sealed this packet nearly twenty years ago, and have not opened it since. As you will see, I am placing my reputation in your hands, but I find I do not greatly care. My health is failing; I shall shortly retire from practice; and if anyone has a right to these papers, it is you. When you have read them, you will understand why I say to you: sell the Hall unseen; burn it to the ground and plough the earth with salt, if you will; but never live there.
Yours most sincerely,
John Montague
PART TWO
JOHN MONTAGUE’S NARRATIVE
30
December
1870
have at last resolved to set down everything I know of the strange and terrible events at Wraxford Hall, in the hope of appeasing my conscience, which has never ceased to trouble me. A fitting enough night for such a decision, for it is bitter cold, and the wind howls about the house as if it will never cease. I shrink from what I must reveal of my own history, but if anyone is ever to understand why I acted as I did – and why else attempt this? – I must not withhold anything of relevance, no matter how painful. I shall feel easier in my mind, I trust, knowing that if the case is ever reopened after I am gone, this account may help uncover the truth about the Wraxford Mystery.
I first met Magnus Wraxford in the spring of 1866 – my thirtieth year – in my capacity as solicitor to his uncle Cornelius, a trust I had inherited from my father. Ours was a small family firm in the town of Aldeburgh, and I had followed my father as he had followed his. Like every boygrowing up in that part of Suffolk, I had heard tales of Wraxford Hall, which lies at the heart of Monks Wood, about seven miles to the south of Aldeburgh as the crow flies, but a good deal further by road. Old Cornelius Wraxford had lived there in complete seclusion for as long as anyone could remember, attended by a handful of servants seemingly chosen for their taciturn qualities, while the house slowly decayed around him and the wilderness reclaimed the park. Even poachers avoided the place, for Monks Wood was said to be haunted by – as one might expect – the ghost of a monk; according to local legend, anyone who saw the apparition would die within the month. Cornelius, besides, was rumoured to keep a pack of dogs so savage they would tear you to pieces if they caught you. Some said that the old miser was guarding an immense hoard of gold and precious stones; others maintained that he had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for the gift of flight, or a cloak of invisibility, or some such diabolical attribute. Then there was William Brent the poacher, who used to boast that he could hunt as close as he liked to the Hall without arousing the dogs, until the night he saw a malignant face peering down at him from an upstairs window and was dead within a month; of pleurisy, admittedly, but all the same ... My father scoffed at the rumours, but could shed no light of his own, as he had met Cornelius only once, at the office, several years before I was born. Even then, he said, Cornelius had looked like an old man; small, wizened and suspicious. All of their business thereafter had been conducted by letter.
As I grew older, I absorbed more of the Hall’s history from my father. It had been built in the time of Henry VIII, on the site of the monastery which had given Monks Wood its name. The Wraxfords, like many Catholic families, had renounced their religion during Queen Elizabeth’s reign; Wraxford Hall, indeed, had served as a Royalist stronghold throughout the Civil War. Charles II himself was said to have hidden in the priest’s hole while Henry Wraxford faced down Cromwell’s men. At the Restoration, Henry was rewarded with a knighthood, but the title diedwith him, and for the next hundred or so years the Hall served as a summer retreat for several generations of Wraxfords, mostly scholars and clerics who seemed to have done nothing whatever of note.
In the 1780s it passed to one Thomas
Yours most sincerely,
John Montague
PART TWO
JOHN MONTAGUE’S NARRATIVE
30
December
1870
have at last resolved to set down everything I know of the strange and terrible events at Wraxford Hall, in the hope of appeasing my conscience, which has never ceased to trouble me. A fitting enough night for such a decision, for it is bitter cold, and the wind howls about the house as if it will never cease. I shrink from what I must reveal of my own history, but if anyone is ever to understand why I acted as I did – and why else attempt this? – I must not withhold anything of relevance, no matter how painful. I shall feel easier in my mind, I trust, knowing that if the case is ever reopened after I am gone, this account may help uncover the truth about the Wraxford Mystery.
I first met Magnus Wraxford in the spring of 1866 – my thirtieth year – in my capacity as solicitor to his uncle Cornelius, a trust I had inherited from my father. Ours was a small family firm in the town of Aldeburgh, and I had followed my father as he had followed his. Like every boygrowing up in that part of Suffolk, I had heard tales of Wraxford Hall, which lies at the heart of Monks Wood, about seven miles to the south of Aldeburgh as the crow flies, but a good deal further by road. Old Cornelius Wraxford had lived there in complete seclusion for as long as anyone could remember, attended by a handful of servants seemingly chosen for their taciturn qualities, while the house slowly decayed around him and the wilderness reclaimed the park. Even poachers avoided the place, for Monks Wood was said to be haunted by – as one might expect – the ghost of a monk; according to local legend, anyone who saw the apparition would die within the month. Cornelius, besides, was rumoured to keep a pack of dogs so savage they would tear you to pieces if they caught you. Some said that the old miser was guarding an immense hoard of gold and precious stones; others maintained that he had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for the gift of flight, or a cloak of invisibility, or some such diabolical attribute. Then there was William Brent the poacher, who used to boast that he could hunt as close as he liked to the Hall without arousing the dogs, until the night he saw a malignant face peering down at him from an upstairs window and was dead within a month; of pleurisy, admittedly, but all the same ... My father scoffed at the rumours, but could shed no light of his own, as he had met Cornelius only once, at the office, several years before I was born. Even then, he said, Cornelius had looked like an old man; small, wizened and suspicious. All of their business thereafter had been conducted by letter.
As I grew older, I absorbed more of the Hall’s history from my father. It had been built in the time of Henry VIII, on the site of the monastery which had given Monks Wood its name. The Wraxfords, like many Catholic families, had renounced their religion during Queen Elizabeth’s reign; Wraxford Hall, indeed, had served as a Royalist stronghold throughout the Civil War. Charles II himself was said to have hidden in the priest’s hole while Henry Wraxford faced down Cromwell’s men. At the Restoration, Henry was rewarded with a knighthood, but the title diedwith him, and for the next hundred or so years the Hall served as a summer retreat for several generations of Wraxfords, mostly scholars and clerics who seemed to have done nothing whatever of note.
In the 1780s it passed to one Thomas
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