1 Introduction

Hello, my name is Anne Watson, I am fifteen years old and my best friend is Henry Wattenberg, he is also fifteen. We go to the same school, but I go to the girls' section. So we shouldn't meet, but when Henry ran from the educator, he hid in our room. I wasn't at dinner because I wasn't feeling well, so we met. These winter holidays, Henry invited me to Highfield Manor, which is typical English country residence near London. This year there will be a Christmas party on the 22th of December.

At Highfield manor will be also Henry's father – Earl Wattenberg. He very often stays on the London Stock Exchange, but he promised Henry these holidays that he would stay at home. However, Henry believes this is due to the arrival of his new assistant, and a maid. Also, there will be Henry's mother. She loves to use her title as Countess and is very happy to stay at the London high society parties, she also loves to throw parties at their residence. But her older son Willian hates these parties, he generally hates his mother's behavior, so he tries to spend his holidays away from home with his friends. This holiday, the count forced him to come home.

In addition to the Wattenberg family, Higfield Manor also has a servant, Miss Arthur, Mrs. Greenwald aka Mrs. G and new maid, Gerda Scheiman. Henry found out while rummaging through his father's documents that she came from Germany and that she is a single mother. When the countess found out, she set the scene down and quarreled with the count, as he had hired as such a person that he had no recommendation from previous lords, and according to that she is completely untrustworthy person and it was not appropriate for a hussy to serve for them. Then the Earl recovered from the fact that he was going for a ride because he was not in the mood to listen to this.

Another is the majordomo Mr. Nickles, he is still quite young, he has been working for the Wattenbergs for a little over five years. Henry searched again and found that Mr. Nickles had left his previous masters because of some unexplained death of a member of their staff. The gardener is called O'Connel, he takes care of the large Highfield manor gardens (there is by the way there is a pond with a fountain, an old greenhouse and a gazebo), sometimes he invites helpers from the village, because he is older and does not have much strength.

After Mrs. Peyton, who had retired, the Earl had hired a new assistant, John Taylor. He will start working in the winter holidays, Earl invited his fiancé Betty Collins too.

Amelia Edwars (Count Wattenberg's sister) and her husband Reginald Edwards are invited to Christmas party too.