Chapter EightThe household was in shock.
It was not that Mr Fortey was particularly loved, but that he had died in such a horrible way and in the presence of almost everyone. Literally all of us must have been only a few feet away, yet no one had heard or seen anything. People were whispering; if something like this could happen to a strapping veteran like the footman it could have happened to any of us.
After a busy and rather painful day I headed for my room, climbed into bed, and slept like a log. I had propped a chair against the underside of my door handle and tied the latches to the large bay windows with shoelaces, but surely these were precautions anyone who had taken two solid hits to the cranium within as many days would make.
I woke the next morning to someone politely but in
