Well, we have had ourselves a nice relaxing rest for the past 3 weeks. Plus we have had a wedding. Rock may have been slow at noticing Annelie, but once he did, he moved fast and they are now happily married and on their honeymoon on some nice tropical island somewhere. They did not tell anyone where they were going, they just wanted to be by themselves. They did not even take their cell phones with them. I must remember that the next time we go on vacation. Shirley is doing well working for Baldwin.

Angel wants to work with us and is already very capable in fighting and has been taking lessons on the use of guns from Jennifer and Kristina. Angel and Kristina have really hit it off good and I think they will make a good pair for our team. Annelie already did a security check on Angle and her mom Shirley. Today we voted and Angel is now a full member of our team. Poor Baldwin lamented the fact that he just lost another secretary, but Shirley is doing good filling in for that position too.

And Angel is always available at times if he needs her. This morning a letter arrived with a possible new case for us. So I gathered everyone into the library to talk about it. Seems a couple in their 40’s bought themselves a castle in Scotland. People in the area told them not to because it was haunted. That seems to be quite normal for castles. Anyway, weird noises have been quite frequently heard from the basement, except there is no basement.

Plus things happen, plants dumped out of their pots, furniture moved around at night, shaking furniture (but only in one room at a time), things like that. But they have never seen a ghost or anything else. Meow,meow!=must be ghost! I say no to this one! “But they have not seen a ghost,” I assured her. Meow.=Yep, and I protect you from ghost. “So will I,” said Angel, “remember, I was a ghost for a while.” Meow,meow.=Hmm, okay, that make sense, I vote yes then. Everyone else voted yes too.

All we have to do is find out who is doing this, it is obvious that someone does not want anyone living there, we just have to find out who and why. That should not be hard. It is a large castle with 23 bedrooms and numerous other rooms. It sits on 10 hectares of land that is beautifully landscaped around the castle, and with trees further away. There would be lots of room for all of us to go but for some reason I had this feeling that it would be better to leave some behind this time. Baldwin, Carine, Jenny, Kara and Chung stayed back, along with Annelie and Rock who were still on their honeymoon anyway.

So, the cats, Kat, Candace, Kristina, Angel and I went on this one. Hard to believe there are 14 of us on the team now! We arrived at the castle a bit earlier than expected so the couple, Jane and Darren McMaster, were not back from shopping yet. However, the butler took us to our rooms and we got ourselves settled in. Our hosts were soon back however and we were invited to the living room which was huge, with two large fireplaces, one on each end of the room, but on the same wall. Our hosts introduced themselves and started just talking about general things.

They are both from Canada but their ancestors came from Scotland, so they always had a dream of buying a castle here where they could retire, which would be in about 10 years. But they do not like all this spooky stuff that goes on and want us to find out what is happening. I told them that someone else must live here in the castle somewhere, or perhaps close by, and they do not want them living here. “But why is that?”, asked Darren, “we are not harming anyone.”

“Well, it could be there is something valuable here that someone is looking for,” I said, “or perhaps some illegal activity is happening and they are using this castle.” Darren and Jane look at each other. “Well, we are not going to be scared off by anyone,” Jane said firmly, “this is our castle and we are staying here.” “Good for you,” I said smiling, “now, to do our job, we will need access to every part of this castle, except your bedroom. Though we may need access to the servants rooms, but not right away.”

“That is no problem,” said Darren, “we have already told the servants and you may check our bedroom too if needed.” “Thank you,” I said, “now if we could have a quick tour of the castle and grounds, that would be great.” “Certainly,” said Darren. The groundskeeper, Harris, showed us the grounds around the castle and he was a very likable and happy type individual. He has been the groundskeeper for 20 years, starting when he was 22. Then Stewart, the butler, showed us around inside the castle. The next morning we were up early, ready to explore by ourselves, but…

To Be Continued.

©2022 Steve McLeod.