‘He took it for the summer of the year eighteen-eighty-eight. According to the records he brought his wife, their two children – a boy of six and girl of two, a governess, a secretary, a cook, coachman, manservant and three maidservants with him. A typical well-to-do Victorian household. Like the late Mr Townsend, he entertained lavishly, with parties of friends from England being invited to stay.

‘Howard was a bad lot. He had had the benefits of a good education – Rugby and Oxford – and had entered the diplomatic service but after his marriage he resigned. Anyway, he rented Ardvreck House from Mr Townsend’s heir in May of the year eighteen-eighty-eight and came north with his entourage in June of that year.

‘The summer seems to have been a success. Howard, strangely enough, seems to have liked the wild beauty and loneliness of this part of the world. His wife hated it. Or rather she hated his hard drinking, arrogance and other things too. She was also lonely. She, I am sure, must have felt despair when he announced that he had persuaded the owner to sell the estate.

‘In eighteen-ninety-one Mrs Howard died – of an overdose of laudanum, seemingly. She had been taking it for neuralgia, to help her sleep. To the officer sent from Inverness to investigate the sudden death, Mr Howard, very cut up about his tragic loss, hinted at suicide, rather than accident. That was a mistake on his part. He said he had been worried about his wife’s state of mind for some time. She had suffered from fits of severe depression and melancholia. His secretary and manservant, when questioned, confirmed this. Mrs Howard’s personal maid said her mistress had never got over her last two babies’ deaths before the age of six weeks and had expressed a desire to “join them in heaven”.

‘A post-mortem was ordered by the Procurator-Fiscal, the description of Mrs Howard’s last agonies being decidedly inconsistent with the effects of an overdose of laudanum. The post-mortem revealed Mrs Howard had died of antimony poisoning, no less than forty grains having been absorbed in the form of tartar emetic, a substance readily soluble in water and almost completely tasteless. A dreadful death. This was a different kettle of fish and the upshot was that Howard was arrested for murder.