As has been our policy in previous publications of Leo Bruce texts, we have, for the sake of consistency, mostly (though not always) followed the spelling and punctuation of the earliest novels—“shew” is used instead of “show” (when a verb), for example, “criticise” is altered to “criticize” and “realise”, “recognise” and “apologise” (and their permutations) are severally changed to “realize”, “recognize” and “apologize” (and their permutations), direct speech is enclosed within double quotation marks, “’phone” is used for the shortened form of “telephone” instead of “phone”, stops are included with such abbreviations as “Dr.” and “Mr.”, “armchair” is hyphenated but “finger-print” is unhyphenated—in all texts.
In A Bone and a Hank of Hair, these additional changes occur:
“was” has been altered to the subjunctive “were” in “to see if he was being watched” (Chapter Seven, p. 61), in “if he was not careful” and “If he was told about the family home” (Ch. Twelve, p. 108), in “as though Mr. Mumford was right” and “Unless he was wrong” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 119) and in “but whether this was self-administered” (Ch. Eighteen, p. 165);
“on” was inserted before “whom” in “It depends whom we mean by ‘she’.” (Ch. Seven, p. 68);
for the sake of consistency, “number” was capitalised in “Carolus found number 47” and “number 45” (Ch. Eight, p. 68);
“1920’s” was altered to “1920s” (Chapter Nine, p.86);an “a” was inserted before “month” in “It can’t have been more than month later” (Ch. Ten, pp. 91-92);
a “the” was inserted before “time” in “I can’t remember time, not to the year” (Ch. Ten, p. 93);“a-gog” was altered to “agog” (Ch. Eleven, p. 98);
in order for the slight joke to work, since Mr. Gorringer immediately comprehends poison, “I t’ink I smella da Rathbone” was altered to “I t’ink I smella da Rathbane” (Ch. Eleven, p. 101);
the phrase “whisky and soda” was twice, for consistency with other texts, hyphenated (Ch. Eleven, p. 101 & Ch. Seventeen, p. 163);the comma was repositioned after the comment within parentheses instead of after “well” in “door as well, (doubtless by arrangement with its owner)” (Ch. Twelve, p. 109);
the period after “No” was altered to a comma and “Then” was altered to “and” in the subsequent “Then it was in a low voice” (Ch. Twelve, p. 115);commas were inserted before and after “which a child can climb” in “railings of the iron hurdle type which a child can climb with a few shrubs behind them” (Ch. Thirteen, p. 124);
a comma was inserted after “’phone” in “Will you ’phone Mr. Humbell?” since Mr. Humbell is being addressed not ’phoned (Ch. Fourteen, p. 129);
a colon was inserted after “it” in “There was no doubt about it she was very much afraid” (Ch. Sixteen, p. 149);
an “a” was inserted before “man” in “each of the tragedies is the story of man” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 174);
a comma was inserted after “Charlotte” in “sister Charlotte who was” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 175);
“she” was inserted before “then” in “then tried to cover it” (Ch. Nineteen, p. 179);
the Latin phrase “vice versa” was italicised (Ch. Nineteen, pp. 181);
the ungainly “ ‘Frenchy’s’ ” (Ch. Twenty, p. 184) was altered to “Frenchy’s”;
“a certain skill in make-up, enough, anyway” was repunctuated to “a certain skill in make-up—enough, anyway” and a comma was inserted after “ear-rings” in “the ear-rings the dentures” (Ch. Twenty, p. 186).
Page references are to the first edition of A Bone and a Hank of Hair by Leo Bruce, published by Peter Davies (London, 1961); the Academy Chicago Publishers edition of 1985, by the way, has exactly the same pagination.
