I slept in the bedroom used by Sabine Baring-Goulds wife when I was researching The Moor, and later the Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.

What does it mean, to lose one's mind? Where does it go? If a man is out of his mind, where is he? What is insane when the world is mad by contrast?

But a topee is not a turban, and I had been my teacher's pupil before I became my husband's wife, learning to my bones that half a disguise is none at all...The moment my short-cropped, pomade-sleek, unquestionably masculine hair passed beneath his nose was the closest thing I've ever seen Holmes to fainting dead away.

Pride is a sweetmeat, to be savoured in small pieces; it makes for a poor feast.

When you're putting together a story, sometimes you just have to skip over the boring bits.

Why the devil was my husband positively grinning - and with what looked remarkably like relief?

That's what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate.