoned.
A note on formal language

There is a lot of formal language used in the story, both in the narrative
and in the dialogue, especially in Holmes’s spoken style. To some
extent, this reflects the style of speech of well-educated people at the
time. It is also a personal preference on Holmes’s part, who enjoys
using slightly unusual language and academic references. The more
unusual language is footnoted in the story. There are notes on the more
common formal language in the Language study section at the end of
the story.
Main themes
Intelligence
All the Sherlock Holmes stories have intelligence as a central theme.
Being of above-average intelligence is seen as both good and bad.
Holmes uses his intelligence to help people and solve crimes, however,
it does not necessarily make him happy or easy to live with, and
intelligence is not always used to good ends.
a) In what way does Holmes enjoy his intelligence?

b) In what way does his intelligence make him unhappy?
c) In what way is intelligence used to a bad end in the story?

The great detective
Sherlock Holmes is considered by many people to be the greatest
fictional detective. His methods and manner have become famous for
generations of readers, TV watchers and film goers. Conan Doyle’s
simple short-story formula of problem, investigation, solution and
explanation has been imitated by hundreds of crime writers.
8 As you read the story, ask yourself:
a) What makes Holmes a great detective?

b) How does the structure of the story help us appreciate Holmes’s
great talents?
c) How do Dr Watson’s comments on the action and the story help?
False appearances and mystery

The action in the story centres on an act of fraud, of a person
pretending to be someone they are not in order to commit a crime.
The pawnbroker’s assistant creates a false identity for himself and his
accomplice, and hides the real reason behind his enthusiasm to work for
the pawnbroker. Holmes is also guilty of holding back information. He
makes mysterious remarks about his observations and understanding
of the story, but it is not until the end that he shares his thoughts and
explains how he solved the crime to Dr Watson and, through him, to
the readers.
a) How does the pawnbroker’s assistant trick the pawnbroker?

b) How does Holmes exclude Watson from his thought processes?
c) How does this influence your opinion of the pawnbroker and
Watson?

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I had called upon my friend, M r Sherlock H olm es, one day in

the autum n o f last year and found him in deep conversation
with a very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentlem an with fiery red
hair. W ith an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw
when H olm es pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the
door behind me.
“You could n ot possibly have com e at a better time, my dear
W atson,” he said cordially.
“I was afraid that you were engaged.”
“S o I am. Very m uch so.”
“T h e n I can wait in the n ext room .”
“N o t at all. T h is gentlem an, M r W ilson, has been my partner
and helper in m any o f my m ost successful cases, and I have no
doubt that he will be o f the utmost use to me in yours also.”
T h e stout gentlem an h alf rose from his chair and gave a bob
o f greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small
fat-encircled eyes.
“Try the settee,” said H olm es, relapsing into his arm chair
and putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in
judicial m oods. “I know, my dear W atson, that you share my love
o f all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum
routine o f everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the
enthusiasm which has prom pted you to chronicle, and, if you
will excuse my saying so, som ew hat to embellish so many o f my
own little adventures.”
“Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to m e,”
I observed.
“You will remem ber that I remarked the other day, just
before we went into the very sim ple problem presented by M iss
M ary Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary

com binations we must go to life itself, which is always far more
daring than any effort of the im agination.”
“A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”
“You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to
my view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you
until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me
to be right. Now, M r Jabez W ilson here has been good enough
to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which
prom ises to be one o f the m ost singular3 which I have listened
to for som e time. You have heard me remark that the strangest
and m ost unique things are very often connected not with the
larger but with the sm aller crimes, and occasionally, indeed,
where there is room for doubt w hether any positive crime has
been com m itted. A s far as I have heard it is im possible for me
to say w hether the present case is an instance o f crime or not,
but the course o f events is certainly am ong the m ost singular
that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, M r W ilson, you would
have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask
you not merely because my friend Dr W atson has not heard
the opening part but also because the peculiar nature o f the
story m akes me anxious to have every possible detail from your
lips. A s a rule, when I have heard some slight indication o f the
course o f events, I am able to guide m yself by the thousands of
other sim ilar cases which occur to my memory. In the present
instance I am forced to adm it that the facts are, to the best of
my belief, unique.”
T h e portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance
o f some little pride and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper
from the inside pocket of his greatcoat. A s he glanced down
the advertisem ent colum n, with his head thrust forward and the
paper flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the
m an and endeavoured, after the fashion of my com panion, to
read the indications which m ight be presented by his dress or
appearance.
I did n ot gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our
visitor bore every mark o f being an average com m onplace
3 mainly literary: noticeable because o f being strange or unusual

British tradesm an, obese, pompous, and slow. H e wore rather
baggy gray4 shepherd’s check trousers, a not over-clean black
frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab w aistcoat with
a heavy brassy A lbert chain, and a square pierced bit of m etal
dangling down as an ornam ent. A frayed top-hat and a faded
brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair
beside him. A ltogether, look as I would, there was nothing
remarkable about the m an save his blazing red head, and the
expression of extrem e chagrin and discontent upon his features.
Sherlock H olm es’s quick eye took in my occupation, and
he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning
glances. “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at som e time
done m anual labour, that he takes snuff5, that he is a Freem ason6,
that he has been in C h in a, and that he has done a considerable
am ount o f writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”
M r Jabez W ilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger
upon the paper, but his eyes upon my com panion.
“How, in the nam e o f good-fortune, did you know all that,
M r H olm es?” he asked. “How did you know, for exam ple, that
I did m anual labour? It’s as true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s
carpenter.”
“Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger
than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are
more developed.”
“W ell, the snuff, then, and the Freem asonry?”
“I w on’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read
that, especially as, rather against the strict rules o f your order,
you use an arc-and-com pass7 breastpin.”
“A h , o f course, I forgot that. But the writing?”
“W hat else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny
for five inches, and the left one with the sm ooth patch near the
elbow where you rest it upon the desk?”
“W ell, but C h in a?”
“T h e fish that you have tattooed im m ediately above your
4 old-fashioned spelling (still current in A m erican English): grey
5 tobacco in the form o f powder that you breathe up your nose
6 a member o f an international secret society o f m en who agree to help each other
7 a symbol o f the Freem asons’ m ovem ent

right wrist could only have been done in C h ina. I have m ade
a sm all study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the
literature of the subject. T h a t trick o f staining the fishes’ scales
o f a delicate pink is quite peculiar to C h in a. W hen, in addition,
I see a C h inese coin hanging from your w atch-chain, the m atter
becom es even more sim ple.”
M r Jabez W ilson laughed heavily. “W ell, I n ev er!” said he. “I
thought at first th at you had done som ething clever, but I see
that there was nothing in it, after all.”
“I begin to think, W atson,” said Holm es, “that I m ake a m istake
in explaining. ‘O m ne ignotum pro m agnifico8,’ you know, and
my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I
am so candid. C a n you not find the advertisem ent, M r W ilson?”
“Yes, I have got it now,” he answered with his thick red finger
planted halfway down the colum n. “Here it is. T h is is what
began it all. You just read it for yourself, sir.”
I took the paper from him and read as follows.
To the Red-headed League: O n account o f the bequest9 o f the
late Ezekiah H opkins, o f Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U . S . A ., there
is now another vacancy open which entitles a m em ber o f the
League to a salary o f four pounds a week for purely nominal
services. A ll red-headed m en who are sound in body and mind
and above the age o f twenty-one years, are eligible. A pply in
person on Monday, at eleven o ’clock, to D uncan Ross, at the
offices o f the League, 7 Pope’s Court, Fleet Street.
“W hat on earth does this m ean?” I ejaculated10 after I had
twice read over the extraordinary announcem ent.
H olm es chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit
when in high spirits. “ It is a little off the beaten track, isn’t
it?” said he. “A n d now, M r W ilson, off you go at scratch 11 and
tell us all about yourself, your household, and the effect which
this advertisem ent had upon your fortunes. You will first make
a note, Doctor, of the paper and the date.”
8 Latin: that which we do not understand is thought to be magnificent
9 formal, legal: a wish expressed in a will (a legal document that explains what you
want to happen to your money and possessions after you die)
10 old-fashioned: to suddenly say or shout something
II old-fashioned: from the beginning; modem use is ‘from scratch’

“ It is The Morning Chronicle o f A pril 27, 1890. Just two
m onths ago.”
“Very good. Now, M r W ilson?”
“W ell, it is just as I have been telling you, M r Sherlock
H olm es,” said Jabez W ilson, mopping his forehead; “I have a
sm all pawnbroker’s business at Coburg Square, near the City. It’s
not a very large affair, and of late years it has n ot done more than
just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but
now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him but that
he is willing to com e for h alf wages so as to learn the business.”
“W hat is the nam e o f this obliging youth?” asked Sherlock
Holm es.
“His nam e is V incent Spaulding, and h e ’s not such a youth,
either. It’s hard to say his age. I should n ot wish a smarter
assistant, M r H olm es; and I know very well that he could better
h im self and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after all,
if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?”
“Why, indeed? You seem m ost fortunate in having an
employee who com es under the full m arket price12. It is not a
com m on experience am ong employers in this age. I d on ’t know
th at your assistant is not as rem arkable as your advertisem ent.”
“O h, he has his faults, too,” said M r W ilson. “N ev er was such
a fellow for photography. Snapping away with a cam era when he
ought to be im proving his mind, and then diving down into the
cellar like a rabbit into its hole to develop13 his pictures. T h a t is
his m ain fault, but on the whole h e’s a good worker. T h ere’s no
vice in h im .”
“He is still with you, I presum e?”
“Yes, sir. H e and a girl o f fourteen, who does a bit o f simple
cooking and keeps the place clean - th at’s all I have in the
house, for I am a widower and never had any family. We live
very quietly, sir, the three o f us; and we keep a roof over our
heads and pay our debts, if we do nothing more.
“T h e first thing th at put us out was that advertisem ent.
Spaulding, he cam e down into the office just this day eight
12 business: the price which a product can be sold for at a particular time
13 to treat a film with chemicals in order to make photographs

weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says:
“‘I wish to the Lord, M r W ilson, that I was a red-headed m an .’
‘“ W hy that?’ I asks.
“‘W hy,’ says he, ‘here’s another vacancy on the League of the
R ed-headed M en. It’s worth quite a little fortune to any m an
who gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than
there are men, so that the trustees14 are at their wits’ end what
to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour,
here’s a nice little crib15 all ready for me to step in to.’
“‘Why, what is it, then?’ I asked. You see, M r Holm es, I am a
very stay-at-hom e man, and as my business cam e to me instead
o f my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end w ithout
putting my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn’t know
m uch of what was going on outside, and I was always glad of a
bit o f news.
“‘H ave you never heard o f the League of the Red-headed
M en?’ he asked with his eyes open.
“‘N ever.’
“‘Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one
o f the vacan cies.’
“‘A n d what are they worth?’ I asked.
“‘O h, merely a couple of hundred a year16, but the work is
slight, and it need not interfere very m uch with on e’s other
occupations.’
“W ell, you can easily think that that m ade me prick up my
ears, for the business has n ot been over-good for som e years, and
an extra couple o f hundred would have been very handy.
“‘Tell me all about it,’ said I.
“‘W ell,’ said he, showing me the advertisem ent, ‘you can
see for yourself th at the League has a vacancy, and there is the
address where you should apply for particulars. A s far as I can
m ake out, the League was founded by an A m erican m illionaire,
Ezekiah H opkins, who was very peculiar in his ways. H e was
him self red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-
14 legal: som eone who is responsible for looking after money or property that belongs
to som eone else
15 old-fashioned: job or position; in current A m erican usage = hom e
16 £1 0 ,0 0 0 -2 0 ,0 0 0 in current value

headed men; so when he died it was found that he had left his
enorm ous fortune in the hands o f trustees, with instructions to
apply the interest to the providing o f easy berths17 to m en whose
hair is o f that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay and very
little to do.’
“‘B u t,’ said 1, ‘there would be m illions o f red-headed m en who
would apply.’
“‘N o t so many as you m ight th in k,’ he answered. ‘You see
it is really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. T his
A m erican had started from London when he was young, and
he w anted to do the old town a good turn. T hen , again, I have
heard it is no use your applying if your hair is light red, or dark
red, or anything but real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you
cared to apply, M r W ilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps
it would hardly be worth your while to put yourself out o f the
way for the sake o f a few hundred pounds.’
“Now, it is a fact, gentlem en, as you may see for yourselves,
that my hair is o f a very full and rich tint, so that it seem ed
to me that if there was to be any com petition in the m atter I
stood as good a chance as any m an th at I had ever met. V incent
Spaulding seem ed to know so m uch about it th at I thought he
m ight prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters
for the day and to com e right away with me. H e was very willing
to have a holiday, so we shut the business up and started off for
the address that was given us in the advertisem ent.
“I never hope to see such a sight as that again, M r H olm es.
From north, south, east, and west every m an who had a
shade o f red in his hair had tramped into the city to answer
the advertisem ent. Fleet Street was choked with red-headed
folk18, and Pope’s C ourt looked like a coster’s 19 orange barrow20.
I should not have thought there were so many in the whole
country as were brought together by th at single advertisem ent.
Every shade o f colour they were - straw, lem on, orange, brick,
17 old-fashioned: (in this context) a position in life or career or job
18 old-fashioned: people
19 old-fashioned: someone who sells fruit and vegetables on the street
20 a large box on wheels from which people in the past sold fruit and vegetables in the
street

Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were not
many who had the real vivid flam e-coloured tint. W hen I saw
how many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair;
but Spaulding would not hear o f it. How he did it I could not
im agine, but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me
through the crowd, and right up to the steps w hich led to the
office. T here was a double stream upon the stair, some going up
in hope, and some com ing back dejected; but we wedged in as
well as we could and soon found ourselves in the office.”
“Your experience has been a m ost entertaining on e,” remarked
H olm es as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a
huge pinch o f snuff. “Pray21 continue your very interesting
statem en t.”
“T here was nothing in the office but a couple o f w ooden
chairs and a deal22 table, behind which sat a sm all m an with a
head that was even redder than mine. H e said a few words to
each candidate as he cam e up, and then he always m anaged to
find some fault in them which would disqualify them. G ettin g
a vacancy did not seem to be such a very easy matter, after all.
However, when our turn cam e the little m an was m uch more
favourable to me than to any o f the others, and he closed the
door as we entered, so that he m ight have a private word with
us.
“T h is is M r Jabez W ilson / said my assistant, ‘and he is willing
to fill a vacancy in the League.’
“‘A n d he is admirably suited for it/ the other answered. ‘H e
has every requirem ent. I cannot recall when I have seen anything
so fine.’ H e took a step backward, cocked his head on one side,
and gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. T h en suddenly
he plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me
warmly on my success.
“ ‘It would be injustice to h esitate,’ said he. ‘You will, however,
I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.’ W ith
that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I
yelled with the pain. ‘T here is water in your eyes,’ said he as
21 old-fashioned: here, used for telling som eone to do som ething
22 wooden, m ade o f fir or pine

he released me. ‘I perceive that all is as it should be. But we
have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and
once by paint. I could tell you tales o f cobbler’s23 wax which
would disgust you with hum an nature.’ H e stepped over to the
window and shouted through it at the top o f his voice that the
vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointm ent cam e up from
below, and the folk all trooped away in different directions until
there was not a red-head to be seen except my own and that of
the manager.
“‘My nam e,’ said he, ‘is M r D uncan Ross, and I am m yself one
of the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor.
A re you a married man, M r W ilson? H ave you a family?24’
“I answered that I had not.
“His face fell immediately.
“‘Dear m e!’ he said gravely, ‘that is very serious indeed!
I am sorry to hear you say that. T h e fund was, o f course, for
the propagation and spread o f the red-heads as well as for their
m aintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be
a bachelor.’
“My face lengthened at this, M r H olm es, for I thought th at I
was not to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over
for a few m inutes he said th at it would be all right.
“‘In the case of another,’ said he, ‘the objection m ight be
fatal, but we must stretch a point in favour o f a m an with such
a head o f hair as yours. W hen shall you be able to enter upon
your new duties?’
“‘Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,’
said I.
“‘O h, never m ind about that, M r W ilson !’ said V incent
Spaulding. ‘I should be able to look after th at for you.’
“‘W hat would be the hours?’ I asked.
“‘Ten to tw o.’
“N ow a pawnbroker’s business is mostly done o f an evening25,
Mr H olm es, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is
23 som eone who makes shoes
24 old-fashioned: Do you have a family?
25 old-fashioned: in the evening

just before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little
in the mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good
man, and that he would see to anything that turned up.
“T h a t would suit me very w ell,’ said I. ‘A n d the pay?’
‘“ Is four pounds a week26.’
“‘A n d the work?’
“‘Is purely nom in al.’
“‘W hat do you call purely nom inal?’
“‘W ell, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building,
the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position
forever. T h e will is very clear upon that point. You don ’t com ply
with the conditions if you budge from the office during that
tim e.’
“‘It’s only four hours a day, and I should not think o f leaving,’
said I.
“‘N o excuse will avail,’ said M r D uncan Ross; ‘neither sickness
nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose
your billet27.’
“ ‘A n d the work?’
“ ‘Is to copy out the Encyclopaedia B ritannica28. There is the
first volum e o f it in that press29. You must find your own ink,
pens, and blotting-paper30, but we provide this table and chair.
W ill you be ready to-morrow?’
“‘Certainly,’ I answered.
“‘T hen , good-bye, M r Jabez W ilson, and let me congratulate
you once more on the im portant position which you have been
fortunate enough to gain .’ H e bowed me out o f the room and I
went hom e with my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do,
I was so pleased at my own good fortune.
“W ell, I thought over the m atter all day, and by evening I was
in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded m yself that the
whole affair must be som e great hoax or fraud, though what its
26 approxim ately £ 400 in current value
27 old-fashioned, informal: job
28 the oldest Englishdanguage encyclopedia still in print, it was first published in 1768
29 old-fashioned (still current in Sco ttish and Irish English): cupboard
30 special thick paper used for drying ink when you have finished writing with an ink
pen

object m ight be I could not im agine. It seem ed altogether past
belief that anyone could m ake such a will, or that they would
pay such a sum for doing anything so sim ple as copying out the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. V incent Spaulding did what he could
to cheer me up, but by bedtim e I had reasoned m yself out o f the
whole thing. However, in the m orning I determined to have a
look at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle o f ink, and with a
quill-pen31, and seven sheets o f foolscap32 paper, I started off for
Pope’s Court.
“W ell, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as
possible. T h e table was set out ready for me, and M r D uncan
Ross was there to see th at I got fairly to work. H e started me
off upon the letter A , and then he left me; but he would drop
in from tim e to tim e to see th at all was right with me. A t two
o ’clock he bade33 me good-day34, com plim ented me upon the
am ount th at I had written, and locked the door o f the office
after me.
“T h is went on day after day, M r H olm es, and on Saturday the
m anager cam e in and planked down35 four golden sovereigns36
for my week’s work. It was the sam e n ext week, and the same
the week after. Every m orning I was there at ten, and every
afternoon I left at two. By degrees M r D uncan Ross took to
com ing in only once of a m orning, and then, after a time, he
did not com e in at all. Still, o f course, I never dared to leave
the room for an instant, for I was not sure when he m ight com e,
and the billet was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I
would n ot risk the loss o f it.
“Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had w ritten about
Abbots and A rchery and A rm our and A rchitecture and A ttica 37,
and hoped with diligence that I m ight get on to the B ’s before
very long. It cost me som ething in foolscap, and I had pretty
31 old-fashioned: pen m ade from a bird’s feather
32 a large size o f paper used for printing books
33 formal and mainly old-fashioned: past form of bid, to say
34 old-fashioned greeting: goodbye
35 old-fashioned: put down
36 British only: an old unit o f m oney in the form o f a gold coin worth one pound
37 a historical region o f G reece

nearly filled a shelf with my writings. A n d then suddenly the
whole business cam e to an end.”
“To an end?”
“Yes, sir. A n d no later than this m orning. I went to my work
as usual at ten o ’clock, but the door was shut and locked, with
a little square o f card-board ham m ered on to the middle o f the
panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself.”
H e held up a piece o f white card-board about the size of a
sheet o f note-paper. It read in this fashion:
T H E R E D -H E A D E D L E A G U E
IS
D ISSO LV ED .
O ctober 9, 1890.
Shbrlock H olm es ancl I surveyed this curt announcem ent and
the rueful face behind it, until the com ical side o f the affair so
com pletely overtopped38 every other consideration that we both
burst out into a roar of laughter.
“I can n ot see th at there is anything very funny,” cried our
client, flushing up to the roots o f his flam ing head. “If you can
do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsew here.”
“N o, n o,” cried H olm es, shoving him back into the chair
from which he had h alf risen. “I really wouldn’t miss your case
for the world. It is m ost refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you
will excuse my saying so, som ething just a little funny about it.
Pray39 what steps did you take when you found the card upon
the door?”
“I was staggered, sir. I did not know w hat to do. T h en I called
at the offices round, but none o f them seem ed to know anything
about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant
living on the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me
what had becom e of the R ed-headed League. H e said th at he
had never heard o f any such body. T h en I asked him who Mr
D uncan Ross was. H e answered that the nam e was new to him.
“‘W ell,’ said I, ‘the gentlem an at N o. 4 .’
38 old-fashioned: to becom e stronger or more im portant than som ething else

39 old-fashioned: here, discourse marker, used for introducing a question

“‘W hat, the red-headed m an?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘O h ,’ said he, ‘his nam e was W illiam Morris. H e was a
solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience
until his new prem ises were ready. H e m oved out yesterday.’
“‘W here could I find him ?’
“‘O h, at his new offices. H e did tell me the address. Yes, 17
King Edward Street, near S t Paul’s.’
“I started off, M r H olm es, but when I got to that address it
was a m anufactory40 of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had
ever heard o f either M r W illiam Morris or M r D uncan R oss.”
“A n d what did you do then?” asked H olm es.
“I went hom e to Saxe-C oburg Square, and I took the advice
o f my assistant. But he could not help me in any way. H e could
only say that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not
quite good enough, M r Holm es. I did n ot wish to lose such a
place w ithout a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good
enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I
cam e right away to you.”
“A n d you did very wisely,” said H olm es. “Your case is an
exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into
it. From what you have told me I think that it is possible that
graver issues hang from it than m ight at first sight appear.”
“G rave enough !” said M r Jabez W ilson. “Why, I have lost four
pounds a week.”
“A s far as you are personally concerned,” remarked H olm es, “I
do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary
league. O n the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some
30 pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you
have gained on every subject which com es under the letter A .
You have lost nothing by them .”
“N o, sir. But I want to find out about them , and who they
are, and what their object was in playing this prank - if it was a
prank - upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them , for it
cost them two and thirty pounds41.”
40 old-fashioned: factory
41 old-fashioned: thirty-two pounds

“We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. A nd,
first, one or two questions, M r W ilson. T h is assistant of yours
who first called your attention to the advertisem ent - how long
had he been with you?”
“A bout a m onth th en.”
“How did he com e?”
“In answer to an advertisem ent.”
“W as he the only applicant?”
“N o, I had a dozen.”
“W hy did you pick him ?”
“Because he was handy and would com e ch eap.”
“A t half-wages, in fact.”
“Yes.”
“W hat is he like, this V incent Spaulding?”
“Sm all, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,
though h e’s not short o f thirty. H as a white splash o f acid upon
his forehead.”
H olm es sat up in his chair in considerable excitem ent. “I
thought as m uch,” said he. “H ave you ever observed that his
ears are pierced for earrings?”
“Yes, sir. H e told me that a gypsy had done it for him when
he was a lad.”
“H u m !” said H olm es, sinking back in deep thought. “H e is
still with you?”
“O h, yes, sir; I have only just left him .”
“A n d has your business been attended to in your absence?”
“N oth in g to com plain of, sir. T h ere’s never very m uch to do
of a m orning.”
“T h a t will do, M r W ilson. I shall be happy to give you
an opinion upon the subject in the course o f a day or two.
Today is Saturday, and I hope that by M onday we may com e to
a conclusion.”
“Well, W atson,” said H olm es when our visitor had left us,
“what do you m ake o f it all?”
“I m ake nothing o f it,” I answered frankly. “It is a m ost
mysterious business.”
“A s a rule,” said H olm es, “the more bizarre a thing is the less

mysterious it proves to be. It is your com m onplace, featureless
crimes w hich are really puzzling, just as a com m onplace face is
the m ost difficult to identify. But I must be prom pt over this
m atter.”
“W hat are you going to do, then?” I asked.
“To sm oke,” he answered. “It is quite a three-pipe problem,
and I beg th at you w on’t speak to me for fifty m inutes.” He
curled him self up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to
his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his
black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill o f some strange bird.
I had com e to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and
indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out o f his
chair with the gesture o f a m an who has m ade up his m ind and
put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.
“Sarasate42 plays at the S t Jam es’s H all this afternoon,” he
remarked. “W hat do you think, W atson? C ould your patients
spare you for a few hours?”
“I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very
absorbing.”
“T h en put on your h at and com e. I am going through the
C ity first, and we can have som e lunch on the way. I observe
that there is a good deal o f G erm an music on the programme,
which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is
introspective, and I w ant to introspect. C om e alo n g !”
We travelled by the U nderground as far as A ldersgate; and
a short walk took us to Saxe-C oburg Square, the scene o f the
singular story w hich we had listened to in the m orning. It was
a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines o f dingy
two-storeyed brick houses looked out into a sm all railed-in
enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clum ps of
faded laurel-bushes m ade a hard fight against a sm oke-laden and
uncongenial atm osphere. T hree gilt balls and a brown board with
“Jabez Wilson” in white letters, upon a corner house, announced
the place where our red-headed client carried on his business.
Sherlock H olm es stopped in front o f it with his head on one side
and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between
42 Span ish violinist and com poser o f the time

puckered lids. T h en he walked slowly up the street, and then
down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses.
Finally he returned to the pawnbroker’s, and, having thum ped
vigorously upon the pavem ent with his stick two or three times,
he went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by
a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to
step in.
“T h an k you,” said H olm es, “I only wished to ask you how you
would go from here to the Stran d .”
“Third right, fourth left,” answered the assistant promptly,
closing the door.
“Sm art fellow, th at,” observed H olm es as we walked away.
“H e is, in my judgem ent, the fourth sm artest m an in London,
and for daring I am n ot sure that he has n ot a claim to be third.
I have known som ething o f him before.”
“Evidently,” said I, “M r W ilson’s assistant counts for a good
deal in this mystery o f the R ed-headed League. I am sure that
you inquired your way merely in order th at you m ight see him .”
“N o t him .”
“W hat then?”
“T h e knees o f his trousers.”
“A n d w hat did you see?”
“W hat I expected to see.”
“W hy did you beat the pavem ent?”
“My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk.
We are spies in an enem y’s country. We know som ething o f
Saxe-C oburg Square. Let us now explore the parts w hich lie
behind it.”
T h e road in which we found ourselves as we turned round
the corner from the retired Saxe-C oburg Square presented as
great a contrast to it as the front o f a picture does to the back. It
was one o f the m ain arteries which conveyed the traffic o f the
C ity to the north and west. T h e roadway was blocked with the
im m ense stream o f com m erce flowing in a double tide inward
and outward, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying
sw arm o f pedestrians. It was difficult to realize as we looked at

the line o f fine shops and stately business prem ises that they
really abutted43 on the other side upon the faded and stagnant
square which we had just quitted.
“Let me see,” said H olm es, standing at the corner and glancing
along the line, “I should like just to remem ber the order o f the
houses here. It is a hobby o f m ine to have an exact knowledge
of London. T here is M ortim er’s, the tobacconist, the little
newspaper shop, the Coburg branch o f the C ity and Suburban
Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and M cFarlane’s carriage-
building depot. T h a t carries us right on to the other block. A n d
now, Doctor, we’ve done our work, so it’s tim e we had som e play.
A sandw ich and a cup o f coffee, and then off to violin-land,
where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are
no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums.”
My friend was an enthusiastic m usician, being him self not
only a very capable performer but a com poser o f no ordinary
m erit44. A ll the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the
m ost perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in
tim e to the music, while his gently sm iling face and his languid,
dreamy eyes were as unlike those o f H olm es, the sleuth-hound45,
H olm es the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed crim inal
agent, as it was possible to conceive. In his singular character the
dual nature alternately asserted itself, and his extrem e exactness
and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction
against the poetic and contem plative m ood which occasionally
predom inated in him. T h e swing o f his nature took him from
extrem e languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he
was never so truly form idable as when, for days on end, he had
been lounging in his arm chair am id46 his im provisations and his
black-letter editions47. T h en it was that the lust o f the chase
would suddenly com e upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning
43 to be n ext to or touching an area or building
44 ie o f extraordinary merit, very good
45 old'fashioned: som eone who tries to solve crimes or mysteries (the use o f the word
hound im plies he is like a highly trained dog with keen instincts)
46 literary: surrounded by things or people
47 old editions o f books printed in a typeface called black letter that was first used in
the early 12 th century

power would rise to the level o f intuition, until those who were
unacquainted48 with his m ethods would look askance at him
as on a m an whose knowledge was not that o f other m ortals49.
W hen I saw him that afternoon so enw rapped50 in the music at
S t Jam es’s H all I felt that an evil tim e m ight be com ing upon
those whom he had set him self to hunt down.
“You want to go hom e, no doubt, Doctor,” he remarked as we
emerged.
“Yes, it would be as w ell.”
“A n d I have some business to do which will take some hours.
T h is business at Coburg Square is serious.”
“W hy serious?”
“A considerable crirn^ is in contem plation. I have every
reason to believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to
day being Saturday rather com plicates m atters. I shall w ant your
help to-night.”
“A t what tim e?”
“Ten will be early enough.”
“I shall be at Baker Street at ten .”
“Very well. A n d, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger,
so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.” H e waved his
hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant am ong
the crowd.
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I
was always oppressed with a sense o f my own stupidity in my
dealings with Sherlock H olm es. Here I had heard what he had
heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it
was evident th at he saw clearly not only what had happened but
what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was
still confused and grotesque. A s I drove hom e to my house in
K ensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story
of the red-headed copier of the Encyclopaedia down to the visit
to Saxe-C oburg Square, and the om inous words with which he
had parted from me. W hat was this nocturnal expedition, and
48 formal: who had no knowledge o f
49 mainly literary: hum ans, not gods or spirits
50 old-fashioned: absorbed

why should I go armed? W here were we going, and w hat were
we to do? I had the hint from H olm es that this sm ooth-faced
pawnbroker’s assistant was a form idable m an - a m an who m ight
play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair
and set the m atter aside until night should bring an explanation.
It was a quarter-past nine when I started from hom e and m ade
my way across the Park, and so through O xford Street to Baker
Street. Two hansom s51 were standing at the door, and as I entered
the passage I heard the sound o f voices from above. O n entering
his room I found H olm es in animated conversation with two
men, one o f whom I recognized as Peter Jones, the official police
agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a
very shiny h at and oppressively respectable frock-coat.
“H a! O ur party is com plete,” said H olm es, buttoning up his
peajacket52 and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack.
“W atson, I think you know M r Jones, of S cotlan d Yard? Let me
introduce you to M r Merryweather, who is to be our com panion
in to-night’s adventure.”
“W e’re hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see,” said Jones
in his consequential53 way. “O ur friend here is a wonderful m an
for starting a chase. A ll he wants is an old dog to help him to do
the running down.”
“I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end o f our
ch ase,” observed Mr M erryweather gloomily.
“You may place considerable confidence in M r H olm es, sir,”
said the police agent loftily. “H e has his own little m ethods,
which are, if he w on’t m ind my saying so, just a little too
theoretical and fantastic, but he has the m akings of a detective
in him. It is not too m uch to say that once or twice, as in that
business o f the Sh o lto murder and the A gra treasure54, he has
been more nearly correct than the official force.”
“O h, if you say so, M r Jones, it is all right,” said the stranger
51 hansom cab: a small, quick horse-drawn carriage which could be hired for short
journeys across London at the tim e o f the story
52 old-fashioned: a heavy, woollen overcoat
53 formal, unusual: im portant
54 referring to an earlier mystery solved by Sherlock H olm es, as described in The Sign
of Four

with deference. “Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the
first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not
had my rubber55.”
“I think you will find,” said Sherlock H olm es, “that you will
play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and
that the play will be more exciting. For you, M r Merryweather,
the stake will be some 30,000 pounds56; and for you, Jones, it
will be the m an upon whom you wish to lay your h ands.”
“Jo h n Clay, the murderer, thief, sm asher57, and forger. H e’s
a young man, M r Merryweather, but he is at the head o f his
profession, and I would rather have my bracelets58 on him than
on any crim inal in London. H e ’s a remarkable m an, is young
Jo h n Clay. His grandfather was a royal duke, and he him self
has>Jbeen to Eton59 and O xford60. His brain is as cunning as his
fingers, and though we m eet signs o f him at every turn, we never
know where to find the m an himself. H e ’ll crack a crib61 in
Scotlan d one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage
in Cornw all the next. I’ve been on his track for years and have
never set eyes on him yet.”
“I hope that I may have the pleasure o f introducing you to
night. I’ve had one or two little turns also with M r Jo h n Clay,
and I agree with you that he is at the head o f his profession. It is
past ten, however, and quite tim e th at we started. If you two will
take the first hansom , W atson and I will follow in the second.” .
Sherlock H olm es was not very com m unicative during the
long drive and lay back in the cab hum m ing the tunes which
he had heard in the afternoon. We rattled through an endless
labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farrington
Street.
55 a series o f gam es in bridge, a popular card gam e played by four people, a com m on
pastim e am ong people o f the upper and m iddle classes at the time
56 £2,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 -3 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 in current value
57 a thief who steals from a shop (often a jew eller’s shop) by first sm ashing the window
and then taking the goods from the window
58 informal: handcuffs, a pair of m etal rings that policem en put round prisoners’ wrists
to stop them from using their hands or arms
59 a fam ous private school
60 O xford U niversity
61 here, break into a house

