Sentence The Fourth

There was nothing of the ascetic about Daphne Dumbiedykes – a lover of fine Malt Whisky and Selkirk Bannock, of Cruachan and Double Cream – but at that moment she felt overawed by the possible consequences of what she now understood, the ramifications of a deceitful misuse of power by an ancestor of Hamish Saloman, revered former leader of a political party which presently stood on the very brink of that power towards which his long life had striven – now regarded as the Elder Statesman of his Movement and, though no longer wielding omnipotent power over his followers, yet still regarded with a popular fondness little short of reverence rarely felt for politicians of any persuasion – how, she wondered, would the shameful conduct of his ancestor Sir Parlane MacFarlane whom she had just that instant identified as the instigator of the terrible persecution and death of the “sainted” Scottish Nun, Sister Evadne Eglentyne (Daphne regularly varied her spelling of Sister Evadne's surname to encompass and celebrate the many styles the Sister had herself employed) cast its long shadow over Mr Saloman and how should she herself present her discovery and – like a lightbulb switching on in her head – she nodded and smiled to herself as she recalled that her closest friend, companion and confidant, Maude Lyttleton – dear, gauche, Maude, popularly perceived as a luckless, accident-prone stumbler-through-life, yet possessed of a rapier wit and acutely perceptive – was herself a Great Aunt, Thrice Removed of Hamish Saloman's mother, Greta MacGregor and Daphne was momentarily at a loss as to what that made her relationship to Mr Saloman himself – but no matter, for the nonce it sufficed that she now knew how best to proceed with her discovery, until, at that very instant, the rusty iron trap-door of the oubliette swung upwards with a creak and a squeal and a clank and a groan as she heard two bolts being shoved into place above her head and then the echo of feet hurrying away into the distance and she was left, trapped, fifty deep metres below the cobbles of Edinburgh's High Street, without even a mobile phone to give her any hope of summoning rescue!