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Before he created Horatio Hornblower, C. S. Forester wrote this tight, unsettling crime novel, published in 1926. William Marble is a struggling London bank clerk buried in debt when a wealthy young nephew arrives from abroad, carrying a small fortune. Marble poisons him and hides the body in the back garden, and from that moment the money he killed for becomes a torment rather than a rescue. He cannot spend it without drawing suspicion, cannot bear to leave the house that hides his crime, and slowly comes apart under the strain. Forester studies guilt and self-destruction with cold precision, and a bitter stroke of irony waits at the end. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.