The Devil’s Paw

Description

The only two residents of the rather scruffy chalet salon, loitered over the harbor, they were relatively humans and associates, seamlessly at ease with their situations and company. Out there, the wind was hollering over the fens, and random gusts of rain came pouring out against the window. Inside was coziness, winning over different circumstances.

The plain table was covered with thin linen cloth, the glasses are creatively designed; there were walnuts and, in a distant part, displayed cigarettes from a well known tobacconist. Over the small haven were all the proofs of a rented house. A hole in the curtains was secured by a safety pin. The chairs have damaging antimacassars, the portraits which decorated the walls were surreal but usual of village archetypes, the carpet was tattered, the door is held by a latch instead of a knob.

The side of the room was strewn with golf clubs, a large game bag and some boxes of cartridges. Two shotguns rest on the sofa. It barely required the appearance of Miles Furley, the owner, to explain that this was the temporary residence of a visitor to the Blakeney fens in pursuit of some game.

Edward Phillips Oppenheim was an English author, in his days a noteworthy and successful novelist of genre fiction such as thrillers.

Edward Phillips Oppenheim was born on October 22, 1866 in Leicester, to his parents Henrietta Susannah Temperley Budd and Edward John Oppenheim, a leather entrepreneur. He was employed in his father’s leather business for around twenty years. He attended the Wyggeston Grammar School.

His literary prestige made him buy a villa in France and a yacht, next to a residence in Guernsey, although all of his properties were lost during the World War II. Fortunately, he got back the house, le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, and he died there on February 3, 1946.
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