all, who knew anything about the character and
antecedents of Susan? As for Mr. Wyse, was he not a constant visitor to
the fierce and fickle South, where, as everyone knew, morality was
wholly extinct? And how, if it was all too true, should Tilling treat
this hitherto unprecedented situation? It was terrible to contemplate
this moral upheaval, which might prove to be a social upheaval also.
Time and again, as Miss Mapp vainly waited for news, she was within an
ace of communicating her suspicions to the Padre. He ought to know, for
Christmas (as was usual in December) was daily drawing nearer....

There came some half-way through that month a dark and ominous
afternoon, the rain falling sad and thick, and so unusual a density of
cloud dwelling in the upper air that by three o'clock Miss Mapp was
quite unable, until the street lamp at the corner was lit, to carry out
the minor duty of keeping an eye on the houses of Captain Puffin and
Major Benjy. The Royce had already lumbered by her door since
lunch-time, but so dark was it that, peer as she might, it was lost in
the gloom before it came to the dentist's corner, and Miss Mapp had to
face the fact that she really did not know whether it had turned into
the street where Susan's lover lived or had gone straight on. It was
easier to imagine the worst, and she had already pictured to herself a
clandestine meeting between those passionate ones, who under cover of
this darkness were imperviously concealed from any observation (beneath
an umbrella) from her house-roof. Nothing but a powerful searchlight
could reveal what was going on in the drawing-room window of Mr. Wyse's
house, and apart from the fact that she had not got a powerful
searchlight, it was strongly improbable that anything of a very intimate
nature was going on there ... it was not likely that they would choose
the drawing-room window. She thought of calling on Mr. Wyse and asking
for the loan of a book, so that she would see whether the sables were in
the hall, but even then she would not really be much further on. Even as
she considered this a sea-mist began to creep through the street
outside, and in a few minutes it was blotted from view. Nothing was
visible, and nothing audible but the hissing of the shrouded rain.

Suddenly from close outside came the sound of a door-knocker imperiously
plied, which could be no other than her own. Only a telegram or some
urgent errand could bring anyone out on such a day