title: Mouseton Abbey: The Missing Diamond
author: Joanna Bicknell
description: Nick Page is a writer, information designer, and creative consultant. He has written a number of books, including street life, The Tabloid Bible, Lord Minimus, BLUE, and The Church Invisible. He also writes regular articles for Youthwalk, Christianity &amp; Renewal, and works for a number of charities and NGOs. He and his wife, Claire, have three daughters and live in Eynsham in Oxfordshire, England.
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  # The Spinster
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Robert Hichens
  
  
  This page formatted 2007 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
      
  
  Produced by David Widger
  
  
  
  
  
  THE SPINSTER
  
  
  By Robert Hichens
  
  
  Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers
  
  
  Copyright, 1905
  
  
  I had arrived at Inley Abbey that afternoon, and was sitting at
  
  
  dinner with Inley and his pretty wife, whom I had not seen for five
  
  
  years, since the day I was his best man, when we all heard faintly the
  
  
  tolling of a church bell. Lady Inley shook her shoulders in a rather
  
  
  exaggerated shudder.
  
  
  “Someone dead!” said her husband.
  
  
  “It's a mistake to build a church in the grounds of a house,” Lady
  
  
  Inley said in her clear, drawling soprano voice. “That noise gives me
  
  
  the blues.”
  
  
  “Whom can it be for?” asked Inley.
  
  
  “Miss Bassett, probably,” Lady Inley replied carelessly, helping
  
  
  herself to a bonbon from a little silver dish.
  
  
  Inley started.
  
  
  “Miss Sarah Bassett! What makes you