The Markenmore Mystery — Joseph Smith Fletcher / J.S. Fletcher

Braxfield, who had been butler to Sir Anthony Markenmore, Baronet, of Markenmore Court, for thirty years, was a man of method. All his life he had cultivated the habit of doing certain things at certain times: the older he grew (and he was now a little over sixty) the more this habit grew upon him. Virtually, he was master of the house; Sir Anthony was an invalid who kept his room; Mr. Guy Markenmore, the elder son, had never crossed his father's threshold for some years; Mr. Harry Markenmore, the younger son, preferred anybody but himself to exercise merely domestic authority; Miss Valencia Markenmore, the only daughter, had been but recently released from the schoolroom; accordingly, Braxfield, one way and another, and without seeming to do so, wielded a mild, unobtrusive autocracy. He had many good rules, and some others that were little better than fads—amongst the last was his trick of locking up the house at precisely eight o'clock every evening.