When a writer admits that he has an affection for something which he has written, it is high time to pray for his soul.

A frequent social – and then romantic – Elm Tree Road visitor was Bettine (Athalia) Stokes Edwards an American girl who danced in Chu Chin Chow (and daughter of Robert Ewing Edwards of Philadelphia Pennsylvania) who became Mercer’s first wife. They subsequently took ship for South Africa arriving in Salisbury Southern Rhodesia in 1941. Besides the two genres in which he specialised some of Yates' novels do not easily fall into either the humorous or the thriller category.

The pen name Dornford Yates first in print in 1910 resulted from combining the surnames of his grandmothers – the paternal Eliza Mary Dornford and the maternal Harriet Yates.