Well, we are on our way to Scotland and our castle adventure. The owners were quite happy to allow the cats to come along, they love animals of all kinds. There are 10 of us going along on this case, plus the 4 cats. Sky decided to stay home with Trisha and the others. Trisha is still having nightmares of the recent kidnapping since it reminded her so much of her home life. I agreed with her decision to stay behind.
Since this is an old castle, I thought it would be good to bring Rock along, his strength just might come in handy for this one. The man who is laying claim to the castle is Andrew MacPherson, and he is from Canada and apparently has never been in Scotland. But he recently found this deed in some boxes he was sorting through in his attic.
Sounds reasonable, except that we found out that this man was recently released from prison where he had spent time for forgery. That does not mean this mans document is false, but it does raise a red flag for me. The castle owners have not seen this document and MacPherson has said they cannot see it until they go to court, if it comes to that. The castle owners cannot afford to hire a lawyer, but Mandar knows an excellent lawyer who works in a city close to the castle.
He will be helping us in this case and is going to insist on seeing the mans document. Cinnamon, aside from her excellent ability to memorize, also knows antique documents, papers and what they should look and feel like. She will help the lawyer decide if it is genuine or not. It will still likely end up in court, unless this man sees that his plan is not going to work out the way he thought.
Poor Muffin, the whole trip she was pacing back and forth, worried about finding ghosts in this castle. Snow and Tiia joined her too, they are also afraid of ghosts. I know they got that from Muffin. Storm is not afraid though, he says. But I am wondering about that. Sigh. Meow,meow?=What if we find ghost? Maybe then we go home?
"No Muffin," I said, "there are no ghosts, I have been telling you that for years." Meow,meow!=But we find ghost right in first case, me remember, she glow in dark! "She was not a ghost," I said, "remember we proved she was just a human." Meow,meow.=Oh, that right. But what about...no, that human too. But there was...nope, still was human. But we might find Skinny, maybe lots Skinnies!
Tiia and Snow stopped pacing, their ears went straight up and they ran to hide in the bedroom. "See, now you scared the kittens," I said. Meow,meow.=Good, me scared already, like having company. "Where is Storm?" I asked. "He went to hide with the kittens when Muffin mentioned Skinny," said Angel laughing. Jim and Anne, the castle owners, met us at the airport with two vans.
Mandar had one of his vans there waiting for us to use as well. This was one of Baldwin's vans, built like a tank, and we may need that protection too, though I hope not. However, I do not want to take any chances in this case. I asked Jim a lot of questions about the castle, especially about secret passages or chambers. "There are none," he said, "at least we sure have not found any."
"Hmm, that is odd," I said, "I think all castles have secret passages in them, for escaping if nothing else, or for bringing in supplies if the castle is under siege. We will check around for some, after all, someone had to come in and steal your title deed for this castle. Unless you have servants that might have done it."
"We do have 4 servants and a groundskeeper," he said, "but only 2 servants are full time, the other two come in when we need them. The groundskeeper is also full time and his son will be joining him tomorrow. He will be taking over from his dad who is retiring next year. He wants time to train his son."
No wonder these people have very little money, that is a lot of people to pay each month. When we started out Jim had told me the castle was just on the edge of the city. I wonder what city he was talking about? It took us an hour to get here once we left the city. We got settled into our rooms and then were called for dinner. But we did not know...
To Be Continued.
©2023 Steve McLeod.
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