THE CROW AND THE CAT

A cunning little conte of crime and perpetual punishment about two equally reprehensible young men--Godfrey Dean and his associate, Ben, who spend considerable time together in France (""roger""-ing young women; dealing in counterfeit money) before Ben goes on to serve time alone--eight years in prison. With some mortification Godfrey keeps looking back on his betrayals of Ben, particularly the seduction of one of his young women, before Ben emerges to join him in the beautifully appointed Wall House in Oxfordshire Godfrey's inherited and then goes on to appropriate one thing after another, including the domestics' daughter Heather. After their sudden marriage, Ben and Heather return to Wall House apparently forever and Godfrey is never to be spared the nocturnal echoes of their conjugal fervor. . . . Not as sentimentally appealing as last year's Spring Snow and Algy but just as predatory and retaliatory as it's intended to be. Most to be admired, since one can hardly warm up to either Godfrey or Ben, are the seamless transitions between then and now. Here de Polnay, suave practitioner that he is, is technically irreproachable.