“… a glass of rich port upon the malachite table at his elbow. As he raised it to his lips, he held it up against the lamplight, and watched with the eye of a connoisseur the tiny scales of beeswing which floated in its rich ruby depths.”
…probably the most elegant elbow-trigger in literature, the quiet interval immediately before an interruption in Douglas Stone’s life, eventually making “his great brain about as valuable as a cap full of porridge…”
The description of Stone’s character as a great surgeon is masterful, as is his passion for Lady Sannox despite her being married. Lord Sannox is equally described as the inverse to the prowess of Stone…. But if you have already read this unmissable horror story, and I myself had missed it till today, you will know that I cannot say more about it without spoiling it!
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