The background

Of course I had read about the case in the papers before coming here. Once the email had arrived inviting me to help solve the case I had made preliminary enquiries finding out as much as I could from various sources including the police, the hospital, the papers and relatives. It had taken a while and piecing it together had taken some effort but the following basic facts were established and verified.

It was a classic "locked room" case: on the 1st January 2013 at 01:01 Mr Arthur Court had been found in this very mansion in a critical state. He was lying in his bed drenched in blood with an absolute look of horror on his face. He had been stabbed once just below the sternum - the knife had grazed his heart but not punctured it...but that had been enough to send his body in to shock and for a significant period of time his heart had stopped beating. Although his heart was eventually re-started Mr Court never regained consciousness and 4 weeks later his brother had finally given up hope and nature had taken it's course within minutes of the life support machine being switched off. There had been no real choice really as since entering the hospital poor Mr Court had been bereft of higher order brain activity, independent breathing, or anything to indicate that the spark of life still burned in him.

The manner of his death would have been solid tabloid newspaper fodder on any day of the week - but Mr Court was the personal butler to Lord Harold Todd - possibly the only hereditary life peer in the House of Lords who was better known for being a Rock God. No stranger to controversy over the years the papers loved his stranger and stranger ways - although this latest (and longest) phase of paranoid recluse was wearing a little thin.

Now the gun-wielding bodyguard showed me in to a room (after frisking me - I had been frisked at the gates but you can never be too careful eh?) and there Lord Todd sat on a leather sofa regarding me thoughtfully. There was a low table in front of him of highly polished wood and on the table was a tray of highly polished silver and on the tray was a tea set of the finest most translucent china - laid out for one.