The Great Skene Mystery by Bernard Capes — Read

On entering the dining-room at Evercreech, I found company assembled. I had not been warned, and I was not introduced. I came in late, and took my seat at the table quietly, being placed between Mr Pugsley and a lady whom I did not know. I learned, however, in due course, that she was a Mrs Dalston, who, with her husband, also present, was a new-comer in the neighbourhood. The two had taken the Lone Farm, a decent but rather decayed property situated on the outskirts of Market Grazing, and foolishly reputed to be haunted. But it was inexpensive -- perhaps because of its reputation -- and fully adequate to the needs of a childless couple. The only other guest was, to my pleasure, Sir Maurice Carnac, who had earlier shown me friendship, and who was down somewhere in Hampshire for the shooting.

But he looked little capable of shouldering a gun, and was altogether sadly altered from my memory of him, having but lately, as I learned, recovered from a paralytic stroke, whose passing had left him much debilitated. He lay sunk in his chair, like a heap of human ashes, and with all the old fire of roguery smouldering low in him. But he seemed to awaken suddenly on my entrance, and looking across at me as I sat down, treated me to a leer and wink.