“We are close there now,” my friend remarked. “T h is fellow
M erryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in
the matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. H e is
not a bad fellow, though an absolute im becile in his profession.
He has one positive virtue. H e is as brave as a bulldog and as
tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we
are, and they are waiting for us.”
We had reached the sam e crowded thoroughfare in which we
had found ourselves in the m orning. O ur cabs were dismissed,
and, following the guidance o f M r Merryweather, we passed
down a narrow passage and through a side door, which he
opened for us. W ithin there was a sm all corridor, which ended
in a very m assive iron gate. T his also was opened, and led down
a flight o f winding stone steps, which term inated at another
formidable gate. M r M erryweather stopped to light a lantern,
and then conducted us down a dark, earth-sm elling passage, and
so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which
was piled all round with crates and m assive boxes.
“You are not very vulnerable from above,” H olm es remarked
as he held up the lantern and gazed about him.
“N o r from below,” said M r Merryweather, striking his stick
upon the flags which lined the floor. “Why, dear me, it sounds
quite h ollow !” he remarked, looking up in surprise.
“I must really ask you to be a little more q u iet!” said H olm es
severely. “You have already im perilled62 the whole success of our
expedition. M ight I beg that you would have the goodness to sit
down upon one o f those boxes, and not to interfere?”
T h e solem n M r M erryweather perched h im self upon a crate,
with a very injured expression upon his face, while H olm es
fell upon his knees upon the floor and, with the lantern and a
m agnifying lens, began to exam ine m inutely the cracks between
the stones. A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him , for he sprang
to his feet again and put his glass in his pocket.
“We have at least an hour before us,” he remarked, “for they
can hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely
in bed. T h en they will not lose a m inute, for the sooner they
62 very formal: put som ething or som eone in danger

do their work the longer time they will have for their escape.
We are at present, D octor - as no doubt you have divined - in
the cellar o f the C ity branch of one of the principal London
banks. M r M erryweather is the chairm an o f directors, and he
will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring
crim inals o f London should take a considerable interest in this
cellar at present.”
“It is our French gold,” whispered the director. “W e have had
several warnings th at an attem pt m ight be m ade upon it.”
“Your French gold?”
“Yes^W e had occasion some m onths ago to strengthen our
resources and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons63 from
the Bank o f France. It has becom e known that we have never
had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in
our cellar. T h e crate upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons
packed between layers of lead foil. O ur reserve o f bullion64 is
much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch
office, and the directors have had m isgivings upon the subject.”
“W hich were very well justified,” observed Holm es. “A n d
now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that
w ithin an hour m atters will com e to a head. In the m eantim e, Mr
Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern.”
“A n d sit in the dark?”
“I am afraid so. I had brought a pack o f cards in my pocket,
and I thought that, as we were a partie carree65, you m ight have
your rubber after all. But I see that the enem y’s preparations
have gone so far that we can n ot risk the presence o f a light.
A n d, first o f all, we must choose our positions. T hese are daring
men, and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they
may do us some harm unless we are careful. I shall stand behind
this crate, and do you66 conceal yourselves behind those. T hen,
when I flash a light upon them, close in swiftly. If they fire,
W atson, have no com punction about shooting them dow n.”
63 a French gold coin

64 gold or silver in the form of solid bars
65 from French: a term used in the gam e o f bridge (see footnote 55) - a group o f four
people
66 ‘do you+verb’: old-fashioned syntax, used to give a polite order

I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top o f the w ooden
case behind w hich I crouched. Holm es shot the slide across
the front o f his lantern and left us in pitch darkness - such
an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. T h e
smell of h ot m etal rem ained to assure us that the light was still
there, ready to flash out at a m om ent’s notice. To me, with my
nerves worked up to a pitch o f expectancy, there was som ething
depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom , and in the cold
dank air o f the vault.
“T hey have but67 one retreat68,” whispered H olm es. “T h a t is
back through the house into Saxe-C oburg Square. I hope that
you have done what I asked you, Jones?”
UI have an inspector and two officers w aiting at the front
door.”
“T h en we have stopped all the holes. A n d now we must be
silent and w ait.”
W hat a tim e it seem ed! From com paring notes afterwards it
was but an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the
night must have alm ost gone and the dawn be breaking above
us. My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my
position; yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch o f
tension, and my hearing was so acute that I could not only hear
the gentle breathing o f my com panions, but I could distinguish
the deeper, heavier in-breath o f the bulky Jones from the thin,
sighing note o f the bank director. From my position I could look
over the case in the direction o f the floor. Suddenly my eyes
caught the glint o f a light.
A t first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavem ent.
T h en it lengthened out until it becam e a yellow line, and then,
without any warning or sound, a gash seem ed to open and a
hand appeared; a white, alm ost womanly hand, which felt about
in the centre of the little area o f light. For a m inute or more the
hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. T h en
it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark
again save the single lurid spark which m arked a chink between
the stones.
67 old-fashioned: only one
68 only one way out

Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. W ith a
rending, tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned
over upon its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which
stream ed the light of a lantern. O ver the edge there peeped a
clean-cut, boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then,
with a hand on either side o f the aperture69, drew itself shoulder-
high and waist-high, until one kn ee'rested upon the edge. In
another instant he stood at the side o f the hole and was hauling
after him a com panion, lithe and sm all like him self, with a pale
face and a shock o f very red hair.
“It’s all clear,” he whispered. “H ave you the ch isel and the
bags? G reat S co tt! Jum p, A rchie, jum p, and I’ll swing for it!”
Sherlock H olm es had sprung out and seized the intruder
by the collar. T h e other dived down the hole, and I heard the
sound o f rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. T h e light
flashed upon the barrel o f a revolver, but H olm es’s hunting crop
cam e down on the m an ’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the
stone floor.
“It’s no use, Jo h n C lay,” said H olm es blandly. “You have no
chance at all.”
“S o I see,” the other answered with the utm ost coolness. “I
fancy that my pal70 is all right, though I see you have got his
coat-tails.”
“There are three m en waiting for him at the door,” said
Holm es.
“O h, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very
completely. I must com plim ent you.”
“A n d I you,” H olm es answered. “Your red-headed idea was
very new and effective.”
“You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “H e ’s quicker
at clim bing down holes than I am. Ju st hold out while I fix the
derbies71.”
“I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy han ds,”
remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists.
69 formal: a small, narrow hole

70 informal: a friend
71 informal, old-fashioned: handcuffs

“You may n ot be aware that I have royal blood in my veins.
H ave the goodness, also, when you address me always to say ‘sir’
and ‘please’.”
“A ll right,” said Jones with a stare and a snigger. “W ell, would
you please, sir, m arch upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry
your H ighness to the police-station?”
“T h at is better,” said Jo h n C lay serenely. H e m ade a sweeping
bow to the three o f us and walked quietly off in the cu stody of
the detective.
“Really, M r H olm es,” said M r M erryweather as we followed
them from the cellar, “I do n ot know how the bank can thank
you or repay you. There is no doubt th at you have detected
and defeated in the m ost com plete m anner one o f the m ost
determ ined attem pts at bank robbery that have ever com e
w ithin my experience.”
“I have had one or two little scores o f my own to settle
with M r Jo h n C lay,” said H olm es. “I have been at som e sm all
expense over this matter, which I shall expect the bank to
refund, but beyond that I am amply repaid by h aving had an
experience w hich is in m any ways unique, and by hearing the
very remarkable narrative o f the Red-headed League.”
“You see, W atson,” he explained in the early hours of the
m orning as we sat over a glass o f whisky and soda in Baker Street,
“it was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible
object o f this rather fantastic business o f the advertisem ent of
the League, and the copying o f the Encyclopaedia, must be to
get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a num ber
of hours every day. It was a curious way o f m anaging it, but,
really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. T h e m ethod was
no doubt suggested to C lay ’s ingenious m ind by the colour o f
his accom plice’s hair. T h e four pounds a week was a lure which
must draw him , and what was it to them , who were playing for
thousands? T hey put in the advertisem ent, one rogue has the
temporary office, the other rogue incites the m an to apply for it,
and together they m anage to secure his absence every m orning
in the week. From the time that I heard o f the assistant having

com e for h alf wages, it was obvious to me that he had some
strong m otive for securing the situation72.”
“But how could you guess what the m otive was?”
“H ad there been women in the house, I should h ave suspected
a mere vulgar intrigue. T h at, however, was out o f the question.
T h e m an ’s business was a sm all one, and there was nothing in
his house which could account for such elaborate preparations,
and such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be
som ething out o f th eh o u se. W hat could it be? I thought o f the
assistant’s fondness for photography, and his trick o f vanishing
into the cellar. T h e cellar! There was the end o f this tangled
clew 73. T h en I m ade inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and
found that I had to deal with one o f the coolest and m ost daring
crim inals in London. H e was doing som ething in the cellar -
Something which took many hours a day for m onths on end.
W hat could it be, once more? I could think o f nothing save that
he was running a tunnel to some other building.
“S o far I had got when we went to visit the scene o f action.
I surprised you by beating upon the pavem ent with my stick. I
was ascertaining w hether the cellar stretched out in front or
behind. It was not in front. T h en I rang the bell, and, as I hoped,
the assistant answered it. We have had som e skirmishes, but we
had never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at
his face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself
h ave remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were.
T hey spoke o f those hours o f burrowing. T h e only rem aining
point was what they were burrowing for. I walked round the
corner, saw the C ity and Suburban Bank abutted on our friend’s
prem ises, and felt th at I had solved my problem . W hen you
drove hom e after the concert I called upon Scotlan d Yard and
upon the chairm an of the bank directors, with the result that
you have seen.”
“A n d how could you tell that they would m ake their attem pt
to-night?” I asked.
72 formal: a job
73 from Greek mythology: the ball o f thread used by Theseus (K ing o f A th en s) to find
his way out o f the labyrinth after he had killed the m inotaur

“Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign
that they cared no longer about M r Jabez W ilson’s presence - in
other words, that they had com pleted their tunnel. But it was
essential that they should use it soon, as it m ight be discovered,
or the bullion m ight be removed. Saturday would suit them
better than any other day, as it would give them two days for
their escape. For all these reasons I expected them to com e to
night.”
“You reasoned it out beautifully,” I exclaim ed in unfeigned
adm iration “It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”
“It saved me from ennui74,” he answered, yawning. “A las! I
already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long
effort to escape from the com m onplaces o f existence. T hese
little problem s help me to do so.”
“A n d you are a benefactor o f the race,” said I.
H e shrugged his shoulders. “W ell, perhaps, after all, it is o f
some little use,” he remarked. “‘L’hom m e c ’est rien - l’oeuvre
c ’est tout75,’ as G ustave Flaubert76 wrote to G eorge S an d 77.”
74 literary: a feeling o f being bored and having no interest in anything

75 French: the m an is nothing, the work is everything
76 French m ale novelist o f the 19th century
77 French fem ale novelist o f the 19th century

Post-reading activities
story.
Introducing Mr Jabez Wilson
1 Where does the story start?
2 Who is with Holmes?
3 Why is he there ?^
4 Why does Watson look so carefully at the man? What is he trying
to do?
5 Why does Holmes smile and shake his head?
6 What information has he understood about his client from his
appearance?
7 What is his client’s reaction to Holmes’s deductions?
8 What has the man taken from his pocket?
9 What is Watson’s reaction to it?
10 Why is Holmes so pleased?
11 What is unusual about the pawnbroker’s assistant?
Mr Jabez Wilsons story
12 Why did the assistant say he showed the pawnbroker the
advertisement in the newspaper?
13 Why did the pawnbroker know nothing about it?
14 Why did the pawnbroker take his assistant with him to the address
on the advert?
15 How many other people had seen the advert?
16 What happened when they got there?
17 What exactly has the pawnbroker got to do to earn four pounds a
week?
18 How did the pawnbroker feel that night? Why? How did he feel
the next morning? Why?
19 How long did he keep his new job?
20 What had happened on the morning of the day he went to see
Holmes?
21 What questions does Holmes ask the pawnbroker before he leaves?
Why?
Holmes considers the case
22 What does Holmes do to help him concentrate on the case?
23 What does he decide to do that afternoon? Why?
24 Where do they go on the way? Why?

25 Why does Holmes speak to the pawnbroker’s assistant? What does
he say he wants to know?
26 Why doesn’t he answer Watson’s questions?
27 What is unusual about the back of Saxe-Coburg Square? What
does Holmes notice about it?
28 What does Watson notice about Holmes at the concert?
29 What does Holmes ask Watson to do that evening?
30 Why does Watson feel stupid when he leaves Holmes?
Later that evening
31 How many people were at Holmes’s flat when Watson arrived?
Who are they?
32 Who is John Clay?
33 Where do the hansom cabs take the four men?
34 Where does Mr Merryweather then lead them?
35 What is being kept in the cellar?
36 Why do they have to wait in the dark?
37 What is the first thing they see?
38 Who climbs out of the hole?
39 Why does John Clay congratulate Holmes?
40 Why does Holmes congratulate Clay?
41 What does the bank manager offer Holmes?
42 What does Holmes want?
Summing up
43 What does Holmes explain to Watson?
44 Is Holmes happy to have solved the case? Why/Why not?
Language study
Formal language
A lot of formal language is used in the story, both in the narrative and
in the dialogue. Some examples are dated and old-fashioned. These
examples are explained in footnotes in the body of the story. Some are
still current and common today, although it would be unusual to hear
people using them in everyday speech, or in informal writing.
1 Look at the extracts on page 74. Find words in the box to replace
the words in bold.
apart from busy came to an end decided guessed

in a friendly voice information looked at leave night time
start your story again see took tried hard was enough

1 I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the
room.
2 “You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson, he
said cordially.
3 “I was afraid that you were engaged.”
4 uPerhaps, Mr Wilson, you would have the greatest kindness to
recommence your narrative.”
5 I took a good look at the man and endeavoured... to read the
indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.
6 There was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head.
7 “There is the address where you should apply for particulars.”
8 “I perceive that all is as it should be.”
9 “However, in the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow. ”
10 Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement.
11 What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should 1 go armed?
12 This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps,
which terminated at another formidable gate.
13 Mr Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us
down a dark, earth-smelling passage.
14 A few seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again and
put his glass in his pocket.
15 “We are at present, Doctor - as no doubt you have divined - in the
cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks.”
2 Look at these examples of current uses for some of the words in
bold in exercise 1, above. Complete them with the correct word.
You may need to change the form.
1 His contract w as................................ following a serious breach of
conduct on his part.
2 Military forces were not able t o ................................ from the area due
to the adverse weather conditions.
3 Leaders of both countries are currently................................ in urgent
talks.
4 You are.............. invited to attend the wedding of our
daughter, Marie.
5 I can’t really comment without knowing all the
6 He sat quietly, the scene around him.
7 One example should........... to prove my point.
8 He had been examining the behaviour of fruit
bats in their natural habitat.

U se of whom
Whom is a pronoun. It can be used instead of who when it is the object
of a verb or preposition. We use whom and not who directly after a
preposition. It is only used in formal written and spoken English.
To whom would you like to speak?
This is the Prime Minister, whom you have already met.
The man with whom she lived.
Those students for whom English is a second language often find the
course quite challenging.
In a more neutral or informal style, we prefer to avoid the use of whom.
In questions and relative clauses we usually use who:
Who would you like to see?
This is my boyfriend, who you ve already met.
When using prepositions in relative clauses and questions, we use who
and place the preposition at the end of the relative clause or question:
Who would you like to speak to?
The man who she lived with. (Not: The man withwho she lived.)
We often reword the relative clause so that whom is not necessary.
Those students for whom English is a second language...-*
Those students who have English as a second language. ../ Those students
whose first language is not English...
3 Look at these examples from the story. Rewrite them in a more
informal style, avoiding the use of whom. There may be more
than one possible answer.
1 I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set
himself to hunt down.
2 I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I
recognized as Peter Jones, the official police agent.
3 For you, Mr Merryweather, the stake will be some 30,000 pounds;
and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon whom you wish to lay your
hands.

C o m m o n idiom atic e x p re ssio n s
There are a number of idiomatic expressions used in the story which
are still common today.
4 Look at the examples from the story (a-h) and match them to
their definitions (1-8).
a) at your w its’ end
The pawnbroker’s assistant talking about the Red-headed League:
I understand that there are more vacancies than there are men, so that the
trustees are at their wits’ end what to do with the money.
b) in high spirits
Watson describing Holmes when he first shows him the advert:
Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high
spirits.
c) a wild goose chase
The bank manager, commenting on their adventure:
“I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase, ”
observed Mr Merryweather gloomily.
d) have a job to do something
The pawnbroker, talking about his assistant:
I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and I
would have a job to pay him but that he is willing to come for half wages
so as to learn the business.
e) off the beaten track
Holmes commenting on the pawnbroker’s story:
“It is a little off the beaten track, isnt it?” said he.
f) set eyes on something
The policeman from Scotland Yard, commenting on John Clay, the
red-headed criminal:
I’ve been on his track for years and have never set eyes on him yet.
g) stand a good chance (as good a chance as)
The pawnbroker talking about the colour of his hair:
It seemed to me that if there was to be any competition in the matter I
stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met.

h) stretch a point
The man at the Rechheaded League office, commenting on the
pawnbroker’s application:
We must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a head of hair as
yours.
Definitions
1 to be likely to achieve something
2 far away from the places that people usually visit
3 to attempt to find something that does not exist or that you are very
unlikely to discover
4 happy and excited
5 be flexible with the interpretations of rules or regulations
6 so worried and tired by your problems that you don’t know how to
solve them
7 to see someone or something, especially for the first or last time
8 to have difficulties doing something
5 Use the idioms in exercise 4 to complete the sentences below.
Make any necessary changes.
1 We drove around for hours on what turned out to be
............................... because the restaurant had closed six months
before!
2 I’m ................................ trying to think of ways to amuse these
children!
3 She was such a good player, that even though she was only 15,
they decided to ............................... and let her compete against the
adults.
4 They lived in a tiny little village far.................................
5 I have no wish to ................................ this place ever again.
6 They of winning against France in the World
Cup.
7 W e.................. quite....................finding a house to buy.
8 I was glad to see that she was still despite her
earlier disappointment.
Do you have similar idioms in your language?

Literary analysis
Plot
1 Number the events in the order they happen.
a) Jabez Wilson decided to go and see Sherlock Holmes.
b) Sherlock Holmes solved the case.
c) The police arrested the bank robber.
d) Jabez Wilson took on a new assistant at his pawnbroker’s shop.
e) The City and Suburban Bank borrowed some money from the Bank
of France.
f) The pawnbroker’s assistant showed him an advertisement in the
newspaper.
g) The pawnbroker got a new job. v
h) The pawnbroker lost his new job.
i) The assistant dug a tunnel from the shop to the bank.
2 Which events took place before the story started? At what point
exactly did Sherlock Holmes understand what had happened?
At what point did you, on reading the story for the first time,
understand what had happened? What key information is kept back
until Holmes’s final summary of the case? Why?
3 What do you think would have happened if the pawnbroker had
told his assistant he had spoken to Holmes? In what way would the
story have been different?
Character
4 Who are the main characters in the story? Which of these
characters is described in most detail? Why?
5 What do you learn about the relationship between Holmes and
Watson in the story? Why doesn’t Holmes share his discoveries with
Watson? How does Watson feel about that?
6 What exactly is it that Holmes enjoys about solving mysteries, and
this mystery in particular? What does this tell you about him?
7 Which two characters in the story are both intelligent and arrogant?
In what way are they physically similar? In what other ways are they
similar? In what ways are they different from each other?
8 Think about the relationship between the pawnbroker and his
assistant. In what way might it be said to be similar to the relationship
between Watson and Holmes? Which characters do you sympathize
with most? The intelligent and arrogant Holmes and Spaulding, or
the trusting and loyal Watson and Wilson?

Narration
9 The story is told in the first person. Who is telling the story?
How would the story be different if it was told by Holmes? Or the
pawnbroker? Or Spaulding?
10 The first half of the story is told in Jabez Wilson, the pawnbroker’s,
own words. How is the way he speaks different from the way
Holmes and Watson speak? What effect does this have on the way
the story is told?
11 Holmes and Watson find the story amusing. Why? What is the
pawnbroker’s reaction to their amusement? And yours, as the
reader?
12 At what point does Holmes tell the story in his own words? Why?
What does this add to the story? And what does it tell us about
Holmes?
Atmosphere
13 As Holmes, Watson and their companions wait in the darkened
cellar of the bank, the atmosphere is one of fear and suspense.
Look at the extracts below. Notice how Watson uses the senses of
smell, touch and heariqg to describe the situation. Underline all
the adjectives he uses. What effect do they create?
Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern and left us in pitch
darkness - such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced.
The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was still
there, ready to flash out at a moment’s notice. To me, with my nerves
worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and
subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.
My limbs were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position;
yet my nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my
hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of
my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of
the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.
Style
The key to Conan Doyle’s unmistakable style in the Sherlock Holmes
stories lies in the formulaic structure of the stories and in the voice of
their narrator, Dr Watson.
14 Order the basic components according to the format of the story:
a) Holmes investigates the scene of the supposed crime.

b) A client approaches Holmes with a problem.
c) Holmes explains how he solved the mystery.
d) Holmes sets a trap for the criminal.
What role does Watson play in each of these stages? And the
reader?
15 Watson sees what Holmes sees and describes it in great detail.
Look back at the descriptions of Saxe-Coburg Square, the area
behind it, and the pawnbroker’s assistant. What clues are present
in these descriptions? Why doesn’t Watson understand these clues?
Why don’t we understand these clues? Is there any information
missing?
16 Look at the passage below, where Wdtson describes Holmes, his
character and his methods. What are the two opposing sides of his
nature? Notice how Watson balances them one against the other.
The swing of his nature took him from extreme languor to devouring
energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as
when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his armchair amid
his improvisations and his black-letter editions. Then it was that the
lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant
reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were
unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a man
whose knowledge was not that of other mortals.
Look again. Watson lists Holmes’s most important talents as a
detective as reasoning power and knowledge. Notice how he
describes these. What effect do these descriptions have? What does
it tell us about Holmes? And about Watson?
17 The last part of the story is told in Holmes’s words. Why is this?
What effect does this have? How does it add to the creation of the
legend of the Great Sherlock Holmes?

The Blue Cross
by G K Chesterton
About the author

G K Chesterton was a British journalist, critic and writer. He wrote
about a wide range of subjects, from literature and art, to philosophy,
politics and theology. He was an active and prolific writer throughout
his life - a man of strong opinions which he was not afraid to express,
he was well known and well liked. He wrote regular weekly columns
in the press, poems, plays, over 4,000 essays, and published more than
80 books and more than 200 short stories, including the famous Father
Brown detective stories.
Chesterton was bom in 1874 in London, into a middle class family.
His father was an estate agent and auctioneer. The young author was
educated at St Paul’s School, an independent boys’ school. When he
left school, Chesterton attended the Slade School of Art and took
literature classes at University College London. However, he did not
complete his studies at either place and at the age of 22 he started
working as a freelance writer, writing reviews and essays for The
Bookman and The Speaker, two popular magazines at the time.
In 1901, aged 26, Chesterton married Frances Blogg. Their marriage
lasted until his death at the age of 62. A t the time of his marriage he
was already writing regularly for the Daily News and in 1902 he was
given his own monthly column. In 1905 he was given a weekly column
in The Illustrated London News, a column he continued to write for the
next 30 years.
In 1916 his brother Cecil enlisted and went to fight in the First
World War. Chesterton took over his brother’s weekly paper, The
New Witness, and continued to edit it after Cecil’s death. In 1925 he
changed the name to G .K .’s Weekly and continued to edit and produce
it until his death.
Chesterton was a large man. He was almost two metres tall and
weighed around 130 kilos. He was said to be absent-minded in day-
to-day life, but had an incredible memory for general knowledge and
literature. He could repeat whole chapters of books by Dickens, one
The Blue Cross | 81

of his favourite authors, about whom he wrote a famous biography.
He was also an authority on a number of subjects from astronomy to
economics.
Chesterton was best known for his Father Brown stories, which
featured a Catholic priest who was also an amateur detective. He
started writing the series in 1910, and the first collection of the Father
Brown stories (from which The Blue Cross is taken) is regarded as the
best of the five books.
G K Chesterton died in 1936 at his home in Beaconsfield,
Buckinghamshire. A t the time of his death he was a very wealthy man,
leaving an inheritance worth more than a million pounds in current
value. He continues to be remembered for his stories, his philosophy
and his essays.
About the story

The Blue Cross is the first in a series of 52 stories about the famous
priest-detective Father Brown. It was first published in 1910 in The
Storyteller and appeared a year later in the first Father Brown collection,
The Innocence of Father Brown.
F a th e r B ro w n
Father Brown is a famous fictional detective. He stars in 52 short
stories which have been made into five collections. He is a short,
stumpy (well-built) Catholic priest from Essex, who wears priests’
clothes and carries an umbrella. He is often assisted by the reformed
criminal Flambeau, who he helps to capture in this story.
In contrast to the most famous of all fictional detectives,
Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown relies on intuition - his feelings and
understanding of human nature - rather than on logical deduction to
help him solve his crimes, and on the vast and detailed knowledge of
crimes and the criminal mind that he has learned through listening
to penitent criminals (criminals who have given up the life of crime)
confessing to him in church.
82 | The Blue Cross

P lace n am es in the story
Most of the story takes place in London, and many real places are
referred to. When the story opens, Valentin, the head of the French
police, has just arrived in Harwich, a port on the south-east coast of
England that runs regular ferry routes between the Netherlands and the
UK. He is looking for a famous French criminal, Flambeau. The police
have followed Flambeau across Belgium, from the capital, Brussels, to
the town of Ghent in the north-east and on to the Hook of Holland,
a port in the west of the Netherlands that connects the Netherlands
to the UK.
Once in the UK, Valentin travels to London by train, passing
through the county of Essex, to the east of London. A t the time, Essex
was largely rural, and to a large extent the north-east comer remains
so today, with many small, traditional towns and villages. The county
is very flat, the highest point rising to only just over 100m above sea
level. It is bordered to the north by Suffolk, another large, flat, rural
county, and to the east by the North Sea.
Valentin’s train arrives at Liverpool Street station, in the centre
of London. From there he goes to Scotland Yard, the headquarters
of the Metropolitan police force, in the heart of London. After
registering his presence and his mission at Scotland Yard, he continues
his walk through the centre of London, walking through the area
behind Victoria station, another important train station near the
River Thames, in the heart of the city. On his walk he comes across
a restaurant that he thinks looks like it should be in Soho, an area in
central London which, at the time, was a fashionable place to eat for
intellectuals, writers and artists. Soho continues to be a popular and
lively entertainment area today.
Other famous places in London named in the story are: Wimbledon
Common - a large green area in the west of the city; the Hotel
Metropole - a famous hotel in the heart of London; Camden Town -
an area on the canal in the north of London, famous for its market; and
Hampstead Heath, a large, open, green area in the north of the city.
The Blue Cross | 83

Summary
The head of the Paris police, Valentin, is on the trail of a famous
criminal, Flambeau. He has followed *him to Harwich, in the south
east of England. He suspects that Flambeau is travelling in disguise.
He boards a train to London, hoping to spot Flambeau on the train,
but there is no one who looks like him. During the journey, Valentin’s
attention is drawn to a priest who is travelling to a large Catholic
gathering being held in London. He is short and clumsy and is telling
everyone on the train about a precious, jewelled object he is carrying
with him in one of his many brown paper parcels.
When Valentin arrives in London he visits Scotland Yard to tell
them about the purpose of his visit and then decides to take a walk. It
is morning and he hasn’t had breakfast, so when a restaurant catches
his eye, he goes in and orders a coffee and something to eat. He puts
sugar in ,his coffee only to find that it is salt instead. This is not the
only strange thing about the restaurant. Apparently, two priests had
visited the restaurant and thrown a bowl of soup against the wall for
no obvious reason.
As Valentin has no other clues to follow, he decides to find out
more about the two clergymen and follows the restaurant owner’s
directions into the next street. There he sees a greengrocer’s shop
with some strange signs in the window. The greengrocer has seen
the two clergymen and points him in their direction. A policeman
tells Valentin that they have just got on a bus going to Hampstead.
Valentin calls for two policemen to accompany him, as he continues
on the trail of the two clergymen, sure that he is getting closer and
closer to the criminal he so wants to catch.
84 | The Blue Cross

Key vocabulary
finished the story.
V erbs o f movement
A number of specific verbs of movement are used in the story to
describe the chase.
1 Look at the list of verbs and their definitions. Which verbs talk
about a) a movement you make yourself, or b) causing something
else to move?
j chuck informal, to throw som ethin g

j crawl to m ove on your h ands and knees
I creep up to m ove quietly tow ards som ethin g or som eon e so th at they d o n ’t hear
| you
j crouch to bend your knees and your back dow n to m ake yourself as sm all as
possible
1 fling yourself to jum p at som eon e or som ethin g
| tread to w alk along or over som ethin g
j tumble to fall
| whirl to turn som eth in g around in circles
2 U se words from exercise 1 to complete these sentences, which

have been adapted from the story.
1 He really seemed for an instant likely t o ................................ himself

upon the stranger.
2 T h ey ............................... down the steps into the road.
3 He shut his teeth and went forward, ............................... his stick
impatiently.
4 What had the stealing of a blue-and-silver cross from a priest from
Essex to do w ith................................ soup at wall paper?
5 They had t o behind clumps of trees and even to
................................ in deep grass.
6 Mutely motioning to his followers, Valentin tried t o ...........................
behind the big branching tree.
The Blue Cross | 85

U sin g ad jectives
The story contains a lot of specific and graphic adjectives.
3 Look at the list of adjectives and their definitions below. Decide

which can be used to describe a) people, b) places, or c) both.
austere p lain in style and w ithout decoration

bewildered confused and n o t certain w hat to do
conspicuous very n oticeable or easy to see
desolate com pletely em pty with no people or p leasan t features in it
dreary m aking you feel bored or unhappy
garish very bright and colourful in an ugly and n o ticeable way
gaudy brightly coloured and ugly, or o f bad quality
gullible easy to trick because you believe everything you’re told
palatial very large w ith im pressive decorations, like a p alace
ponderous mainly literary: slow because big and heavy
quaint interesting or attractiv e w ith a slightly strange o ld 'fash io n ed quality
ram shackle in bad co n d ition and likely to fall down
Shabby old and in bad co n ditio n
1 The church was large and austere/palatial, with plain white walls
and no paintings or decorations.
2 She lived in a dreary/quaint little cottage, with a pretty garden full
of flowers and fruit trees.
3 She looked incredibly conspicuous/shabby in her enormous red
hat.
4 He was bewildered/gullible by the number of options offered to
him.
5 The room was painted in the most desolate!garish colours you could
imagine, like a rainbow that had been shattered into a thousand
pieces.
N o n -sta n d ard sp ok en E n glish

In some of the dialogue in the story, the speakers use non-standard
forms of English which are still common in spoken British English
today.
86 I The Blue Cross

D ro p p in g in itial and final co n so n an ts
5 Look at the extracts below. What consonants have been replaced
with an apostrophe (’ )? Look at the words in bold. What do you
think they should be?
“I don’t know what you ’ave to do with it, but if you’re one of their
friends, you can tell ’em from me that I’ll knock their silly ’eads off,
parsons or no parsons, if they upset my apples again.”
“One of ’em did,” said the heated shopman; “rolled ’em all over the
street. I’d ’ave caught the fool but for havin’ to pick ’em up.”
“I ’ave, sir; and if you arst me, one of ’em was drunk. ”
N o n -sta n d ard gram m ar

The two extracts below contain some non-standard grammar, which
is, however, still common in informal or uneducated speech in some
parts of the UK.
6 Rewrite the words in bold in standard English.
“They took one of (I) them yellow buses over there,” answered the man;
“(2) them that go to Hampstead.”
1 .........................................................................................................
2 .......................................................................................
“Here,” I (3) says to the chap who was nearly out of the door, “you’ve
paid too much.” “Oh,” he says, very cool, “have we?” “Yes,” I says, and
(4) picks up the bill to show him.
3 .....................................................................................................................
4 .....................................................................................................................
Main themes
A p p earan ces
Throughout the story the writer explores the ways in which
appearances can be misleading. Valentin, the French head of police,
tries to travel unobserved. Flambeau, the great French criminal, is a
The Blue Cross | 87

master of disguise. Father Brown does not try to change his appearance
in any way, but still manages to mislead people.

a) Who is best at disguising their true nature - Valentin, Flambeau or
Father Brown?
b) In what way is the appearance of the man you have chosen
misleading? Who does he mislead and why?
G re a t detectives
One of the main themes of the story is the nature of detective work
and the investigation of how a great detective goes about finding
and catching a criminal. For most of the story, we follow and observe
Valentin at work as he follows the clues left by the two priests. A t the
end of the story Father Brown reveals his methods.
a) What is Valentin’s philosophy and method of detection?

b) In what way is Father Brown a better detective than Valentin?
T h e gen tlem an th ief

