The Baron Byron

Lord Byron remains to amaze me in many ways. The first time he challenged me to this sort of game, I ended up publishing one of my biggest books so far. And with that in mind, I decided to accept the offer to come visit his homestead, the Newstead Abbey in the Nottingham county. I was intrigued by his invitation though; it spoke, “Due to the success of Miss Shelley on her novel, I therefore invite you to my Abbey in Nottingham to a writing retreat in this coming summer season.” My only wonders are who else he decided to invite, if it was only me, which I highly doubt coming from him, if he also invited my former husband Percy, or if there’s anyone new in the picture. Anyways, I’m excited to leave the city and see his famous Newstead Abbey, rumors are that its gardens resembles Versailles’ gardens.

And such rumors did not lie. After one day of extensive carriage ride from London to Nottingham, I arrived in Lord Byron’s abbey. And what a beautiful abbey. The reception did not let anything down either, for I was met with Byron himself, a butler, three maids, two cookers, three guards, and a young man. At first the butler opened my carriage door but weirdly he didn’t pay much attention to me, it seemed like he cared more about the luggage than my presence. But soon came Byron with open arms and said to me: “Saint Mary! Welcome welcome. Please find yourself at home. Use of my gardens and abbey as if they were yours for the time being of your stay.” And as always, Byron had his intrinsic style and even if it was dusk already he used an overcoat, a large wide hat, and many pieces of cloth. Making justice to his fame of not liking the sun.

“Your room will be in the second floor at the very end of the left hall,” said Byron as we crossed the gates and entered the abbey, “I’ll give you an hour to unpack and rest a little before supper is served. There we shall unite with the other guest who arrived yesterday.” Following that I asked him, “And who is this other guest you speak of?” But unfortunately Byron answered with smile, “Only time will tell dear, now if you please.” Then one of the younger maids picked up my luggage from the butler and accompanied me to my room. Upon reaching the room the maid made sure that I had plenty clean sheets, warm water, wood for the firepit, and with a reverence she began excusing herself from the room, not before I could ask her name. “The name is Gwyneth, miss Shelley.” And with that, she left the room.

When I got to the dining room I saw a banquet being served, with ham, steaks, both red and white wine, baked potatoes, pies of the various kinds, lobster, and even tropical fruits spread out as both appetizers and decoration. I was astonished by it. I must have been the second guest to arrived out of the army of writers and poets Byron must have invited. “It is a very big banquet for only three people, don’t you think Mary?” said a voice behind me, and as I turned around the voice found its owner. For it was Percy, my newly divorced husband. “The three of us? You mean Lord Byron hasn’t invited any other writer or poet to join us?” I said in response. “Isn’t three enough? It worked perfectly fine last time, so I assumed that similar, if not the same, would happen again and we would end up with another masterpiece in our hands,” said Byron as he came into the room using a more appropriate attire, this time using a lounge suit with a red t-shirt and a cane by his side. “Please, let us set our differences aside and enjoy supper, after all it’s already served,” complemented Byron as he took the baron’s seat. Although the atmosphere was somewhat awkward, since Percy took all the possibilities to show off, supper was quite enjoyable and plentiful. The night went on with music and drinking after supper, but due to my weariness from the trip I retreated to my room before the others and fell asleep as soon as my head touched the soft goose feather pillows.

Unfortunately my sleep was interrupted in the early morning by a knock on the door followed by “Pardon me miss Shelley, but Baron Byron is requesting your presence in the library.” Still half-awake I called back: “Please come in Gwyneth, I’ll need your help with the water.” And with that she entered the room with a puzzled face, “How did you know it was me?” In response I said: “Well, it takes an young woman to recognize another.” And so she helped me with my attire, but while that was happening I decided to get to know her better. It turns out that she recently married the head chef of the abbey, Marcus, and they both live in the abbey’s quarters. The last question I asked was about the reason to why Byron was summoning me so early in the day, “I don’t know much miss, but it seems that there was a murder in the abbey yesterday night. I don’t know who was the unfortunate soul, but I think it was butler Stephano. He hasn’t showed his face today so far.” answered the maid in a embarassed manner. Intrigued by that I thanked Gwyneth and took my leave to the library.

Upon reaching the library I saw Percy standing by one of the big garden windows and Byron staring at the fireplace. Moments later both of them noticed me and Byron spoke first, “As you may know by now there has been a murder in my abbey last night. The victim, my long serving butler Stephano, was killed in the gardens at some point during our social time and the early morning. After examining the scene I collected such evidences: the murder weapon was a kitchen knife thrusted and twisted in his ribs, the body was not touched afterwards and just left there, and lastly all of his belongings were still within him. Now the reason why I’m sharing all of this is that I believe the three of us can work this mystery out and solve it, and it might even turn out to be another great book of one of us. The suspects in this crime are the three maids: Lawren, Gwyneth, and Elsie; two cookers: Marcus and Frank; three guards: Benjamin, Samuel, and Edwin; and the gatekeeper James. All of these were in the abbey from last night and now, and will remain in here until the mystery has been solved.” Still astonished by the amount of information I took a seat by the fire and started to think in hypothesis to this murder. But Percy, as spontaneous as always, started stating his plan and soon enough left to begin his investigations.

