Further to Keith Searle’s Story: The dark secret of the ‘Gentleman’s’ house, see page 33

This was too tantalising not to learn more, so we asked Keith Searle: ‘What was the story of the gentleman’s house with the “dark secret”?’.

Keith replied:

In a small seaside town, a young “gentleman” moved into a large and imposing house where he married a local girl and started buying up properties and a local hotel. To all extents he was rich and successful but he had many secrets.

Firstly, he was a con man who in one of his many aliases seems to have excited the interest of several police and bankruptcy courts throughout the country. Secondly, he had a wife in Australia where he masqueraded as a Cambridge graduate (which he wasn’t) and general good chap. The reason for his wealth was not known but generally felt to be inherited and associated with overseas trade which accounted for (the locals thought) his long absences away from home.

All this may have gone unnoticed in the sleepy town if he hadn’t in a fit of drunken rage shot the local policeman. The constable, responding to concerns from his wife's mother visited him one evening to ask to see her. One week after this event the policeman's body was found in the basement along with that of his wife and a maid. Three months later he was found drowned in the sea off the coast of Australia. The house stood empty for thirty years.

Note: The precise details of names, dates, places not included as it is a sensitive story with living descendants