
When the twenty‑fifth Baron Madeley inherits the crumbling family seat in Shropshire, he arrives under the cover of night, dismissed by a startled caretaker before finally forcing his way inside. A reclusive scholar more interested in experiments than estates, he immediately orders the house refurnished and staffed, insisting on the solemn order of his ancestors. Yet his obsession with science isolates him further, and the ancient manor, long emptied of life, begins to feel the strain of his exacting standards.
Soon after, the peace is shattered when the maid discovers the lifeless body of the lady of the house, and Sir John is found slumped at his writing‑table, his face an uncanny replica of the actress Dolores Alvarez. The uncanny resemblance and a cryptic warning that “one of you three will be accused” thrust the new lord, his newly hired steward, and the housekeeper into a tangled web of suspicion. As the investigation unfolds, old family debts, rival claims to the inheritance, and the baron's own secret experiments threaten to upend the fragile order of the manor.
Language
en
Duration
~4 hours (253K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: The Macaulay Company, 1910.
Credits
deaurider, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Release date
2023-03-08
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1871–1928
A leading authority on heraldry in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he turned coats of arms and family pedigrees into a lively subject for general readers. His books remain well known for explaining the rules, history, and visual language of armory with unusual clarity.
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