The Solicitor hurried ahead of them, Albert kept by their side and Captain Daltry walked behind, his pistol pointing at the Duke’s back.
They went up the staircase to the first floor, up another flight of stairs to the second and again up a steep flight, which led to the third.
Here the passage was narrow with a number of doors opening out of it and Ilitta knew that they were the servants’ quarters.
The floor was covered in dust and they passed half a dozen doors before reaching an open one. She felt that one of the men, perhaps Captain Daltry himself, had come upstairs to inspect it while they were washing before luncheon.
The room they entered was certainly bare and cold, an attic bedroom with an iron bedstead against one wall having only a mattress on it and no other bedding.
The c
