Crime doesn't pay enough (part 3 of 3)

Often I had to physically fight intruders, who refused to leave, and more than once I had to spend a few days at a hospital where doctors patched me up. During these stays, I never managed to relax, as I kept thinking about the big risks of someone else finding the romantic invoices.

During this time, I did not have a single day of holiday, unless you count as holiday the times when his lordship travelled abroad and I had to go with him (at my own expense) to protect him against all sorts of unwanted curiosity. We went both to Hawaii, which was very pleasant, and the Amazonas, which was much less pleasant, as his lordship explored different kinds of tropical invertebrates, which fascinated him intensely. Often, during our trips, there was nothing to eat but the local food, something his lordship enjoyed immensely, while it often made me sick for days.

Attempts at raising the black mail amount failed, as his lordship pointed out that he was a very poor man, and there was simply not enough money to pay me anything more. Looking at the trinkets in the manor, I was inclined to believe him.

After seven years, I was exhausted. At the beginning of my employment I had been a young man exploring the possibilities of life. After seven years, I was thin and grey and knackered.

It was at this time that his lordship left us. He left all his money to charity. It was much more than I had imagined possible. There was not a penny to me, of course. I was after all the criminal who had extorted money from him for seven long years. The charity organisation got not only his money, but also the manor, the grounds and all his papers, including one that beyond doubt proved that he was a fraud from beginning to end. He had killed the real lord B many years ago. The handwriting on the invoices from lady F did not resemble the handwriting of the real lady F at all.

That was his real secret. He had only pretended to be blackmailed by me, while in fact he had employed me as a bodyguard to protect his deeper secret, the secret that could have ruined his life completely and sentenced him to a long prison sentence.

I was tired, a mere shadow of my former Special Forces self. Having paid all my travels myself, I was as poor as I had been when I began my black mailing butler career.

But at least I had learnt a valuable lesson. Unfortunately, in my current economic situation, I cannot divulge the actual lesson for free. To learn what it is, send me a package with a large amount of money in small unmarked bank notes, and you will receive an answer as soon as I have spent it.