Fen Country Read Online Free PDF

miles the other side of Abingdon; and her cousin, Humphrey Linster. Three months previously, these two had gone off together on a long cruise, in an attempt to bolster up Lord Stretham’s failing health.
    The project had failed, however: Lord Stretham had returned to Horton Manor three days ago in an ambulance, bedridden. And although in himself he remained reasonably cheerful, there was no certainty that he would last out the year.
    On their return, the travelers had found Gina waiting for them at the house. She had wanted to do a drawing of an Adam fireplace in one of the rooms. Sketching, her hobby, now and again earned her a little pocket-money, and there was a series to be completed by the end of the week…
    “There are actually two Adam rooms in the manor,” she told Fen. “They’re connected, end to end; and a year ago Grandfather had them locked up, because they weren’t being used enough. He was quite willing to let me have the key—incidentally, he’d taken the key with him on the cruise—and also he asked me to stay a couple of nights, and of course I said I’d be glad to.
    “After I’d seen them settled in I duly went off and did my drawing. As Grandfather had warned me, it was very dusty and musty in there, after being shut up for so long. Oh, and I should explain that it was the fireplace in the first of the two rooms that I was interested in; I never went into the further room at all.
    “When I’d finished, I closed up the shutters again, and locked the door carefully after me. But having done that, I unluckily forgot, for the time being, to return the key. It stayed with me till after lunch the following day—yesterday, that is. Unfortunately, I’m quite sure that no one had the chance to ‘borrow’ it from me during the time it was in my possession.
    “The next thing that happened was that an acquaintance of Grandfather’s, a man called Henry Challis, dropped in unexpectedly for lunch (this is still yesterday I’m speaking of). And he wanted to look at the Adam rooms.
    “Grandfather asked my cousin Humphrey to show them to him after lunch, and told him to be sure not to miss the big eighteenth-century musical-box in the first room, and in the second, the pair of hideous great ornate gold candlesticks which someone had given to Gladstone in 1868 and Gladstone had hurriedly passed on to my great-great-grandfather; their gold made them worth about £400 apiece, Grandfather said, but aesthetically they were quite monstrous, of course.
    “So presently Humphrey and this man Challis came to me for the key to the rooms, which I still had, and they went off on their tour of inspection… Challis”—Gina grimaced—”well, I’m afraid there’s no possible chance of his having been in collusion with Humphrey; nor of his having told lies for any other reason.
    “Anyway, in they went, and Humphrey opened the shutters in the first room and left Challis playing with the musical-box there while he went on to let some light in on the further room. After a bit Challis joined him, and they saw straightaway that one of the candlesticks was missing.
    “Humphrey muttered that they ought both to be there, because they had been when he and Grandfather had been in the rooms just before they set off on the cruise. They should have been standing one at each end of the mantelpiece, he said: but now, only too obviously, the left-hand one had vanished.
    “When Challis heard this, he fetched a chair and got up on it—that particular mantelpiece is above eye-level—to have a closer look. And there he saw the—imprint, I suppose you’d call it, of the candlestick’s base: a clean, distinctively shaped patch without any dust on it worth speaking of.
    “They called Holmes, the manservant, and the three of them searched the room. No candlestick. The windows, as well as being shuttered, were nailed, and quite evidently neither they, nor the expensive lock on the door leading to the rest of the house, had been