The Duke in the Suburbs

by Edgar Wallace

"'It is useless arguing with you,' she said coldly." (Page [34])

THE DUKE IN THE SUBURBS

By

EDGAR WALLACE

Author of "Four Just Men," "The Council of Justice," etc

LONDON
WARD LOCK & CO LIMITED
1909

Dedication
TO
MARION CALDECOTT
WITH THE AUTHOR'S
HOMAGE

Author's Apology

The author, who is merely an inventor of stories, may at little cost impress his readers with the scope of his general knowledge. For he may place the scene of his story in Milan at the Court of the Visconti and throw back the action half a thousand years, drawing across his stage splendid figures slimly silked or sombrely satined, and fill their mouths with such awsome oaths as "By Bacchus!" or "Sapristi!" and the like. He may also, does the fine fancy seize him, take for his villain no less a personage than Monseigneur, for hero a Florentine Count, as bright lady of the piece, a swooning flower of the Renaissance, all pink and white, with a bodice of plum velvet cut square at the breast, and showing the milk-white purity of her strong young throat.