patent-leather shoes

“Junie's eyes were closed, her patent-leather shoes swaying in time to the music.”

Mistress of Justice

“And realized that thirty years earlier they might have been called grand, but now they were hopelessly outmoded, shamefully old-fashioned compared to the shiny patent-leather shoes that clad the proud-stepping feet of the Costello twins and the Mahoney daughters.”

The Lightkeeper

“You don’t know the fellow across the road, Mossieu Michonnet as we call him … A gent who doesn’t like you to be too pally, who wears stiff collars as high as that, and patent-leather shoes … And Madame Michonnet!”

Maigret at the Crossroads

“Once he had walked, bare-headed, and in his patent-leather shoes and purple silk socks, with Connie down to the gate, talking to her in his well-bred rather haw-haw fashion.”

Lady Chatterley's Lover