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Arriving late, you see that “manor estate” hardly
describes Hanover’s spread. A small English township would be more like it.
Stephen escorts you to the main entrance.
Without warning he pulls out a remote and triggers a thrilling sequence of events.
From enormous speakers mounted high, a symphonic overture blasts across the lawn.
Thunder and lightning erupt all over the place.
A statue of William Shakespeare comes to life and recites a passage from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, followed by a likeness of Lord Hanover himself,
which appears as a giant holographic image that welcomes you to his estate.
As his visage fades away, you find your driver has also vanished.
But the spectacle has jogged your memory.
Now you know where you’d seen this “Stephen” before-in photos, on the Internet.
Only in those pictures he was Hanover’s inventor/partner, Lord Rollinsby,
sans handlebars and muttonchops.
Puzzled, you enter the Manor House.
The place is deserted. For the first half hour you cannot find a single soul.
But several disturbing events occur.
Almost immediately you discover you’re locked in.
The lobby phones don’t work. Then your bags turn up missing when you momentarily leave them unattended.
You notice oddities and coincidences.
There are no clocks anywhere.
The featured artists in a music program playing throughout the manor are an English avant-garde group
you’d never heard of until you happened to run across them just last week.
Among the numerous (and otherwise Western) manor paintings, unaccountably hangs a portrait of the late Japanese emperor Hirohito, about whom
you’d recently read a favorable profile in Time magazine.
Eventually you do find servants.
But all of your initial encounters are confusing.
At reception, Penelope Stratton incorrectly informs that your room is ready and unlocked, but she has disappeared by the time you return to tell her it
isn’t.
At the butler’s office, Farnsworth hands you a letter your uncle left and slams the door in your face.
Chef Le Clercq, though able to speak passable English, pretends he can’t understand a word
you’re saying when you see him emerging from a room as if caught in some illicit act.
In separate encounters with publican
Bruce Sherlock in the Falstaff; head housekeeper Mildred Simmons on the second-floor rotunda; headwaiter
Thomas Sutherland in the Billiards Room & Whisky Bar; and doorman
Reggie McCabe and manor chauffeur Savannah Reddy in the lobby, all are extremely welcoming.
But after asking you to wait momentarily while they go to fetch refreshments or attend to your room key and baggage, they never return.
And all of your attempts to find them are fruitless.
This is definitely not what you were expecting when accepted your uncle’s invitation to hurry to England.
This last frustrating encounter has left you on a sofa near the fireplace where you read the local newspaper and your
uncle’s latest letter.
He does not explain the family relationship;
only promises there is nothing sordid about the connection and that eventually all will be revealed.
He concludes by urging you to win over the entire staff,
despite determined opposition you can expect from some quarters.
Then, as you’re about to doze off, a painting above the mantel morphs into the face of Lord Hanover,
who whispers to you to hurry to your room because it is now unlocked. Inside,
you find your baggage, the key the receptionist left, and two of the four documents your uncle promised would be
there. According to them, Arthur Hanover’s official death and burial
certificates arrived from a sanitarium in Switzerland and were authenticated to
a local court’s satisfaction.
You are named in court documents that legally certify the blood
relationship between you and your benefactor. However, the will and property
deed are missing. There is also voice mail from local
reporters. But you can’t get an outside line.
You awaken to a sumptuous champagne
breakfast the kitchen has sent. More messages and notes were left as you slept. Calls
from Burke’s Peerage, various genealogical societies and journalists convince
you that the word is out. Your uncle again appears, this time in a bathroom
mirror. He urges you to find a special key that will unlock other rooms
in your guest quarters
and—once inside—find something that “appears to be an
ordinary thing but is very special indeed.” Like those from last night, the
apparition is neither scary nor ghostlike; rather the holograms seem like the
humorous special effects one finds in an amusement park.
You roam around the manor, searching for the key. A raging
storm prevents you from going outside. The reception area is again deserted,
and you can’t find any servants.
But in the health spa you meet an engaging
12-year-old named Christopher Robin (after the children’s book character) who
is Mildred Simmons’ grandson here on holiday from his French boarding school.
He has been looking for you, Christopher says, handing over cautionary notes,
party invitations, pass keys, and one very odd remote-control device that he
recently found but has no idea of how to operate. Maybe you can “sort it out.”
You continue your
tour of facilities. While circumnavigating the Olympic-size pool you spot a
gold key, figuring this is the key your uncle wanted you to
find. Suddenly, however, you are confronted by Van Scoy. The concierge rudely orders
you out of the area and hurries away before you can utter a single word. Throughout the day, you can’t find
anyone to tell you what’s going on.
Quite by accident, though, you get the blue controller working.
It is an extraordinary device. When aimed at
paintings or woodcarvings, the surface image dissolves,
enabling you to see and
hear activity going on in the room behind the wall.
You eavesdrop on several
conversations Farnsworth, Van Scoy and Le Clercq are having about how to thwart
your claim.
Surveillance of Sherlock in the pub and Simmons in the bar is inconclusive as to their real feelings toward you.
Later, you spy Stratton in the library, hiding documents—the
missing deed?—in a book she’s pulled from the shelves.
The
arrival of the local paper provides comic relief from your worry and confusion.
You kill time reading silly stories about a funeral held for a village parakeet,
a dognapped Rottweiler whose owner fears the captors may sue him,
and a report of a Japanese corporation’s plans to turn a
340-year-old pub into a sumo theme restaurant.
Whenever you stop by your room, you’re never lucky
enough to catch incoming phone calls. And you still can’t call out. But there
is always a slew of new messages. Among them are several frantic ones left by
Lord Rollinsby’s son and daughter, warning you against experimenting with any
of their father’s devices should you run across them.
