POLITE GANGSTER

Southland Times, Issue 23676, 26 November 1938, Page 14

POLITE GANGSTER

BEAU MASQUE. By H. M. E. Clamp. Michael Joseph Ltd., London, through Whitcombs and Tombs Ltd. Price 7/6. Quil Mander is in a dubious London cellar devoted to after-hours drinking when a masked stranger appears at the top of the steps and nonchalantly effects a hold-up at the point of an automatic. Only Quil ventures to protest, and re- - ceives a hasty kiss for her pains. Thereafter the young woman has a disturbed mind and is drawn gradually into a strange experience. For it seems that “Beau Masque” is an eccentric nobleman who indulges his sentimental regard for the poorer classes by robbing the Hch and spending the proceeds on a coffee stall and oilier odd types of social service. But that is not the end of the story. The Beau is a descendant of a romantic peer who became an amateur. highwayman, thereby meeting Lucinda Bafhabus, the lovely daughter of an aiderman. It becomes plain that Quil is really Lucinda and that the polite gangster is really the former highwayman; and when the two moderns are married the old romance is allowed to complete itself. Before full happiness is achieved, however, the author has to manipulate two stories, one of the present and one of a past generation, which run side by side throughout the book. The transitions are not always satisfying, and the plot is extremely improbable. But there are some amusing situations, and the principals have a kind of fairy-tale attractiveness.