The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House Read Online Free PDF Page A

were pickled in vinegar, and I frowned to wonder that a mere room could draw such disapproval. He pointed to the door to our side. ‘And here is the library. Mr Bray wishes you to make full use of it.’
    Up we went, Scone indicating Mr Bray’s bedroom and the bathroom, which he showed me with some pride. ‘Very modern, sir,’ he said, indicating the hot-water geyser to fill the bath. He insisted on showing me how to turn the taps on and off, both there and on the wash basin. ‘Right hand for the cold, left hand for the hot.’
    ‘Excellent,’ I said, as if I were used to such conveniences and not the freezing wash of school or the tin bath in front of the fire at home.
    On the next landing, Scone merely murmured, ‘The third floor here,’ waving a hand at the closed doors, and I presumed this contained Mrs Bray’s bedroom and perhaps some other private abode. We continued up to the fourth floor, where Scone indicated the study and ‘Mr Edward Bray’s bedroom’.
    ‘How often does he visit?’ I asked, maintaining a fake smile, hoping his stays were as infrequent as possible. My uncle was one of those men who enjoyed the state of being in a permanently foul mood, and being widowed so young had done nothing to improve his temper.
    ‘He has not yet found the time,’ said Scone mildly. ‘We hope we will see him at some point during the summer.’
    ‘Yes, quite,’ I muttered, and thought with some relief that Uncle Edward would probably see it as an indignity of the highest order to have to stay on one of the upper floors of a house that had once been his own, never mind that he no doubt considered said mistress of that house to be several rungs lower than him, socially.
    The fifth floor was the highest in the house, although at the top of another short flight of stairs was a closed door that I presumed led up to the servants’ quarters in the attic. There were two doors on the fifth floor, one ahead and one to our right. Scone opened this one, and I found myself in a pleasantly furnished room, with a canopied double bed, a fireplace, a writing desk and a sash window that was slightly open, letting in a cool breeze. Scone placed my suitcase on the bed and said, ‘Would you like me to unpack, sir?’
    ‘No, no,’ I said hurriedly, uncomfortable with the attention. ‘I’m quite all right now, thank you.’
    ‘Very good. Shall I send up some tea?’
    I grinned. ‘That would be marvellous.’ I looked around. ‘You’re very kind.’
    Scone snorted slightly. I suspected I had gone too far, and I blushed. I stepped back out on to the dark wood of the hallway. ‘What’s this door here?’ I said to Scone as he came out to join me.
    He obliged by twisting the handle and opening it. ‘The nursery, sir.’
    I caught a glimpse of a cot in one corner and a bed in another, presumably for the nanny. There was also a single ink-stained desk and a much-abused rocking horse, almost bald and with pieces gouged out from his face. One of his staring eyes had been coloured yellow, the other green, by a destructive childish hand.
    I turned back to Scone. ‘I didn’t know they had children,’ I said, although I supposed there was not any particular reason for me to know.
    ‘They don’t, sir.’ Scone smiled, and I had the impression he thought I was rather slow. ‘This used to be Mr Bray’s nursery.’
    ‘Ah. Of course.’ As I retreated from the room and Scone silently closed the door, I wondered why it had been kept as it was; although of course, I realized, blushing once more as Scone descended the staircase with aplomb, there would be future inhabitants of this nursery. I thought they might want to replace the horse, though; its mad staring eyes had rather unnerved me.
    I went back to my room and investigated it thoroughly. Alec was right: his parents’ London house was twice the size of Castaway, but that one, with its myriad, cavernousrooms and echoing hallways, had always intimidated me. This place, with