The Grenadillo Box: A Novel by Janet Gleeson Read Free Book Online Page B

short grunting breaths, while registering the extraordinary metamorphoses of mere wood into towering bookcase, library table, steps, globes, and chairs.
    “Looks the part, don’t it, Hopson? Finest library in the county, I’ll wager.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “A grand setting for a spectacle?”
    “Indeed.”
    The dog retreated beside his master. I breathed more easily. It was weeks before I recalled those words and comprehended their true significance.

Chapter Three
    T hus to Lord Montfort’s dinner and the dreadful discovery with which this strange tale began. Eight people, in addition to the host himself, took their seats that afternoon at the fine mahogany dining table. Three were family members and residents of the household—Elizabeth, Montfort’s fragile young wife, I have already remarked; Robert, his nineteen-year-old son by a previous marriage, was heir to the estate, a handsome, strongly boned man, grandly dressed that evening as befitted the occasion; Margaret Alleyn, Lord Montfort’s spinster sister, had run the household for the past two decades. The five remaining guests comprised a pair of neighboring landowners, Lord Foley and Lord Bradfield and their respective wives, and a last-minute addition to the party—Montfort’s attorney, a man by the name of Wallace, who had been called in to attend on his lordship earlier in the day and had yet to be dismissed.
    My previous description of this assembly, its strange atmosphere and awkward guests, might perhaps have conveyed the impression that the event was from the start ill-fated, that the signs of the impending tragedy were all too evident to anyone with an ounce of sensibility. In truth I must confess that such a view, though easy enough in hindsight, does not give a true appraisal of the situation. I am no different from any man in that conclusions I draw are fashioned from the raw materials of experience and event. If I possess any special talent, it is that my profession has taught me to employ those materials more carefully than most men, for my skill depends upon my capacity for meticulous precision. In this case, however, my materials were sparse. I was unfamiliar with the household. The strained atmosphere did not unnerve me because I presumed it to be the usual state of affairs. In any case how could I judge the household accurately, being so unaccustomed to such grandeur? Devoid of any similar experience, I knew only what I saw.
    My encounter with Lord Montfort the previous day had shown me he was a man prone to outbursts of choleric ill-humor, who frequently evoked uneasiness in those surrounding him. Thus it did not seem unusual that his temper, far from improving, showed signs of further deterioration. Yet, as the evening drew on, the extremes of Montfort’s moroseness threw a shadow over the proceedings that appeared to surprise his guests and family. Dinner was under way when the first of them remarked it. His neighbor Lord Bradfield, a man of large girth and matching appetite, had interrupted his imbibing of turtle soup to recount a prized fragment of gossip. “The bishop was actually pleased when he found himself to have the itch. Said it was of no concern where he caught it, for it would help him keep his mistress to himself.”
    Ignoring his wife’s glare, Bradfield paused and slurped a spoonful of soup, spilling a large droplet upon his purple damask jacket, which was already much spattered with the residue of good dinners. If Bradfield expected to gather encouragement from his host, he was sadly disappointed. Montfort stared at him bulbous-eyed, scowling, silent. The ladies on either side were equally aloof. His sister, Margaret, seemed preoccupied. Elizabeth, his wife, lowered her eyes and shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
    All this while I was standing ramrod-still by the sideboard, waiting for the footman’s signal to clear away. I should say here that I’d never waited at table before and had only stepped in when pressed