The Four Corners of the World

A solicitor's evening walk becomes a discussion of a client's troubling change in character. In the opening story, Mr. Twiss asks Captain Brayton about Archie Cranfield, whose secretive manner has worried his acquaintances. Brayton accepts an invitation to Cranfield's Elizabethan country house, and a puzzling death soon brings Twiss an urgent request for help. Guarded conversations and the house's uneven windows, low ceilings and riverside position give the mystery a concrete setting.

A. E. W. Mason's collection includes The Clock, The Crystal Trench and The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel. Another passage follows Glynn as he hears Thresk describe an attempt to make a dog perceive Channing. Their exchange places competing explanations beside one another, allowing fear to unsettle even a practical observer. These short stories offer readers suspense built from unusual encounters, accounts that invite doubt and the difficulty of understanding another person's private thoughts.