The gentleman thief is a popular figure in crime fiction. He is clever
and educated. He does not use violence or force. He is admired, even
by the police, for his intelligence and skill. He is a kind of anti-hero
for the general public.
a) To what extent is Flambeau a good example of a gentleman thief?

b) Do you find him an attractive figure? If so, why?
88 | The Blue Cross

The Blue Cross
by G K Chesterton
Betw een the silver ribbon1 o f m orning and the green glittering
ribbon o f sea, the boat touched H arw ich2 and let loose a swarm
of folk like flies, am ong whom the m an we must follow was by
no m eans conspicuous - nor wished to be. T here was nothing
notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday
gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity o f his face. His
clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white w aistcoat,
and a silver straw h at with a grey-blue ribbon. H is lean face was
dark by contrast, and ended in a curt black beard that looked
Span ish and suggested an Elizabethan ruff3. He was sm oking a
cigarette with the seriousness o f an idler4. T here was nothing
about him to indicate the fact that the grey jack et covered a
loaded revolver, that the white w aistcoat covered a police card,
or that the straw hat covered one o f the m ost powerful intellects
in Europe. For this was V alentin himself, the head o f the Paris
police and the m ost fam ous investigator o f the world; and he
was com ing from Brussels to London to m ake the greatest arrest
of the century.
Flam beau was in England. T h e police o f three countries had
tracked the great crim inal at last from G h e n t to Brussels, from
Brussels to the H ook o f H olland; and it was conjectured5 that he
would take some advantage of the unfam iliarity and confusion
of the Eucharistic Congress6, then taking place in London.
Probably he would travel as some m inor clerk or secretary
1 here, poetic use com paring m orning and the sea to decorative strips o f coloured cloth
or paper
2 see background inform ation for notes on all the m ain place nam es in the story
3 a type o f collar (tall and white) worn by m en in the tim e o f Q ueen Elizabeth I
(second h alf o f the 16th century)
4 old-fashioned: som eone who does not work because they are lazy
5 formal: decide that som ething is true or likely based on the inform ation you have
6 a gathering o f C ath o lic priests and followers o f the C ath o lic C hurch
The Blue Cross I 89

connected with it; but, of course, V alentin could not be certain;
nobody could be certain about Flambeau.
It is many years now since this colossus7 o f crime suddenly
ceased keeping the world in a turmoil; and when he ceased, as
they said after the death o f R olan d8, there was a great quiet upon
the earth. But in his best days (I m ean, of course, his worst)
Flam beau was a figure as statuesque and international as the
Kaiser9. A lm ost every m orning the daily paper announced that
he had escaped the consequences o f one extraordinary crime by
com m itting another. H e was a G a sco n 10 of gigantic stature and
bodily daring; and the wildest tales were told o f his outbursts of
athletic humour; how he turned the juge d ’instruction11 upside
down and stood him on his head, “to clear his m ind” ; how he
ran down the Rue de R iv o li12 with a policem an under each arm.
It is due to him to say that his fantastic physical strength was
generally employed in such bloodless though undignified scenes;
his real crimes were chiefly those of ingenious and wholesale
robbery. But each o f his thefts was alm ost a new sin, and would
m ake a, story by itself. It was he who ran the great Tyrolean
Dairy C om pany in London, with no dairies, no cows, no carts,
no milk, but with some thousand subscribers. T hese he served
by the simple operation o f m oving the little m ilk cans outside
people’s doors to the doors o f his own customers. It was he who
had kept up an unaccountable and close correspondence with
a young lady whose whole letter-bag was intercepted, by the
extraordinary trick o f photographing his m essages infinitesimally
sm all upon the slides o f a m icroscope. A sweeping simplicity,
however, marked many o f his experim ents. It is said that he
once repainted all the numbers in a street in the dead of night
merely to divert one traveller into a trap. It is quite certain that
he invented a portable pillar-box, which he put up at corners in
7 literary: som eone or som ething that is very large and impressive
8 reference to an early French poem called La Chanson de Roland (T h e S on g of
R oland)
9 G erm an word for Emperor, referring here to Kaiser W ilhelm II who was head o f the
G erm an state at the tim e the story was written
10 a person who com es from Gascony, an area in the south-west of France
1 1 a prosecuting judge in the French legal system
1 2 a famous street in Paris
90 | The Blue Cross

quiet suburbs on the chance o f strangers dropping postal orders13
into it. Lastly, he was known to be a startling acrobat; despite
his huge figure, he could leap like a grasshopper and m elt into
the tree-tops like a monkey. H ence the great V alentin, when he
set out to find Flambeau, was perfectly aware that his adventures
would not end when he had found him. But how was he to find
him? O n this the great V alentin’s ideas were still in process of
settlem ent14.
There was one thing which Flam beau, with all his dexterity
of disguise, could not cover, and that was his singular height.
If V alentin’s quick eye had caught a tall apple-wom an, a tall
grenadier15, or even a tolerably tall duchess, he m ight have
arrested them on the spot. But all along his train there was
nobody th at could be a disguised Flam beau, any more than a cat
could be a disguised giraffe. A bout the people on the boat he had
already satisfied himself; and the people picked up at Harw ich or
on the journey lim ited them selves with certainty to six. There
was a short railway official travelling up to the terminus, three
fairly short m arket gardeners picked up two stations afterwards,
one very short widow lady going up from a small Essex town,
and a very short R om an C ath o lic priest going up from a small
Essex village. W hen it cam e to the last case, V alentin gave it up
and alm ost laughed. T h e little priest was so m uch the essence of
those Eastern flats; he had a face as round and dull as a N orfolk
dum pling16; he had eyes as empty as the N orth Sea; he had
several brown paper parcels, which he was quite incapable of
collecting. T h e Eucharistic Congress had doubtless sucked out
of their local stagnation many such creatures, blind and helpless,
like moles disinterred17. V alentin was a sceptic in the severe style
of France18, and could have no love for priests. But he could
have pity for them, and this one m ight have provoked pity in
13 a form o f payment, sim ilar to a cheque, which is issued by the Post Office
14 formal: he was still undecided
15 soldiers traditionally chosen for their size and strength
16 balls o f bread dough (the m ixture used to m ake bread) cooked in boiling water or in
a m eat stew
17 formal: dug out o f the ground
18 a reference to the R epublican m ovem ent in France in the 17th and 18th centuries
which waged war against the C ath o lic church
The Blue Cross | 91

anybody. He had a large, shabby umbrella, which constantly fell
on the floor. H e did not seem to know w hich was the right end
o f his return ticket. He explained with a m oon-calf sim plicity19
to everybody in the carriage that he had to be careful, because
he had som ething m ade o f real silver “with blue stones” in one
o f his brown-paper parcels. His quaint blending o f Essex flatness
with saintly sim plicity continuously amused the Frenchm an till
the priest arrived (som ehow ) at Tottenham with all his parcels,
and cam e back for his umbrella. W hen he did the last, V alentin
even had the good nature to warn him not to take care of the
silver by telling everybody about it. But to whom ever he talked,
V alentin kept his eye open for som eone else; he looked out
steadily for anyone, rich or poor, m ale or fem ale, who was well
up to six feet; for Flam beau was four inches above it.
H e alighted20 at Liverpool Street, however, quite
conscientiously secure that he had n ot missed the crim inal so
far. H e then went to Scotlan d Yard to regularise his position and
arrange for help in case o f need; he then lit another cigarette
and went for a long stroll in the streets o f London. A s he was
walking in the streets and squares beyond V ictoria, he paused
suddenly and stood. It was a quaint, quiet square, very typical
o f London, full o f an accidental stillness. T h e tall, flat houses
round looked at once prosperous and uninhabited; the square
of shrubbery in the centre looked as deserted as a green Pacific
islet. O ne o f the four sides was m uch higher than the rest, like
a dais; and the line o f this side was broken by one o f L ondon ’s
adm irable accidents - a restaurant that looked as if it had strayed
from Soh o. It was an unreasonably attractive object, with dwarf
plants in pots and long, striped blinds o f lem on yellow and
white. It stood specially high above the street, and in the usual
patchwork way o f London, a flight o f steps from the street ran
up to m eet the front door alm ost as a fire-escape m ight run up to
a first-floor window. V alentin stood and sm oked in front o f the
yellow-white blinds and considered them long.
19 very unusual phrase, mainly literary: foolish or absent-m inded

20 formal: to get off a train, bus or other vehicle
92 I The Blue Cross

T h e m ost incredible thing about m iracles is that they happen.
A few clouds in heaven do com e together into the staring shape
of one hum an eye. A tree does stand up in the landscape of
a doubtful journey in the exact and elaborate shape o f a note
of interrogation21. I have seen both these things m yself w ithin
the last few days. N elson does die in the instant o f victory; and
a m an nam ed W illiam s does quite accidentally murder a m an
nam ed W illiam son; it sounds like a sort o f infanticide22. In short,
there is in life an elem ent of elfin coincidence which people
reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss. A s it has been
well expressed in the paradox o f Poe23, wisdom should reckon
on the unforeseen.
A ristide V alentin was unfathomably French; and the French
intelligence is intelligence specially and solely. H e was not
“a thinking m achine”; for that is a brainless phrase o f m odern
fatalism and m aterialism . A m achine only is a m achine because
it can n ot think. But he was a thinking man, and a plain m an
at the sam e time. A ll his wonderful successes, that looked like
conjuring, had been gained by plodding logic, by clear and
com m onplace French thought. T h e French electrify the world
not by starting any paradox, they electrify it by carrying out a
truism24. T hey carry a truism so far - as in the French Revolution.
But exactly because V alentin understood reason, he understood
the lim its o f reason. O nly a m an who knows nothing o f motors
talks o f m otoring w ithout petrol; only a m an who knows
nothing o f reason talks o f reasoning without strong, undisputed
first principles. Here he had no strong first principles. Flam beau
had been m issed at Harwich; and if he was in London at all, he
m ight be anything from a tall tramp on W im bledon C om m on
to a tall toast-m aster25 at the H otel M etropole. In such a naked
21 old-fashioned: question mark

22 legal: the killing o f a baby or young child
23 reference to Edgar A llan Poe’s prose poem Eureka, in w hich he discussed the
question o f why the night sky is dark even though it is full o f stars, and concluded
that it was because many o f those stars were so far away that they couldn’t be seen
24 a statem ent that does n ot really need to be m ade because everyone already knows
it’s true
25 som eone who introduces the speakers at a form al m eal
The Blue Cross | 93

state o f nescience26, V alentin had a view and a m ethod o f his
own.
In such cases he reckoned on the unforeseen. In such cases,
when he could not follow the train of the reasonable, he coldly
and carefully followed the train of the unreasonable. Instead of
going to the right places - banks, police stations, rendezvous - he
system atically went to the wrong places; knocked at every empty
house, turned down every cul de sac/ went up every lane blocked
with rubbish, went round every crescent that led him uselessly
out of the way. He defended this crazy course quite logically. He
said that if one had a clue this was the worst way; but if one
had no clue at all it was the best, because there was just the
chance that any oddity that caught the eye o f the pursuer m ight
be the same that had caught the eye o f the pursued. Som ewhere
a m an must begin, and it had better be just where another m an
m ight stop. Som ething about that flight of steps up to the shop,
som ething about the quietude and quaintness of the restaurant,
roused all the detective’s rare rom antic fancy and made him
resolve to strike at random. H e went up the steps, and sitting
down at a table by the window, asked for a cup o f black coffee.
It was half-way through the m orning, and he had not
breakfasted; the slight litter o f other breakfasts stood about on
the table to remind him o f his hunger; and adding a poached
egg to his order, he proceeded musingly to shake som e white
sugar into his coffee, thinking all the tim e about Flam beau. H e
remem bered how Flam beau had escaped, once by a pair of nail
scissors, and once by a house on fire; once by having to pay for
an unstam ped letter, and once by getting people to look through
a telescope at a com et that m ight destroy the world. H e thought
his detective brain as good as the crim inal’s, which was true. But
he fully realised the disadvantage. “T h e crim inal is the creative
artist; the detective only the critic,” he said with a sour smile,
and lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly, and put it down very
quickly. H e had put salt in it.
H e looked at the vessel27 from w hich the silvery powder had
26 literary: ignorance
27 formal: a bowl or other open container
94 | The Blue Cross

com e; it was certainly a sugar-basin; as unm istakably m eant for
sugar as a cham pagne-bottle for cham pagne. H e wondered why
they should keep salt in it. H e looked to see if there were any
more orthodox vessels. Yes; there were two salt-cellars quite full.
Perhaps there was some speciality in the condim ent28 in the salt
cellars. H e tasted it; it was sugar. T h en he looked round at the
restaurant with a refreshed air o f interest, to see if there were
any other traces o f that singular artistic taste which puts the
sugar in the salt-cellars and the salt in the sugar-basin. Except
for an odd splash o f some dark fluid on one o f the w hite-papered
walls, the whole place appeared neat, cheerful and ordinary. H e
rang the bell for the waiter.
W hen th at official hurried up, fuzzy-haired and som ew hat
blear-eyed at that early hour, the detective (who was not
w ithout an appreciation o f the sim pler forms o f hum our) asked
him to taste the sugar and see if it was up to the high reputation
o f the hotel. T h e result was that the waiter yawned suddenly
and woke up.
“Do you play this delicate joke on your custom ers every
m orning?” inquired V alentin. “Does changing the salt and sugar
never pall on you as a jest29?”
T h e waiter, when this irony grew clearer, stamm eringly
assured him th at the establishm ent had certainly no such
intention; it must be a m ost curious m istake. H e picked up the
sugar-basin and looked at it; he picked up the salt-cellar and
looked at that, his face growing more and more bewildered. A t
last he abruptly excused him self, and hurrying away, returned in
a few seconds with the proprietor. T h e proprietor also exam ined
the sugar-basin and then the salt-cellar; the proprietor also
looked bewildered.
Suddenly the waiter seem ed to grow inarticulate with a rush
of words.
“I zink30,” he stuttered eagerly, “I zink it is those two
clergym en.”
28 formal: salt, pepper or a sauce that you put on food at the table to m ake it taste
better
29 old-fashioned: joke
30 ‘think’: the spelling is non-standard to indicate an Italian accent
The Blue Cross | 95

“W hat two clergym en?”
“T h e two clergym en,” said the waiter, “th at threw soup at the
w all.”
“Threw soup at the wall?” repeated V alentin, feeling sure this
must be som e singular Italian metaphor.
“Yes, yes,” said the attendant excitedly, and pointed at the
dark splash on the white paper; “threw it over there on the w all.”
Valentin looked his query at the proprietor, who cam e to his
rescue with fuller reports.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “ it’s quite true, though I d on ’t suppose it
has anything to do with the sugar and salt. Two clergym en cam e
in and drank soup here very early, as soon as the shutters were
taken down. T hey were both very quiet, respectable people; one
o f them paid the bill and went out; the other, who seem ed a
slow er coach altogether, was som e m inutes longer getting his
things together. But he went at last. Only, the instant before
he stepped into the street he deliberately picked up his cup,
which he had only h alf em ptied, and threw the soup slap on
the wall. I was in the back room myself, and so was the waiter;
so I could only rush out in tim e to find the wall splashed and
the shop empty. It don ’t do any particular dam age, but it was
confounded31 cheek; and I tried to catch the m en in the street.
T hey were too far off though; I only noticed they went round
the n ext corner into C arstairs Street.”
T h e detective was on his feet, h at settled and stick in hand.
H e had already decided that in the universal darkness o f his
mind he could only follow the first odd finger that pointed; and
this finger was odd enough. Paying his bill and clash in g the glass
doors behind him, he was soon swinging round into the other
street.
It was fortunate that even in such fevered m om ents his eye
was cool and quick. Som ething in a shop-front went by him
like a mere flash; yet he went back to look at it. T h e shop was a
popular greengrocer and fruiterer’s, an array o f goods set out in
the open air and plainly ticketed with their nam es and prices.
In the two m ost prom inent com partm ents were two heaps,
31 old-fashioned: used to say that you are annoyed
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of oranges and o f nuts respectively. O n the heap o f nuts lay a
scrap o f cardboard, on which was w ritten in bold, blue chalk,
“Best tangerine oranges, two a penny.” O n the oranges was the
equally clear and exact description, “Finest Brazil nuts, 4d.32 a
lb.” M. V alentin looked at these two placards and fancied he
had m et this highly subtle form o f hum our before, and that
som ew hat recently. H e drew the attention o f the red-faced
fruiterer, who was looking rather sullenly up and down the
street, to this inaccuracy in his advertisem ents. T h e fruiterer
said nothing, but sharply put each card into its proper place. T h e
detective, leaning elegantly on his walking-cane, continued to
scrutin ise the shop. A t last he said, “Pray excuse my apparent
irrelevance, my good sir, but I should like to ask you a question
in experim ental psychology and the association o f ideas.”
T h e red-faced shopm an regarded him with an eye o f m enace;
but he continued gaily, swinging his cane, “W hy,” he pursued,
“why are two tickets wrongly placed in a greengrocer’s shop like
a shovel h at33 that has com e to London for a holiday? Or, in
case I do n ot m ake m yself clear, what is the m ystical association
which connects the idea o f nuts marked as oranges with the idea
of two clergymen, one tall and the other short?”
T h e eyes o f the tradesm an stood out o f his head like a snail’s;
he really seem ed for an instant likely to fling him self upon the
stranger. A t last he stam m ered angrily: “ I d on ’t know w hat you
’ave to do with it, but if you’re one o f their friends, you can tell
’em from me that I’ll knock their silly ’eads off, p arso n s or no
parsons, if they upset my apples again.”
“Indeed?” asked the detective, with great sympathy. “Did they
upset your apples?”
“O ne o f ’em did,” said the heated shopm an; “rolled ’em all
over the street. I’d ’ave caught the fool but for h av in ’ to pick
’em up.”
“W hich way did these parsons go?” asked V alentin.
“U p that second road on the left-hand side, and then across
the square,” said the other promptly.
32 four pennies for a pound
33 a wide-brimmed, low h at worn by som e English clergymen
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“T h an k s,” replied Valentin, and vanished like a fairy. O n the
other side o f the second square he found a policem an, and said:
“T h is is urgent, constable34; have you seen two clergym en in
shovel hats?”
T h e policem an began to chuckle heavily. “I ’ave, sir; and if
you arst me, one of ’em was drunk. H e stood in the m iddle o f the
road that bewildered that
“W hich way did they go?” snapped V alentin.
“T hey took one o f them yellow buses over there,” answered
the m an; “them that go to H am pstead.”
V alentin produced his official card and said very rapidly: “C all
up two o f your m en to com e with me in p u rsu it,” and crossed the
road with such con tagious energy that the ponderous policem an
was m oved to alm ost agile obedience. In a m inute and a h alf the
French detective was join ed on the opposite pavem ent by an
inspector and a m an in plain clothes.
“W ell, sir,” began the former, with sm iling im portance, “and
what may - ?”
V alentin pointed suddenly with his cane. “I’ll tell you on the
top of that om nibus35,” he said, and was darting and dodging
across the tangle o f the traffic. W hen all three sank panting on
the top seats o f the yellow vehicle, the inspector said: “We could
go four times as quick in a tax i.”
“Q uite true,” replied their leader placidly, “ if we only had an
idea o f where we were going.”
“W ell, where are you going?” asked the other, staring.
V alentin sm oked frowningly for a few seconds; then, rem oving
his cigarette, he said: “ If you know what a m an ’s doing, get in
front o f him ; but if you w ant to guess what h e’s doing, keep
behind him. Stray when he strays; stop when he stops; travel as
slowly as he. T h en you may see what he saw and may act as he
acted. A ll we can do is to keep ou r eyes skin n ed for a queer36
thing.”
34 in the U K a police officer of the lowest rank

35 old-fashioned: bus
36 old-fashioned: strange
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“W hat sort o f queer thing do you m ean?” asked the inspector.
“A n y sort o f queer thing,” answered Valentin, and relapsed
into obstinate silence.
T h e yellow om nibus crawled up the northern roads for w hat
seem ed like hours on end; the great detective would n ot explain
further, and perhaps his assistants felt a silent and growing doubt
of his errand. Perhaps, also, they felt a silent and growing desire
for lunch, for the hours crept long past the norm al luncheon37
hour, and the long roads o f the N orth London suburbs seem ed
to shoot out into length after length like an infernal telescope.
It was one o f those journeys on which a m an perpetually feels
that now at last he m ust have com e to the end o f the universe,
and then finds he has only com e to the beginning o f Tufnell
Park. London died away in draggled taverns and dreary scrubs,
and then was unaccountably born again in blazing high streets
and blatant hotels. It was like passing through thirteen separate
vulgar cities all just touching each other. But though the winter
twilight was already threatening the road ahead o f them , the
Parisian detective still sat silent and watchful, eyeing the
frontage o f the streets that slid by on either side. By the time
they had left C am den Town behind, the policem en were nearly
asleep; at least, they gave som ething like a jum p as V alentin
leapt erect, struck a hand on each m an ’s shoulder, and shouted
to the driver to stop.
T hey tum bled down the steps into the road w ithout realising
why they had been dislodged; when they looked round for
enlightenment they found V alentin trium phantly pointing his
finger towards a window on the left side o f the road. It was a large
window, forming part o f the long facade o f a gilt and palatial
public-house38; it was the part reserved for respectable dining,
and labelled “R estaurant” . T h is window, like all the rest along
the frontage o f the hotel, was o f frosted and figured glass; but
in the m iddle of it was a big, black smash, like a star in the ice.
“O ur cue at last,” cried Valentin, waving his stick; “the place
with the broken window.”
37 formal: lunch
38 old-fashioned: pub
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“W hat window? W hat cue?” asked his principal assistant.
“Why, what proof is there that this has anything to do with
them ?”
V alentin alm ost broke his bam boo stick with rage.
“Proof!” he cried. “G o o d G o d ! the m an is looking for proof!
Why, o f course, the chances are twenty to one th at it has
nothing to do with them. But what else can we do? D on ’t you
see we must either follow one wild possibility or else go hom e
to bed?” H e banged his way into the restaurant, followed by his
com panions, and they were soon seated at a late luncheon at
a little table, and looked at the star o f sm ashed glass from the
inside. N o t that it was very inform ative to them even then.
“G o t your window broken, I see,” said V alentin to the waiter
as he paid the bill.
“Yes, sir,” answered the attendant, bending busily over the
change, to which V alentin silently added an enorm ous tip.
T h e waiter straightened him self with mild but unm istakable
anim ation.
“A h , yes, sir,” he said. “Very odd thing, that, sir.”
“ Indeed?” Tell us about it,” said the detective with careless
curiosity.
“W ell, two gents in black cam e in,” said the waiter; “two of
those foreign parsons that are running about. T hey had a cheap
and quiet little lunch, and one o f them paid for it and went out.
T h e other was just going out to join him when I looked at my
change again and found h e’d paid me more than three times
too much. ‘H ere,’ I says to the chap who was nearly out o f the
door, ‘you’ve paid too m uch.’ ‘O h ,’ he says, very cool, ‘have we?’
‘Yes,’ I says, and picks up the bill to show him. W ell, th at was a
knock-out.”
“W hat do you m ean?” asked his interlocutor.
“W ell, I’d have sworn on seven Bibles that I’d put 4s.39 on
that bill. But now I saw I’d put 14s., as plain as p ain t.”
“W ell?” cried Valentin, m oving slowly, but with burning eyes,
“and then?”
39 abbreviation: shillings, old British currency
100 | The Blue Cross

“T h e parson at the door he says all serene, ‘Sorry to confuse
your accounts, but it’ll pay for the window.’ ‘W hat window?’ I
says. ‘T h e one I’m going to break,’ he says, and sm ashed that
blessed pane with his um brella.”
A ll three inquirers m ade an exclam ation; and the inspector
said under his breath, “A re we after escaped lunatics40?” T h e
waiter went on with som e relish for the ridiculous story:
“I was so knocked silly for a second, I couldn’t do anything.
T h e m an m arched out of the place and joined his friend just
round the corner. T h en they went so quick up Bullock Street
that I couldn’t catch them, though I ran round the bars to do it.”
“Bullock S treet,” said the detective, and shot up that
thorough fare as quickly as the strange couple he pursued.
T heir journey now took them through bare brick ways like
tunnels; streets with few lights and even with few windows;
streets that seem ed built out o f the blank backs o f everything
and everywhere. D u sk was deepening, and it was not easy even
for the London policem en to guess in what exact direction they
were treading. T h e inspector, however, was pretty certain that
they would eventually strike som e part o f H am pstead H eath.
A bruptly one bulging gas-lit window broke the blue twilight like
a bull’s-eye lantern41; and V alentin stopped an instant before
a little garish sweetstuff shop. A fter an in stan t’s hesitation he
went in; he stood am id the gaudy colours o f the con fection ery
with entire gravity and bought thirteen chocolate cigars with a
certain care. H e was clearly preparing an opening; but he did
not need one.
A n angular, elderly young wom an in the shop had regarded his
elegant appearance with a merely autom atic inquiry; but when
she saw the door behind him blocked with the blue uniform of
the inspector, her eyes seem ed to wake up.
“O h ,” she said, “if you’ve com e about th at parcel, I’ve sent it
off already.”
“Parcel?” repeated Valentin; and it was his turn to look
inquiring.
40 old-fashioned: an offensive word for som eone who has a m ental illness
4 1 a lamp m ade o f m etal with one large circular glass window in one side
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“I m ean the parcel the gentlem an left - the clergym an
gentlem an.”
“For goodness’ sake,” said V alentin, leaning forward with his
first real confession o f eagerness, “for H eaven ’s sake tell us what
happened exactly.”
“W ell,” said the wom an a little doubtfully, “the clergym en
cam e in about h alf an hour ago and bought som e pepperm ints
and talked a bit, and then went off towards the H eath. But a
second after, one o f them runs back into the shop and says,
‘H ave I left a parcel?’ W ell, I looked everywhere and couldn’t
see one; so he says, ‘N ever m ind; but if it should turn up, please
post it to this address,’ and he left me the address and a shilling
for my trouble. A n d sure enough, though I thought I’d looked
everywhere, I found h e’d left a brown paper parcel, so I posted
it to the place he said. I can ’t remem ber the address now; it
was somewhere in W estminster. But as the thing seem ed so
im portant, I thought perhaps the police had com e about it.”
“S o they h av e,” said V alentin shortly. “Is H am pstead H eath
near here?”
“Straight on for fifteen m inutes,” said the woman, “and
you’ll com e right out on the open42.” V alentin sprang out o f the
shop and began to run. T h e other detectives followed him at a
reluctant trot.
T h e street they threaded was so narrow and shut in by shadows
that when they cam e out unexpectedly into the void43 com m on
and vast sky they were startled to find the evening still so light
and clear. A perfect dom e o f peacock-green sank into gold
am id44 the blackening trees and the dark violet distances. T h e
glowing green tint was just deep enough to pick out in points of
crystal one or two stars. A ll that was left o f the daylight lay in
a golden glitter across the edge of H am pstead and th at popular
hollow which is called the Vale o f H ealth. T h e holiday makers
who roam this region had not wholly dispersed; a few couples
sat shapelessly on benches; and here and there a distant girl still
42 referring to the open space o f the park
43 formal: empty
44 literary: surrounded by things or people

shrieked in one o f the swings. T h e glory o f heaven deepened and
darkened around the sublim e vulgarity of man; and standing on
the slope and looking across the valley, V alentin beheld45 the
thing which he sought46.
A m on g the black and breaking groups in th at distance
was one especially black which did not break - a group of
two figures clerically clad47. T hough they seem ed as sm all as
insects, V alentin could see that one o f them was m uch sm aller
than the other. T hough the other had a student’s stoop and an
inconspicuous manner, he could see that the m an was well over
six feet high. H e shut his teeth and w ent forward, whirling his
stick impatiently. By the time he had substantially dim inished
the distance and magnified the two black figures as in a vast
m icroscope, he had perceived som ething else; som ething
which startled him , and yet which he had som ehow expected.
W hoever was the tall priest, there could be no doubt about the
identity o f the short one. It was his friend o f the Harw ich train,
the stumpy little cure48 o f Essex whom he had warned about his
brown paper parcels.
Now, so far as this went, everything fitted in finally and
rationally enough. V alentin had learned by his inquiries that
morning that a Father Brown from Essex was bringing up a silver
cross with sapphires, a relic o f considerable value, to show some
of the foreign priests at the congress. T h is undoubtedly was the
“silver with blue stones” ; and Father Brown undoubtedly was the
little greenhorn49 in the train. N ow there was nothing wonderful
about the fact that what V alentin had found out Flam beau had
also found out; Flam beau found out everything. A lso there
was nothing wonderful in the fact that when Flam beau heard
of a sapphire cross he should try to steal it; th at was the m ost
natural thing in all natural history. A n d m ost certainly there
was nothing wonderful about the fact that Flam beau should
have it all his own way with such a silly sheep as the m an with
45 literary: saw
46 formal: past simple of seek, look for
47 mainly literary: dressed as priests
48 French priest
49 old-fashioned: som eone who does not have a lot o f experience

the um brella and the parcels. H e was the sort o f m an whom
anybody could lead on a string to the N orth Pole; it was not
surprising that an actor like Flambeau, dressed as another priest,
could lead him to H am pstead H eath. S o far the crim e seem ed
clear enough; and while the detective pitied the priest for his
helplessness, he alm ost despised Flam beau for condescending to
so gullible a victim . But when V alentin thought o f all that had
happened in between, o f all th at had led him to his triumph,
he racked his brains for the sm allest rhyme or reason in it.
W hat had the stealing o f a blue-and-silver cross from a priest
from Essex to do with chucking soup at wall paper? W hat had
it to do with calling nuts oranges, or with paying for windows
first and breaking them afterwards? He had com e to the end of
his chase; yet som ehow he had missed the m iddle o f it. W hen
he failed (w hich was seldom ), he had usually grasped the clue,
but nevertheless missed the crim inal. Here he had grasped the
crim inal, but still he could n ot grasp the clue.
T h e two figures that they followed were crawling like black
flies across the huge green contour o f a hill. T hey were evidently
sunk in conversation, and perhaps did not notice where they
were going; but they were certainly going to the wilder and more
silent heights o f the H eath. A s their pursuers gained on them,
the latter had to use the undignified attitudes o f the deer-stalker,
to crouch behind clum ps o f trees and even to crawl prostrate
in deep grass. By these ungainly ingenuities the hunters even
cam e close enough to the quarry to hear the murmur o f the
discussion, but no word could be distinguished except the word
“reason” recurring frequently in a high and alm ost childish
voice. O n ce over an abrupt dip o f land and a dense tangle of
thickets, the detectives actually lost the two figures they were
following. T hey did not find the trail again for an agonising
ten m inutes, and then it led round the brow o f a great dom e
o f hill overlooking an amphitheatre of rich and desolate sunset
scenery. U nder a tree in this com m anding yet neglected spot
was an old ram shackle w ooden seat. O n this seat sat the two
priests still in serious speech together. T h e gorgeous green and
104 I The Blue Cross

gold still clung to the darkening horizon; but the dom e above
was turning slowly from peacock-green to peacock-blue, and
the stars detached them selves more and more like solid jewels.
M utely m otioning to his followers, V alentin contrived to creep
up behind the big branching tree, and, standing there in deathly
silence, heard the words o f the strange priests for the first time.
A fter he had listened for a m inute and a half, he was gripped
by a devilish doubt. Perhaps he had dragged the two English
policem en to the wastes o f a nocturnal h eath on an errand no
saner than seeking figs on its thistles. For the two priests were
talking exactly like priests, piously, with learning and leisure,
about the m ost aerial50 enigmas o f theology. T h e little Essex
priest spoke the more simply, with his round face turned to
the strengthening stars; the other talked with his head bowed,
as if he were not even worthy to look at them . But no more
innocently clerical conversation could have been heard in any
white Italian cloister or black Span ish cathedral.
T h e first he heard was the tail o f one o f Father Brown’s
sentences, which ended:
“ .. .w hat they really m eant in the M iddle A ges by the heavens
being incorruptible.”
T h e taller priest nodded his bowed head and said:
“A h , yes, these m odern infidels51 appeal to their reason; but
who can look at those m illions o f worlds and not feel that there
may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is utterly
unreasonable?”
“N o ,” said the other priest; “reason is always reasonable, even
in the last lim bo52, in the lost borderland o f things. I know that
people charge the C hurch with lowering reason, but it is just
the other way. A lo n e on earth, the C hurch m akes reason really
supreme. A lon e on earth, the C hurch affirms that G o d h im self
is bound by reason.”
50 here, lofty, high-m inded

51 old-fashioned: used as an insult for people who have no religious beliefs, or whose
beliefs are different from yours
52 in R om an C ath olic religion, the place between h eaven and hell, where som e people
who are n ot C hristians go when they die

