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      Wild theories swirled around the baby’s disappearance. The young Alberta swore she had heard howling outside on the lawn that night. The girl was convinced a wolf had taken her baby brother in the dead of night. However, no wolves were found within a hundred miles of Saxby Hall. Soon this theory became just one of many. Some supposed that a visiting circus troupe had kidnapped Herbert, and disguised him as a clown. Others believed that the infant had somehow climbed out of his cot and crawled out of the house. Most unlikely of all was the suspicion some had that the boy had been spirited away by a gang of evil elves.

      None of this wild speculation helped bring Herbert home. Years passed. Life went on, though not for Herbert’s mother and father. The night of the disappearance froze the lord and lady in time. They were never seen in public again. Putting on their happy faces became impossible. The sense of loss, the not knowing; it was unbearable. The lord and lady could barely sleep or eat. They roamed around Saxby Hall like ghosts. In the end they were said to have died of broken hearts.

III

       A Beastly Child

      With baby Herbert gone, Chester (Stella’s father) became the heir. Growing up, Alberta was absolutely beastly to him. As a child she would:

      – Give her little brother a highly poisonous tarantula spider for Christmas.

      – Collect rocks and dust them with icing sugar. Then give one to her younger brother to eat pretending it was a rock cake.

      – Peg him to the washing line and let him dangle there all afternoon.

      – Chop down a tree while he was climbing it.

      – Play hide-and-seek with him. Alberta would let the boy hide and then she would go on holiday.

      – Shove him in the lake when his back was turned feeding the ducks.

      – Replace the candles on his birthday cake with sticks of dynamite.

      – Swing him around the playroom by his ankles as fast as she could and then let go.

      – Cut the brake cables on his bicycle.

      – Force-feed him a bowl of live worms saying it was ‘special spaghetti’.

      – During a snowball fight, cover cricket balls in ice then hurl them at him.

      – Lock him in a wardrobe, and then push it down a flight of stairs.

      – Put earwigs in his ears while he was sleeping so he would wake up screaming.

      – Bury him up to his neck in sand at the beach, then leave him there as the tide came in.

      Despite all this Chester was always kind to his sister. When Lord and Lady Saxby died and he eventually inherited Saxby Hall from his parents, he was determined to look after the old place as best he could. The new Lord Saxby loved the house as much as his parents always had. But because Chester was by nature such a generous man he gave the family’s huge treasure trove of silver and jewels to his sister Alberta.

      Altogether it was worth thousands and thousands of pounds. However, within a short while, the woman had lost it all.

      That’s because Alberta had a dangerous obsession.

      Tiddlywinks.

      It was a very popular game at the time. Tiddlywinks was played with a pot and different sized discs or ‘winks’.

      The aim was to use your large wink, named a ‘squidger’, to propel as many of the smaller winks into the pot as you could. From childhood, Alberta would force Chester to play with her. To stop her hurling the pot of winks across the room if she lost, Chester would always let her win. Alberta was not only a very bad loser, she was also a cheat. As a child she created her own tiddlywinks moves, all of them СКАЧАТЬ