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Many people believe, thanks to both my own claims and the published works I have released, that my first case was that affair with the forged banknotes. However, since I am now setting the record straight it makes sense to go back to the first real case of my career. Indeed I had not even considered becoming a private detective at the time that this little adventure began.

It was late summer in 1921, and I was returning to Stonehouse Hall from London in one of papa's old motorcars. I remember I had the top down to get a little air through the old car as it was rather stifling that day. I was feeling a curious sense of both elation and anger at my predicament, or more accurately that fate had chosen to hand me such a difficult circumstance out of the blue. My father, may he rest in peace, had died some seven years earlier. His brother, Robert, had taken over certain areas of the family finances which I had just been into the city to enquire about. However I will cover this later, as it forms one strand of a rather convoluted rope.

I can picture myself back then, in my rather shapeless flat cap with a cigarette clamped in my teeth. This was before I acquired the most singular scar to my face that, I fear, has somewhat become lodged in the minds of my fans and admirers. I remember seeing a stage play based on the Yellow Cape affair some years ago, and the poor woman they got to play me practically had half her face buried under makeup. It has never really bothered me, or made me feel a leper or outcast. And I certainly have never been ashamed of it. However, as the means by which I gained it also tie into the narrative I shall digress no more.

Nature or chance had given both myself and my sister a rather slender and art-deco build and figure. However greyhounds have looked like this since time immemorial, so it may have just been the luck of the draw. As this look was becoming the fashion I was finding myself quite in demand amongst a certain set of gentlemen. But with my poor Daniel barely in his grave I was still unable to accept their advances. That snubbing, along with my habit for wearing my hair short and adding gentleman's trousers to my wardrobe had begun to get me labelled as a thoroughly modern woman...and therefore one to be avoided in polite society.

These things were rather far from my mind as I ground the car along the long cobbled drive to the front of the house. The Pointer-Stonehouse's estate was looking shabbier than ever, with neglect and decay creeping over parts of the facade. I was rather sad to see the old place after so long away, but as the bearer of bad news it was an unavoidable reunion. I had, of course, been travelling in Africa for the past three years after the loss of my fiance, and now I was back. Hubert, the family's old butler, was stood on the steps alongside a gaggle of downstairs-folk I had never met before. I brought the car to a halt and jumped out, and they began disassembling the heaps of luggage from the back.

"Hubert, you old rogue," I cried as I embraced my old friend. His wrinkled and drooping face lit up to see me. "How are things? Is Del home?"

"Indeed she is, miss Emelia," he wheezed. "And may I say that its such a pleasure to have you both home." My heart sank a little. The news I brought with me was dire, and I would hate to disappoint poor old Hubert so soon after making him this happy.

I put aside the morbid thoughts as I went through to meet with my sister. She was in the drawing room on the ground floor, sat by the window like an anxious suitor. We embraced and exchanged a few pleasantries. I showed her some of the things I had brought back from my travels and she filled me in on all the day-to-day gossip of the household. We were, both in temperament and colouration, as different as could be. Her with her dark brown coat the colour of rich chocolate, me with my splats of white and cream. She was always such a demure little thing, who disliked the idea of flappers and phonographs, parties and cocktails. I, on the other hand, was a social bulldozer. I didn't mind what sort of do was in the offing, so long as nobody looked down at me for turning up in muddy work boots and my favourite cap. I know I had been off having adventures in Africa, but the sheer lack of any substantial news in her life began to worry me as she her reminiscences petered out so quickly. I was more worried that this was the first room I had come through that didn't smell of damp or have missing chunks of plaster on the walls. It seemed that the old house was in worse shape than I had initially thought.

But all too soon we had to deal with the matter at hand. I brought out a satchel of papers I'd taken from London.

"I'm sorry to say it Del, but it looks like you were a little too late," I referred to the letter she had sent to me expressing mild concern about the state of the family fortunes. If she was sat in a house that was barely holding together at the seams and was only 'mildly concerned' then the place would probably have to be on fire before she tried to trouble anyone about the heat. Typical Delilah. "Uncle Bob's been funnelling money into his back pocket for quite a while. When he heard I was on my way to have a word with the solicitors he stripped quite a lot of what was left. We might be able to get some back if we take him to court...but that would be a gamble." I sighed and lit another cigarette. "On the plus side I've cut him off. But things are going to be a little...tight."