T h e other priest raised his austere face to the spangled sky
and said:
“Yet who knows if in that infinite universe - ?”
“O nly infinite physically,” said the little priest, turning
sharply in his seat, “not infinite in the sense o f escaping from
the laws o f truth.”
V alentin behind his tree w as-tearing his fingernails with
silent fury. He seem ed alm ost to hear the sniggers o f the English
detectives whom he had brought so far on a fantastic guess only
to listen to the m etaphysical gossip o f two m ild old parsons. In
his im patience he lost the equally elaborate answer o f the tall
cleric, and when he listened again it was again Father Brown
who was speaking:
“R eason and justice grip the rem otest and the loneliest
star. Look at those stars. D o n ’t they look as if they were single
diam onds and sapphires? W ell, you can im agine any m ad
botany or geology you please. T h in k o f forests o f adam ant53 with
leaves o f brilliants54. T h in k the m oon is a blue m oon, a single
elephantine55 sapphire. But don ’t fancy that all that frantic
astronom y would m ake the sm allest difference to the reason and
justice o f conduct. O n plains o f opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl,
you would still find a notice-board, T h o u shalt not steal56.”’
V alentin was just in the act of rising from his rigid and
crouching attitude and creeping away as softly as m ight be,
felled57 by the one great folly of his life. But som ething in the
very silence o f the tall priest m ade him stop until the latter
spoke. W hen at last he did speak, he said simply, his head bowed
and his hands on his knees:
“W ell, I think that other worlds may perhaps rise higher than
our reason. T h e mystery o f heaven is unfathom able, and I for
one can only bow my h ead.”
T h en , with brow yet bent and w ithout changing by the
faintest shade his attitude or voice, he added:
53 diam onds or other hard gem stones
54 precious stones
55 formal: very large
56 old-fashioned: you must not steal
57 literary: to be knocked down

“Just hand over that sapphire cross o f yours, will you? W e’re
all alone here, and I could pull you to pieces like a straw doll.”
T h e utterly unaltered voice and attitude added a strange
violence to that shocking change o f speech. But the guarder of
the relic only seem ed to turn his head by the sm allest section o f
the compass. H e seem ed still to have a som ew hat foolish face
turned to the stars. Perhaps he had n ot understood. Or, perhaps,
he had understood and sat rigid with terror.
“Yes,” said the tall priest, in the sam e low voice and in the
same still posture, “yes, I am Flam beau.”
T hen, after a pause, he said:
“C om e, will you give me th at cross?”
“N o ,” said the other, and the m onosyllable had an odd sound.
Flam beau suddenly flung off all his pontifical58 pretensions.
T he great robber leaned back in his seat and laughed low but
long.
“N o ,” he cried, “you w on’t give it me, you proud prelate59. You
won’t give it me, you little celibate simpleton. Sh all I tell you
why you w on’t give it me? Because I’ve got it already in my own
breast-pocket.”
T h e sm all m an from Essex turned what seem ed to be a dazed
face in the dusk, and said, with the tim id eagerness of “T h e
Private Secretary60” :
“A re - are you sure?”
Flam beau yelled with delight.
“Really, you’re as good as a three-act farce,” he cried. “Yes,
you turnip, I am quite sure. I had the sense to make a duplicate
of the right parcel, and now, my friend, you’ve got the duplicate
and I’ve got the jewels. A n old dodge61, Father Brown - a very
old dodge.”
“Yes,” said Father Brown, and passed his hand through his
hair with the sam e strange vagueness o f manner. “Yes, I’ve heard
of it before.”
58 formal/religious: associated with the Pope or the R om an C ath o lic church

59 an official o f high rank in the C hristian church
60 reference to a popular com ic play for the theatre at the time
61 old-fashioned: trick

T h e colossus o f crim e leaned over to the little rustic priest
with a sort o f sudden interest.
“You have heard o f it?” he asked. “W here have you heard of
it?”
“W ell, I m ustn’t tell you his nam e, of course,” said the little
m an simply. “H e was a penitent, you know. H e had lived
prosperously for about twenty years entirely on duplicate brown
paper parcels. A n d so, you see, when I began to suspect you, I
thought o f this poor ch ap ’s way of doing it at on ce.”
“Began to suspect m e?” repeated the outlaw with increased
intensity. “Did you really have the gumption to suspect me just
because I brought you up to this bare part o f the heath?”
“N o, n o,” said Brown with an air o f apology. “You see, I
suspected you when we first met. It’s th at little bulge up the
sleeve where you people have the spiked bracelet62.”
“How in Tartarus63,” cried Flam beau, “did you ever hear o f the
spiked bracelet?”
“O h, on e’s little flock, you know !” said Father Brown,
arching his eyebrows rather blankly. “W hen I was a curate in
H artlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets. So,
as I suspected you from the first, don ’t you see, I m ade sure that
the cross should go safe, anyhow. I’m afraid I w atched you, you
know. S o at last I saw you change the parcels. T h en , d on ’t you
see, I changed them back again. A n d then I left the right one
behind.”
“Left it behind?” repeated Flam beau, and for the first time
there was another note in his voice beside his triumph.
“W ell, it was like this,” said the little priest, speaking in the
sam e unaffected way. “I went back to that sweet-shop and asked
if I’d left a parcel, and gave them a particular address if it turned
up. W ell, I knew I h ad n ’t; but when I went away again I did.
So, instead o f running after me with that valuable parcel, they
have sent it flying to a friend o f m ine in W estm inster.” T h en
he added rather sadly: “I learnt that, too, from a poor fellow in
H artlepool. H e used to do it with handbags he stole at railway
62 a crim inal insignia (a mark o f an organization or group o f people)
63 a city in Syria

stations, but h e’s in a m onastery now. O h, one gets to know, you
know,” he added, rubbing his head again with the sam e sort o f
desperate apology. “We can ’t help being priests. People com e
and tell us these things.”
Flam beau tore a brown-paper parcel out o f his inner pocket
and rent64 it in pieces. There was nothing but paper and sticks
o f lead inside it. H e sprang to his feet with a gigantic gesture,
and cried:
“I don ’t believe you. I don ’t believe a bum pkin like you could
m anage all that. I believe you’ve still got the stuff on you, and
if you don ’t give it up - why, we’re all alone, and I’ll take it by
force!”
“N o ,” said Father Brown simply, and stood up also, “you w on’t
take it by force. First, because I really h aven ’t still got it. A nd,
second, because we are n ot alone.”
Flam beau stopped in his stride forward.
“Behind that tree,” said Father Brown, pointing, “are two
strong policem en and the greatest detective alive. How did they
com e here, do you ask? Why, I brought them , o f course! How
did I do it? Why, I’ll tell you if you like! Lord bless you, we have
to know twenty such things when we work am ong the crim inal
classes! W ell, I w asn’t sure you were a thief, and it would never
do to m ake a scandal against one o f our own clergy. S o I just
tested you to see if anything would m ake you show yourself. A
m an generally m akes a sm all scene if he finds salt in his coffee; if
he doesn’t, he has some reason for keeping quiet. I changed the
salt and sugar, and you kept quiet. A m an generally objects if his
bill is three tim es too big. If he pays it, he has some m otive for
passing unnoticed. I altered your bill, and you paid it.”
T h e world seem ed w aiting for Flam beau to leap like a tiger.
But he was held back as by a spell; he was stunned with the
utm ost curiosity.
“W ell,” went on Father Brown, with lum bering lucidity, “as
you w ouldn’t leave any tracks for the police, o f course som ebody
had to. A t every place we went to, I took care to do som ething
that would get us talked about for the rest o f the day. I didn ’t
64 literary: past participle o f rend, to tear som ething into pieces

do m uch harm - a splashed wall, spilt apples, a broken window;
but I saved the cross, as the cross will always be saved. It is at
W estm inster by now. I rather wonder you didn’t stop it with the
D onkey’s W histle.”
“W ith the what?” asked Flambeau.
“I’m glad you’ve never heard o f it,” said the priest, m aking
a face. “It’s a foul thing. I’m sure you’re too good a m an for
a W histler. I couldn’t have countered it even with the Spots
myself; I’m not strong enough in the legs.”
“W hat on earth are you talking about?” asked the other.
“W ell, I did think you’d know the S p o ts,” said Father Brown,
agreeably surprised. “O h, you can ’t have gone so very wrong
yet!”
“How in blazes do you know all these horrors?” cried Flam beau.
T h e shadow of a smile crossed the round, sim ple face o f his
clerical opponent.
“O h, by being a celibate sim pleton, I suppose,” he said. “H as
it never struck you that a m an who does n ext to nothing but
hear m en’s real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware o f hum an
evil? But, as a m atter o f fact, another part o f my trade, too, m ade
me sure you weren’t a priest.”
“W hat?” asked the thief, alm ost gaping.
“You attacked reason,” said Father Brown. “It’s bad theology.”
A n d even as he turned away to collect his property, the three
policem en cam e out from under the twilight trees. Flam beau was
an artist and a sportsm an. H e stepped back and swept V alentin
a great bow.
“Do not bow to me, m on am i65,” said V alentin with silver
clearness. “Let us both bow to our m aster.”
A n d they both stood an instant uncovered while the little
Essex priest blinked about for his umbrella.
65 French: my friend

Post>reading activities
story.
On the way to London
1 Why is Valentin on the boat?
2 Who is Flambeau? Why is he so well known?
3 Why is Valentin so sure that Flambeau is not on the train?
4 Why is his attention drawn to the short priest from Essex?
At breakfast
5 Where does Valentin go when he arrives in London? Why?
6 Why does he decide to go into that particular restaurant?
7 How will it help him find Flambeau?
8 Why did he put salt in his coffee?
9 Where was the sugar?
10 What explanation does the waiter give?
11 Why does the waiter’s story interest Valentin so much?
On the trail
12 Why does Valentin stop at the greengrocer’s shop?
13 Why is the greengrocer in a bad mood?
14 Why did the policeman notice the priests?
15 Where have they gone?
16 Why does Valentin ask for two policemen to accompany him?
17 What is Valentin looking for on the bus?
18 Why does he decide to get off the bus?
At lunch
19 Why does Valentin wait until after they’ve eaten to question the
waiter about the broken window?
20 Why is the waiter so happy to tell his story?
21 What was so strange about the bill?
22 Why did the priest break the window?
23 Where did the men go next?
At the sweetshop
24 Why does Valentin stop at the sweetshop?
25 Why does the shopkeeper tell him about a parcel?
26 Why had she posted the parcel?
27 Why does Valentin run out of the shop? Where is he going?

On Hampstead Heath
28 What time of day is it when they arrive on the Heath?
29 Are there many people there?
30 Does Valentin have any difficulty spotting the two priests?
31 Is Valentin surprised to see the short priest? Why/Why not?
32 What has he found out about him since he first saw him?
33 Why is Valentin still puzzled by the situation?
34 Where are the priests going?
35 What do the policemen have to do in order to follow them?
36 What are the two priests talking about?
Father Brown explains
37 Why does Flambeau suddenly reveal himself?
38 Why does he ask Father Brown to give him the cross?
39 Why does Father Brown refuse?
40 Who has the cross?
41 How did Father Brown trick Flambeau?
42 Where did he learn about these tricks?
43 Why did he first suspect Flambeau?
44 What is Flambeau’s reaction to Father Brown’s trick?
45 Why isn’t Father Brown worried by Flambeau’s threats?
46 How does he know that the policemen are hiding behind the tree?
47 Who knows more about crime and criminals, Father Brown or
Flambeau? Why?
48 What one thing do Valentin and Flambeau agree on in the end?

Language study
Grammar
w ou ld: fu tu re in the p a st
Throughout the story, Father Brown plans and carries out actions in
order to create a future reaction, and to help encourage Valentin to
follow him and Flambeau.
1 Look at the extract below. Notice the language that is used to
describe the future consequences of the priest’s past actions.
At every place we went to, I took care to do something that would get us
talked about for the rest of the day.
Father Brown is talking about the future as he imagined it at that
particular point in time in the past. Here, would is a past equivalent of
will and is used to say that you, at that point in time, were sure that a
certain thing was bound to happen in the future.
Notice how the police use the same language to talk about what they
think Flambeau will do next, as does Valentin as he wonders what will
happen once he finds the great criminal.
2 Underline the verb phrase that is used to talk about Flambeau’s
likely future movements.
It was conjectured that he (Flambeau) would take some advantage of the
unfamiliarity and confusion of the Eucharistic Congress, then taking place
in London. Probably he would travel as some minor clerk or secretary
connected with it.
The great Valentin, when he set out to find Flambeau, was perfectly
aware that his adventures would not end when he had found him.
3 Write out the correct form of the verbs in brackets, using the past
simple or would.
1 Father Brown............................... (be) sure that Valentin
......................... (notice) the salt in the sugar bowl.
2 H e ................................ (throw) the soup against the wall because he
knew the restaurant owner................................ (remember) him and
...............................(talk) about what he had done.
3 Father Brown.............................. (give) the lady in the sweetshop
a shilling so that she................................ (post) his parcel to
Westminster.
4 Father Brown.............................. (have) no doubt that Valentin
............................... (see) the broken window.
5 How...............................Flambeau (react) when
he was eventually caught, Valentin................................ (wonder).
6 Both Flambeau and Valentin................................ (bow) to the little
priest as they............................... (be) sure h e ................................
(make) a great detective one day.
U s in g do, does an d did fo r em ph asis

Notice how the auxiliary verb do is used in the extract below to
emphasize the strange coincidences, and the fact that they really
happened.
The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen. A few
clouds in heaven do come together into the staring shape of one human
eye. A tree does stand up in the landscape of a doubtful journey in the
exact and elaborate shape of a note of interrogation. I have seen both these
things myself within the last few days. Nelson does die in the instant of
victory; and a man named Williams does quite accidentally murder a
man named Williamson; it sounds like a sort of infanticide.
We usually use the auxiliary verb do to form questions and negatives.
Do clouds come together to form the shape of an eye1
Clouds don't come together to form the shape of an eye.
We do not normally use the auxiliary do in affirmative sentences:
Clouds come together to form the shape of an eye.
However, if we want to put particular emphasis on the verb, we can use
the auxiliary do + the infinitive:
Clouds do come together to form the shape of an eye.
In the third person singular notice that we use does + infinitive.
Nelson does die in the instant of victory.
We can also use the same structure in the past simple.
No, honestly, he did throw the soup against the wall.
4 Look at the dialogues below. Make the expressions in bold more
emphatic using do, does or did.
A Why was Amanda so angry with Steff last night?
B Well, he gave her a dishwasher for her birthday! You can see her
point - it’s not very romantic!
A Let’s go to the beach!
B What, in this weather? You must be crazy.
A Mm...yes...I suppose it looks a bit stormy.

A Are you going to the party tonight?
B I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.
A Well if you decide to go, let me know, will you?
U s e s o f by
By can be used as both a preposition and an adverb:
Flambeau was arrested by the great French detective, Valentin.
The policemen rushed by, not wanting to lose track of the criminal.
When it is used as a preposition, it is followed by a noun or verb + -ing.
The man we must follow was by no means conspicuous - nor wished to
be.
He had escaped the consequences of one extraordinary crime by
committing another.
5 Look at the list of uses for by ( 1-6) and match them with the
examples (a-f) below.
1 as a preposition after a passive verb form to show who or what was
responsible for an action
2 as a preposition to show how something is done
3 as a preposition of time: before or until a given moment in time
4 as a preposition of place: next to or near
5 followed by a reflexive pronoun (myself, yourself): alone
6 as an adverb following a verb: moving past someone or something
a) Each of his thefts was almost a new sin, and would make a story by itself.
b) These he served by the simple operation of moving the little milk cans
outside people's doors to the doors of his own customers.
c) He went up the steps, and sitting down at a table by the window, asked
for a cup of black coffee.
d) Something in a shop-front went by him like a mere flash; yet he went back
to look at it.
e) By the time they had left Camden Town behind, the policemen were
nearly asleep.
f) After he had listened for a minute and a half, he was gripped by a devilish
doubt.

6 Look at these extracts from the story. Add by to each sentence -
the first one has been done for you as an example.
1 He had kept up a close correspondence with a young lady by the
extraordinary trick of photographing his messages infinitesimally small
upon the slides of a microscope...
2 Valentin even had the good nature to warn [the priest] not to take care of
the silver [cross] telling everybody about it.
3 All his wonderful successes had been gained clear and commonplace
French thought.
4 He remembered how Flambeau had escaped once getting people to look
through a telescope at a comet that might destroy the world.
5 “...we’re all alone, and I ’11take it force! ”
6 “It is at Westminster now. ”
7 Match the extracts with the uses in exercise 5.
Literary analysis
Plot
1 Order the events below in the sequence in which they happened.
Why is each event important to the story? For example, T h e soup
stain caught Valentin’s attention and made him ask the waiter about
it and so find out about the two priests and where they went next.’
a) A bowl of soup was thrown at a wall.
b) A window was broken.
c) An apple cart was knocked over.
d) A parcel was left at a sweetshop.
e) Two priests took a walk in a park.
f) Three policemen took a ride on a bus.
g) A police chief had breakfast.
h) A boat arrived in Harwich.
2 Some key actions in the plot are only referred to later in the story.
When do you think the following actions took place? Is it important
to know exactly when? Why/Why not?
a) Valentin found out about Father Brown and the blue cross.
b) Flambeau swapped parcels with Father Brown.
c) Father Brown swapped the parcels back again.

3 What do you think would have happened if Valentin hadn’t picked
up on the clues that were left by Father Brown? What would have
happened to Father Brown? And the cross?
Character
4 There are three main characters in the story. Think about what you
know about them. What do the three men have in common?
5 Which character do you feel you know best? Why? Which character
do you like the most? Why? Is the character you feel you know best
also the one you like the most?
6 This is the first story Father Brown appears in and as such is an
introduction to his detective skills. How does he know so much
about crime and criminals? How does he react to danger? What
impresses you most about him as a detective? Would you like to read
more stories about him? Why/Why not?
Narration
7 Who is telling the story? Whose point of view is given? How would
the story have been different if it had been told from the point of
view of Father Brown or Flambeau?
8 What do we know about what happened before the story started?
Why is it important in understanding the story?
9 A lot of the action in the story is re-told second-hand by the
waiters and shopkeepers who noticed the two priests on their
journey through London. What effect does this have on the
narrative? How much of the action is described first-hand by the
narrator? Is it fair to say that the actions that are described first
hand are also the most important scenes in the story?
10 What do you think happened after the story finished?

Atmosphere
11 When Valentin and the two policemen eventually arrive at
Hampstead Heath there is a dramatic change of atmosphere.
Previously, they had been rushing through narrow streets, then
suddenly the wide open space of the park stretches out in front of
them. Look at the extract below. Underline the adjectives used.
What is being contrasted? What effect is created?
The street they threaded was so narrow and shut in by shadows that
when they came out unexpectedly into the void common and vast sky
they were startled to find the evening still so light and clear.
12 The description of the park at sunset is lyrical (expressing beauty
and strong emotions). Read the next part of the description.
Notice the use of colours and the contrast between light and
dark. What impression does it give you of the park? What kind
of atmosphere does this create? How does it relate to what is
happening, or is about to happen, in the story?
A perfect dome of peacock-green sank into gold amid the blackening
trees and the dark violet distances. The glowing green tint was just deep
enough to pick out in points of crystal one or two stars. All that was
left of the daylight lay in a golden glitter across the edge of Hampstead
and that popular hollow which is called the Vale of Health. The holiday
makers who roam this region had not wholly dispersed; a few couples sat
shapelessly on benches; and here and there a distant girl still shrieked in
one of the swings. The gbry of heaven deepened and darkened around
the sublime vulgarity of man; and standing on the slope and looking
across the valley, Valentin beheld the thing which he sought.
Style
13 Look at the opening sentence of the story. What time of day is it?
Who is being introduced?
Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of
sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies,
among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous -
nor wished to be.
What words and images are repeated from the description in the
passage that introduces the resolution of the story (see the passage
above in question 12)?
14 Look at the continuation of the passage in question 12. What time
of day is it? Which two characters are being introduced?

Among the black and breaking groups in that distance was one especially
black which did not break - a group of two figures clerically clad.
Though they seemed as small as insects, Valentin could see that one of
them was much smaller than the other.
Notice the comparison used to describe the two men. What
comparison is repeated from the description in the opening
sentence? What effect do these comparisons have? In what way
can these two extracts be said to frame the story?
15 Look again at the initial description of Valentin. Notice the
contrast between his appearance and his real purpose. Underline
the two contrasted features in the first sentence. What two aspects
of his appearance are contrasted in the next two sentences? Notice
the structure of the last sentence. How many additional contrasts
are described? What effect does this create?
There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between
the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. His
clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat, and a silver
straw hat with a grey-blue ribbon. His lean face was dark by contrast,
and ended in a curt black beard that looked Spanish and suggested
an Elizabethan ruff. He was smoking a cigarette with the seriousness
of an idler. There was nothing about him to indicate the fact that the
grey jacket covered a loaded revolver, that the white waistcoat covered
a police card, or that the straw hat covered one of the most powerful
intellects in Europe.
16 Look at the first description of Father Brown. Underline all the
adjectives that are used to describe him. Which two features does
Valentin notice about the priest? What is his attitude to the priest?
The little priest was so much the essence of those Eastern flats; he had
a face as round and dull as a Norfolk dumpling; he had eyes as empty
as the North Sea; he had several brown paper parcels, which he was
quite incapable of collecting.. .He did not seem to know which was the
right end of his return ticket.. .His quaint blending of Essex flatness
with saintly simplicity continuously amused the Frenchman till the priest
arrived (somehow) at Tottenham with all his parcels, and came back for
his umbrella. When he did the last, Valentin even had the good nature to
warn him not to take care of the silver by telling everybody about it.
Contrast this one-sided view of the priest with the more complex
description of Valentin in the extract in question 15. Why are we
only shown one side of the Essex priest? What is missing? What
does this tell us about appearances and their ability to mislead?

17 Look at these two extracts where the relationship between the
policeman and the criminal he is following is described. What
is the relationship being compared to in each extract? In which
extract is the comparison more direct? How is the comparison
created in the second extract?
He thought his detective brain as good as the criminal’s, which was true.
But he fully realised the disadvantage. “The criminal is the creative
artist; the detective only the critic,” he said with a sour smile, and lifted
his coffee cup to his lips slowly,
As their pursuers gained on them, the latter had to use the undignified
attitudes of the deer-stalker, to crouch behind clumps of trees and even
to crawl prostrate in deep grass. By these ungainly ingenuities the
hunters even came close enough to the quarry to hear the murmur of the
discussion.
What do both extracts tell us about Valentin’s attitude to his
profession?
18 Look at the closing paragraph. What does it tell us about the three
characters?
And even as he turned away to collect his property, the three policemen
came out from under the twilight trees. Flambeau was an artist and a
sportsman. He stepped back and swept Valentin a great bow.
“Do not bow to me, mon ami,” said Valentin with silver clearness. “Let
us both bow to our master. ”
And they both stood an instant uncovered while the little Essex priest
blinked about for his umbrella.
In what way is this both a fitting conclusion to the story and,
at the same time, an introduction to the Father Brown series to
come?
www. macmillanenglish.com/readers.

Mothers Help
by Ruth Rendell
About the author

Ruth Rendell is a prolific English crime writer, who also writes under
the pseudonym Barbara Vine. She is famous for her psychological
thrillers and murder mysteries and in particular for her series of novels
featuring Detective Chief Inspector Wexford. She has written more
than 60 novels which have sold over 20 million copies. Her books
have been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide and
many have been made into TV programmes and films.
Ruth Rendell was bom Ruth Grasemanne on 17thFebruary 1930,
in London. Her father was British and her mother was Swedish. They
were both teachers. Rendell is a very private person and little is known
of her family life. She was brought up in the suburbs east of London.
She was an only child and her parents’ marriage was not a happy one.
Her mother suffered from multiple sclerosis1 and died when Rendell
was still young.
In 1948 Ruth started work as a journalist at a local newspaper. She
continued to work as a reporter and sub-editor for four years. During
her time on the paper she met and married a fellow journalist, David
Rendell. When they married, she decided to give up her job and a year
later their only son, Simon, was bom.
Rendell’s first novel, From Doon to Death, was published in 1964,
and was the first to feature Chief Inspector Wexford, and was set in
the fictional English town of Kingsmarkham. More police novels
followed, and the Wexford stories quickly became very popular and
were adapted to make a long-running television series. Later, in the
1970s, she also began writing psychological thrillers, looking into the
minds and motives of the criminals in her stories. She has continued to
write these over many years, including To Fear a Painted Devil (1965),
A Judgement in Stone (1977), Talking to Strange Men (1987), Going
Wrong (1990) and Portobello (2008). She wrote her first novel under
the pseudonym of Barbara Vine in 1985. She claimed that using a new
1 a serious illness affecting the nerve cells o f the brain and spine that gradually makes
it difficult for som eone to m ove, speak or see
Mother's Help | 121

name allowed her to take on a new identity and she continues to write
equally successfully using both her real name and her pseudonym.
The themes of her short stories reflect those of her novels, as Rendell
studies the complexities and consequences of obsession, crime, and the
criminal mind.
RendelPs marriage was not always a happy one. In 1975 the couple
got divorced, but then remarried two years later and lived together
until David’s death in 1999. Their son, Simon, lives in Colorado and
is a psychological social worker. 'He and his mother often discuss the
complex psychology that lies behind Rendell’s novels.
Throughout her long career, Rendell has received various awards,
including the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger
for lifetime achievement and the Sunday Times award for literary
excellence. In 1996 she was awarded a CBE (Commander of the
British Empire), a British honour given by the Queen to recognize her
service to her country. In 1997 she was given a further title, and made
Baroness Rendell of Babergh. A year later she began serving in the
House of Lords as a member of the Labour Party. Now in her eighties,
she continues to play an active part in the work of the House of Lords,
as well as writing both under her own name and under that of Barbara
Vine.
About the story

Mother’s Help was first published in 1991 as part of the short story
collection The Copper Peacock and Other Stories.
N an n ie s and w orkin g m oth ers
The main character in the story, Nell, is a live-in nanny. A t the
beginning of the story she works for a wealthy, professional couple who
have a two-year-old son. It is her job to look after the little boy while
his parents are both at work. She spends a lot more time with the boy
than his parents do and forms a strong bond with him. This is often
typical when a nanny - or ‘mother’s help’ as they were once called - is
hired to look after the children in a household where both parents are
successful, hard-working professionals.
122 | Mother’s Help

p sy ch o p a th s an d sociop ath s
Psychopaths (also referred to as sociopaths) are often the main
focus in psychological thrillers and crime stories which describe the
mind and mentality of the criminal. Psychopathy - or antisocial
personality disorder as it is more formally known - is a personality
disorder. A person suffering from this disorder lacks sympathy with and
understanding of other people. This lack of empathy is combined with
amoral conduct (i.e. behaviour that is against the rules and norms of
society and harms other people). They often lie, and feel no remorse for
lying. They can be violent and dangerous. But they can also appear to
be perfectly normal. In fact, they can be charming and intelligent and
are very good at imitating normal human emotions such as affection,
sensitivity and warmth.
Summary
Nell, 22, works as a nanny for a wealthy family. She lives with the
family and looks after their two-year-old son, Daniel, as well as
helping his mother around the house. Daniel is almost three. He
loves cars and all kinds of vehicles. He particularly enjoys sitting
on his parents’ knees in their car and playing with the buttons and
levers. His first words are ‘car’, ‘tractor’ and ‘engine’.
Charlotte, Daniel’s mother, works long hours; Nell and Daniel’s
father Ivan are often alone together. They are attracted to each other
and spend more and more time together. Ivan comes home early from
work to be with his son, and.he takes Nell, who doesn’t drive, to the
supermarket to do the shopping. One day Nell and Daniel are sitting
in the car, waiting for Ivan to close the door to the garage when
Daniel suddenly climbs into the front of the car. Before Nell can stop
him, Daniel hits the wrong buttons and the car leaps forward, almost
hitting his father.
Everyone is shocked by the incident and Daniel’s parents try
to explain how dangerous it is to play in the car. Daniel delights
everyone by replying with his first ever sentence, ‘Daniel drive car,’
and the fear and worry are forgotten. The story of Daniel and the car
is soon common knowledge among their friends and family.
Mothers Help | 123

Some time later, Charlotte is working in the garden when she
hears a scream from the kitchen. Nell has cut herself by accident.
The cut is deep and needs immediate hospital treatment. Charlotte
gets the car out to take Nell to the hospital, but when Ivan finds out
what has happened, he insists on driving the car. Charlotte suspects
that Ivan’s concern is more than just friendly, but will she get the
chance to find out more... ?
Key vocabulary
finished the story.
W ords fo r d escribin g cars

One of the key incidents in the story takes place in a car and it is
important to know which parts of the car are being described.
1 Look at the list of words and phrases (1 -1 0 ), and match them

with the definitions (a-j). You may want to use your dictionary
to do this.
1 automatic transmission
2 bonnet
3 driver’s seat
4 footbrake
5 handbrake
6 horn
7 lever
8 steering wheel
9 windscreen
10 windscreen wiper
a) makes a loud, warning noise when you press it

b) a long handle that you pull or push to work a machine
c) where the driver sits
d) the large glass window at the front of a vehicle

e) a long thin metal arm which moves across the front window of a
car to clean it or remove the rain
f) a system which controls the speed and movement of the car - it
has three modes: drive, park and reverse
g) a handle that you pull to keep the car still after it has stopped
h) a pedal you push with your foot to slow the car down or stop it
i) the front part of a car that covers the engine
j ) you turn it with your hands to control the direction of the carr
2 U se words from exercise 1 to complete these sentences.
1 The frustrated drivers sat in the heat, sounding their........................,

but the traffic still didn’t move.
2 It was raining so hard that t h e ........................ couldn’t move fast
enough to clear the window, and rivers of rainwater ran down the
glass, making the road almost invisible.
3 We parked the car on the cliff overlooking the beach, climbed up
on to th e ...................... and sat there enjoying the view.
4 She gently took off th e ........................with her right hand and the
car rolled gently down the hill.
5 He leant across and grabbed the ...................... , turning the car
sharply to the left, just in time to miss the oncoming lorry.
Words for describing houses

The whole story takes place in two family homes and there are specific
words used to describe features of the two houses and their gardens.
3 Read the brief description of the two houses below, and match
words or phrases (a-1) in the extract with the appropriate
description on the next page (1 -1 2 ).
The first house <was a detached (a) Victorian villa. It had a large garden
with thick trees and clumps of (b) evergreen shrubs. There was a
(c) drive that led to the garage, (d) a converted coach-house. The
garage door was a roller (e) blind with (f) a recessed handle that you
had to pull on in order to close it. All the fittings in the house were made
of wood, the (g) windowsills, the (h) skirting boards and all the
(i) doorframes were made of heavy, dark wood. Their second house was
bigger. It was also old and traditional. It had a large (j) cellar with steps
leading down into it. It had an enormous fireplace, and built in between
the (k) chimney bay and the wall was a (I) broom cupboard, a dark,
dusty little room with a very heavy door.
Mothers Help | 125

1 something you pull with your hand to open or close blinds
2 a building that was once used to house horses and their carriages
but which has been renovated and modernized
3 a narrow piece of wood fixed to the bottom of walls in a room
4 a large house of the 19th century that stood in its own garden
separated from other houses
5 short, thick plants that don’t lose their leaves in winter
6 a very small room with no windows, used for storing things like
cleaning equipment
7 a shelf under a window
8 a private road that usually leads to a house or building across a
garden or private ground
9 a structure that forms a border of a door and holds it in place
10 a room under a house
11 a passage that takes the smoke from a fireplace up through a
building and out through the roof
12 a series of long, thin pieces of metal that are used to cover a
window or door
Describing different ways of responding to fear and pain

When describing the distress and pain of some of the main characters
in the story, the author uses a range of verbs to describe the main
characters’ responses to fear, pain and distress.
4 Look at the list of words and phrases, and answer the questions
below.
burst into tears to suddenly start crying

howl to cry very loudly in p ain or sadness
scream to m ake a loud, high cry
shriek to shout in a loud, high voice because you are frightened, excited or
surprised
sniffle to keep breathin g in noisily through your nose because you are crying or
have a cold
sob to cry loudly w hilst tak in g short breaths
wail to cry w ith a long, high sound to show th at you are in p ain or very sad
whimper to m ake sm all sounds o f pain, fear or sadness
yell to shout out in a loud voice because you are angry, afraid, excited or in pain
Which of the words in the box above describes:

a) what a child is likely to do if it has just fallen over?
b) what a small animal is likely to do if it is in pain?
c) what the passengers on a frightening fairground ride are likely to do?
126 | Mothers Help
Verbs describing sudden movements
The story also contains a number of different verbs used to describe
sudden or violent movements.
hammer to h it som ethin g hard m any tim es

jerk to m ake som ethin g m ove very quickly
lunge to m ove suddenly and w ith a lot o f force in order to c a tc h or avo id som ethin g
propel to m ove or push som ethin g forward
punch to h it som eon e or som ethin g w ith your first (clo sed h a n d ), usually as hard
as you can
seize to suddenly and firmly hold som ethin g or som eone
shoot to m ove very suddenly and quickly
sm ack or slap to h it som eon e w ith your flat h an d
spout if liquid spouts from som ew here, it com es out quickly and con tinuously
spring up (m ainly literary) to jum p or m ove in a particular direction quickly and
w ith a lot o f energy
1 She hammered/slapped hard against the door with both hands, but
nobody heard her.
2 The lorry drove into the back of the car and the car was spouted/
propelled forward.
3 The cat seized/shot out of the door and ran, wailing, down the
street.
4 The boxer lunged/punched the waiter on the nose.
5 He leant forward and jerked/sprang the door open with his foot.
Words for describing legal proceedings

There is a court scene in the story, and the threat of further legal
proceedings. You will need to know the following legal terms:
j coroner som eon e whose job it is to d ecide how a person died, especially if they
j died in a sudden or v iolen t way
1 custody the legal right to look after a child
j death by misadventure d eath caused by an acciden t
j inquest an official attem p t by a court to find the cause o f som eo n e’s d eath
| perjury the crim e o f lying w hen you give eviden ce in a court o f law
} trial the process o f exam in in g a case in a court o f law
| verdict an official judgem en t m ade in a court
| w itness (verb) to see som ethin g happen , for exam ple a crim e or an acciden t
Mother’s Help | 127

6 U se the correct form of the terms in the box on page 127 tc
complete the short texts below.
a) An ( 1 ) ........................................ was held after the accident to find ;

out exactly how the five men had died. The court ruled that it had
been an accident and the ( 2 ) ............................................returned a
( 3 ) ............................... of ( 4 ) .................................................................
b) (5) ............................... is a serious crime and is punishable by a
prison sentence.
c) The couple got divorced three years later. A t the ( 6 ) .........................
the mother was granted ( 7 ) ................................of their five children.
d) Several journalists (8) the accident in which
eight people were injured.
Medical terms
There are also medical terms that you will need to know.
7 Look at the paragraph below. Match the words in bold (1-6) with
the definitions (a-f).
The main character in the story cuts herself with a kitchen knife. The
(1) gash in her hand is deep and needs hospital treatment. The nurse at
the (2) out-patients department at the hospital gives her an (3) anti
tetanus injection and (4) stitches her hand, before (5) bandaging
it and letting her go home. The nurse comments that it's a shame she
couldn't come sooner as she is likely to be left with a (6) scar.
a) wrap a long thin piece of cloth around an injured part of the body
b) a long deep cut in your skin
c) people who receive treatment in a hospital but do not need to stay
there for the night
d) to put a drug into your body through the skin using a needle, in this
case to fight an illness which can be caused by bacteria entering a
cut
e) a permanent mark on your skin where you have been injured
f) to join someone’s skin together after it has been cut
128 | Mother's Help

Main themes
History repeated
This is a main theme in the story. The events in the first half of the
story are mirrored in the second half, building up to a shocking climax
and sudden understanding on the part of the main character.
a) In what way are Ivan’s two marriages similar?

b) What ‘mistakes’ do the two wives make?
c) Do you think Nell will be able to stop history repeating itself at the
end of the story? Why/Why not?
Inheritance and family traits

The story explores the similarities between the parents and their
children, as well as the similarities between the children themselves.
There is a suggestion that children can inherit character traits from
their parents and that this can contribute to family history repeating
itself.
a) What trait do you think the children might have inherited from
their father?
b) What do the brother and sister have in common? Why can’t they
have inherited this from their mother?

