The Meredith Legacy

This time it's a house as well as a family called Meredith and after Aunt Flora takes a fatal tumble, an assortment of cousins and uncles and aunts are on hand to see who will inherit. Including Alex who ran away at sixteen having been told he had a ""diseased"" mind and who now is the butt of family suspicion -- all except that of Lydia who tells the story when she's not wandering in the root cellar. It's that convention, of course, a little better than her first, Briarcliff Manor (KR, p. 145) although any breathalyzer will tell you there's nothing stronger than eau de cologne around.