The Impostor. By David Whitelaw. (Hodder and Stoughton. 68.1—There is
some virtue, after all, in a story which is quite conventional. When we are told that the hero " rose from his chair with a smothered oath " we know our whereabouts to a nicety ; and we willingly renew our friendship with those letters which 'invariably get pushed " beneath the cover of the over- hanging pigeon-holes of the bureau," instead of being burnt, as is the-way 'in our unromantic world. Certainly Mr. Whitelaw is not fettered by the probabilities; and might well give us a synopsis of his characters, thus :— RICLIARD VANE, who escapes from gaol after wrongful imprisonment in place .of
1)ENts DETmot.b, son of
SIM CHRISTOPHER Dsrstme, who, wishing to restore Vane, determines to pass him off as his nephew, ItEGINALD DETMOLD, supposed to hare died in Pancorbo.
HERBERT TREWELL, a fraudulent bank clerk, who discovers and assumes the clothes and position intended for Vane.
But it is impossible to tell with equal brevity the subsequent complications : how Sir Christopher was foully murdered, how "The Creole " lost the Stewards' Cup, how the chief villain came to a bad end. Mr. Whitelaw evidently considers nothing of any importance save the plot of his story, and he mixes his metaphors
so thoroughly that on p.• 60 the villain remarks brilliantly "When you find it [the world] with its guard down, you drop your hands and throw up the sponge."
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