So I decided that if I was gonna do this it would have to be in the right way. The first step was to get information in all the suspects. So I decided to interrogate Byron and see what he knows of his own staff, the extra information I got was the following: Lawren was the oldest maid, she had been working in the abbey even before Byron moved there; Gwyneth worked there for a short period of time and was married to Marcus; and Elsie had just been employed two weeks previous. Marcus was the head chef for about five years but Frank was employed in the kitchen for the last ten years as the sub-chef. Benjamin and Samuel are five years apart brothers respectively and had been working in the abbey for three and one years; Edwin had been working in the abbey for the last twenty years as head guard and were friends with the butler. While James had been working as the gatekeeper for the last two years and half and his father was the previous gatekeeper as well therefore he grew up in the abbey. After collecting all this information I decided to sit for a moment and analyse it. From the beginning I could exclude Lawren, Elsie,Frank, and Edwin due to their extent or little time in the abbey. While others would need more information to declare their suspectness. The first one I’m interrogating is Edwin, for he is one of the oldest in the abbey and should know quite some about the butler.

Upon arriving at the garrison I was gently greeted by an elder man, probably in  his fifties. “You must be Edwin, I’m Mary Shelley. I have some questions about Stephano if you don’t mind me asking them?” I asked him and surprisingly he answered: “O’course, Stephano were not the first friend I lost nor the last I am sure. So it won’t be hard to talk about him.” After talking to Edwin for a while I discovered that Stephano had been living in the abbey his whole life, being there even before Lawren, for he was trained since childhood to be a butler and because of that he knew every passage and hole in the abbey. But what stood out was when Edwin talked about  Stephano’s relationship with the staff, “Stephano was not known for his kindness to the younger folks, ye know, nor with lazy people. Marcus in other words, Stephano didn’t like that breed.” After thanking him I left the garrison

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The next to talk to was Frank and Marcus, they could shine some light in the scene between Stephano and Marcus. The only problem was that it was near lunchtime and the kitchen would be in full throttle in the making of the food. But when I got there I could only see one man working the kitchen, running from one side to the other. It took him about fifteen minutes to notice me but even so my presence didn’t matter much to him, after all he seemed to have his hand full at the moment, so I decided to wait for lunch to be done to question him. About half an hour later another chef walked into the kitchen. After lunch I tried approaching the chefs again. There I learned that the late chef was Marcus, making justice to his fame, and the other chef was Frank, nevertheless they seem to have an agreement in the kitchen so there’s no conflict between the both of them. Although I got some information in the relationship between Marcus and Stephano, “Honestly, that ol’ geese had that coming. After all he has been mistreating all of the younger folks in the abbey. Poor Gwyneth, she has been enduring his judgmental actions and words since the day she land foot in ‘ere.” stated Marcus, “not that I approve of his fate, I would much more want to have him in a dungeon of sorts.” Following that I asked him: “And where were you at the moment of the murder?” His response was, “I was in this very kitchen, with Frank, cleaning the dishes and putting them away. After that Gwyneth came ‘ere and we went to our barracks to sleep for the night.” Frank pledged for him. So I left after thanking them for the answers and meals they cooked so well.

The last person to ask questions was the oldest maid Lawren, since she has been around the longest she would know the butler the best and who might want to hurt him. Although the abbey is quite big finding Lawren was no problem, for she was having a cup of tea in the garden, which is in the way from the kitchen to the barracks. “What a beautiful day for such a sad day it is today, isn’t it? Tell me my darling, what brings you to talk to such an old lady like me?” said the maid once I approached her. “It is indeed Lawren. I wish to talk about Stephano if possible” I responded to her. And like Edwin she didn’t show to have much pain in speaking of him. “Oh God forgive me for speaking ill of the deceased, but Stephano was not very nice with the younger ones, especially with the younger maid and the poor gatekeeper boy. Gwyneth works so hard for the amount of critics she got from Stephano. So many times I’ve caught her crying in the laundry room, poor soul. But the gatekeeper boy was worse if you ask me. Stephano would not miss a single opportunity to mistreat him too, in anyway possible. Especially when he could talk about the kid’s father.” said the maid to me. After talking more I learned that James’ father was known to be an alcoholic and frequent customer to the local tavern, one that belongs to the older brother of the guard brothers. And sadly enough, James’ father died after drinking too much and falling into a well and drowning to death, a event that Stephano often would use to scold James for. Although I had more questions to ask other people I fell to Lawren and the garden’s graceful company and ended up staying for a few cups of tea.

