Lieutenant Colonel Bernaby put on his wellington boots, buttoned his coat collar around his neck, took a storm lamp from a nearby shelf, carefully opened the front door of the small bungalow, and looked outside. The scene he saw was characteristic of the English countryside as depicted on Christmas cards and old-fashioned melodramas. There was snow everywhere, entire piles—not just a layer four to five centimeters thick. It had been snowing across all of England for the past four days, and here, on the outskirts of Dartmouth, the snow was several meters deep. Throughout England, landlords were complaining about broken pipes, so having a plumber friend—or even a friend who was a plumber—was the most coveted distinction.
Up here, in the tiny village of Sitford, always isolated from the world and now almost completely cut off, the difficulties of winter were a very real problem. However, Lieutenant Colonel Bernaby was a hardened man. He sighed once, growled twice, and decisively stepped out into the snow. He wasn’t going far. A few steps down a winding alley, then passing through a gate, he would walk along a path partially cleared of snow to a rather large house made of granite.
An elegant maid opened the front door. The lieutenant colonel took off his British Warm coat, his wellington boots, and his old scarf. Through a door that opened immediately afterward, he entered a room that gave him the illusion he was on stage—the scenery had completely changed. Although it was only three thirty, the curtains had been drawn, the electric lights were on, and a large fire was cheerfully burning in the fireplace. Two women in afternoon dresses stood up to greet the evergreen veteran.