Lies
The main character, Nell, finds herself caught in a situation where
she has to lie, not only to one of her employers, but also to save the
other employer from the police. She is not the only character who lies,
and their lies compound to create a difficult and complicated family
dilemma.
A s you read the story, ask yourself:
a) Who does Nell lie to?

b) Why does she agree to lie?
c) Who else lies in the story?
d) Whose lies are the most dangerous?

Mothers Help
by Ruth Rendell
1
T h e little boy would be three at the end o f the year. H e was big
for his age. N ell, who was his nanny but m odestly called herself
a m other’s help, was perturbed2 by his inability, or unwillingness,
to speak. It was very likely no more than unwillingness, for
D aniel was not deaf, th at was apparent, and the doctor who
carried out tests on him said he was intelligent. H is parents and
N ell knew that w ithout being told.
H e was inordinately3 fond o f m otor vehicles. N o one knew
why, since neither Ivan nor C h arlotte took any particular
interest in cars. T hey had one o f course and both drove it but
C h arlotte confessed th at she had never understood the workings
o f the internal com bustion engine4. T heir so n s passion amused
them . W hen he woke up in the m orning he got into bed with
them and ran toy trucks and m iniature tractors over the pillows,
shouting, ‘Brrm, brrm, b rrm ...’
‘Say “car” , D an iel,’ said C h arlotte. ‘Say “lorry”.’
‘Brrm, brrm, brrm ,’ said Daniel.
O ne o f the things he liked to do was sit in the driver’s seat on
Ivan’s knee or C h arlo tte’s and, strictly supervised, pull the levers
and buttons that worked the w indscreen wipers, the lights, put
the autom atic transm ission into ‘drive’, m ake the light com e
on that flashed when the passenger failed to wear a seat belt,
lift off the handbrake, and, naturally, sound the horn. A ll the
time he was doing these things he was saying, ‘Brrm, brrm,
brrm .’ T h e summer before he was three he said ‘car’ and ‘tractor’
and ‘engine’ as well as ‘brrm, brrm, brrm ’. H e had been able to
say M ummy and Daddy and N ell for quite a long time. Soon
2 formal: worried or upset by som ething
3 formal: more than you would usually expect
4 scientific: a kind o f engine used in m ost cars
Mothers Help | 131

his vocabulary grew large and N ell stopped worrying, though
D aniel m ade no attem pt to form sentences.
Tt may be because h e’s an only child,’ she said to Ivan one
evening when she cam e down from putting D aniel to bed.
‘A n d likely to rem ain on e,’ said Ivan, ‘in the circum stances.’
H e kept his voice low. C h arlotte had stayed late at work but
she was hom e now, taking off her raincoat in the hall. Because
C h arlotte was there N ell m ade no reply to this cryptic remark
o f Ivan ’s. Sh e tried to smile in a reproachful way but failed.
C h arlotte went upstairs to say good night to D aniel and in a little
while Ivan went up too. A lon e, N ell thought how handsom e
Ivan was and how there was som ething very masterful, not to
say ruthless, about him. T h e idea o f Ivan’s ruthlessness made
her feel quite excited. C h arlotte was the sort of wom an people
call ‘attractive’, w ithout m eaning th at they or any others in
particular, were attracted by her. N ell guessed that she was quite
a lot older than Ivan or perhaps she just looked older.
‘I wish I’d m et you four years ago,’ Ivan said one afternoon
when C h arlotte was at work and he had taken the day off. H e
had been married nearly four years. N ell had seen the cards he
and C h arlotte got for their third wedding anniversary.
‘I was only seventeen then,’ she said. ‘I was still at sch ool.’
‘W hat difference does that m ake?’
D aniel was pushing a m iniature Land R over5 along the
windowsill and along the skirting board and up the side o f the
doorframe, saying, ‘Brrm, brrm ’. H e got up on to a chair, fell off
and started scream ing. N ell picked him up and held him in her
arms.
‘You look so lovely,’ said Ivan. ‘You look like a M urillo
M adon na6.’
Ivan was the owner of the picture gallery in M ayfair7 and
knowledgeable about things like that. H e asked N ell if it w asn’t
time for D an iel’s sleep but N ell said he was getting too old to
5 a type o f car, traditionally used on farms

6 Bartolom e Esteban M urillo was a Span ish artist o f the 17th century. H e is particularly
fam ous for his painting o f the Virgin Mary - T h e M adonna - holding baby Jesus
7 a very fashionable area in the centre o f London

sleep in the daytim e and she usually took him out for a walk.
‘I shall com e with yo u / said Ivan.
It was A ugust and business was slack - though n ot C h arlo tte’s
business - and Ivan began taking days off more often. H e told
C h arlotte he liked to be with D aniel as m uch as possible. U nless
they weren’t put to bed till some ridiculously late hour of the
night, children grew up hardly knowing their fath ers..
‘O r their m others,’ said C h arlotte.
‘N o one obliges you to w ork.’
‘T h a t’s true. I’m thinking o f giving up and then we w ouldn’t
need to keep N ell on .’
N ell couldn’t drive. W hen she went shopping Ivan drove
her. H e cam e hom e specially early to do this. T h e house was
a detached V ictorian villa and the garage a converted co ach
house with a door which pulled down rather like a roller blind.
W hen the car had been backed out it was tiresom e to have to
get out and pull down the door but leaving the garage open
was, as C h arlotte said, an invitation to burglars. N ell sat in the
front, in the passenger seat, and D aniel in the back. In those
days safety belts in the rear o f cars had scarcely been thought o f
and child seats were unusual.
It happened very suddenly. Ivan left the car in ‘park’ and the
handbrake on and went to close the garage door. Fortunately for
him, he noticed a pool o f what seem ed to be oil at the back o f
the garage on the concrete floor and took a step or two inside
to investigate. D aniel, with a shout o f ‘Brrm, brrm !’ but without
any other warning, lunged forward across the top o f the driver’s
seat and m ade a grab for the controls. H e flipped on the lights,
made the full beam blaze, w hipped the transm ission into ‘drive’,
sent sprays o f water across the w indscreen and tugged off the
handbrake.
T h e car shot forward with blazing lights. N ell scream ed. Sh e
didn’t know how to stop it, she didn’t know what the handbrake
was, where the footbrake was, she could only seize hold o f
laughing trium phant Daniel. T h e car, descending the few feet
o f slope, charged into the garage, slowing as it m et level ground,
Mothers Help | 133

sliding alm ost to a stop while Ivan stood on tiptoe, flattening
him self against the wall.
N ell began to cry. Sh e was very frightened. Seeing Ivan in
danger m ade her understand all kinds o f things about herself
and him she h adn ’t realised before. H e cam e out and switched
off the engine and carried D aniel back into the house. N ell
followed, still crying. Ivan took her in his arms and kissed her.
H er knees felt weak and she thought she m ight faint, from shock
perhaps or perhaps not.
W hen C h arlotte cam e hom e they told her what D aniel had
done. T hey didn’t feel like talking, especially to C h arlotte, but
it would have looked unnatural to say nothing. C h arlotte said
Ivan should speak to D aniel, he should speak to him very gently
but very firmly too and explain to him that what he had done
was extrem ely naughty. It was dangerous and m ight have hurt
Daddy. S o Ivan took D aniel on his knee and gave him a lecture
in a kind but serious way, impressing on him that he must never
again do w hat he had done that afternoon.
‘D aniel drive car,’ said D aniel.
It was the first sentence any o f them had heard him speak
and C h arlotte, in spite of the seriousness o f the occasion, was
enraptured8. T hey thought it wiser to tell no one else about what
had happened but this resolve9 was quickly broken. C h arlotte
told her m other and her mother-in-law and N ell confessed to
C h arlotte that she had told her boyfriend. N ell didn’t in fact
have a boyfriend but she w anted C h arlotte to think she had.
T h eir doctor and his wife cam e to dinner and they told them.
Ivan knew he had repeated the story to the doctor (and the
four other guests at the table) because it was an exam ple o f the
intelligence of a child some people m ight otherwise be starting
to think o f as backward. W hen an opportunity arose, he told
the two women who worked for him at the gallery and C h arlotte
told her boss and the girl who did the typing.
In Septem ber C h arlotte took two weeks’ holiday. Business
h adn ’t yet picked up at the gallery and they could have gone
8 literary: enjoying som ething very much
9 formal: determ ination to do som ething

away somewhere but that would have m eant taking N ell with
them and C h arlotte didn’t w ant to pay som e extortion ate hotel
bill for her as well. Sh e was going to stay at hom e with her son
and N ell could have the afternoons off. C h arlo tte’s m other had
said that in her opinion N ell was stealing D an iel’s affections
in an in defensible way. Ivan took N ell to a m otel on the A 1 2
where he pretended they were a married couple on their way to
H arw ich en route for a weekend in A m sterdam .
‘I shall have to think w hat’s to be don e,’ said Ivan in the
m otel room. ‘We can ’t just go off together.’
‘O h, no, I see that. You’d lose your little boy.’
‘I’d lose my house and h alf my incom e,’ said Ivan.
T hey got hom e very late, Ivan com ing in first, N ell h alf an
hour later by pre-arrangem ent. Ivan told C h arlotte he had been
working until eleven getting ready for a private view. Sh e w asn’t
sure that she believed him but she believed N ell when N ell said
she had been to the cinem a with her boyfriend. N ell was always
out with this boyfriend, it was evidently serious, and C h arlotte
w asn’t sorry. N ell would get married and married women d on ’t
rem ain as live-in m other’s helps. If N ell left she w ouldn’t have
to sack her. Sh e was h aving strange feelings about N ell, though
she couldn’t exactly define what they were, perhaps no more
than fear of D an iel’s preferring the m other’s help to herself.
‘H e’ll go to her before he goes to you,’ said C h arlo tte’s mother.
‘You want to w atch th at.’
H e was always on N e ll’s lap, hugging her. H e liked her to
bath him. It was N ell who was favoured when a bedtim e story
was to be read, sweet-faced N ell with the soft blue eyes and the
long fair hair. H e seem ed particularly to like the touch of her
slim fingers and to press him self close against her. O ne Saturday
m orning when N ell was cutting up vegetables for his lunch,
D aniel ran up behind her and threw his arms round her legs.
N ell h adn ’t heard him com ing, the knife slipped and she cut her
left hand in a long gash across the forefinger and palm .
Mother's Help | 135

2
T h e cut extended from the first jo in t of the forefinger, diagonally
across to the wrist, following the course o f what palm ists call
the life line. T h e sight of blood, especially her own, upset N ell.
Sh e had given one loud cry and now she was m aking frightened
w him pering sounds. Blood was pouring out of her hand, spouting
out in little leaps like an oil well she had seen on television. It
dripped off the edge o f the countermand D aniel, who w asn’t at
all upset by the sight o f it, caught the drips on his forefinger and
drew squiggles on the cupboard door.
C h arlotte, com ing into the kitchen, guessed what had
happened and was cross. If N ell h ad n ’t encouraged D aniel in
these displays o f affection he w ouldn’t have hugged her like that
and she w ouldn’t have cut herself. H e should have been out in
the fresh air hugging his m other who had a trow el, not a knife,
in her hand. C h arlotte had been looking forward to an early
lunch so that she could spend the afternoon planting twelve
Little P et10 roses in the circular bed in the front garden.
‘You’ll have to have that stitch ed,’ she said. ‘You’ll have
to have arl anti-tetanus in jection.’ W hat D aniel was doing
registered with her and she pulled him away. ‘T h a t’s very
naughty and disgusting, D an ie l!’ D aniel began to scream and
punch at C h arlotte with his fists.
‘S h all I have to go to hospital?’ said N ell.
‘O f course you will. W e’ll get that tied up, we’ll have to
try and stop the bleeding.’ Ivan was in the house, upstairs in
the room he called his study. It would be more convenien t for
C h arlotte if she could get Ivan to drive N ell to the hospital, but
un accoun tab ly she felt a sudden strong dislike o f this idea. It
h adn ’t occurred to her before but she didn’t w ant to leave Ivan
alone with N ell again. ‘I’ll drive you. W e’ll take D aniel with us.’
‘C o u ld n ’t we leave him with Ivan?’ said N ell, who had
wrapped a tea cloth tightly round her hand and was w atching
the blood work its way through the pattern, which was a m ap o f
Scotlan d. ‘We could tell Ivan and ask him to look after Daniel.
Perhaps’, she added hopefully, ‘we w on’t be very long.’
10 a type o f m iniature rose bush
136 | Mothers Help

T d appreciate it if you didn ’t interfere with my arrangem ents,’
said C h arlotte very sharply.
N ell started crying. D aniel, who was still crying into
C h arlo tte’s shoulder, reached out his arms to her. W ith an
exclam ation of im patience, C h arlotte handed him over. Sh e
washed the earth off her hands at the kitchen sink while N ell
sniffled and crooned over D aniel. T hey took coats from the
rack in the hall, C h arlotte happening to grab an olive-green
padded jacket her mother-in-law had left behind, and went out
through the front door. T h e twelve roses lay in a circle along the
edge o f the flowerbed, their roots wrapped up in green plastic.
N ell stood in the garage drive cuddling D aniel, the tea cloth
not providing a very effective bandage. Blood had now entirely
obscured C aith n ess and Suth erlan d11. Looking down at it, N ell
began to feel faint, and it was quite a different sort o f faintness
from the way she felt when Ivan started kissing her.
C h arlotte raised the garage door, got into the car and backed
it out. Sh e took D aniel from N ell and put him on the back
seat where he kept a fleet o f sm all m otor vehicles, trucks and
tanks and saloon cars. A lready regretting that she had spoken
so h arsh ly to N ell, she opened the passenger door for her. Pale,
pretty N ell in a very becom ing thin black raincoat, had grown
fragile from shock and pain.
‘You’d better sit down. Put your head back and close your
eyes. You’re as white as a sheet.’
‘Brrm, brrm ,’ said D aniel, running a Triumph D olom ite12 up
the back o f the driver’s seat.
Sin ce Ivan was in the house there was no need to close the
garage door. It occurred to C h arlotte that, an tagon istic towards
him though she felt, she had better tell him they were going out
and where they were going. But before she reached the front
door it opened and Ivan cam e out.
‘W h at’s happened? W hy was everyone yelling?’
S h e told him . H e said, ‘I shall drive N ell to hospital. N aturally
I want to drive her, I should have thought you’d know that. I
I I places in Scotlan d, which are on the map on the towel that is holding her bleeding
hand
1 2 a type o f sports car

can ’t understand why you didn ’t com e and tell me as soon as
this h appened.’
C h arlotte said nothing. Sh e was thinking. Sh e seem ed to
hear in Ivan ’s voice a note of unusual concern, the kind o f care
a m an m ight show for som eone close and dear to him. A nd,
incongruously, that look of his which had originally attracted
her to him , had returned. M ore than ever he resembled some
brigand13 or pirate who required for perfect con viction only a
pair o f gold earrings or a knife between his teeth.
‘T h ere’s absolutely no need for you to go,’ he said in the rough
way he had lately got into the h abit o f using to her. ‘It’s pointless
a great crowd o f us going.’
Putting two and two together, seeing all kinds o f things fall
delicately into place, recalling lonely evenings and bizarre
excuses, C h arlotte said, ‘I am certainly going. I am going to that
hospital if it’s the last thing I d o.’
‘S u it yourself.’
Ivan got into the driving seat. H e said to N ell, ‘B e a r up,
sweetheart, what a bloody awful thing to h appen .’
N ell opened her eyes and gave him a wan smile, pushing
back with her good hand the curtain o f daffodil-coloured h air14
which had fallen across her pale tearful face. In the back, D aniel
put his arms round his father’s neck from behind and ran the
Triumph Dolom ite up the lapels o f his jacket.
‘T h e least you could do is close the garage door,’ C h arlotte
shouted. ‘T h a t’s all we need, to com e back and find som eone’s
been in and nicked15 the stereo.’
Ivan didn’t m ove. H e was looking at N ell. C h arlotte walked
down the drive to the garage door. W ith her back to the bonnet
o f the car, she reached up for the recessed handle in the door to
pull it down. T h e green padded jack et went badly with her blue
cord trousers and it m ade her look fat.
His hands on the steering wheel, Ivan turned slowly to look
13 literary/historic: som eone who steals things, especially from travellers, often on
horseback
14 a daffodil is a spring flower with a large yellow head
15 informal, British: steal
138 | Mothers Help

at her. D aniel was hanging on to his neck now, pushing the toy
car up under Ivan ’s chin. ‘Brrm, brrm, brrm !’
‘Stop that, Daniel, please. D on ’t do th at.’
‘Drive car,’ said Daniel.
‘A ll right,’ said Ivan. ‘W hy not?’
H e put the transm ission into ‘drive’, all the lights on, set
the w indscreen jets spouting, the wipers going, took off the
handbrake and stam ped his foot hard on to the accelerator. A s
the car plunged forward, C h arlotte, who had pulled the door
down to its fullest exten t and was still bending over, sprang up,
alerted by the blaze o f light. Sh e gave a loud scream, flinging
out her hands as if to hold back the car. In th at m om ent N ell,
her eyes jerked open, her body propelled forward alm ost against
the windscreen, saw C h arlo tte’s face as if both their faces had
swung to m eet each other. C h arlo tte’s face seem ed to loom
and grimace like a bogey in a ghost tunnel. It was a sight N ell
was never to forget. C h arlo tte’s expression o f horror, and the
knowledge which was also there, the awareness of why.
T h e weak hands, the desperate arms, were ineffectual against
the juggernaut propulsion16 o f the big car. C h arlotte fell
backwards, crying out, scream ing. T h e bonnet obscured her fall,
the wheels went over her, as the car burst through the garage
door which against this onslaught was as flimsy as a roller blind.
Fragments o f shattered door fell all over the bonnet and roof
of the car. A triangular shaped slice o f it split the windscreen
and turned it into a sheet o f frosted glass. N ell was jum ping up
and down in her seat, m aking hysterical shrieks but on the back
seat D aniel, who had retreated into the corner behind his father,
was silent, holding a piece o f the hem of his coat in his fingers
and pushing it into his m outh.
Blinded by the w hitening and cobwebbing o f the glass, Ivan
recoiled from it, put his foot on the brake and pulled on the
handbrake. T h e car em itted a deep m usical note, like a rich
chord drawn from a church organ, as it som etim es did when
brought to a sudden stop. Ivan lifted his hands from the wheel,
tossed his head as if to shake back a fallen lock of hair and
16 physics: the force that m oves or pushes som ething forward
Mothers Help | 139

rested against the seat, closing his eyes* H e breathed deeply and
steadily, like som eone about to fall asleep.
‘Ivan ,’ scream ed N ell, ‘Ivan, Ivan, Iv a n !’
H e turned his head with infinite slowness and when it was
fully turned to face her, opened his eyes. M eeting his eyes had
the im m ediate effect o f silencing her. Sh e whimpered. H e put
out his hand and touched the side o f her cheek, not with his
fingertips, but very gently with his knuckles. H e ran his knuckles
along the line o f her jaw and the curve o f her neck.
‘Your hand has stopped bleeding,’ he said in a whisper.
Sh e looked down at the bundle in her lap, a red sodden mass.
She didn’t know why he said that or what he m eant. ‘O h, Ivan,
Ivan, is she dead? Sh e m ust be dead - is she?’
‘I’m going to get you back into the house.’
‘I d on ’t w ant to go into the house, I want to die, I just want
to give up and d ie !’
‘Yes, well, on second thoughts it m ight be best for you to stay
where you are. Just for a while. D aniel too. I shall go and phone
the police.’
Sh e got hold of him as he tried to get out. S h e got hold o f his
jack et and held on, weeping. ‘O h, Ivan, Ivan, what have you
done?’
‘D o n ’t you m ean’, he said, ‘what has D aniel done?’
3
W hen he cam e back from his investigations underneath the car,
Ivan knelt on the driver’s seat. H e brought his face very close to
hers. ‘I’m going back into the house. I was in the house when
it happened. I cam e running out when I heard the crash and
as soon as I saw w hat had happened I went back in to call the
police and an am bulance.’
‘I d on ’t understand w hat you m ean ,’ said N ell.
‘Yes, you do. T h in k about it. I was upstairs in my study. You
were alone in the car with Daniel, resting your head back with
your eyes closed.’
‘O h, no, Ivan, no. I couldn’t say that, I couldn’t tell people
th at.’
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‘You n eedn’t tell them anything. You can be in a state o f
shock, you are in a state o f shock. Telling people things will
com e later. You’ll be fine by th en .’
N ell put her hands up to her face, her right hand and the
bandaged one. Sh e peered out between her two fingers like a
child that has had a fright. ‘Is she - is she dead?’
‘O h, yes, she’s d ead,’ said Ivan.
‘O h my G od, my G od, and she said she was com ing to the
hospital if it was the last thing she d id !’
‘C losin g the garage door was the last thing she did.’
H e went into the house. N ell started crying again. She
sobbed, she hung her head and threw it back against the seat
and howled. Sh e had com pletely forgotten D aniel. H e sat on
the back seat munching on the hem o f his coat, his fleet of
m otor vehicles ignored. T h e people n ext door, who had been
eating their lunch when they heard the noise of the car going
through the garage door, cam e down the drive to see what was
the matter. T hey were joined by the m an from a G as B oard17 van
and a girl who had been distributing leaflets advertising double
glazing. It was a dull grey day and the front gardens here were
planted with tall trees and thick evergreen shrubs. Trees grew in
the pavem ents. N o one h ad seen the car go over C h arlotte and
through the garage door, no one had seen who was driving.
T h e people n ext door were helping N ell out o f the car when
Ivan emerged from the front door. N ell saw one o f C h arlo tte’s
feet sticking out from under the car and C h arlo tte’s blood on the
concrete o f the drive and the scattered bits o f door and began
scream ing again. T h e w om an from n ext door sm acked her face.
H er husband, conveniently doing the best part o f Ivan ’s work
for him , said, ‘W hat an appalling thing, what a ghastly tragedy.
W ho would have thought the poor little chap would get up to
his tricks again with such tragic results?’
‘D on ’t look at it, dear,’ said the double-glazing girl, m aking a
screen out o f her leaflets between N ell and the body which lay
h alf outside and h alf under the car. ‘L e t’s get you indoors.’
N ell gave another wail when she saw the Little Pet roses all
1 7 a com pany that provides gas to hom es and businesses
Mothers Help | 141

lying there waiting to be planted. T h e w om an n ext door went
into C h arlo tte’s kitchen to make a cup o f tea and her husband
cam e in carrying D aniel who, when he saw N ell, spoke another
sentence o f sorts.
‘D aniel hungry.’
‘I’ll see to him , I’ll find som ething for h im ,’ said the wom an
n ext door, dispensing tea. ‘Bring him out here, poor little m ite.
H e ’s n ot to blame, the little innocent, how was he to know?’
‘You see,’ said Ivan when they were alone.
‘You can ’t m ean to tell people D aniel did it. You can ’t, Ivan.’
‘I can ’t, agreed, but you can. I w asn’t there. I was up in my
study.’
‘Ivan, the police will com e and ask m e.’
‘T h a t’s right and there’ll be an inquest, certain to be. T h e
coroner will ask you and police will probably ask you again and
maybe solicitors will ask you, I d on ’t know, a lot of different
people, but they’ll be kind to you, they’ll be understanding.’
‘I can ’t tell lies to people like that, Ivan .’
‘Yes, you can, you’re a very good liar. Rem em ber all those
lies you told to C h arlotte. S h e believed you. Rem em ber that
boyfriend you invented and all the times you said you’d been to
the cinem a with him when you’d been with me? Besides, you
d on ’t have to lie. You only have to tell them what happened last
time, only this time poor old C h arlotte got in the way.’
N ell burst into sobs. ‘O h, I can ’t stop crying, I can ’t. W hat
shall I do?’
‘You d on ’t have to stop crying. It’s probably a very good thing
for you to cry quite a lot. N ow d on ’t stop crying but listen to me
if you can. D aniel can ’t tell them because D aniel can ’t speak
so’s18 you’d notice. A n d it doesn’t m atter anyway because no
on e’s going to blam e him . You heard what Mrs W hatevenher^
nam e-is said about no one blam ing him, the little innocent, how
was he to know? C hildren aren’t supposed to know what they’re
doing before they’re seven, before the age o f reason19. Everyone
18 contraction im itating spoken language: so as
19 the age at which a child can be considered psychologically responsible for their
actions
142 | Mothers Help

is well aware o f w hat D aniel gets up to in cars, everyone knows
he did it before.’
‘But he didn’t do it this tim e.’
‘N ev er say that again. D on ’t even think it. Everyone will
assume it was D aniel and you will only have to confirm it.’
‘I d on ’t think I can, Ivan. I d on ’t think I can face it.-’
‘You know w hat will happen to me if you can ’t face it, d on ’t
you?’
T h e police cam e before N ell had tim e to answer.
It was som ething o f a dilem m a for them because D aniel was
so young, but he helped them by com ing into the room where
they were interviewing his father and confirming, so to speak,
what Ivan had told them .
‘D aniel drive.’
T hey exchanged glances with Ivan and N ell and one o f them
wrote D an iel’s words down. It was as if, N ell thought, they
were taking down what he said to use it in evidence at his trial,
only D aniel, naturally, w ouldn’t have a trial. H e sat on her lap,
holding one o f his cars in his hand, but in silence. N ell said
afterwards to Ivan that from th at day forwards he never said
‘Brrm, brrm’ again but neither o f them could be sure o f this.
W hen it was time for the police to go they took N ell with them
to the hospital where at last she had her hand cleaned and the
wound stitched. T h e sister in the O ut-patients, who didn’t know
the circum stances, said it was a pity she h adn ’t com e as soon as
it had happened, for now she would probably be scarred for life.
‘I expect I shall,’ said N ell.
‘T h ere’s always plastic surgery,’ the sister said in a cheerful
way.
By the time the inquest took place, the car had been fitted
with a new windscreen and was scheduled for a re-spray, the
garage had been m easured for a new door and D aniel had learnt
to u tter several more sentences. But those who had power in
these m atters, a doctor or two and the coroner and the coroner’s
officer, all agreed that it would be unwise from a psychological
point o f view to m ention again in his hearing the events o f that
Mothers Help | 143

Saturday morning. N ot, at least, until he was quite a lot older.
It would be better n ot to attem pt any questioning of him and
adm onition20 at this stage seem ed useless. T h e wisest course, the
coroner said when the inquest was alm ost over, was for his father
to ensure th at D aniel never again sat in the back o f a car on his
own unless he were strapped in or closely supervised.
N ell gave her evidence in a low subdued voice. Several times
she had to be asked to speak more loudly. Sh e described how
she had sat in the car, feeling faint, her eyes closed. T here was
no one in the driver’s seat, C h arlotte had gone to close the
garage door, when suddenly Daniel, shouting ‘Brrm, brrm ’, had
precipitated21 h im self forwards and seizing the controls, switched
on the lights, flashed up the full beam , pushed the transm ission
into ‘drive’, set the water jets spraying across the windscreen,
taken off the handbrake. N o, it w asn’t the first tim e he had done
it, he had done it once before, only that tim e his m other w asn’t
in the path o f the car, bending down to close the garage door.
T h e coroner asked if she had attem pted to stop the child
but N ell burst into tears at this and, in a gesture th at seem ed
dram atic but was in fact involuntary, held out, palm-upwards,
her wounded hand, at that time still thickly bandaged. S h e often
found herself staring at that hand in the weeks, the m onths, the
years to com e, at the whiter scar which bisected22 it from the
first jo in t of the forefinger to the fleshy pad which cushioned
out23 at the point where hand m et wrist. Sh e looked at it when
she held her third finger up for Ivan to put the wedding ring on.
‘D eath by m isadventure’ the verdict had been, ‘m isadventure’,
Ivan said, m eaning ‘acciden t’. Sh e had cut her finger by
m isadventure and she som etim es wondered if any o f this would
have happened if she h ad n ’t cut it. If, in point o f fact, D aniel
h adn ’t run up behind her and thrown his arms around her legs. S o
perhaps, in a curious way, it really was his fault after all. Sh e said
som ething o f this to Ivan who agreed but he never m entioned
20 formal: a warning about som eon e’s behaviour

21 formal: to fall or be thrown forwards quickly in a particular direction
22 maths: divide in two
23 here, swelled like a cushion
144 | Mother's Help

anything about any o f it again. N ell never m entioned it either.
T h e event, w hich he h ad certainly w itnessed, h ad no apparent
ill effects on Daniel. H e was four when they got married and
talking like any other norm al four-yeanold. H e didn ’t appear to
miss his mother, but then, as Ivan said, he had always preferred
N ell.
W hen N e ll’s daughter was born after they had been married
five years and she was giving up hope of ever having a child,
D aniel, eyeing the baby Em m a, surprised her by asking about his
mother. H e asked her how C h arlotte had died. In a car crash,
N ell said, w hich was the answer she and Ivan had agreed on.
‘O ne day you’re going to have to tell him m ore,’ said N ell.
‘W hat are you going to tell him ?’
4
Ivan didn’t say anything. H is expression was guarded yet
calculating. A s he got older the ruthlessness which had helped
to give him his dash in g piratical appearance now m ade him
look w olfish. N ell repeated her question.
‘W hat are you going to tell D aniel when he asks you how
C h arlotte died?’
‘I shall say in a car crash.’
‘W ell, h e’s not going to be satisfied with that, is he? H e’ll
want to know details. H e’ll w ant to know who was driving and
was anyone else involved and all th at.’
‘I shall tell him the truth,’ said Ivan.
‘You can ’t tell him the truth! How can you possibly? W h at’s
he going to think o f you if you tell him that? H e’ll hate your
guts24. I m ean, he may even go and tell people that his father
- well, you know. I can ’t, frankly, bring m yself to put it into
words.’
‘I am delighted to hear there is som ething you can ’t bring
yourself to put into words. It m akes a pleasant ch an ge.’ W hen
som ething riled him Ivan had got into the h abit of curling b ack
h is upper lip to expose his teeth and his red gums.
24 hate som eone very much
Mothers Help | 145

‘W hat precisely do you intend to tell D aniel, Ivan?’
‘W hen the occasion arises, I shall tell him the truth about
C h arlo tte’s death, I shall tell him th at though he was technically
responsible for it, he couldn’t at his age be blam ed, I shall tell
him as honestly as I can th at he got hold o f the controls o f the
car and drove it into C h arlo tte,’
‘A n d th at’s the truth?’
‘You should know,’ said Ivan, wolf-faced, his upper lip curling,
‘T h a t’s what you told the inquest.’
Daniel had only asked about his mother, N ell thought,
because he was jealous. He was jealous o f Em m a. U n til then he
had had all N e ll’s attention, or all the atten tion she could spare
from Ivan. Seein g N ell with this new com er, understanding
perhaps that she would no longer be exclusively his, recalled to
him th at he had once had a real m other o f his own.
There were m any things to recall her to N ell. Each tim e -
which was every day - she saw those Little Pet roses she thought
o f C h arlotte. Ivan had planted them him self, the day after
C h arlo tte’s funeral. T hey never used the car again, th at went
in part-exchange25 for a new one. W hen Em m a was a year old
they m oved out o f the house and into a larger, older one. N ell
was happy to be rid o f those roses but she couldn’t get rid o f her
own hand with the white scar across it that followed in that
sin ister way the path o f the life line. A n d she couldn’t avoid
occasionally seeing a m ap o f Scotland.
A t the new house they lost their baby-sitter. T h e w om an n ext
door had sat for them but w asn’t prepared to travel ten miles.
Ivan had several times suggested they engage a m other’s help
but N ell was against this. Sh e remem bered the way D aniel had
always seem ed to prefer her to his own mother. Besides, since
they married she had never been in what Ivan called gainful
em ploym ent26. S h e had worked, o f course, but this had been at
the tiring and tim e-consum ing task o f looking after D aniel and
then Em m a too. A n d she had kept the house very clean and
beautiful, and learned to drive.
25 to give your old car as part o f the paym ent for a new one
26 formal: a job which provides money
146 | Mother's Help

