Daphné Du Maurier

Always contriving, pretending, covering up inefficiency. But if it
continued through the years, what then? There must be some way out, and
not stagnation. She remembered the old scandal sheets, a halfpenny a copy,
thumbed by grubby fingers in the taverns. Hot for a few nights only,
sniggered at, discussed, then used to wrap a cod’s head for the cat. Found
later, sodden, in the gutter. This was the stuff produced by Mr. Hughes, by
Blacklock in the Royal Exchange, by Jones in Paternoster Row, by
countless others up and down the town. Who wrote the smut? Some third-
rate scribbler with an ailing wife. Why not a woman? Easy enough to
persuade Joseph to an outing, to seek out eating houses where the
publishers met. Easy to mix with them, chat and throw out hints, discover
their dingy names, their drab addresses. And while Joseph rattled dice,
talked big and played the gentleman, she learned the tittle-tattle required,
the stuff which fed the market.