A Clue in Wax — Fred M. White

Excerpt

CLIFFORD CHERITON emerged from the bathroom into his modest sitting-room in a blithesome frame of mind. For it was one of those perfect April mornings of which the poet Browning speaks so feelingly, and which seldom comes in what is traditionally a month of tender greenery and sunshine. But here was an afternoon -- because it was afternoon -- full of flickering lights and shadows and even in the dingy square outside the prim house in Bennett-street the lilacs were in full bloom, and here and there a laburnum about to burgeon into its yellow chains. An afternoon for youth and happiness and everything that goes to make life a joy even in a drab London street.