A girl who was em ployed by Ivan at the gallery lived no more
th an a couple o f streets away. Sh e said she loved children and
offered to baby-sit for them once a week. Ivan told N ell she
was called D enise and was twenty-three but nothing else, and it
cam e as som ething o f a shock to discover that she was also very
pretty and with long wavy chestnut hair. In fact, they needed
her less frequently than once a week, for Ivan so often worked
late that on the evenings he did com e hom e in time for dinner
he didn’t feel like going out again.
‘Em m a will grow up hardly knowing her father,’ said N ell.
‘G o and be a m other’s help th en ,’ said Ivan. ‘If you can earn
w hat I do I’ll be happy to retire and look after the kids.’
D enise sat for them on the evening o f their sixth wedding
anniversary and on N e ll’s birthday. Em m a, whom N ell suspected
o f being hyperactive, stayed awake m ost o f the tim e Denise
was there, sitting on D enise’s lap, playing with the contents
o f D enise’s handbag and scream ing when attem pts were m ade
to put her back to bed. D enise said she didn’t m ind, she loved
children. Em m a clung to her and hit out at N ell with her fists
when N ell tried to take her out of the girl’s arms.
‘I’ll drive you h om e,’ said N ell.
‘You d on ’t need to do th at,’ said Ivan. ‘I’ll do that. You stay
here with Em m a.’
D enise had a boyfriend she was always talking about. W hen
she couldn’t baby-sit it was because she was going out somewhere
with her boyfriend. Ivan said he had seen him com e for D enise
at the gallery but when N ell asked what he was like the best
Ivan could do in the way o f a description was to say he was just
ordinary and nothing in particular. N ell didn’t know where they
would find another baby-sitter but som etim es she hoped Denise
was serious about her boyfriend because if this were so she m ight
get married and m ove away.
It was preposterous27 o f Ivan to suggest, even in a satirical
way, that she m ight get a job herself. Sh e had h er hands fu ll
with Em m a who had an abnorm al am ount of energy for a
child o f eighteen m onths. Em m a had walked when she was ten
27 formal: extrem ely unreasonable or silly
Mothers Help | 147

m onths old and never slept for more than six hours a night,
though som etim es during the day she would collapse and fall
asleep through sheer exhaustion. It w asn’t surprising that she
h adn ’t yet uttered a word, she was younger than all that activity
m ade her seem, and as N ell remarked to D aniel, she h adn ’t got
time to talk.
‘You didn’t talk till you were nearly three,’ said N ell, and
m istakenly as she quickly realised / ‘T here must be som ething
about your father’s ch ild ren .. . ’
‘Yes,’ said D aniel, ‘there must be. It can ’t be you or my mother.
I’d like to know w hat happened to my m other.’
‘It was a car crash.’
‘Yes, I know. I m ean I’d like to know details, I’d like to know
exactly what happened.’
‘Your father will tell you when you’re older.’
N ell had m ade a mystery o f it and this she knew was an
error. S h e intended to warn Ivan but for days on end she hardly
saw him . T hey had m ade an arrangem ent to go out on Friday
evening but Ivan phoned to say he was working late and th at he
would get in touch with Denise and put her off. H e got hom e
at m idnight and nearly as late on Saturday. D aniel m anaged to
catch him on Sunday m orning.
‘In some ways the sooner D aniel goes away to school the
better,’ Ivan said to N ell.
‘T h at w on’t be for a year.’
‘It m ight be a good idea for him to go as a boarder28 somewhere
for that year.’
‘I don ’t want him to go away, I w ant him to stay here. A n d
it’s no good you saying h e’s n ot my child, it’s nothing to do with
me, because h e’s more m ine than yours. You’ve never liked h im .’
Ivan ’s hair, once the black o f a raven ’s wing, had begun to
go grey early. It was the colour o f a w olf’s pelt now and the
m oustache he had grown was iron grey. Perhaps it was the
contrast this provided which m ade the inside o f his m outh look
so red and his teeth so white when he indulged in that ugly
m annerism o f curling back his upper lip. If he were an anim al,
28 a child who goes to a residential school
148 | Mother's Help

N e ll’s m other said, you would call it a snarl, but m en don ’t snarl.
‘A re you saying I d on ’t like my own child?’
‘Yes, I am. I am saying that. We don ’t like people we’ve
injured, it’s a well-known fact.’
‘W hat utter nonsense. How am I supposed to have injured
D aniel?’
N ell looked down at her left hand. T h is had becom e an
alm ost involuntary gesture with her, like a tic. S h e turned it
palm-downwards and put her thum b across the base o f her
forefinger to hide the scar.
‘I suppose he asked you about C h arlotte?’ she said.
‘I told him you were the only person who could tell him. You
were there and I w asn’t. O f course, if you weren’t prepared to tell
him , I said, that was your decision. I wish you’d have som ething
done about your hand. It doesn’t get less un sigh tly as you get
older. T hey can do m arvels with scars these days and it isn’t as if
I’d grudge the expen se.’
It was six m onths since Denise had baby-sat for them . T hey
didn’t need her because they never went out. O r they never
went out together. Ivan always w ent out. N ell stayed at hom e
and looked after D aniel and Em m a and kept the house very
clean. S h e had becom e obsessive about it, her m other said, it
w asn’t healthy.
O ne afternoon she was putting the vacuum cleaner away
when Em m a, who had been running in and out, shut her in
the broom cupboard. T h e cupboard door, which was heavy and
solid in that old house, had a handle on the outside but not the
inside. N ell, determ ined not to panic, began cajoling Em m a to
open the door and release her, please Em m a, there’s a good girl,
open the door Em m a, let M um my o u t...
5
For a little while Em m a stood outside the door. N ell could hear
her giggling.
‘Let M ummy out, Em m a. Em m a’s such a clever girl she can
open the door but M um my can ’t. M um m y’s n ot clever enough
to open the door.’
Mothers Help | 149

N ell thought this flattery and self-abasem ent m ight have
som e effect on Em m a. T h e giggling stopped. N ell w aited in the
dark. It was pitch dark in the cupboard and there w asn’t even a
line o f light round the edge o f the door. It fitted into its frame
too well for that. T h e cupboard was in the m iddle o f the house,
between an interior wall and the solid brick o f the chim ney bay.
T h e air there was thick and black and it sm elt o f d u st and soot.
Em m a gave another very light soft giggle. N ell knew why it
sounded so soft. Em m a was m oving away from the door.
‘Em m a, com e back. C om e back and let M ummy out. Ju st turn
the handle and the door will open and M ummy can get ou t.’
T h e little footsteps sounded very light as they retreated.
They sounded too as if the feet th at m ade them m oved not with
their custom ary swiftness but sluggishly. W ith a sinking of the
heart, N ell realised what had happened. T h is was w hat often
happened to Em m a after a long frenzied spell of hyperactivity.
Sh e had tired herself out. Seizing her opportunity, N ell would
lay Em m a down in her cot and cover her up, but what would
Em m a do in N e ll’s absence?
Injure herself? G o outside and shut herself out? T his was
an additional worry. N ell began to ham m er on the door with
her fists. Sh e began to kick at the door. N o t only was she shut
up in this cupboard but her child, her less than two-year-old
baby, was w andering alone about this big old house o f many
steps and com ers and traps for little children. Em m a was tired,
Em m a was exhausted. Suppose she got the cellar door open and
fell down the cellar steps? Suppose she put her fingers into the
electricity sock ets? O r found m atches or knives? N ell couldn’t
see her hand in the dark but she could feel with the fingers of
her other hand the ridge o f scar tissue that scored her palm . She
ham m ered on the door and shouted, ‘Em m a, Em m a, com e back
and let M ummy o u t!’
A s well as being black-dark in the cupboard, it was airless. O r
N ell im agined it would soon be airless. N o air could get in and
once she had used up what oxygen there was - she would die,
wouldn’t she? Sh e would suffocate. D aniel w ouldn’t be hom e

for hours, Ivan, to judge by his recent perform ance, n ot before
m idnight. T h e more she shouted, the more energy she used in
beating at the door, the more oxygen her lungs needed.
It was D aniel who rescued her. A bout an hour after Em m a
shut N ell in the cupboard D aniel cam e hom e from school.
H e let h im self in and found the house empty w hich was m ost
unusual. By th at tim e N ell had stopped shouting and beating
on the door. Sh e was sitting on the stone floor with her arms
clasped round her knees, keeping very still so as not to exhaust
the oxygen in the dusty sooty air. D aniel w asn’t expected hom e
for another hour at least. H e should have gone straight to his
violin lesson from school but he had forgotten his music and
com e hom e to fetch it.
A lthough it was alm ost unknow n for N ell to be out when he
cam e hom e, he knew he w asn’t expected hom e yet. Perhaps she
always went out while he was at violin lesson. W ith very little
time to spare, he would have gone straight up to his bedroom ,
fetched his music and gone out again, but as he passed the
living-room door he caught a glimpse o f pink where no pink
should be. T h is was his sister’s pink jumpsuit. Em m a was asleep
on the rug in the living room, her thumb in her m outh, the
sm all brush attachm ent from the vacuum cleaner lying by her
side. T h e brush provided him with a clue and as he approached
the broom cupboard, N ell heard his footsteps and shouted to
him: ‘D aniel, D aniel, I’m in here, I’m in the cupboard!’
H e released her. N ell staggered out o f the cupboard with
cobwebs in her hair and blinking her eyes at the light. D aniel
seem ed rather pleased to see Em m a get into trouble, for even
after nearly two years he h ad n ’t quite got over his jealousy. He
scolded Em m a h im self and for once N ell didn’t stop him.
It was the first evening for weeks that Ivan had com e hom e at
a reasonable hour. H e brought D enise with him . T hey had some
unfinished work to get through and Ivan thought they m ight as
well do it at hom e. N ell told them o f the events of the afternoon
and D enise said how clever and enterprising D aniel had been.
If he had been less observant he would have left the house again

im m ediately and where would poor N ell be now?
‘It’s hard to see w hat else he could have don e,’ said Ivan. ‘You
m ight say with more justice that this is the reverse o f virtue
rewarded. If D aniel h adn ’t been so careless as to leave his music
behind he would never have com e hom e when he did. How can
you praise som eone for that?’
H e scowled unpleasantly, but not at Denise. H e and Denise
would get to work on the new catalogue until eight and then
he would take her out to eat somewhere. T hey had to have
dinner but there was no need for N ell to cook for them, he said
more graciously, especially after her ordeal. Denise said she was
terribly pleased N ell was all right. Sh e couldn’t w ait to see her
boyfriend’s reaction when she told him the story.
Ivan cam e in very late. H is brown w olf’s eyes had a glazed
look, sleepy and entranced, a look which N ell had once known
very well. N ex t day she said to him, apropos of nothing in
particular, that she thought the day was com ing when she would
feel obliged to tell D aniel the truth about w hat had happened
to his mother. It m ight also m ean having to tell others and
therefore acknowledging that she had com m itted perjury at the
inquest, but she couldn’t help that, she would have to face that.
Ivan said, didn’t she m ean he would h ave to face that? A n d then
he said no one would believe her.
‘If we split up,’ N ell said, ‘I should get custody o f these children.
D aniel not being my own w ouldn’t m ake any difference, I should
get custody. But you w ouldn’t m ind that, would you? You d on ’t
like children.’
‘W hat nonsense. O f course I like children.’
‘A n d you’d lose your house and h alf your incom e.’
‘Two-thirds,’ said Ivan.
‘I think you’d like to see the back o f D aniel. You can ’t stand
him. A n d the reason you can ’t stand him is because one day you
know you’re either going to have to tell him the truth which
will be the end o f you or tell him a lie that will blight the rest
o f his life.’
‘H ow m elodram atic you are,’ said Ivan, ‘and how wrong.

Anyway, we aren’t going to split up, are we?’
‘I don’t know. I can ’t go on living like th is.’
H e took Em m a on his knee and explained to her how
extrem ely naughty she had been to shut N ell up in the broom
cupboard. It was a very dangerous thing to do because there was
no air in the cupboard and people need air in order to stay alive.
Em m a squirmed and fidgeted and struggled to get down. W hen
Ivan held her firmly so th at she couldn’t get away, she bounced
up and down on his lap. Suppose Em m a herself had com e to
some harm, asked Ivan who, judging others by him self, h adn ’t
m uch faith in an appeal to altruism. Suppose she had fallen
down the steps and hurt herself?
W hen Em m a had gone to bed Ivan suggested he and N ell
m ade a fresh start. H e would m ake an effort, he promised,
to be hom e at a reasonable tim e in the evenings. Dism issing
Denise would be tricky but he thought she would leave of her
own accord. A n d he w ouldn’t embark on these projects that
necessitated29 working long hours.
‘How about D aniel?’ said N ell.
Ivan sm iled slightly. It was a sad smile, N ell thought.
‘I’m working out som ething to tell D an iel.’ Sh e thought he
was looking at the scar on her hand and she turned it palm-
downwards. ‘I shall tell him how it was you sitting in the
passenger seat and he was in the back, playing with his cars, and
the engine was running. I shall m ake it plain that he was in no
way to blame. O f course I’ll explain to him that you were feeling
too ill to know what you were doing.’
‘You n eedn’t m ake it sound as if I cut m yself on purpose. I’m
not going to die, you know. I’ll be around to answer for m yself.’
Ivan didn’t reply. H e said it would be a nice idea to have a
party for their seventh wedding anniversary.
T h e people Ivan had known during his first marriage he knew
no longer, they had been left behind when he and N ell cam e to
this house. But they invited N e ll’s m other and N e ll’s sister and
brother-in-law and their doctor and his wife and the neighbours
and the w om an at the gallery with her husband and the girl who
29 formal: to m ake som ething necessary
Mothers Help | 153

had taken over from Denise. It was a fine m oonlit evening for a
barbecue and Em m a was up and still rushing about the garden at
nine, at ten. Sh e was naughty and uncontrollable, Ivan told the
doctor, brim m ing with energy, it was im possible to cope with
her.
‘H yperactive, I suppose,’ said the doctor.
‘Exactly,’ said Ivan. ‘For exam ple, only a few weeks ago she
shut N ell up in a cupboard, closed the door, and just ran off and
left her there. If my son h ad n ’t happened to forget som ething
and com e back for it I don ’t know what would have happened.
T h ere’s no air in that cupboard.’ Everyone had stopped talking
and was listening to Ivan. N ell, handing round little cheese
biscuits, stopped and listened to Ivan. ‘I gave her a talking-to,
you can im agine the kind o f thing, but she’s only two. P recociou s
o f course but basically a baby.’ Ivan’s smile was so wolfish, he
looked as if he was about to lift his head and bay30 at the m oon.
‘I d on ’t know why it is,’ he said, ‘but neither o f my children ever
do what they’re told, they don ’t listen to a word I say.’
N ell dropped the plate and scream ed. Sh e stood there
scream ing until the wom an from the gallery went up to her and
slapped her face.
30 literary: usually used to describe a long, loud sound a dog or w olf makes, especially
when it is hunting

Post-reading activities
story.
1
1 How old is Daniel? What is unusual about him for his age?
2 What does Daniel enjoy doing in the car?
3 Do you think Ivan and Charlotte have a happy marriage? Why/
Why not?
4 What does Nell like about Ivan?
5 How does Ivan find time to be with Nell?
6 Why does Charlotte think it’s so important to always close the
garage door?
7 Why was it ‘fortunate’ that Ivan stepped inside the garage?
8 Why does the car move forward?
9 Why can’t Nell stop it?
10 Why is Nell crying? How does this make Ivan feel about her?
11 What does Charlotte ask Ivan to do? Why doesn’t she do it herself?
12 What does Daniel say? What effect does this have on the adults?
Why?
13 How many people do they tell about the incident with the car?
Why do they tell them?
14 Why does Charlotte choose to spend her holidays at home?
15 Where did Nell say she’d been one night?
16 Was Charlotte happy with her explanation? Why?
17 How does Nell cut her hand?
2
18 How does Nell react to the cut?
19 How do Daniel and Charlotte react?
20 Why does Charlotte insist on going to the hospital?
21 Who was driving the car, Daniel or his father?
22 Did Nell see what happened?
23 What did she see in Charlotte’s eyes?
24 How does Nell react to the incident? And Daniel? And his father?
Mothers Help | 155

3
25 What is Ivan’s plan? Why does Nell agree with it?
26 Who are the first people to arrive on the scene?
27 How do they react and what do they do to help?
28 How do the police react to the accident? What is the court and the
doctors’ assessment of the accident?
29 How does Nell react in court? Does this help their case?
30 How much time passes before Nell and Ivan get married?
31 How old is Daniel when his half-sister Emma is born?
32 Why does Daniel ask Nell about his mother?
4
33 What is the atmosphere like between Nell and Ivan as they discuss
Daniel’s question about his mother?
34 What things make Nell remember Charlotte? Why?
35 Who is Denise?
36 In what ways is Denise similar to Nell when she was younger?
37 In what way is Nell’s reaction to Denise similar to Charlotte’s
reaction to Nell?
38 In what way is Emma unusual for her age?
39 In what way is she similar to Daniel at the same age?
40 Why does Ivan want to send Daniel away to school? What is he
worried about?
41 How does Nell get shut in the broom cupboard? Why can’t she get
out?
5
42 How does Nell try and persuade Emma to open the door?
43 What does Emma do instead?
44 What is Nell worried that Emma will do?
45 Why did Daniel come home early?
46 What made him realize what had happened?
47 What is Ivan’s reaction when he comes home?
48 Why does Nell threaten to tell Daniel the truth about his mother’s
death?
49 How does Ivan react to this?
50 Why does he suggest a party?
51 Why does Nell scream? What is she afraid of?
156 | Mother's Help

Language study
Grammar
U sing if to talk about hypothetical or imaginary situations
When we use if to describe an imaginary or hypothetical situation, if is
followed by a past form of the verb.
1 Look at the two sentences from the story and underline all the
verbs. Then answer the questions below.
1 If Nell leftyshe [Charlotte] wouldn't have to sack her.
2 If Nell hadn't encouraged Daniel in these displays of affection, he
wouldn't have hugged her like that and she wouldn't have cut herself.
a) Which sentence describes an imagined situation in the future? What
verb form is used after if?
b) Which sentence describes the opposite of what happened in the
past? What verb form is used after if?
c) What modal verb is used to describe the consequences of the
imagined situations?
d) In what way is the form different when talking about i) an imagined
future situation, and ii) an imagined past situation?
2 Look at the sentences below. Choose the correct form of the verb.
1 It was!would be more convenient for Charlotte if she could get
Ivan to drive Nell to the hospital, but unaccountably she felt a
sudden strong dislike of this idea.
2 She had cut her finger by misadventure and she sometimes
wondered if any of this would happen/would have happened if she
didn’t cut /hadn’t cut it.
3 If, in point of fact, Daniel hadn’t/wouldn’t run up behind her and
thrown his arms around her legs...
4 Sometimes she hoped Denise was serious about her boyfriend
because if this had been /were so she might get married and move
away.
5 If he had been/would have been less observant he had left /would
have left the house again immediately and where would poor Nell
be now?
3 Look again at the sentences. Which are talking about a) the past?
b) the future?
Mother's Help | 157

4 Complete the following sentences about the story.
1 If Nell had known how to drive from the beginning...
2 If Charlotte hadn’t gone to close the garage door...
3 If they had gone away on holiday...
4 If Daniel hadn’t been so fond of N ell...

______ __ _____ )
5 If Nell hadn’t been so in love with Ivan...
would have, could have, should have

We can also use would have, could have and should have to imagine how
the past might have been different without using if
5 Look at the extracts below. Match the verbs in bold (1-3) with
their meanings (a-c).
a) This is the logical consequence of an imagined past decision.
b) This imagined situation is better than what actually happened.
c) This was one of the many options they had.
They ( l) could have gone away somewhere but that (2) would have
meant taking Nell with them.
He (3) should have been out in the fresh air hugging his mother who
had a trowel, not a knife, in her hand.
6 Complete the groups of sentences using could have, should have,
would have. Use each phrase once only in each group.
1
a) N ell told the truth, but she didn’t want to lose
Ivan.
b) N ell told the truth. Lying in a court of law is an
offence.
c) Ivan................................ gone to prison for sure.
2
a) Daniel................................ been strapped into the back of the car.
b) H e (not) been able to climb into the driver’s seat.
c) There was nothing Charlotte done to save herself.
158 | Mother's Help

3
a) Nell . been more careful with the knife,
b) She hurt Daniel.
c) And then he had to go to hospital.
Vocabulary
Expressions with take
Take is a very common verb in English. It has a number of different
meanings and uses.
Here are some of the meanings:
a) move someone or something to another place
b) remove something - or change its position
c) have or show a feeling
d) accept something
7 Look at the examples from the story. Match them with the
meanings above.
1 It hadn't occurred to her before but she didn't want to leave Ivan alone
with Nell again. Til drive you. We'll take Daniel with us.'
2 Suddenly Daniel had precipitated himself forwards and seizing the
controls, switched on the lights, pushed the transmission into ‘drive' and
taken off the handbrake.
3 Emma clung to her and hit out at Nell with her fists when Nell tried to
take her out of the girl’s arms
4 Neither Ivan nor Charlotte took any particular interest in cars.
5 In September Charlotte took two weeks’ holiday.
6 Ivan took Nell to a motel on the A12 where he pretended they were a
married couple on their way to Harwich.
7 They took coats from the rack in the hall.
8 She took Daniel from Nell and put him on the back seat where he kept
a fleet of small motor vehicles, trucks and tanks and saloon cars.
9 When it was time for the police to go they took Nell with them to the
hospital.
10 He took Emma on his knee and explained to her how extremely
naughty she had been to shut Nell up in the broom cupboard.
Mother's Help | 159

8 Look at this short text. Ten examples of take have been removed
from the text. Write them back in the text in an appropriate
form.
It was a beautiful, sunny day. We decided to (1) our bikes out for a
ride. We (2) a picnic with us and cycled down a long, shady road
along the river. I (3) the picnic in a backpack, but it was getting
heavy and when I couldn’t (4) the weight any longer, we stopped
under a particularly large tree. We (5) out the food and laid it out on
a rock. I (6) off my shoes and socks and sat at the edge of the river,
cooling my feet in the cold water. Debra offered me a chicken wing
and I (7) it from her, but just as I was reaching for it, something (8)
my attention, a strange cry coming from the other side of the river.
I stood up to (9) a closer look, but my foot slipped on a rock in the
water and I fell in with a big splash. “Thinking of (10) a swim?”
laughed Debra as she held out her hand to help me get back up.
Take is also used in a lot of set phrases and common phrasal verbs. Here
are some examples:
take a step to walk

take over from someone do som ethin g th at som eon e else was doing previously
take place h ap pen
take someone out to eat take them to a restaurant and pay for them
take the day off n o t go to work
9 Use the appropriate form of the expressions above to complete the

extracts from the story.
1 7 wish I’d met you four years ago,' Ivan said one afternoon when
Charlotte was at work and he had.................................
2 By the time the inquest................................., the car had been fitted with
a new windscreen and was scheduled for a re-spray.
3 He noticed a pool of what seemed to be oil at the back of the garage on the
concrete floor and or two inside to investigate.
4 It was August and business was slack - though not Charlotte's business -
and Ivan began................................ more often.
5 He and Denise would get to work on the new catalogue until eight and
then he would................................ somewhere.
10 Can you think of any more expressions with take?
160 | Mother's Help

Literary analysis
Plot
1 Look at the events below. Number them in the order they happened.
Which one event do you think is the most important? Why?
a) Daniel saved Nell.
b) Daniel started the car. 1
c) Emma shut Nell in the broom cupboard.
d) Emma was born.
e) Ivan drove the car into the garage door.
f) Ivan told the neighbours what Emma had done.
g) Nell and Ivan got married.
h) Nell cut her hand.
i) Nell suddenly understood what might happen to her.
2 Essentially, the story is divided into two halves - before Charlotte’s
death and after Charlotte’s death. A lot of the events in the first
half are repeated or echoed (an event or action takes place which is
similar to the first event in some way) in the second half. Match the
events on the left with their repetitions or echoes on the right.
Daniel almost killed his dad Denise lied to Nell
Ivan had an affair with Nell Emma almost killed her mum
Ivan told Daniel off Ivan had an affair with Denise
Nell lied to Charlotte Ivan told Emma off
What key event is not repeated/echoed but is only implied? What
do you think happens at the end of the story?
3 Lies play an important part in the plot. Who lies to whom? Think of
all the examples of lies in the story. What are the consequences of
the lies? Which lie do you think is the most serious? Why?
4 Normally, it is hoped that people learn from their mistakes and
those of others so that mistakes made in the past are not repeated
again in the future. However, in this story, past mistakes are
repeated. Who do you think is responsible for allowing this to
happen? Can anything be done to stop history repeating itself at the
end of the story? Do you think Nell can escape her fate?
Mother's Help | 161

Character
5 Think of the two main characters in the story, Nell and Ivan.
What do we know about them? In what ways are they different?
Which of the two is stronger?
6 Ivan is described as masterful and ruthless. Nell is attracted by
these qualities. Why do you think these qualities attract her? What
does this tell us about her character? Why is Ivan attracted to Nell?
Why do you think he marries her? Is it for love? Do you think Ivan
is capable of love?
7 Do you think Nell is a strong person or a weak person? Think of
examples of her actions and decisions in the story. Why did she
agree to lie, first to Charlotte and then in court? Do you think she
could have done things differently?
8 Think of the relationship between Nell and Charlotte. Is it a good
relationship? How does Charlotte feel about Nell? How does Nell
feel about Charlotte? Is Nell’s opinion influenced in any way by
what Ivan says and does? In what ways does Denise take Nell’s
place in the second half of the story?
9 Think about the role Daniel plays in the story. Think about the
way he is used and manipulated by his father. Think about the way
he is betrayed by Nell. What does this tell us about Nell and Ivan?
Does it tell us anything about Daniel?
10 Do you sympathize with anyone in the story? Which character do
you find most interesting in the story? Why?
Narration
11 Who is telling the story? Is it told from any one character’s point of
view?
12 Which character is the focus of the opening paragraphs? Why?
13 Notice how the narrator often uses dialogue to show the tension
between the characters or to show what one of the characters is
thinking.
Look at these short extracts. What do we learn about the
relationship between the main characters from these short
exchanges?
Extract A
He told Charlotte he liked to be with Daniel as much as possible...
children grew up hardly knowing their fathers.
‘Or their motherssaid Charlotte.
162 | Mothers Help

‘No one obliges you to work.'
‘That's true. I'm thinking of giving up and then we wouldn't need to
keep Nell on.'
Extract B
‘I shall have to think what's to be done,' said Ivan in the motel room.
‘We can't just go off together.'
‘Oh, no, I see that. You'd lose your little boy.'
‘I'd lose my house and half my income,' said Ivan.
Extract C
‘He'll go to her before he goes to you,' said Charlotte's mother. ‘You
want to watch that.’
Can you find more examples of dialogue in the story? Think
about what we learn about the characters, their motives and their
emotions through these exchanges.
14 Sometimes the narrator enters the head of one of the characters
and reports their thoughts and feelings. Look at the examples
below. Whose thoughts are being reported?
Extract A
She was having strange feelings about Nell, though she couldn't exactly
define what they were, perhaps no more than fear of Daniel's preferring
the mother's help to herself.
Extract B
Emma was tired, Emma was exhausted. Suppose she got the cellar door
open and fell down the cellar steps? Suppose she put her fingers into the
electricity sockets1 Or found matches or knives?
Find more examples of reported thoughts and feelings in the story.
Notice how the narrator slips in and out of their heads. What
effect does this have?
15 The narrator never enters Ivan’s head or reports his thoughts or
feelings. Why do you think that is?
Mother's Help | 163

Atmosphere
16 Most of the story deals with the relationships between the main
characters, their conversations, their reactions, their thoughts and
their feelings. But there are a few passages where the pace of the
story suddenly changes.
Look at the extract below when Daniel almost runs his father over
in the garage. What is the underlying emotion in this scene?
The car shot forward with blazing lights. Nell screamed. She didn't know
how to stop it, she didn't know what the handbrake was, where the
footbrake was, she could only seize hold of laughing triumphant Daniel.
The car, descending the few feet of slope, charged into the garage,
slowing as it met level ground, sliding almost to a stop while Ivan stood
on tiptoe, flattening himself against the wall.
Underline all the verbs. How many of these verbs describe
movements? What kind of movements are they? How many
describe thoughts and emotions?
17 Look again at the second and third sentences in the extract in
question 16. Notice the difference in length. What is the effect
created by the short sentence? What is the effect created by the
list of clauses in the third sentence? How does this add to the
atmosphere of the scene?
18 Look at how the second garage scene is described. Look at the
verbs in bold. What kind of movement do they suggest? What does
this tell us about the accident?
As the car plunged forward, Charlotte, who had pulled the door down
to its fullest extent and was still bending over, sprang up, alerted by the
blaze of light. She gave a loud scream, flinging out her hands as if to
hold back the car. In that moment Nell, her eyes jerked open, her body
propelled forward almost against the windscreen, saw Charlotte's face
as if both their faces had swung to meet each other.
19 The passage continues (below). What is it focusing on? What
image is used to describe Charlotte’s face? Whose point of view are
we seeing? How does this add to the feeling of horror?
Charlotte's face seemed to loom and grimace like a bogey in a ghost
tunnel. It was a sight Nell was never to forget. Charlotte's expression of
horror, and the knowledge which was also there, the awareness of why.
20 Look again at the last two paragraphs of the story. Notice how the
suspense builds as Ivan tells the story of how Emma shut Nell in
the cupboard. Look at this extract. What two verbs are repeated?
164 | Mother's Help

What effect does this create?
Everyone had stopped talking and was listening to Ivan. Nell, handing
round little cheese biscuits, stopped and listened to Ivan.
Look at the description of Ivan. Why is the image so powerful?
Why do his words have such an extreme effect on Nell? What
makes those words so powerful? What do they tell us about Ivan
and the story as a whole?
Ivan's smile was so wolfish, he looked as if he was about to lift his head
and bay at the moon. lI don't know why it is,' he said, ‘but neither of
my children ever do what they're told, they don't listen to a word I say.'
Style
21 There is a lot of repetition and echoing of scenes, dialogues and
actions throughout the story. The repetition is often highlighted by
repetition in the language that is used as well.
Look at the three extracts below, each one describing a scene in
the same car. Which movements are repeated in each extract?
Notice that different verbs are used. What effect does this create?
There is one action in the third extract that is not included in the
other two. What does this tell us about the driver?
One of the things he liked to do was sit in the driver’s seat on Ivan's knee
or Charlotte's and, strictly supervised, pull the levers and buttons that
worked the windscreen wipers, the lights, put the automatic transmission
into ‘drive', make the light come on that flashed when the passenger
failed to wear a seat belt, lift off the handbrake, and, naturally, sound
the horn.
Daniel, with a shout of ‘Brrm, brrm!' but without any other warning,
lunged forward across the top of the driver's seat and made a grab for the
controls. He flipped on the lights, made the full beam blaze, whipped the
transmission into ‘drive', sent sprays of water across the windscreen and
tugged off the handbrake.
He put the transmission into ‘drive', all the lights on, set the windscreen
jets spouting, the wipers going, took off the handbrake and stamped his
foot hard on to the accelerator.
Look for other examples of repetition and echoing in the story. Is
the language used exactly the same? If there are differences, what
are they? Do they have any special significance?
Mother's Help | 165

22 In describing Ivan, the author uses two recurring images - a pirate
and a wolf. What qualities does Ivan share with the two things
being used as images?
Look at the extracts below. Notice how the images are used. What
does each extract tell us about Ivan?
That look of his which had originally attracted her to him, had returned.
More than ever he resembled some brigand or pirate who required for
perfect conviction only a pair of gold earrings or a knife between his teeth.
As he got older the ruthlessness which had helped to give him his dashing
piratical appearance now made him look wolfish. Nell repeated her
question.
‘What are you going to tell Daniel when he asks you how Charlotte diedV
‘You should know,' said Ivan, wolf-faced, his upper lip curling. ‘That's
what you told the inquest.'
Ivan's hair, once the black of a raven's wing, had begun to go grey early.
It was the colour of a wolfs pelt now and the moustache he had grown
was iron grey.
Notice how one image takes over from the other as he gets
older. What does this suggest about his character and how it is
developing? ,
www. macmillanenglish.comlreaders.
166 | Mother's Help

