Chapter 19

Mr. Prescott's eyes widened in amazement when drew up outside the Dower House. He got out of his car and just stood for a while his eyes darting here and there trying to take in the change. He came up the steps shaking his head. "Mr. Chandler I am amazed. From the photos I discovered of this house, I would have said without hesitation that all you could do was knock it down." He extended his hand to shake. "This is magnificent." I showed him inside and took him to the office. He greeted Tina. "Miss Barker. It is so very good to see you again."

His gaze then fell upon Bella, who advanced and held out her hand. "I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Prescott. I am Annabel Swinson, soon to be Annabel Chandler."

That stopped him. "Swinson? Are you by any chance related to Arabella Swinson?"

Bella smiled. "She was my great, great aunt."

Mr. Prescott looked at me and then back to Bella. "And you are engaged to Mr. Chandler?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful!. I have often observed through my research that history appears to repeat itself. Here is proof. Fate obviously intended a connection between Chandler and Swinson. I am so pleased that it is going to happen."

"Coffee, Mr. Prescott?" Tina broke in.

"May I be difficult and ask for tea?"

"No problem."

"I'll help you, Tina." Offered Bella and they left together.

Mr. Prescott had brought his laptop and looked around to see where he could set it down. "Here. Use my desk."

"Thank you Mr. Chandler.

"Call me Daniel."

He nodded. "I am Brian." He switched on the laptop and we waited as it booted. "I continued in the research and found some facts which didn't seem to fit. When I received that email from Miss Barker with the description of Sir Dashwood it started to make sense; that is if you discount Sir Dashwood as being the sire of Sir Danbury."

"It went through my mind, yes."

"Good we are both in the same frame of mind."

The girls came back with drinks, and once we had sweetened and milked to personal tastes Brian began to talk. "This could have been a uninteresting story. The Chandlers like so many aristocratic families went from rags to riches and back to rags. It would have remained just that except for the intervention of you, Daniel and your extraordinary resemblance to Sir Danbury. Daniel you should not have any gene similarity to Sir Danbury, except through his mother. That could have been just a coincidence until Miss Barker. May I call you Tina?" Tina nodded. "Sent me the pages from Arabella Swinsons' diary. The description of Sir Dashwood was illuminating. That Sir Danbury had none of his physical characteristics would have most doctors asking questions. Whilst genes from past generations could come into play, sometimes from many generations long gone, it is rare that a son has none of his father's characteristics. So with that in mind I started searching again. This is what I found."

He put up a sepia photo of what was without doubt a Victorian man. Hair cut short with a neat side parting, a moustache and a full beard, neatly trimmed in the style of Edward the VII. The eyes almost glared at the photographer with disdain. He was almost certainly an aristocrat. "This is Rupert St.John Grantley, Earl Grantisbury to be precise. He was a friend of Edward VII from his late teens and continued as one of Edwards's companions' right through to his death." He put up another photo and I immediately recognised Sir Danbury. "I have cleaned up the photo's to remove the damage that comes with age. Now let's look at them in a different way." He clicked and suddenly the two photo's came up side by side. "I managed to get hold of a programme that was developed for the police. It compares the two images and rates them according to similarities. The police use it to identify culprits who try to disguise themselves. But genealogists use it to determine relationships. The programme examines width of brow, setting of eyes, cheekbones, chin and mouth. All of which are usual familial genetic traits." He set the program to work and we waited as the photos were scanned. In one corner a percentage counter was clicking up. "It takes some time as my laptop doesn't really have a large enough processor and this programme takes up a lot of the disc.

It took something like four minutes to complete and at the end the percentage counter was indicating sixty-six percent. Tina was impatient. "What does that mean?"

"It means that these two people have a very high possibility of being related. I believe the police with a correlation percentage of seventy-five percent would conclude that the photos are probably two views of the same man. With genetics anything over fifty percent is pertinent. If I had the skills to photo-shop and get rid of the Earl's beard, I am certain that the count would be higher. The beard hides some physical features."

"I could do that." Tina advanced her computer skills. "I have Adobe on my computer. Send me the photo and I'll get on to it."

Mr. Prescott looked at me, I shrugged my shoulders. He loaded the two photos onto a USB memory stick and Tina immediately slotted it in and downloaded. "You must take care, you cannot change the underlying bone structure."

"I think you had better stay for lunch." I suggested to Brian.

"Who's cooking?" Asked Bella.

I looked at Bella who smiled sweetly. She had said on quite a few occasions that her cooking skills were minimal. "Ah! I think we had better go down to the pub. You coming Tina?" She didn't reply. She was already working, merely waving her hand airily obviously not bothered about lunch.

We did not stay long at the pub. Everyone of us was eager to see how Tina had got on. She was still poring over the editing suite when we got back. I, who knew her best could see that she was getting exasperated. I guided Brian and Bella out to the back terrace. "It's best we leave Tina alone for the moment. She is likely to explode if we harass her."

"I'll go and make coffee." Bella offered. "Or would you prefer tea, Brian?"

"That's very kind of you Bella. I would indeed prefer tea."

"Where did you get this Earl and why did you think he could be part of the equation?"

"It was something that struck me when I was seeking to find the acquaintances of Sir Dashwood and Lady Adelaide. I supposed that if Sir Dashwood was not the father of Sir Danbury then it would be one of their society who could. The 'Tatler' was the publication that carried that sort of information. I had to go through a lot of microfilm. They reported the house parties of the aristocracy and royalty and I was able to match Lady Adelaide to some of the weekend parties. After some time I found that Earl Grantisbury would be at the same events; I thought it coincidence at first, until I realized that Lady Adelaide was a guest only when Earl Grantisbury was present as well. With his connection to Edward it was simple to get a photo of him. That was when I started investigating him."

"And what did you find?"

"What I found was quite interesting, but may we leave that until Tina has finished her work. She started this in many ways, so she should be present."

"You are right of course. I'll go and see how she is getting on."

Tina was not happy. She had done what I would say was a very good job. The photo now showed a man who had had a sloppy shave that morning. She was angry that she couldn't do better. "Every time I try to clean up the whiskers I am changing the shape of the face." She ranted.

"Calm down, my pit bull. You have done a bloody good job. I'll get Brian in and let's see what it comes up with now."

"Ok. But before we do that, I'm taking a photo of you. Perhaps Mr. Prescott will do the same comparison with your photo."

Andrew repeated the test with the photo-shopped image and this time it came up with a correlation percentage of seventy-eight percent. Then he loaded my photo and tested again. The correlation percentage was eighty percent. He was triumphant. "There you are Daniel. I have no qualms in asserting that Earl Grantisbury is your Great, great grandfather."