"We won't have to sell the house, will we?" she asked. When I didn't reply she looked like I had just slapped her in the face. We were, for all intents and purposes, destitute. Any financial capital we had was now sat on by bloody Bob and his lawyer friends, and any business contact we had possessed no longer dealt with us over his malicious practises. If we sold the house we might actually be able to be merely poor.

She rose to her feet and stared out of the window. "If only Daniel..." she stopped herself, but I knew what she was thinking. Daniel had been, amongst all his other wonderful charms, quite a man of substance. However, when he decided it would be more romantic to propose when he got back from the war, with a shiny chestful of medals no doubt, that kind of sealed things for us. A promise of a proposal is not very legally binding. More importantly, I had never married him to milk the cash cow, so to speak. It irritated me to hear her almost suggest that should he be alive then we could have relied on his charity.

"Well, you know, Del, if you think that a marriage will dig us out of this we could always take you down to London for a few weeks," I blew a little smoke at her as she turned to me in shock. "We'll find you some floppy-eared classicist from Cambridge. Called 'Wupert', no doubt. He'll be loaded and fall head over heels for you. And be as wet as a mackerel in a blanket." I flicked ash in the vague direction of the ashtray as she stomped over and glared at me. "That should suit you quite nicely."

"You shouldn't joke about it, Em," she shook her head. "If we have to sell the house...well what will we DO?"

I pondered for a moment. "Well I do have some friends in Kenya," I added after a ponder. "We can possibly go down there, grab some cheap land and start up a plantation."

Del looked like I had asked her to bite the head of a chicken. "You mean...go into trade?" she whispered, managing to make the word 'trade' sound like something done to sailors in dark alleys.

"Well its either that or find an old man with a taste for younger women, a big bank account and weak heart," I retorted, most wittily. Delilah was not amused.

"Good God, Em, stop being so..." she paused as she tried to think of an expletive her demure nature allowed her to use. After a moment she settled on "...Modern!"

"And will you stop being so old-fashioned for five minutes?" I shot back, rather cruelly. I slapped my paw down on the satchel of papers. "Uncle Bob has been robbing us blind for years! I was away, so I didn't see any of it. But apparently you were content to sit in this place as it fell down around you!" Her lower lip quivered a little, so I sighed. "At least I'm trying to come up with a solution. We may not have to sell the house if we come up with something clever. Like maybe sell off some of the grounds, the cars...we could let some of the staff go, that kind of thing."

Del sat down as we began to discuss possible solutions to the problem. I was just commenting that we didn't seem to have anyone we knew we could turn to for money when I noticed she had a rather demure smirk on her face. It was her tell; she'd always been terrible at keeping secrets. I pressed her for a bit and she broke down, producing a gilt-edged invitation.

"It's from William Marcell," she added. "I was going to tell you about it, but...well..." Her paw indicated the piles of papers and depressing sums we had been calculating.

I pondered for a moment, trying to put a face to the name. I did, and it was not a very pleasant one. "Wait, you mean the one from school with the big ears and the wonky teeth?"

"His ears aren't that big!" she exclaimed.

"But the man's a veritable Crowley!" I said, quite perturbed. Even at school we had heard rather dark things about the Marcell family, ranging from pacts with the devil to a congenital illness that made them mad. "You can't be seriously thinking of going, surely?"

"I'm sure that's all nonsense and rot," she replied, refilling our cups of tea. "Besides, it would be rude not to go."

I nodded, tapping the edge of the card on the table. "I suppose so. We could do to have a little time off after all this." And, I thought to myself, maybe spending a weekend on a country estate with some bohemians might be good for my dear sister. Especially if she could find a Wupert or at the very least someone willing to help out a pair of distressed damsels amongst them. She shot me a look.

"The invitation was for me..." she said, sounding hurt.

"Oh come on, Del. he probably didn't include me because he didn't know I was back." I lite another cigarette and grinned. "Besides, I'll need to be there to make sure he keeps his paws to himself." How little did I know that those words would become oddly, eerily correct before too long.