No Place to Park
by Alexander McCall Smith
About the author

Alexander McCall Smith is a prolific Scottish writer. He is best-known
for his series of detective stories, the most famous of which, the No.
1 Ladies' Detective Agency, is set in Botswana, and has sold over 20
million copies. In addition to his detective stories, he has also written
academic texts on medicine, law and bioethics1, several short story
collections, and many successful children’s books.
McCall Smith was born in Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia at the
time) in 1948 where his father was a lawyer. The young Alexander was
educated at the Christian Brothers College in Bulawayo. When he left
school, he travelled to the UK to study law at Edinburgh University.
However, he returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help set up
and teach at the Faculty of Law at the newly founded University of
Botswana. While he was working there he contributed to the writing
of the first book about Botswana’s legal system, The Criminal Law of
Botswana (1992). His love of Botswana, and his commitment to it, has
continued throughout his life.
In the mid 1980s McCall Smith returned to Edinburgh to work as
a professor of medical law at the university. During his time there,
he worked with a number of national and international organizations
concerned with bioethics and genetics. He was vice-chairman of the
Human Genetics Commission of the UK, a member of the International
Bioethics Commission of UNESCO , and, until 2002, chairman of the
British Medical Journal Ethics Committee.
McCall Smith’s first published works were law textbooks, Power
and Manoeuvrability (1978) and Law and Medical Ethics (1983), and
he continued to write and be published in this area for many years.
However, he extended his range when, in 1984, he entered a literary
competition and won the children’s category. His first children’s book,
The Perfect Hamburger, was published in the same year. Since then
he has written more than 20 highly successful children’s books, many
based in Africa. But it wasn’t until 1998 that he published his first
1 the study o f moral issues relating to m edicine and biology
No Place to Park | 167

novel for adults, The No. I Ladies' Detective Agency. It tells the story
of Precious Ramotswe as she sets up the first detective agency run by
women in Botswana, and solves her first cases. The good-humoured,
smart and compassionate Precious appealed to readers all over the
world, and the book was an instant and huge success. Another ten
novels followed in the same series over the next 12 years.
In 2004 the author launched a new detective series with a book
of the same name, The Sunday Philosophy Club, set in his home town
of Edinburgh. Again, the series features a woman detective, 40-year-
old Isabel Dalhousie, who edits a medical ethics journal and solves
mysteries as a hobby. Five more books followed in the series, one each
year for five years.
For many years, McCall Smith continued to write adacemic books
on both law and medicine. However, in 2005, he gave up his position
as Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University, and stood down
from his commitments in the field of bioethics, to concentrate on
his writing. In the same year, another series of detective stories was
launched, the 44 Scotland Street series. Also set in Edinburgh, the
story was first published as a serial in The Scotsman newspaper, with a
chapter coming out every weekday for six months.
In 2008 McCall Smith started writing an online novel; the first
chapter of Corduroy Mansions appeared on the website of The Daily
Telegraph newspaper on 15th September. The series ran for 20 weeks,
with a total of 100 chapters. As the story appeared, readers were able
to comment and discuss the plot and characters with the author in
online discussion boards, and influence the writing of the story. A
second online novel, The Dog Who Came in from the Cold, was written
in the same way, on the same website in 2009. Both books were also
read aloud and could be downloaded or listened to online.
In 2006, McCall Smith was honoured by the Queen with a CBE
- Commander of the British Empire - a title that recognized his
services to literature. In June 2007, he was awarded an honorary
degree of Doctor of Law at a ceremony celebrating 300 years since the
establishment of the University of Edinburgh School of Law.
Apart from writing, McCall Smith is also a music lover - with a sense
of humour. He is an amateur bassoonist and co-founder of The Really
Terrible Orchestra (RTO). The RTO is an amateur orchestra based
in Edinburgh. It was founded in 1995 with the idea of playing music
for fun. The orchestra performs every year at the Edinburgh Fringe
168 | No Place to Park

Festival. In 2006, a documentary about the orchestra won an award
at the 60th International Edinburgh Film Festival. In 2009 McCall
Smith helped to establish a small opera house in Botswana called the
No. 1 Ladies’ Opera House. He wrote the libretto (the words) for their
first production, an operatic version of the famous play Macbeth by
William Shakespeare. The original play was set in Scotland in the 11th
century and told the story of the murder and betrayal of the King.
McCall Smith’s version was set among a colony of baboons2.
McCall Smith lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two daughters,
where he continues to write and to perform with the RTO.
About the story

This story first appeared in The Strand Magazine3 in 2007. It was later
included in the Best British Crime Collection in 2009.
Western Australia, Perth and Fremantle
The story is set in Western Australia, Australia’s largest state. It has a
population of 2.2 million inhabitants, more than 80% of whom live
in the south-west comer of the state. Much of the action is set in the
state’s capital city, Perth, which is the fourth largest city in Australia
after Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Perth is located on the Indian
Ocean in the south-west corner of the continent. Its port, Fremantle,
is a town in its own right with a population of approximately 26,000
people.
The main character in the story lives in Cottesloe, a western
suburb of Perth. It is a beach-side suburb located between Perth and
Fremantle. It is famous for its beaches and relaxed lifestyle. It is one
of Perth’s most popular places for swimming, snorkelling and surfing.
Rottnest Island is 18 kilometres off the coast. It is 11 kilometres long
and 4.5 kilometres wide. The island is popular with divers, surfers and
fishermen.
2 a type o f large monkey from A frica or South A sia

3 a m onthly magazine which publishes short stories, m ainly mystery stories, articles
and reviews

S h a rk a ttac k s
Every year around the world, a number of people are attacked by sharks.
Most shark attacks take place off the coast of the U SA , but attacks
also happen off the coasts of Australia and South Africa. Although
shark attacks can cause very serious injuries, on average only five or six
attacks per year result in death. The most dangerous shark species are
the great white, the tiger shark, the bull shark and the oceanic white-
tip shark. Great whites are reported to attack surfers in particular as
they look like seals from below because of their shape.
Summary
An Australian crime writer is attending a festival for crime writers in

Western Australia. One of the speakers is complaining that too many
crime writers write about murders and nothing else. He throws out
a challenge to the writers to write about something new, something
very commop and everyday like parking offences. The challenge is
a joke and the audience laughs, but as he laughs one storyteller is
already considering it.
The writer is a surfer. He has just started planning a new crime
novel about a surfer who plans to murder a rival by diving under him
in the water and killing him with a knife which has been shaped
to look like the teeth of a shark. But for some reason he doesn’t
feel inspired by the surfers’ story and he decides to investigate the
possibilities of writing a story about parking offences instead.
He gets in touch with the local police department and arranges
to follow some traffic officers for a couple of days to find out more
about their world and the way they work. He arranges to go out with
them on a Friday, a busy day because the farmers come into town and
there’s a lot of traffic and a lot of work for the traffic police.
As they walk down a quiet side street they come across an illegally
parked car. Two men are sitting in it. When the police officer
approaches and asks the driver for his driving licence, the car drives
off at high speed, leaving behind it a very unpleasant surprise...

Key vocabulary
finished the story.
C rim e s
A number of different crimes are named in the story, of varying degrees
of seriousness.
1 Look at the list of crimes below. Which are a) serious offences, or

b) low-level offences?
extortion gettin g m oney from som eon e by using threats or force. O ften th ere’s a
threat to dam age property or businesses if the m oney isn ’t p aid. T h is crim e is often
linked to organized crim e
fraud the crim e o f obtain in g m oney from som eon e by tricking them , for exam ple,
by pretendin g to be som eon e you’re n ot
murder or homicide the con sciou s and p lan n ed killin g o f a person
parking violation parkin g illegally or in such a way as to create a hazard to other
drivers
tax evasion the use o f illegal m ethods to pay less tax or no tax at all
theft the crim e o f stealin g
C rim e literatu re
One of the main themes of the story is that of the genre of crime
writing and the typical characteristics of modern crime writing.
2 Read this short description of one particular type of crime story.

Match the words and phrases in bold with the definitions below.
The ( 1) police procedural is a popular (2) genre in crime writing.
It describes the work of the police, usually the homicide squad, as they
tackle crime and try to bring criminals to court. Most stories in this genre
are about murders. The opening scene is often an (3) autopsy, where
a forensic doctor is examining the dead body, looking at things like entry
(4) wounds, calculating (5) the angle of entry of a bullet or a knife.
This genre is also particularly popular on TV. Some critics of this genre
complain that it is too violent and (6) gory, that the writers are more
interested in giving (7) graphic descriptions of the gory details than

in developing the plot and trying to understand the criminal mind. But
writers defend themselves saying that this is what readers want. The higher
the (8) body count, the more successful the story; the more violence
and (9) mayhem, the more books they sell. They claim that there is no
demand for stories that look at more (10) mundane, everyday crimes.
a) the direction from which something enters
b) an operation performed on a dead body to find the cause of death
c) a type of literature or story
d) a very confused and often violent or dangerous situation
e) described giving a lot of detail, usually unpleasant
f) a story that looks at the way the police go about solving a crime
g) an injury in which your skin or flesh is damaged, usually seriously
h) normal, ordinary
i) full of blood
j) the number of people who died
3 U se words from exercise 2 to complete these sentences.
1 My favourite ............................... is gangster stories. Pm totally

fascinated by the world of organized crime.
2 I really enjoyed the film, even if the violence was a bit too
............................... at times. I mean, I really don’t think they needed
to show it in such detail.
3 The nurse quickly stitched and bandaged th e .................................
4 A n ............................... was performed the next day, but no clear
cause of death could be found.
5 He loves............................... horror films. The more blood the better
as far as he’s concerned.
6 Bored with t h e ..............................., everyday routine of life in an
office, he gave up his job and left his wife.
A d je ctiv e s
4 As in all good writing, adjectives are used throughout the story to
add detail and interest to the descriptions. Look at the adjectives
opposite, read the definitions and then choose an appropriate
adjective to complete each sentence.

blatant done in an obvious way th at shows th at you are n ot em barrassed or
asham ed to be doing som ethin g bad or illegal
budding ju st beginn in g or developin g
hard-bitten tending n ot to feel sym pathy or other positive em otion s because o f
havin g had a lot o f difficult experien ces
heated w hen people get angry or excited when they are talking about som ethin g
nagging a n egative though t, feeling or physical injury th at is difficult to get rid o f
unforeseen un exp ected
vindictive cruel to som eon e w ho hurts you and n o t forgiving them
whimsical m ade or d one for fun, n o t seriously
1 They had a very discussion about the results of

the recent elections.
2 The show was cancelled due t o ................................ circumstances.
3 I’ve got th is doubt that I’ve forgotten something
very important!
4 Don’t tell me you know nothing about it - that’s a ...............................
lie. You know it and I know it!
5 After so many years spent reporting on violent crimes and criminals
he had become and cynical.
6 It was a gentle,................................ story about two old friends and
their grown-up families.
7 He was a ................................ young football player who showed a lot
of promise.
8 Divorced couples can often become quite................................ towards
each other.
Main themes
C rim e sto ries

The story explores the theme of crime stories, their attraction, the
kind of people who write them and the topics they write about.
a) In what ways is the story not a typical crime story?

b) In what ways does it become very like the stories described on the
opening page?

L ife im itates art
The story explores the relationship between real life and life as it is
described in fiction. The main character is a writer. He uses real places
for his settings and observes real people at work in order to make his
books seem as realistic as possible.
a) In what way does life imitate art in the story?

b) How realistic do you think the story is?

No Place to Park
by Alexander McCall Smith
1
It started as a challenge, the unforeseen outcom e of an absurd
conversation at a writers’ festival in W estern A ustralia, There
was the usual panel on stage, and an audience m ade up o f the
sort of people who frequent4 the crime panels - predominantly
women, but with a sprinkling o f men; highly educated, highly
literate, and highly im aginative. A n d they shared another
characteristic o f the reader of mysteries: they were fascinated by
the gory details o f behaviour in which they would them selves
never engage. T hese people would never com m it a murder, n ot
in their wildest dreams. N or would they m ix with people who
did such things, no m atter how fascinating they m ight find their
com pany - on the page. But they loved to read about murder,
about the sudden, violent term ination5 o f hum an life, and o f
how it was done.
T h e panel was discussing realism in crime fiction. Two
practitioners o f the art, writers o f w ell-received policiers6 were
pitted against the literary critic o f a local paper. T h e critic, who
read some, but not very m uch, o f such fiction, expressed the view
that there was a surfeit7 of realistic gore in the contem porary
mystery.
“Look at the average crime novel these days,” he pointed out,
stabbing at the air with an accusing finger. “Look at the body
count. Look at the compulsory autopsy scenes, some o f which
actually start the novel, would you believe it! T h e autopsy room,
so familiar, so com forting! O rgans are extracted and weighed.
W ounds exam ined for angle-of-entry, and it’s all so, w e ll...it’s
4 if you frequent a place, you go there regularly
5 formal: bringing som ething to an end
6 French: crime stories about the police
7 formal: too m uch o f som ething

all so g r a p h i c H e paused. From the audience there cam e a brief
outbreak o f laughter. It could not be graphic enough for these
people.
H e warmed to his theme. “ But there are crimes other than
murder, aren’t there? T h ere’s fraud and theft and extortion.
T h ere’s tax evasion, for h eaven ’s sake! A n d yet all we read about
in books in this genre is murder. Murder, murder, murder.” He
paused, and looked accusingly at the two authors beside him.
“W hy not write about more m undane offences? W hy not write
about things that actually happen? M urder’s very rare, you know.
N o t that one would think so to read your books.”
O ne o f the authors grinned at the audience. “W eak stom ach,”
he said, gesturing to the critic. “C a n ’t take it.”
T h e audience laughed. T hey had no difficulty taking it.
“Seriously, though,” said the critic. “How about it? How
about a realistic crime novel dealing with som ething day-to-day
- som e low level offence that really happen s.”
“Su ch as?” asked one o f the authors.
T h e critic waved a hand in the air. “O h anything,” he said
lightly. “Parking violations, perhaps. T h ose happen all the time.
T h ey ’re real.”
Everybody joined in the laughter, even the critic. “G o on ,” he
said to the authors. “W hy doesn’t one of you people do som ething
like that. G ive up murder. G e t real. S tart a new genre.”
O ne o f the authors, G eorge Harris, a successful crime writer
from Perth, stared at him . H e had been laughing, but now he
looked thoughtful.
2
G eorge shared a sm all bungalow with a girlfriend, Frizzie, who
ran a tie-and-dye8 tee-shirt store in Frem antle. T hey had lived
together for five years now, always in the same, narrow house
near C ottesloe Beach. G eorge liked to surf, and C ottesloe was
a good place to do it, as the Indian O cean broke directly on
the broad expanse o f sand, unhindered by anything more than
8 a m ethod for dying clothes which produces colourful circular patterns, often
associated with beach or surf fashion

the tiny sliver o f R ottn est Island. H e still surfed, although the
thought o f what was in the water beneath him was always in his
mind, a nagging fear, repressed, but still there, somewhere below
the surface. Eight m onths earlier som ebody whom he knew,
although only vaguely, had been taken by a great white w ithin a
stone’s throw o f the edge of the beach. It had not only brought
it hom e to him that surfing in A ustralia had its perils9 - one
was in their h ab itat10, after all - but it gave him an idea for the
plot o f his n ext book. There would be rivalry am ongst surfers,
som ething to do with a lover or a m otorbike, and one surfer
would plan to dispose of another. W hat better way than to fake
a shark attack, which would be administered from below, by
a large knife which he had specially m ade in his garage. T his
knife would have a num ber o f serrations along the edge, each
carefully honed to the shape o f a shark’s tooth, and it would
leave just the right wounds for the inevitable conclusion (in the
autopsy room ) - death by shark attack. It would be carried out at
a tim e when nobody else was about and certainly nobody would
see the diver down below, with his knife glinting in the water
like a silver fish. It was a good plot, even if it would n ot m ake
com fortable reading for surfers. A n d it was not com fortable
writing, G eorge reflected, for a crime novelist who happened to
be a surfer.
H e had barely started this new novel, this surfing story, and
was tem pted to give it up. H e had once before persisted with a
book his heart was not in, and he had wasted eight m onths in
the gestation o f som ething that did not work and that had to be
abandoned. H e was determ ined not to m ake the sam e m istake
again, and so when he started to think about this parking story
he was ready for a new project. T h e suggestion that a crime novel
should concern itself with som ething so m inor as illegal parking
had been made in jest, o f course, but, when one thought about it,
why not? It was such an outrageously silly idea that it could well
end up m aking its mark in a genre of fiction that was becom ing
increasingly crowded. T his was different, and people wanted
9 formal, often humorous: dangers
10 biology: the place where a particular anim al usually lives

som ething different. There were so many police procedurals, all
dealing with hard-bitten hom icide squads on their m ean streets.
N ow here was som ething that was at the com pletely opposite
end o f the spectrum, and it would register with people. T hey
needed a smile, and he would give it to them. It would be gentle,
whim sical stuff, devoid of violence and mayhem. H e could set it
on his own doorstep, in W estern A ustralia, and it could be full
o f local colour.
He warmed to the idea, and began to im agine a plot. There
would be tension w ithin the parking departm ent. There would
be rivalry as to who could give m otorists the m ost tickets. There
would be a budding love affair between two parking officers11,
and this would be frowned upon by the police superintendent12.
T hey would have to m eet in secret, at the busy end o f the street,
perhaps, where m otorists were always parking in the wrong
place and getting ticketed...
G eorge sm iled at the thought o f it. But there was a serious
m atter to consider: he would have to get the world o f parking
officers right. H e would have to go to the traffic departm ent at
his local police headquarters and get perm ission to tag along
for a day or two with one o f the officers. T here should be no
difficulty about this: the Perth police had always co-operated
with him and he, in turn, had painted a flattering picture of
them . In G eorge’s books, the Perth police always outsmarted
visiting detectives from Sydney or M elbourne. T hey liked that.
H e told his Frizzie about the n ext plot. Sh e was the only
person in whom he confided about his books before they were
published. Sh e was a surfer, like him, and they would som etim es
lie on their boards, out beyond the waves, talking about the ins
and outs o f whatever book he was working on. A s they chatted,
the water lapping against their boards, G eorge hoped that there
was nothing down below, listening - so to speak.
11 a parking officer is a m em ber o f a traffic control departm ent who is responsible for
m aking a note o f any vehicles w hich are illegally parked, or causing an obstruction
to the traffic
12 a senior police officer in A ustralia

3
It was arranged for him to go out with a parking officer on a
Friday. It was a good day, they explained to him , as farmers often
cam e into town then and parked illegally.
“T hey forget that they’re in a city,” joked the officer. “T hey
think they’re out in the bush 13 still and they can park anywhere!
We sort them out for sure!”
G eorge noted the vindictive edge to this remark. Farmers
deserved sympathy, he thought, with their struggle against
drough t and p ests and low agricultural prices. But he did not
say anything; he just filed the com m ent away for future use. H e
looked at the officer. H e was a sm all man, with a rather defeated
look about him. O bviously parking duty was not for the high
flier. High-fliers went to hom icide, he im agined.
T hey spent the m orning going up and down a busy shopping
street. T here were several violations noticed, each o f which was
explained to him in great detail by the officer.
“T h is driver is a serious offender,” the officer said, pointing
to a battered H olden. “T ax disc is out-of-date. H e h asn ’t even
bothered to put m oney in the m achine, a n d ...” the and was
stressed, as the final word in a litany o f sins m ight be given extra
weight. “And h e’s way over the line. Look at that! C reatin g a
hazard for other drivers. Sh am eless!”
“W hat are you going to do?” asked G eorge, staring at the
offending car. It was a hom ely vehicle, m uch-loved, he suspected,
and on the back seat was a ch ild’s toy, a teddy bear.
“I’m going to book him for the lot,” said the officer, taking out
his notebook and beginning to write down the list of violations.
A fter that encounter they m oved off, on foot, down a side-
street. It was a narrow access lane and there were prom inently-
displayed signs stating that parking was forbidden. Yet there was
a car parked halfway down the street.
“Look at th at,” said the officer. “Blatant. A n d they’re sitting
in the vehicle too. Bold as brass.”
T h e two m en in the car, deep in w hat appeared to be heated
13 areas in hot countries like A ustralia and A frica that are not used for growing crops.
Th ey are usually far from cities and very few people live there

conversation, had not seen them and they gave a start of surprise
when the officer tapped smartly on the half-lowered window on
the driver’s side.
“Do you realize th at you’re illegally parked, Sir?” said the
officer firmly. “W ould you show me your driver’s licence please.”
T h e driver opened his m outh to say som ething, but no sound
cam e. H e looked shocked.
“C om e on, Sir,” said the officer. “D on ’t hold me up.”
A fter that it all happened rath er quickly. T h e driver reached
forward, started the engine and thrust the car into gear. T h en ,
with a roar, it pulled away. G eorge reeled back in surprise, while
the officer fum bled for his radio.
It was then that they saw the body under the car, lying
with arms stretched out, an ugly red-black stain on the front
o f his shirt. It was a body o f the sort which crime writers like
to describe in graphic detail. Eyes open but unseeing. Fingers
clenched. H air tousled. Feet at an odd angle. A n d so on.
4
T h e fact that the officer m anaged to get the registration num ber
of the car m eant that a rapid arrest was made. T h e driver and his
com panion, it emerged, were well-known members o f the Perth
crim inal underworld, such as it was.
O ne o f them , the passenger, was in fact the brother o f
som ebody whom G eorge knew in surfing circles and who
som etim es helped Frizzie take her board off the car if G eorge was
not around. H e had also seen him exchange a few casual words
with Frizzie on the beach. Perth was like that; it was a friendly
city, intim ate; people could get to know one another.
G eorge was called as a witness in the murder trial. T here was
not m uch that he could say, o f course, other than that he had
seen the two m en at the scene o f the crime. But it was enough
to worry the surfing brother, who cam e to G eorge and asked him
w hether he would be kind enough not to give evidence.
“But I have to,” said George. “It’s my civic duty14. I have to
give evidence. Sorry it’s your brother.”
14 your duty as a citizen, or a member o f society

“In th at case, m ate,” said the surfer, “w atch your back.
Som ethin g unpleasant could happen to you, you know, if you
d ob 15 my brother in. Ju st remem ber th at.”
G eorge contem plated going to the police to report this rather
unsubtle attem pt at intim idation, but decided against it. It
would be difficult to prove that a threat had been m ade, as there
were no witnesses to the occurrence. H e knew all about that
problem , as he had used it once in a novel. It was strange, he
thought, how truth emulated fiction - eventually.
Frizzie was uncom fortable. Sh e urged him not to give
evidence, or to be a bit vague about the identification.
H e said to her: “A nyone would think that you w anted that
guy to get off. Ju st because his brother helps you with your surf
board. W hat am I to think: T h a t you’re having an affair with
him or som ething?”
“ D on ’t be ridiculous,” she said.
5
Two weeks before the trial was due to take place, he went
surfing. It was early m orning, the tim e he liked best, when there
was virtually nobody around at C ottesloe Beach, other than
the occasional dog-owner taking a dog for a run along the sand.
Such beauty, he thought; the sky so wide, the sea, the sand.
Su ch beauty in this country. A ll around one.
H e paddled out and rode one or two waves in. T h e surf was
quite high and the water was warmer than usual. There was
som ebody else, another surfer, some way away, and then he
seem ed to go away again; it was very quiet. G eorge paddled his
board back out. H e looked up at the sky and wondered.
H e looked down. T here was som ething in the water and
his heart gave a lurch. H e peered down. It was easy to confuse
shadows or a frond o f seaweed for som ething they were not; one
had to control the im agination. H e searched the water. A flash
o f m etal, from down below it seemed. Impossible, he thought.
Impossible. I told nobody.
15 slang: to give evidence about som eone’s crim inal activities to the police

A n d he thought, as he slipped into the water, how life was
not like this, that it was absurd that parking o f all things should
have this result. A bsurd and unlikely. But now there was only
water, and regret.

Post>reading activities
story.
1
1 What are the writers discussing at the festival?
2 What is the critic complaining about?
3 What challenge does he throw down to the writers?
4 What is George’s initial reaction?
5 Why did he change his mind?
2
6 Where does George live?
7 What does he do in his spare time?
8 What is he scared of in the water?
9 What kind of story is he inspired to write?
10 Why would it not be easy to write?
11 Why does he give up the surfing story?
12 Why does he decide to follow up the idea of the parking offences?
13 What preparations does he want to make for writing the story?
14 Who does he tell about his book?
15 Does he always tell her about all his books?
3
16 Why is Friday a good day to experience the job of a parking officer?
17 Do you think the parking officer likes his job? Why/Why not?
18 Why does the officer approach the vehicle in the side street?
19 How does the driver react? Why?
20 How does George react to the body that was under the car?
4
21 How did the police arrest the two men?
22 What connection has George got to one of the men?
23 What evidence can George give at the trial?
24 Who asks George not to give evidence? Why?
5
25 What time is it?
26 Are there a lot of people around?
27 How does George feel?
28 What does he see under the water?
29 What does he understand?
30 What happens at the end of the story?
Language study
Vocabulary
U s e s o f get
Get is a common verb in the English language with an enormous
number of different meanings and uses. Here are some of the uses from
the story.
get o btain
get + past participle used in passive form s - to show th at som ethin g h ap pen s to
you due to som eon e e lse’s actio n
get + adjective to becom e
get off to be found n o t guilty by a court
get something right n o t to m ake a m istake about som ethin g
get to know someone form a relation sh ip w ith som eone
1 Look at the extracts and underline the examples of the six uses
above.
1 “Give up murder. Get real. Start a new genre.”
2 They would have to meet in secret, at the busy end of the street, perhaps,
where motorists were always parking in the wrong place and getting
ticketed...
3 But there was a serious matter to consider: he would have to get the world
of parking officers right.
4 He would have to go to the traffic department at his local police
headquarters and get permission to tag along for a day or two with one of
the officers.
5 The fact that the officer managed to get the registration number of the car
meant that a rapid arrest was made.
6 Perth was like that; it was a friendly city, intimate; people could get to
know one another.
7 “Anyone would think that you wanted that guy to get off. Just because his
brother helps you with your surfboard
2 Look at some more common uses of get in the sentences opposite.
Replace the expressions with get with the words and phrases in
the box below.
ask buy carry catch earns entered

have start understand was given

1 Sorry we’re late. We had to stop at the garage to get some petrol.
2 I got a fine for dangerous driving.
3 Lenka only gets $3 an hour.
4 You need to get your hair cut!
5 I’ll get Andrew to give you a call later.
6 She forgot her keys and got into the house through the window.
7 I don’t know how we’ll get this box up the stairs.
8 Enough talking, let’s get to work.
9 Everyone else was laughing but I didn’t really get the joke.'
10 The police need to get the person who did this.
Common idiomatic expressions

The author uses a number of common idiomatic expressions in the
story. They give the story an intimate, spoken quality, as if the writer
were speaking directly to us.
3 Look at the extracts below and match the expressions (1-10)
with their definitions (a-j) on the next page.
1 These people would never commit a murder, not in their wildest
dreams.
2 Eight months earlier somebody whom he knew, although only vaguely,
had been taken by a great white within a stone’s throw of the edge of
the beach.
3 It had not only brought it home to him that surfing in Australia had
its perils.
4 He had once before persisted with a book his heart was not in, and he
had wasted eight months in the gestation of something that did not work
and that had to be abandoned.
5 The suggestion that a crime novel should concern itself with something so
minor as illegal parking had been made in jest, of course, but, when one
thought about it, why not?
6 It was such an outrageously silly idea that it could well end up making
its mark in a genre of fiction that was becoming increasingly crowded.
7 Now here was something that was at the completely opposite end of
the spectrum, and it would register with people.
8 He could set it on his own doorstep, in Western Australia, and it
could be full of local colour.
9 He warmed to the idea, and began to imagine a plot.
10 “Loo/c at that," said the officer. “Blatant. And they're sitting in the
vehicle too. Bold as brass."

a) showing a lot of confidence in a way that people find rude or
shocking
b) help someone understand something is true
c) under no circumstances
d) when you don’t really care about something you’re doing
e) to do something so that people notice or remember you
f) completely different
g) in your home area or home town
h) very near
i) to begin to like something
j) as a joke
4 Use the expressions in exercise 3 to complete these sentences.

1 To start with I wasn’t too keen on going camping that weekend,
but in the end I .................................
2 He walked up to the teacher and stuck his tongue out at her as
3 She’s really going to ............................... with this new film, all the
critics love it.
4 They had never ever expected to win the competition,
5 He agreed to come with her to the dance classes but she could see
................................ it even though he tried his best to look as if he
was having a good time.
6 He was totally out of breath by the time he reached the top of the
stairs and it really...............................how unfit he was, and it was
time he started to do some exercise.
7 Her home and family situation were................................ to his.
They couldn’t possibly have been more different.
8 The hotel was perfect, it was right at the water’s edge, literally
................................ of the beach.
9 I couldn’t believe she took my comment seriously - it was only said
10 He couldn’t believe that they were going to build a new superstore

there, right................................ , in the middle of all this beautiful
countryside.

Multiple-clause sentences
Some simple sentences have just one clause. They contain one subject
and one verb:
He paused. From the audience there came a brief outbreak of laughter.
It could not be graphic enough for these people.
Other simple sentences may contain two clauses linked by a simple
conjunction such as and or but:
He paused, and looked accusingly at the two authors beside him.
He had been laughing, but now he looked thoughtful.
Multiple-clause sentences contain three or more clauses. Their
structure is often very complex and they are often used to set the scene,
or to sum up a situation or a story as they can condense a lot of details
into one sentence.
5 Look at the sentence below. It contains seven clauses. Can you
identify them?
There was the usual panel on stage, and an audience made up of the
sort of people who frequent the crime panels - predominantly women,
but with a sprinkling of men; highly educated, highly literate, and highly
imaginative.
Look at how this multiple-clause sentence can be broken down into
individual single^clause sentences.
There was the usual panel on stage.
There was an audience.
The audience was made up of people.
These people frequented crime panels.
They were predominantly women.
There was also a sprinkling of men.
They were highly educated, highly literate and highly imaginative.
6 Look again at the complex sentence and at how the simple
sentences have been combined. Which of the following have
a) been added, and b) been dropped?
Relative pronouns Linkers and, but, etc.
Subject pronouns The verb be

7 Look at the sentence below. It contains four clauses. Rewrite it as
four simple sentences.
What better way than to fake a shark attack, which would be administered
from below, by a large knife which he had specially made in his garage.
1 What better way.................................
2 It would b e .................................
3 It would b e .................................
4 He would have made.................................
8 What is the difference in effect between the complex multiple-
clause sentence and the series of short, simple sentences?
9 Look at another example of a multiple-clause sentence. This

time the main clause has been broken up by a second, subsidiary
clause. Can you rewrite the sentence as three simple sentences?
Eight months earlier somebody whom he knew, although only vaguely,
had been taken by a great white within a stone's throw of the edge of the
beach.
1 ...I .....................................................................................................
2 .......................................................................................
3 .....................................................................................................................
Literary analysis
Plot
1 The writer in the story is thinking about writing two very different
books. What are the plots in the two books? How do these two plots
come together in what happens to the crime writer? What comment
is the story making about crime and crime stories?
2 Think of three key events in the story. In what way are these events
important to the plot as a whole?
3 Here are some secondary events in the story. What significance do
they have for the main plot?
a) A man the writer vaguely knew was killed in a shark attack off
Cottesloe Beach.
b) The writer’s girlfriend often goes surfing on her own and gets a
man to help her put her surfboard on the car.
c) The writer tells his girlfriend about the plots of his books.
188 I No Place to Park

4 Who do you think is the driver at the end of the story? Why does
the driver want to kill the writer? Why does he/she choose this
method?
5 How will the writer’s death affect the other characters in the story?
What do you think will happen next?
Character
6 The main character in the story is the crime writer. What factual
information do you know about him? What do you learn about
him as a person? Is he a likeable character? Why/Why not?
7 How many other characters are named in the story? Who are they?
How much do we know about them? Would you like to know
more? If yes, what?
8 Would you agree that the plot is more important than the
characters in this story? Why/Why not?
Narration
9 Who is telling the story? From whose point of view is it being told?
10 What is being described at the beginning? When do we first meet
the main character? What is the first thing we learn about him?
11 The narrator shows us what the characters are thinking or feeling
by using dialogue and reported thoughts. Whose thoughts and
feelings are reported directly in the narration? Whose thoughts and
feelings are reported through dialogue? Why?
12 At the end of the story the narrator’s voice is heard less and less
and the writer’s thoughts and feelings take over. What effect does
this create?
Atmosphere
There are two particularly tense moments in the plot: when they find
the dead body, and when the writer goes surfing for the last time.
13 Look at the first scene. Notice how the length of the sentences
changes towards the end. What effect does this create?
It was then that they saw the body under the car, lying with arms
stretched out, an ugly red-black stain on the front of his shirt. It was a
body of the sort which crime writers like to describe in graphic detail.
Eyes open but unseeing. Fingers clenched. Hair tousled. Feet at an odd
angle. And so on.

14 Now look at the closing paragraphs. What is the atmosphere?
He looked down. There was something in the water and his heart
gave a lurch. He peered down. It was easy to confuse shadows or a .
frond of seaweed for something they were not; one had to control the
imagination. He searched the water. A flash of metal, from down below
it seemed. Impossible, he thought. Impossible. I told nobody.
And he thought, as he slipped into the water, how life was not like this,
that it was absurd that parking of all things should have this result.
Absurd and unlikely. But now there was only water, and regret.
a) Look again. What do you notice about the length of the
sentences? What do the short sentences describe? What about
the longer ones?
b) Look at the first paragraph. Underline the verbs in the three
short sentences. They are all describing the same action. What
is it? In what way are the three verbs different?
c) Underline all the adjectives used. What effect do they have? Do
you think it’s a good way to end the story? Why/Why not? How
else could it have ended?
Style
15 Throughout the story the narrator describes a series of scenes
introducing and briefly exploring a new world: the crime writers
festival, surfing, the parking officers. In the extract below he is
showing us the day-to-day working world of the parking officers.
Read the extract. What do we learn about the main character’s
attitude towards the parking officer and his job?
They spent the morning going up and down a busy shopping street.
There were several violations noticed, each of which was explained to
him in great detail by the officer.
“This driver is a serious offender," the officer said, pointing to a battered
Holden. ‘Tax disc is out-of-date. He hasn't even bothered to put money
in the machine, and..." the and was stressed, as the final word in a
litany of sins might be given extra weight. “And he's way over the line.
Look at that! Creating a hazard for other drivers. Shameless!"
“What are you going to do?" ashed George, staring at the offending car.
It was a homely vehicle, much-loved, he suspected, and on the back seat
was a child's toy, a teddy bear.

