A pity that the end was so abrupt. Another bad finale. The book wasn't bad, Wallace wrote very well and I like his style, but this time the end was not satisfactory at all. The story: Farrington is a rich, respectable man on the surface, but under the name of Fallock he is also a merciless blackmailer and a murderer. He is the guardian of young beautiful Doris, the only person in the world he loves. Poltavo is a criminal: he has quite a record set for himself and now he works for Fallock. Frank is a young man passionately in love with Doris, and in good terms with Farrington, who gives him an assignment: find out who is the heir of the Tollington's fortune, the only descendant of a woman that went away with her husband and never let her family know where she was or how she was now called. Lady Constance Dex is a woman that lost the true love of her life because of Fallock and now wants revenge (although her beloved was quite something, leaving her and his Country just because he heard voice that her past conduct had not been honorable, not thinking of talking to her about it!)
T.B.Smith and Ela are detectives hunting down these criminals.
Poltavo takes a fancy to Doris, enough to confuse her. He speaks of real sentiment but we're told that he's not new to this kind of thing, and usually it is "real" only for a short period of time then he gets tired. Farrington fakes his death not just to avoid prison or revenge, but mostly because of Doris. In his will she'll discover that she's to marry Frank or she'll lose all her fortune. She feels obviously forced and up in arms over this. She's young and inexperienced and is not sure about her feelings. Right now she likes Frank but doesn't love him, however when she receives a letter from her supposed-to-be-dead-guardian urging the marriage for his safety, she complies. She marries Frank and only now the whole of Farrington's plan for her is clear: he has used her fortune and she has nothing left, that's why the marriage was so important: Farrington knew all along that Frank was the Tollington heir. He had known for years, and that's why he killed his father (Constance's lover) so that Frank might be heir. We know nothing more of these two: will she love him? Will he keep true to himself and his own words and love her now (penniless) as he loved her before (rich)? Nobody will ever know.
Farrington is hidden in the Secret House, a thing that made me think "uh, like Harry Potter's school!" only the rooms here moved not by magic but by electricity....
His accomplice Fall is just as bad as he is. In that house they will kill Poltavo before he has a chance to betray them to Smith, and to do so they use their very own electric chair, only it is described to be a very, very quick death..
Constance is taken prisoner and freed by mere chance by Smith and Ela, and again we know nothing more of her. The detectives discover the secret of the house but Smith is taken prisoner and about to be electrocuted, so Ela runs to cut off the power to the house, just in time. T.B. will shoot Farrington: the end. Just like that. Not a word more. We can imagine, of course, Fall being convicted, Constance trying to move on, Doris and Frank managing their married life... but I would have liked to read about it, not imagine it by myself, there was no satisfaction in this ending at all.
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