By foul means

"By Foul Means" by Patrick Leyton is a mystery novel written in the late 1920s. It centers on Hermione Rodenberg, a newly rich widow with a hidden first marriage, who retreats to the bleak Scottish estate of Ardenmore and becomes entangled in whispers of smuggling and a past that refuses to stay buried. Her confidant, the artist Frank Daneham, carries the secret of a fatal quarrel that ruined the life of Dominic Arden—Hermione’s first love—while the controlling Colonel Bessington presses his unwelcome suit. Signals from an old sea tower, missing heirlooms, and a cryptic scrap of paper hint that Hermione’s lost past may be closer than she dares believe. The opening of the novel sets the stage in London, where Daneham tells a friend how the hot‑tempered Dominic Arden struck down his bullying colonel after a vile slur about Hermione; Daneham helped Dominic flee, and a mangled body later identified as his seemed to end the matter. Hermione, now wealthy but restless, buys back Ardenmore and arrives with her stalwart companion Iza Marsh, only to find Dominic’s old turret room stripped and the house watched by wary locals. Inspector Mackay appears, probing rumors of smuggling tied to the nearby coastal tower, and shows Hermione a torn note bearing the exact date of Dominic’s disappearance—an eerie shock. That night Hermione and Iza see red and green signals blaze from the tower and hear motor‑boats depart, yet the rooms are empty. Determined not to alert the police, Hermione summons Daneham, who rushes north as gossip reveals Bessington is conveniently staying within reach; together, Hermione and Daneham begin parsing the signs, wondering whether the tower’s secret and the vanished relics point to smugglers—or to a man long thought dead. (This is an automatically generated summary.)