‘Tm going to book him for the lot,” said the officer, taking out his
notebook and beginning to write down the list of violations.
Look again at the words spoken by the officer. What does this tell
us about him and his attitude to his job?
16 Read the extract again. Notice the words used to describe the
following:
a) how the officer explains the violations to the writer
b) how the officer stresses his words
c) the description of the ‘offending car’.
What effect do these descriptions create?
17 Look back at the opening scene, when the narrator describes the
scene at the crime writers festival. Notice how the author uses
dialogue and small additional descriptions to capture the scene.
What impression do you get of the writers and the critics?

Essay questions
Language analysis
Discuss how one of the language areas you have studied contributes
to the telling of two (or more) of the stories in the collection.
A n aly sin g the q u estion

What is the question asking?
It is asking you to:

- choose one language area from the index on page 207
- explain how this language area functions in the context of
storytelling
- use examples from two (or more) of the stories in the collection.
P rep arin g y o u r an sw er
1 Look back through the Language study sections of the stories you’ve
read and choose a language area that you feel confident about and
that applies to the telling of two, or more, of the stories.
2 Make notes about the language area. Include notes on form,
function and use.
3 Choose examples from two, or more, stories. Choose examples from
both classic and contemporary stories, if possible.
4 Look back at the question and your notes and plan your essay. Here
is an example of an essay plan:
Introduction Introduce the area you are going to talk about.

Main body 1 Explain the general function of the area you have
chosen; use examples from both stories.
Main body 2 Analyse how the area contributes to the style of both
stories, referring to specific passages in the stories.
Conclusion Summarize the literary use and function of the
language area you focused on.
192 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Essay questions

Literary analysis
Choose two of the stories in the collection that deal with a similar
type of crime. Compare and contrast the stories, describing the
similarities in the crimes and any differences in the way they are
described.
Analysing the question

What is the question asking you?
It is asking you to:

- look at two stories in the collection
- analyse the nature of the crimes described and the way they are
described
- identify and comment on similarities between the crimes
- identify and comment on differences in the ways the crimes are
described.
Preparing your answer

1 Choose two stories from the collection that deal with the same sort
of crime, e.g. two stories about theft or two stories about murder.
Make notes about the crimes in each story: the nature of the crime,
the personality of the criminal, the reasons for committing the
crime, how the criminal is caught (if relevant), and so on.
2 Make notes on the way the crimes are described. Whose point of
view is given? The criminal’s? The victim’s? The detective’s? What
are their attitudes to the crime?
3 Choose passages from the two stories that describe the crime and
reactions to it. Make a note of any useful quotations.
4 Make a list of the main similarities and differences between the way
the crimes are described in the two stories.
5 Read the question again and write a plan for your essay. Here is an
example:
Introduction Briefly introduce the two stories and the crimes that
are described.
Story 1 Describe and comment on the crime in the first story.
Macmillan Literature Collections: Essay questions | 193

Story 2 Describe and comment on the crime in the second
story
Similarities Discuss the similarities between the crimes in the
two stories.
Differences Discuss the differences between the ways they are
described.
Conclusion Make a general comment about the importance of
point of view in crime stories.
194 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Essay questions

Glossary
The definitions in the glossary refer to the meanings of the words
and phrases as they are used in the short stories in this collection.
Some words and phrases may also have other meanings which are
not given here. The definitions are arranged in the story in which
they appear, and in alphabetical order.
The Tell-tale Heart

audacity (n) the confidence to say or latch (n) an object used for keeping a
do what you want, despite difficulties door closed, consisting of a metal bar
or risks that fits into a hole or slot
awe (n) a feeling of great respect and make a mockery of phrase to make
admiration, often combined with fear someone or something seem stupid or
bosom (n) literary: the imaginary place useless
where you feel deep emotions (literally marrow (n) the soft substance inside
your chest) bones to the marrow/bone phrase
ce a se (v) to stop happening used for emphasizing how much
close (adv) carefully something such as cold or fear affects
corpse (n) dead body you
crevice (n) a narrow crack or hole mournful (adj) very sad
cricket (n) a small brown insect overcharge (v) to put too much power
that moves by jumping and makes a into something
loud noise by rubbing its front wings pitch (n) thick, black, sticky substance
together used on roofs and ships to stop water
damned (adj) evil getting through
derision (n) the opinion that someone plank (n) a long, narrow piece of wood
or something is stupid, unimportant used for making structures such as floors
or useless profound (adj) showing serious
dismember (v) to cut or pull a body thoughts and wise ideas
to pieces ray (n) a narrow line of light
dull (v) to make a sense or feeling refrain (v) to stop yourself from doing
weaker something
envelop (v) to surround someone or repose (v) to lie in a particular place
something completely rid (v) to remove something or someone
film (n) a very thin layer of something so that they do not annoy you
that forms on a surface shutter (n) a cover that can be closed
fury (n) extreme anger over the outside of a window
grate (v) to rub against something and singularly (adv) in a noticeable way
make an unpleasant, annoying sound stain (n) a mark left accidentally on
hearty (adj) friendly and enthusiastic clothes or surfaces
hinge (n) an object, usually metal, that stalk (v) to hunt a person or animal by
fastens a door to a wall and allows it to following them without being seen
open and close startled (adj) suddenly frightened or
in vain phrase without success surprised by something
Macmillan Literature Collections: Glossary | 195

suavity (n) confidence and politeness vulture (n) a large bird that eats the
thread (n) a long thin fibre (in the bodies of dead animals
story, part of a spider web) wane (v) to come to an end, become
veil (n) a thin piece of cloth used to weaker
hide or cover something well up (v) to become very strong (used
vex (v) to make someone annoyed, for feelings)
confused or worried

a roof over your head phrase a place candid (adj) honest and direct
to live carriage (n) a vehicle which is pulled
abbot (n) a man who is in charge of by a horse
an abbey - a large church or buildings chagrin (n) a feeling of being every
connected to it where a group of annoyed, disappointed or embarrassed
religious people live chink (n) a very small space in a wall or
after the fashion off phrase in the between two things
same way as chisel (n) a tool with a flat metal blade
animated (adj) lively or active used for opening crates and cutting
artery (n) an important road that brings wood or stone
traffic into or out of a large town or choked with (adj) very full
city; also a main blood vessel chronicle (v) to make a record of
ascertain (v) to find out if something events in the order in which they
is true happened
a skance (ad v), uncertainly clatter (v) to make several loud short
at their wits* end phrase extremely noises when being hit against a hard
worried and tired because they can’t surface
solve their problems clean-cut (adj) see clean-shaven
bachelor (n) an unmarried man clean-shaven (adj) used to describe
barrel (n) the part of a gun that a bullet the face of a man who has recently
is fired through shaved
bashful (adj) embarrassed clink (v) to make a short high sound
bill (n) a bird’s beak (the hard part at when glass or metal objects hit each
the front of its face where its nose and other or a hard surface
mouth are) close in phrasal vers to move nearer
bob (n) a short up and down movement; to someone especially in order to
also used as a verb - to move up and surround them and stop them from
down with short regular movements escaping
bow (v) to bend your head down cocked (adj) ready to fire
bright (adj) clever come round to phrasal verb to change
budge (v) to move your opinion because someone has
bulky (adj) big, wide and solid persuaded you to agree with them
burrow (v) to make a hole or tunnel in compunction (n) a feeling that you
the ground should not do something because it’s
butt (v) to push with your head wrong
conundrum (n) a puzzle that needs
solving
196 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Glossary

convey (v) to bring humdrum (adj) boring because nothing
cordially (adv) in a friendly way new or exciting happens
crate (n) a large wooden box used for hunting crop (n) a short, straight whip
storing or moving goods with a piece of leather at the end
crouch (v) to move your body close to in high spirits phrase very happy and
the ground by bending your knees and excited
leaning forwards slightly in low spirits phrase unhappy
cuff (n) the part of a sleeve that fits incite (v) to encourage someone to do
around your wrist something
curt (adj) using very few words ingenious (adj) good at inventing
custody (n) care or protection things and solving problems in new
dank (adj) cold and wet ways
daring (adj) brave enough to do intrigue (n) a secret love affair
dangerous things introspect (v) to think quietly about
dense (adj) slow or stupid something
depot (n) a place where vehicles are introspective (adj) examining your
kept feelings, thoughts or ideas quietly on
determine (v) to decide your own rather than communicating
diligence (n) the attitude of someone them to other people
who works very hard and carefully judicial (adj) in the process of thinking
divine (v) to guess carefully and seriously about something
drop in (v) to visit someone without labyrinth (n) a place where there are
telling them that you’re coming a lot of paths or passages (or small,
embellish (v) to make a story more narrow streets in this case) and you can
interesting by adding details, especially easily get lost
ones that are not completely true landlord (n) a person who owns a
endeavour (v) to try property such as a house or shop or
expenditure (n) money spent by a office, and rents it out to someone else
person, organization or government languid (adj) very slow and relaxed
flush (v) to turn red because of anger, languor (n) the calm or pleasant feeling
embarrassment or physical effort you have when you are tired and
forfeit (v) to lose relaxed
fortunes (n) the things that happen to lead foil (n) thin layers of a soft heavy
someone grey metal
gaping (adj) used for a hole or space, lithe (adj) moving and bending in a
very large graceful way
gash (n) a long, deep cut in something loftily (adv) in a way that shows that
glance (n) a quick look at someone or you think you are better than other
something people
gospel (n) the things that Jesus said lounge (v) to lie, sit or lean in a relaxed
and taught, according to the Bible or lazy way
grievance (n) reason for complaint lure (n) something that attracts
grotesque (adj) illogical and strange someone to a situation
haul (v) to pull lurid (adj) very bright
have a job phrase to find it difficult to lust (n) strong desire
do something mantelpiece (n) a wide shelf above a
fireplace

merely (adv) only relish (n) great pleasure and satisfaction
minute (adj) very detailed rending (adj) describing the sound of
misgivings (n) feelings of fear or doubt something being torn into pieces
about whether something is right or run down phrasal vers to find someone
will have a good result or something after looking for them for
mop (v) to wipe sweat from e.g. your a long time; used in hunting, for dogs
face used to frighten birds out of the trees
nocturnal (adj) at night for the hunters to shoot
nod (v) to be on the point of going to set eyes on phrase to see someone or
sleep . something, especially for the first time
nominal (adj) much less than it is settee (n) British: sofa
worth shipwreck (n) an accident in which a
obliging (adj) willing to help someone ship is destroyed during a journey
of late phrase recently shoot (v) to move something quickly
off the beaten track phrase not and suddenly
where people usually go shove (v) to push
particulars (n) information and details skirmish (n) a fight, an argument or a
about someone or something disagreement
peep (v) to appear slightly from behind snap (v) to take photographs
or under something snigger (n) a short, quiet laugh
perch (v) to sit on something that is sound (adj) healthy
narrow or small, and usually high staggered (adj) extremely surprised
pitch (n) a high level of emotion stagnant (adj) not growing or
play a deep game phrase to be developing
cunning stake (n) an amount of money you risk
plunge (v), to move forward quickly and losing when you try to guess the result
suddenly of a race or competition
pompous (adj) speaks or behaves in a stalls (n) seats in a theatre
very serious and formal way stately (adj) impressive because large
practice (n) the business o f a doctor, and elegant
lawyer or other professional person stop (v) to block something such as a
prick up my ears phrase listen hole so that nothing, or no one, can
carefully get through
propagation (n) making something suffice (v) to be enough
increase in number swarm (n) a large crowd of people or
protrude (v) to stick out - be further insects
forward than the rest of something tack (n) a small nail
puckered (adj) half closed take the liberty of phrase do
put up the shutters phrase B ritish: something without permission
close a shop or business at the end of tenacious (adj) a tenacious person is
the day very determined and is not willing to
put yourself out phrasal verb to make stop when they are trying to achieve
a special effort to do something something
rattle (v) to move noisily and quickly thump (v) to hit something hard
reason (v) to persuade tint (n) colour
recommence (v) to start again tramp (v) to walk slowly for a long
relapse (v) to move back into your distance
previous position tug (v) to pull

utmost (adj) as much as possible, used withdraw (v) to leave a place or person
for emphasising a quality or feeling worth your while phrase having
vault (n) an underground room some benefit or advantage from doing
vice (n) a bad habit or personal quality something
wedge (v) to get into a small, tight wriggle (v) to move about making
place small twisting movements
wild-goose chase phrase an attempt wring (v) to hold very tightly
to find something that does not exist or writhing (adj) riioving by twisting and
that you are very unlikely to discover turning
The Blue Cross

amphitheatre (n) a large circular com pass (n) a piece of equipment used
construction used for entertainments for finding your way, with a needle that
such as sports competitions or plays always points to the north
array (n) a large selection condescend (v) to do something
blatant (adj) very obvious or noticeable which you consider to be below your
blear-eyed (adj) more usually bleary- usual position or level of intelligence
eyed not able to see clearly, usually confectionery (n) sweet foods such as
because tired or just woken up sweets and chocolates
bowed (adj) bent forward and down conjuring (n) performing magic tricks
brow (n) the top of a hill conscientiously (adv) having worked
bulge (n) a shape that curves outwards hard and carefully to do something
on the surface of something, often well
made by something under or inside it contagious (adj) spreading quickly
bulging (adj) sticking out from one person to another
bumpkin (n) an insulting word for a contour (n) the shape of the outside
person who lives in the countryside edge of something
by no means phrase in no way - used contrive (v) to succeed in doing
to emphasize a negative statement something, especially something
celibate (adj) someone who is not difficult
married and does not have sex crescent (n) a curved street
charge (v) to accuse someone of doing cue (n) an event, action or statement
something that tells someone indirectly that they
cheek (n) behaviour that is rude or should do something
does not show respect cul de sa c (n) a short street closed at
clash (v) to make a loud sound when one end, so that traffic cannot pass
closing a glass door hard, or hitting two through it
metal objects together curate (n) a priest
cleric (n) another word for priest dais (n) a platform or small stage in
clerical (adj) concerning priests a room that you stand on to make a
cloister (n) a covered path around speech
an open area in the centre of a deer-stalker (n) someone who is
large building such as a cathedral or hunting a deer
monastery despise (v) to hate someone or
something and have no respect for
them

dexterity (n) great skill gumption (n) the quality of being
dislodge (v) to move something from sensible and brave enough to do the
its place right thing in a difficult situation
disperse (v) to leave a place by going in the dead of night phrase at the
in separate directions quietest time of the night
drag (v) to take someone to a place inarticulate (adj) not able to express
they don’t want to go to clearly what you want to say
draggled (adj) usually bedraggled, infernal (adj) used for emphasizing how
wet, dirty and untidy unpleasant or annoying someone or
duchess (n) a woman of a very high something is
social position, just below that of a infimtesimally (adv) extremely
princess ingenuity (n) clever or new solution to
dusk (n) the period of time at the end a problem
of the day just before it becomes dark intercept (v) to stop or catch
elfin (adj) magic or mysterious something or someone before they can
enigma (n) mystery get to the place they are going to
enlightenment (n) an explanation islet (n) a small island
errand (n) job or purpose keep your eyes skinned (usually
facade (n) the front side of a building ‘keep your eyes peeled’) phrase look
farce (n) a play for the theatre in which very carefully for something
people get involved in silly or unlikely lucidity (n) ability to think and
situations that are intended to make communicate clearly
you laugh lumbering (adj) slow and heavy
fatalism (n) the belief that the future oddity (n) someone or something that
has already been decided and that you seems strange or unusual
cannot change or influence it orthodox (adj) accepted by most
fig (n) a soft fruit with purple or green people as the correct or usual idea or
skin and a lot of seeds inside practice
flock (n) the group of people who go to pall (v) to become less interesting or
a particular church less exciting
folly (n) a silly or careless mistake parson (n) a priest
foul (adj) very bad patchwork (n) something that consists
frontage (n) the front part of of many different and often confusing
something parts
frosted g lass (n) ornamental window penitent (n) someone who is sorry
containing patterns in the glass that for something bad that they have
you cannot see through done and who wants to change their
fuzzy-haired (n) with hair that is not behaviour, especially because of their
flat or smooth, probably because it has religious beliefs
not been combed or brushed perpetually (adv) without stopping,
gaiety (n) a feeling or state of happiness continuing all the time
and fun piously (adv) in a religious way
gilt (adj) made of, or looking like, gold plodding (adj) working hard at a slow,
gravity (n) a serious attitude steady rate

poached (adj) cooked in boiling stagnation (n) a situation where there
water (when describing eggs, it means is no progress or development
‘without its shell’) stoop (n) a way of walking or standing
prosaic (adj) ordinary and lacking in with your head and shoulders bent
imagination or excitement forwards and downwards
prostrate (adj) lying flat on the ground stray (v) to move away from the main
pursuer (n) person who is chasing after path
someone or something stroll (n) a slow walk for pleasure
pursuit (n) the process of chasing stumpy (adj) short and thick
someone or something in order to suck (v) to pull something out of
catch them somewhere
quarry (n) the animal or person being sullenly (adv) in a bad mood
hunted tangle (n) the untidy shape that things
rack your brains phrase, to think very make when they are twisted round
hard in order to find an answer to a each other
problem terminus (n) the end of a bus or train
recur (v) to happen again, repeat line
rhyme or reason phrase logical thicket (n) a lot of bushes and small
explanation trees growing very close together
roam (v) to move or travel with no thistle (n) a wild plant with a thick
particular purpose round purple or white flower and
sapphire (n) a hard clear blue stone leaves with sharp points
used in expensive jewellery thoroughfare (n) a main road through
scrap (n) a small piece of something a place
such as paper or cloth thread (v) to move carefully through
scrubs (n) poor housing a place
scrutinise (v) to examine something trot (n) a slow run
very carefully turmoil (n) a state of excitement or
shrubbery (n) several low, thick bushes uncontrolled activity
growing together turnip (n) a large round light-coloured
simpleton (n) someone who is not very root vegetable that grows under the
intelligent and knows little about the ground
world unaccountable (adj) difficult or
singular (adj) noticeable because of impossible to explain or understand
being strange or unusual unfathomably (adv) in a way that is
slow coach (n) British, someone who impossible to explain or understand
does things too slowly ungainly (adv) not in a graceful way
spangled (adj) full of stars wholesale (adj) on a large scale

Mother’s Help
altruism (n) a way of thinking or cuddle (v) if you cuddle someone, you
behaving that shows you care about put your arms round them and hold
other people and their interests more them close to show that you like or
than you care about yourself love them
antagonistic (adj) disliking someone curl your lip (v) to pull your top lip
or something very much and behaving upwards at one side in a way that
in a very unfriendly way towards them shows that you are annoyed or bored,
appalling (adj) very unpleasant and or do not respect someone
shocking dashing (adj) old-fashioned: attractive
apropos of (prep) formal: relating to: and fashionable in an exciting way
used for saying something else about dilemma (n) a situation in which you
the subject you are talking about have to make a difficult decision
backward (adj) not developing double glazing (n) windows or doors
quickly, normally and successfully that have two layers of glass, so that
bear up phrasal VERB to behave in a the building will be warmer and
brave way in a very sad or difficult quieter
situation drip (v) if a liquid drips, it falls in very
becoming (adj) old-fashioned: making small drops
you look attractive dust (n) very small pieces of dirt that
blight (v) to cause serious damage or cover surfaces inside buildings like a
harm to something powder
bogey (n) something that causes embark on phrasal verb to start a new
problems, or something that people project or activity, usually one that will
worry about; in, children’s stories, a be difficult and will take time
‘bogeyman’ enterprising (adj) willing to try or
brim (v) to be full of something think of new ideas or methods
bundle (n) a group of things that have entrance (v) if someone or something
been tied together, especially so that beautiful or impressive entrances you,
you can carry them easily you are so attracted by them that you
burglar (n) someone who enters a give them all your attention
building illegally in order to steal exhaust (v) to use all that you have of
things something
cajole (v) to persuade someone to do extortionate (adj) if a price or request
something by encouraging them gently for money is extortionate, it is much
or being nice to them higher than is reasonable
chap (n) a man, especially one that eye (v) to look at someone or
you like something carefully
chord (n) music: three or more musical fall into place phrase if the details
notes played together of a problem or puzzle fall into place,
clasp (v) mainly literary: to hold you suddenly understand how they
someone or something tightly with are connected and you can solve the
your hand problem
cobweb (n) a net that a spider makes fidget (v) to keep making small quick
out of thin sticky strings movements with parts of your body
croon (v) to sing in a slow, soft voice because you are bored, nervous or
impatient

fist (n) your hand when your fingers are hem (n) the bottom edge of something
closed tightly such as a dress or curtain that is folded
flatten (v) if something flattens, or if and sewn in place
you flatten it, it becomes flat or flatter hyperactive (adj) very active and
flattery (n) praise that is not sincere finding it difficult to concentrate or
but is intended to get you something relax
that you want hysterical (adj) behaving in an
fleet (n) a group of vehicles, planes, uncontrolled way because you are
boats or trains, especially when they extremely excited, afraid or upset
are owned by one organization or incongruous (adj) strange because of
person being very different to other things
fleshy (adj) covered with more than the which happen or exist in the same
usual amount of flesh situation
flimsy (adj) light and not providing indefensible (adj) impossible to defend
very much protection from criticism
fling (v) to throw something carelessly juggernaut (n) something that is very
or with a lot of force powerful, especially something that has
frenzied (adj) done in an extremely a bad effect
uncontrolled way, often by someone jumpsuit (n) a tight piece of clothing
who is crazy that covers the body and legs, and
ghastly (adj) shocking in a way that sometimes the arms
frightens or upsets you; very bad or knuckle (n) one of the parts where your
unpleasant fingers can bend or where they join
ghost (n) the spirit of a dead person your hand
that someone sees or hears lap (n) the top half of your legs above
giggle (v) to laugh in a nervous, excited your knees when you sit down
or silly way that is difficult to control lapel (n) one of the two parts at the
glazed (adj) a glazed look or expression front of a coat or jacket that are folded
shows no interest or emotion back on each side below the collar
grimace (v) to make an ugly expression leap (n) a quick jump
by twisting your face, for example lock (off hair) (n) a small piece of hair
because you are in pain or do not like from someone’s head
something loom (v) to appear as a large shape that
grudge (n) a feeling of anger towards is not clear, usually in a threatening
someone because they have done way
something to you that does not seem mannerism (n) a particular way of
right or fair speaking or moving that someone has
guarded (adj) not giving much m ass (n) a lump or amount of a
information because you do not want substance that does not have a clear or
someone to know everything about definite shape
something masterful (adj) skilled at controlling
harsh(ly) (adj/adv) harsh actions, people and situations; done in a very
words, judgements or laws are strict, skilful or clever way
unkind and often unfair mite (n) a child, especially one that you
feel sorry for
munch (v) to eat something using your
teeth and jaws in a noisy way

I
newcomer (n) someone who has scatter (v) to throw or drop thin gs so
recently started to live or work th at they spread over an area
somewhere, or who has just arrived in scold (v) to criticize som eone,
a place especially a child, severely and usually
obscure (v) to hide from view angrily for som ethin g they have done
of your own accord phrase to do wrong
something without being asked, forced score (v) to m ark a line in to the surface
or helped by someone else o f som ethin g
onslaught (n) an attack scowl (v) to twist your face into an
ordeal (n) an extremely unpleasant expression th at shows you are angry
experience, especially one that lasts for -self-abasement (n) behaviour that
a long time m akes other p eople respect you less
palmist (n) someone who claims to be sheer (adj) pure, com plete, sim ple -
able to tell you about your future by used for em phasizing the am ou nt or
examining the lines on your hand degree o f som ethin g
pelt (n) the skin or fur of an animal, sinister (adj) th reatenin g to do harm or
especially when it is used for making to do som eth in g evil
something slack (adj) n ot as busy or successful as
precocious (adj) a precocious child is usual in business
more intelligent or behaves in a more sluggish(ly) (adj/adv) n ot perform ing
developed way than you would expect or reactin g as well as usual; n ot m oving
for their age as quickly as usual
rack (n) an object used for storing snarl (v) to speak in an un pleasan t,
things that consists of a row of small angry way
shelves, spaces or hooks socket (n) a place on a surface or
raven (n) a large bird with shiny black m achine w ith h oles for co n n ectin g
feathers , a piece o f electrical equipm en t; the
recoil (v) to move quickly back from A m erican word is ‘o u tle t’
someone or something frightening or sodden (adj) com pletely wet
unpleasant soot (n) a dirty black pow der th at is
reproachful (adj) expressing criticism produced w hen you b u m som ethin g
or disappointment in a way that such as co al or w ood
is intended to make someone feel spell (n) a period o f tim e, usually a
ashamed short one
re-spray/respray (v) to change the squiggle (n) a line with a lot o f curves
colour of something, especially a car, in it
by spraying new paint on it; respray (n) squirm (v) to m ove by tw isting and
rile (v) to annoy someone turning in a sm all space
ruthless (adj) willing to make other strap in (v) to hold or keep som eon e or
people suffer so that you can achieve som ethin g in p o sitio n by tying a strap
your aims around them
sa ck (v) informal: to tell someone that struggle (v) to try hard to do
they can no longer work at their job som ethin g th at you find very difficult
satirical (adj) satirical writing or art subdued (adj) quiet and slightly sad or
uses humour to criticize people or worried; n o t very loud or bright
things and make them seem silly suffocate (v) to die because you
can n o t breathe, or to kill som eon e in
this way

tic (n) a sudden movement of a muscle tunnel (n) an underground passage
that you cannot control, especially a through which vehicles travel
muscle in your face unaccountable (unaccountably)
tiresome (adj) making you feel (adj/adv) formal: difficult or impossible
annoyed or bored to explain or understand
to have your hands full phrase to be unsightly (adj) used as a polite word
extremely busy with a difficult job for ugly
to take time off (here, to take the utter (v) literary: to say something; to
day off) phrase to choose not to go to make a sound
work for a specified period of time wan (adj) used about someone who
tricky (adj) difficult to do or deal with looks very sad
trowel (n) a small tool with a curved wander (v) to travel from place to
blade that is used in gardens for digging place, especially on foot, without a
small holes or digging plants out of the particular direction or purpose
ground wolfish (adj) looking as though you
tug (v) to pull someone or something by want to hurt or trick someone
making a short, strong movement
N o Place to Park
administer (v) to give someone a drug high-flier (n) someone who has
or medical treatment achieved a lot and is determined to
book (v) if the police book someone, continue being successful
they take them to the police station hone (v) to improve a skill or talent
and make a record of their crime that is already well developed
clenched (adj) closed tightly together ins and outs phrase all the details or
devoid of (adj) lacking something, facts that you need to know in order
especially a good quality to deal with a complicated situation,
dispose of (v) to get rid of something process etc
that you no longer need or want lap (v) if water laps something or laps
drought (n) a long period of time when against something, it moves against it
there is little or no rain and crops die gently with a soft sound
emulate (v) formal: to try to be like litany (n) a long, usually boring, list
someone or something else, usually of things that someone talks or writes
because you admire them about
fake (v) to pretend that something has lurch (n) a sudden uncontrolled
happened when it has not movement
frown upon phrasal verb to not outrageous(ly) (adj/adv) very
approve of something shocking or unreasonable
fumble (v) to try to hold, move or find outsmart (v) to gain an advantage over
something using your hands in a way someone, especially by using a clever
that is not skilful or graceful or dishonest trick
gestation (n) the development in your paddle (v) to swim slowly by moving
mind of an idea or plan, before you talk your arms or legs gently through the
about it to other people water
glint (v) to shine with quick flashes of panel (n) a group of people who make
light decisions or judgements

persist (v) to continue to do or say sprinkling (n) a small number of people
something in a determined way or things in a place
pest (n) an insect or small animal that stab (v) to make a movement with
damages plants or supplies of food your finger or a pointed object as if
pit against phrasal verb if you pit your you are knifing something, usually
skills, knowledge or ability against to emphasize something that you are
someone, you use all your skill in order saying
to deal successfully or compete with stretch out phrasalverb to lie down,
them usually in order to relax or to sleep
practitioner (n) someone who works tag along phrasalverb to go
in a particular profession, especially somewhere with someone else
medicine or law although you are not needed
predominantly (adv) mainly or mostly tax disc (n) a small round piece of
reel (v) to move backwards quickly; to paper on your car that shows you have
move in a way that is not steady, for paid road tax
example because of being drunk ticket (v) to give a ticket to a driver
serration (n) a serrated object such as who has committed a traffic offence
a knife or blade has a row of regular tousled (adj) tousled hair looks untidy
sharp points along its edge - each one in an attractive way
would be a serration unhindered (adj) not prevented from
spectrum (n) the whole range of ideas, making progress or developing
qualities; situations etc., that are urge (v) to advise someone very
possible strongly about what action or attitude
they should take
Dictionary extracts adapted from the Macmillan English Dictionary © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2002
www.macmillandictionary.com

Language study index
The Tell-tale Heart

Fronting 29
Past perfect simple and continuous 31

Formal language 73
Use of whom 75
Common idiomatic expressions 76
The Blue Cross

would: future in the past 113
Using do, does and did for emphasis 114
Uses of by 115
Mother’s Help
Using if to talk about hypothetical or imaginary situations 157
would have, could have, should have 158
Expressions with take 159
N o Place to Park
Uses of get 184
Common idiomatic expressions 185
Multiple-clause sentences 187
Macmillan Literature Collections: Language study index | 207

Macmillan Literature C ollections
These advanced-level Readers contain a variety of original short stories written
by famous classic and modern writers. They are perfect for those students who
are ready to make the transition from graded readers to unadapted English
literature texts.
Each collection provides substantial language support including vocabulary,

comprehension questions and language-study exercises. There is also a literary
analysis section to help students examine themes, characterisation and plot -
thus increasing their understanding and appreciation of each story.
Crime Stories
This collection of five stories brings together a variety of writing styles from the
genre of crime writing. From the adventures of the most famous of all detectives,
Sherlock Holmes, to the contemporary writings of Ruth Rendell and Alexander
McCall Smith, there will a story here to delight everyone.
The Tell-tale Heart Mother’s Help

by Edgar Allan Poe by Ruth Rendell
A cold-blooded killer plans the perfect History repeats itself for a nanny and
murder the family she works for
The Red-headed League No Place to Park

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Alexander McCall Smith
Sherlock Holmes solves an unusual A crime writer attempts a new kind of
case crime story
The Blue Cross Answer keys and further support are

by G K Chesterton available from the Macmillan Readers
The French head of police is on the trail website:
of a famous thief www.macmillanenglish.com/readers
Stadtbibliothek
N11 < 0 3 0 9 2 4 1 9 7 0 0
Neukolln / 1
ISBN 978-0-2304-1030-5
9780230410305
Use your M acmillan English

MACMILLAN Dictionary with this book.

Crime Stories PDF

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SH O R T S T O R IE S BY

Edgar Allan Poe

edited by Ceri Jones

M other’s H elp 121

N o Place to P ark 167

Essay questions 192

Each collection in the series includes:

4 | Macmillan Literature Collections

In addition, at the end of each book there are:

How to use these books

Macmillan Literature Collections | 5

History of the short story

Short stories in the twentieth century

6 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction

The short story today

Reading authentic literary texts in English

Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction I 7

You might want to make a note of words to look up later, especially

Preparing yourself for a story

8 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction

Tips for dealing with difficult words

Macmillan Literature Collections: Introduction I 9

10 | Macmillan Literature Collections: Using a dictionary

(iwitlJust wurwur ewuyl to lull owe to repose’

Macmillan Readers website

Macmillan Literature Collections: Using a dictionary | 11

Why do we like crime stories?

12 | Macmillan Literature Collections: The genre of Crime

Modern crime fiction in English

Macmillan Literature Collections: The genre of Crime | 13

14 | Macmillan Literature Collections: The genre of Crime

About the author

The Tell-tale Heart | 15

About the story

16 | The Tell-tale Heart

Death watch beetles

The Tell-tale Heart | 17

Preparing the crime

1 Look at the extracts below. Decide if the words in bold are

a) in a careful way so as to avoid problems and danger

18 | The Tell-tale Heart

[ beating a regular sound, like a drum or a heartbeat

Describing police procedures

The Tell-tale Heart | 19

1 I talked more quickly - more vehemently...

vehemently (adj) with extremely strong feelings

Madness and obsession

20 | The Tell-tale Heart

a) Why does he insist he isn’t mad?

Guilt and repentance

8 A s you read the story, ask yourself:

a) A t what point does he start to feel guilty for what he is planning to

The Tell-tale Heart | 21

T R U E ! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been

22 | The Tell-tale Heart

The Tell-tale Heart | 23

24 | The Tell-tale Heart

The Tell-tale Heart | 25

12 American spelling: labours, i.e. work

26 | The Tell-tale Heart

17 old-fashioned: (see hearken, footnote 2) listen

The Tell-tale Heart | 27

28 | The Tell-tale Heart