Death on the Estate.
Gabriel Crowther kept himself and his anatomists skills to himself – refusing the calls of country sociability, preferring the reclusive life. Rumours abound of course, fuelled by imaginings of the locals. One lady, newly installed in Caveley Park, found a use for his knowledge and scientific standing when she came upon a man lying dead on her land. It had quite disturbed her morning ride.
It was the ring found in his pocket as much as the manner of his death that would occupy her inquisitive disposition. The coat of arms it bore was that of her neighbours – the Thornleigh family. A fact that Hugh Thornleigh was prepared to confirm but equally as surely he denied that the man was his brother. Claims of his brother’s death were frequent, and miserably wrong on every occasion. A fact Gabriel Crowther was able to discover when called upon to inspect this corpse. Nothing, though, could disguise that the man had been brutally murdered. But who was he then? And what had he been doing here?