It was late evening when John Penhale left the Helston lawyer’s office. A fine drizzle was blowing down Coinage Hall Street; thin beams of light pierced the chinks of house shutters and curtains, barred the blue dusk with misty orange rays, touched the street puddles with alchemic fingers, turning them to gold. A chaise clattered uphill, the horses’ steam hanging round them in a kind of lamp-lit nimbus, the post-boy’s head bent against the rain. Outside an inn an old soldier with a wooden leg and very drunk stood wailing a street ballad, both eyes shut, impervious to the fact that his audience had long since left him. Penhale turned into “The Angel,” went on straight into the dining-room an…
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