" Perfect! See you then." Her goodbye was lost has I set the receiver into the cradle.Friday morning found me sleeping in late, eating a lite breakfas..., and putting myself thru a lite work out in the hotel gym. After a steam and shower I answered my email and voice messages. Noon rolled around and I still hadn't checked out of my room. I was wearing sweats when I was startled by a knock on the door. I went to open the door expecting the hotel maid service to be badgering me to make up the room. “Not easy, but if they didn’t take the laptop, or the video recorder, there’s nothing else in the house worth taking. I’ve only just moved in, and most of the house is not yet furnished. Furthermore, judging by what they did to the laptop, the motive was destruction,” John said. “Let me see if the filing cabinet’s intact.”It was upside down but otherwise untouched since it was locked. He suspected the contents would need a day’s re-filing.“No. They just wanted to trash the place,” John. As he carried on, I listened intently, but a little rebellious part of me was ticking, thinking and planning. “Sweetheart,” I interrupted a little later, terrified by the shiver travelling up and down my spine, or rather by what it implied. “I’m sorry, I have to go.” Decision made, no time to be lost, I cut the connection and set to work. A day later and there I was, in the lobby waiting for him. I had called him on his cell to find out what his plans were, never giving away that I was actually. So he decided to take a quick walk around the house, to look at all of therooms and to try and find any secret nooks and crannies.He walked slowly through the house, going from the east to west wings,without any real urgency or indeed any sense of planned direction. It wasas he walked down the top corridor in the west wing that he heard thesound of a young girl singing. He followed the sound and found himselfoutside one of the rooms of the serving girls. He looked through theslightly ajar door.