Description

The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in "Vanity Fair."

Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill, that it would sound like boasting.

The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare's Theatre stood on the present site of the "Times" office. It has a golden Grill which Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript of "Tom and Jerry in London," which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use sand to blot the ink.

Description

A cleverly atmospheric story-within-a-story with a twist, wherein four members of an exclusive London Gentleman’s Club take turns weaving a tale of a double murder. On the evening following the great fog of 1897, four strangers are dining at an exclusive gentleman’s club, while a fifth, Sir Andrew, is just finishing the last few pages of a pulp mystery novel. As Sir Andrew rises to leave, a visiting American diplomat announces that the previous evening, he stumbled upon the scene of a double murder which has left Scotland Yard detectives baffled. Sir Andrew listens raptly as each diner in turn each adds his own bits of background and theories about who could have killed the Russian princess and the young British adventurer. Two clever twists will have readers themselves feeling as though they, too, have been wandering in the fog.