Elizabeth: Part XVIII

(Story begins here.)

Anton stood up from his partially reclining and gently patted on his belly. If the housekeeper was suspicious of anything, he remained emotionless and channelled nothing whatsoever, merely bowing before helping Anton by moving the chair farther back to make it much easier for him to stand up more completely and turn towards the exit of the dining room. Anton took a few tentative steps towards the exit before pivotting around and said to the housekeeper, ``Mr Higgins, I am going to take a short walk on the grounds to allow the lunch to settle in. I think I will be back before the dinner appointment with the Crawfords, but in the off chance that I am not back by four, will you come out and look for me to inform me of the time? I think it is a lovely day out and I don't wish to wear a watch for a little jaunt.''

The housekeeper took another small bow and replied in the affirmative. The situation thus controlled, Anton marched quickly out of the dining room and re-entered the grand hall, where the grand staircase took centre stage. The floor of the grand hall was tiled with marble, something that one of the earlier masters of the manor had done as a form of renovation over a previous version of the house that no one seemed to have remembered. There were few gas lamps on that floor; most of the illumination, at least for the day, were provided by the tall windows that opened up on the second floor that allowed the sunlight to simply stream straight down. Night time was a wholly different affair---only the light of a gibbous or full moon was enough to provide any form of illumination, the gas lamps used only during winter where the nights were the longest and the darkest throughout the year.

But Anton wasn't that interested in the interior decoration of the place. For one, he had stayed there long enough that they no longer held any special meaning to him, and for two, he needed to go somewhere out of the immediate region of control of the housekeeper to do even more thinking. That last bout of thinking that he did was a good start, in his opinion, but it was not a clearly hashed out plan by any measure. There were details to think about, consequences to consider, and people that he needed to figure out how to get in contact with without incurring any additional life-threatening suspicions. Anton crossed the grand hall and stepped to the main doors leading out to the front patio, and opened them wide.

(Story continues here.)