Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. An older used book that has been read but is in good condition. Pages in good condition. Ex library book but still in good condition. Some tanning and marking.

About the book >.>.> WEST END CLUBMAN FOUND DEAD.’ Any practised reader seeing the words in today’s evening paper can be tolerably certain without glancing further that at the bottom of the area steps of a basement in Paddington a frequent visitor to Bobbie’s or Buntie’s or the New Cha-Cha Club (Members Only) has been found knifed. He is probably described into the bargain as a company director and the police are anxious to interview three other members of the club-one of them believed to be an American airman-who may be able to assist them in their enquiries. To every generation its own mental images. In the period with which this book is largely concerned such a headline conveyed a very different picture: a passing from this life to the next so gentle and painless in its black leather armchair that the moment of transition was not even noticed unless perhaps the newspaper fell from the proprietory grasp with a rustle deafeningly loud in the rich brown silent gloom. Or else in the gaslit tiled passage leading to the lavatory Death would be waiting mercifully unannounced by the weighing machine and the West End clubman-no company director he; that would be a positive disqualification in many coteries- would be found on his back beneath the hanging coats gazing up in sightless surprise at the coved glass ceiling. (SP)