It was around dusk when we both headed inside, only to hear Percy storming into the main hall yelling, “Come everyone, for I have solved this tragedy that engulfed us. Fair maid, please fetch Lord Byron. There is much to talk about.” And with that Lawren was snatghed from me and carried on with Percy’s wish. “So, how was your investigation dear Mary?” Percy asked me with a witty smile. “All had been good until now Percy. But tell me, who is your murderer?” I asked him only to received a quick response, “All within time Mary, let’s wait for Lord Byron shall we?” Within a few minutes Lawren came back with a message from Byron, “Baron Byron is requesting for you to meet him the library.” And so we both left to the library, which wasn’t completely bad since it allowed me some time to think my thoughts through. With the new information I was able to exclude Benjamin and Samuel form my suspect list, leaving me with two possible killers: Marcus and Gwyneth or James. Unfortunately, Percy interrupted my line of reasoning many times in our walk and by time we got to the library I hadn’t had time to go over all the evidences.

Upon reaching the library Byron was standing by the fireplace and greeted us, “I’ve noticed that the two of you worked hard in this mystery, cannot say I’m not honored by it. But tell me, what have you two come up with?” Percy then took a step forward and began saying his theory, “Lord Byron with my investigations and discoveries I have come up with my theory. It seems clear to everyone that the butler Stephano was not very popular with the younger folks in the abbey, especially the younger maid Gwyneth and her husband Chef Marcus. Two people who create the perfect scenario to such a crime. Gwyneth would be more than often mistreated by Stephano for her age and her husband also had a conflict with the butler, it seems that Marcus didn’t take his duties as serious as Stephano. These evidences bring me to the theory that Marcus could not contain his anger decided to take one of his kitchen knives, the murder weapon, and go after the butler for revenge. Both carry reason, murder weapon, and place to perpetrate the murder.” And with a serious look Byron asked Percy, “And you came up with all of that by yourself?” “Yes indeed Lord Byron,” responded Percy, “after talking to Edwin, Benjamin, and exploring both the gardens and barracks I gathered such informations and discovered the closest way from the kitchen to the barracks go through the gardens, which places Marcus in the crime scene.” Byron responded: “I see, a very good observation indeed Percy. But since you investigated alone that means that miss Mary must have come up with her own version of the crime. Please share with us your thoughts Mary.”

“At first I do agree with Percy in Stephano not being well seen by the younger people, since many of your staff reported he would constantly scold them. But I don’t agree with who killed the butler. Although I believe in the reliability of the murder reason, Marcus was not alone in his way back to the barracks, Frank accompanied him in the way. And that leads me to the other possible murderer, James. James suffered of the same torment as Gwyneth suffered, since both are relatively the same age, yet maybe worse due to the tragic death of his father and how Stephano would exploit it in order to mistreat him. Also, since he is the gatekeeper after the gates are closed James is free to roam the abbey, a place he knows very well since he grew up in it due to his father being the previous gatekeeper. As for the murder weapon any kitchen knife would suffice really, but the way the blade was twisted it meant that the killer must have been really angry at the time and wanted the butler to suffer, a reasonable feeling to someone in James place.”

There was a moment of silence in the room following my statement, but it was broken by Byron in a weird way. At first he started clapping but then he spoke, “Brilliant, brilliant observations. The both of you. But only one of you is right, and it appears that the lightning does strike the same spot twice. Miss Mary, you have solved the mystery, congratulations.” Confused by Byron’s words Percy and me exchanged looks but only he talked, “What does that mean? How can you already know the resolution of this mystery if you didn’t leave your library the whole day?” Byron didn’t answer these questions, instead he walked once again to his fireplace and pointed to the giant portrait of him that hangs above it. “You get to understand how people behave after being around a few years. Like this portrait, I’ve been around for a lot of time and in these years I learned much about people and this abbey,” said Byron finally, “And when you have my perspective it gets easy to read people’s minds.” Still confused I confronted Byron, “Lord Byron, what is this nonsense you are talking about? It is indeed your abbey but you sound like you knew its walls and staff to the bottom of it. Tell us, what is it that you are hiding from us?” But all I got back from Byron was this look, a look with red soul perforating eyes. Upon being under that look I saw the murder scene, with James discussing with Stephano,  James stabbing and twisting the blade into the butler's chest, and James running away. This vision was as real as all my memories and feelings, it was almost as if I was there in the night.

When I came back to reality Lord Byron was long gone and Percy was staring to the portrait. When he noticed I was conscious he said: “Mary, tell me. Do you believe in monsters?” Perhaps it really is like Byron once said: “we would end up with another masterpiece in our hands.” And here we are, with my second great masterpiece, The Nottingham Abbey and its Baron Byron.