The Wooden Hand: A Detective Story — David Hume — John Shaqi
The Wooden Hand: A Detective Story
David Hume · en
The original cottage remained much as it was, with a thatched roof and
whitewashed walls. But to the left, rose a round tower built quite
in the mediæval style, to the right stretched a two-story mansion
with oriel windows, a terrace and Tudor battlements. At the back of
this, the building suddenly changed to a bungalow with a tropical
verandah, and the round tower stood at the end of a range of buildings
built in the Roman fashion with sham marble pillars, and mosaic
encrusted walls. Within, the house was equally eccentric. There was a
Spanish patio, turned, for the sake of the climate, into a winter
garden and roofed with glass. The dining-room was Jacobean, the
drawing-room was furnished in the Louis Quatorze style, Mr. Hill's
library was quite an old English room with casements and a low roof.
There were many bedrooms built in the severe graceful Greek fashion,
a large marble swimming-bath after the ancient Roman type, and Mr.
Hill possessed a Japanese room, all bamboo furniture and quaintly
pictured walls, for his more frivolous moods. Finally there was the
music-room with a great organ, and this room was made in the
similitude of a church. On these freaks and fancies Mr. Hill spent a
good deal of money, and the result was an _olla-podrida_ of
buildings, jumbled together without rhyme or reason. Such a
mansion--if it could be called so--might exist in a nightmare, but
only Mr. Hill could have translated it into fact. Within and
without, the place was an example of many moods. It illustrated
perfectly the mind of its architect and owner.