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‘He liked to play the cards,’ Glynnis said. ‘The man was a compulsive gambler. At first it didn’t matter because they had plenty of money. He could gamble to his heart’s content and not worry too much because there would always be more.

‘The family had stakes in the great East India Company. They used to trade out of the Far East, and whenever some new product came out of China or India, they would be taking a cut. So Lord Brockwell could spend days at a time playing in the underground gambling dens of London or Bristol or even Exeter, so some say. And it didn’t matter if he blew most of his money and drank away the rest, because there would always be more.’

Glynnis gave a sage shake of the head. ‘Until one day there wasn’t. Trading companies of the East went bankrupt one by one, and soon the Littleslades’ only income came from their tenants. Before long, Lord Brockwell had begun selling off patches of land in order to pay his gambling debts.

‘And then came the fateful night when he was tricked into playing a card game with old Charles Dawkins, Clive’s great-grandfather.’

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘No, it wasn’t. Some say Charles Dawkins, who wasn’t known for being one for the cards, played using a loaded deck that night, and poor Lord Brockwell was too inebriated to notice. But they built up their hands one by one, and finally it came down to it.’

‘Came down to what?’ Kelly said, absolutely enthralled by the story.

‘It came down to Charles Dawkins’ land or the Littleslade Estate. One owned a quarter of the village, the other another quarter. It was a significant prize to be won. And as you can expect, because I think you know where this story’s going, Lord Brockwell gambled his entire estate on a pair of tens only to lose to a pair of tens and a high king. By the finest of margins, the Littleslade family became destitute.’

‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ Kelly said.

‘Too bad indeed. And Charles Dawkins was a man who kept his word. And his word was that the land now belonged to him. The Littleslades were thrown off by the following morning. Five Littleslade children, all of them under the age of ten, as well as Lady Littleslade, were homeless.’

‘Oh my goodness.’

‘Charles Dawkins, whose friend was a magistrate and had supposedly officiated over the game, ensured that the Littleslades could not go back on the deal that had been made.’

‘That’s awful,’ Kelly said. ‘What happened to them?’

‘No one knows for sure,’ Glynnis said. ‘But what is known is that they were packed off on the nearest stagecoach up to London, where they hoped a relative of the family might give them lodgings. And from there, they vanished from our story.’

‘What happened to the house?’

‘I believe the Dawkins family lived there for a while, enjoying the spoils of their success. But Charles Dawkins was never one to rest on his laurels and set about making more money. He allowed mining speculators to enter the property to begin digging for ore seams below ground, and he rented the main house out to wealthy vacationers from London. Over time, however, because he was never prepared to put any money into maintaining the property nor its surrounding gardens, which were once spectacular, the place eventually fell into disrepair.’

‘What a terrible shame.’

‘Due to land tax rises, after Charles had died, wasting much of his own fortune on bad business ventures, the Dawkins family slowly declined in influence over the next couple of generations until finally Clive restored some of the family’s wealth by first selling off the land to developers and then buying it back at a vastly lower price. And that is how we find ourselves today.’

‘How’s your headache?’ Kelly asked.

‘Much better, dear. Nothing like talking about someone else’s misfortune to improve one’s own, is there?’

Kelly pulled out her phone and showed Glynnis the photographs of the paintings she had seen on the walls of the old mansion.

‘Is this them?’ she asked. ‘The Littleslade family?’

‘Yes, it is indeed,’ Glynnis said, pointing at one man in particular. ‘That’s Lord Brockwell himself. I wonder whether this painting was done while his gambling addiction was at its worst, because he really does look rather pained, doesn’t he? As though he’s sitting on a spike or something.’

Kelly couldn’t help but laugh. ‘He really does.’

‘These are the children,’ she added, pointing to another picture. ‘How sad that such a fate befell them.’

Kelly stared at the pictures of the children. They would all be long dead by now. But one of them in particular, a boy, maybe a teenager in the picture, seemed familiar.

There was something about him she couldn’t quite place.

Not to mention that she was sure she had heard the name Littleslade somewhere before.

But she just couldn’t figure out where.

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