Chapter 36

Early next morning, when the great door of Strathlarrig House was opened and the maids had begun their work, Oliphant, the butler--a stately man who had been trained in a ducal family--crossed the hall to reconnoitre the outer world. There he found an under-housemaid nursing a strange package which she averred she had found on the doorstep. It was some two feet long, swathed in brown paper, and attached to its string was a letter inscribed to Mr Junius Bandicott. The parcel was clammy and Oliphant handled it ginger…