Death Under Sail

Nevertheless, I was annoyed with Roger. The party had already been sailing for a week before I could get away from London. He had told me to go by train to Wroxham and find my way on foot to a staithe near Salhouse. In his letter he had said:…‘it is easy to find and not very far.’ I told myself that I ought to have remembered that, since he began to deal with well-to-do women patients, Roger’s misplaced optimism had been considerably strengthened. So here I was at eight o’clock on a September night, amid a light rain carried by the fresh wind. I was getting damp – and I was beginning strenuously to resent the weight of my suitcase. I felt I was too old for this sort of thing.

Then I saw the glint of water over the reeds as the river turned towards the Salhouse marshes; a few hundred yards away the bare mast of a yacht stood black against the sky. The yacht was moored for the night, and there were patches of light through the portholes and a green shine under the canvas of the awning. As I hurried to it, I heard a booming voice which could only belong to one man in the world.

I never have heard anyone who made a noise like Roger. It was a welcome sound now, for I had a prospect of a comfortable seat in the cabin and a pretty girl to hand me a drink. With that in mind, I was prepared to forgive Roger his foghorn of a voice and even his causing me to tramp miles through a moist night.

I almost recovered my temper as I walked along the side of the staithe and called for Roger. There was a rumble of movement inside the yacht, and Roger’s head appeared between the flaps of the

being successful in life depends upon two gifts, and two only. One is, to know where to go for anything you want to get done; the other is, to be able to get it done for you.

Whenever I saw Avice I always felt that, had I been twenty years younger, I should have looked at her with even greater appreciation and much less ease of mind than I actually did. As it was, at my age, I was grateful for the pleasures of contemplation.
It seemed almost a shame for anyone to be as pretty as she was tonight. Only Avice could pour out drinks as though it were a task of great importance and charm, to be done with an air of