Game in Diamonds

The title is misleading. It sounds like a book about "Bridge" but it is not. "Game" means, as Sherlock Holmes is reputed to have said, "the game is afoot" and "Diamonds" means a lost treasure. In the heart of Somerset is the town of Ellstream. Lady Charlotte Merrion, a rich widow of the founder of Merrion bank, inherited a hillside with a crumbling house and a brick tower. She tore the house down and built a mansion. She tore down the brick tower but left the tower bricks in a heap. There is a legend about the house that was torn down. A woman from India (who was either the wife or the lover of a Mr. Exerton, who worked for the East India Company) used Exerton money to build the house and brick tower while Exerton was in jail for fraud relating to the Company. Mr. Exerton was killed when his coach tipped over into a local river after he was released from jail and riding to his home in Ellstream. Local legend believes that Exerton had jewels or money with him when he was killed and people over the last hundred years have tried to find them by diving in the river. Lady Charlotte has sold off two plots of land below her mansion. The lower plot was purchased by Lady Charlotte's divorced daughter-in-law (whom she likes better than her new daughter-in-law). Mrs. Merrion is a sweet and kindly woman who built a house with a separate guest cottage near her upper property line. The upper plot was bought by Mr. Ainstey, a grouchy, selfish, and stingy man -- he has been stealing bricks from the heap on Lady Charlotte's property to build a fancy bird bath in his garden. He built his house close to the lower property line because it was the flattest part of his plot and cheaper to build it there than on the sloped part of his plot. However the guests in Mrs. Merrion's guest house are a continuing source of annoyance to him. Mr. Ainstey has a wife who he married to get someone to clean and cook meals for him. His wife has 3 daughters from a previous marriage. When he married her, he promised to provide allowances for each of his three step-daughters they married. The older two have married but he is still stuck sending an allowance to the youngest, Lydia. Lydia currently works as a musician in the unknown, poorly paid Kellerman String Quartet and lives in a very small basement bed sitter in London. She is currently at loose ends and not getting paid because Mr. Kellerman has skipped off with the quartet money box on one of his brief affairs (he always returns to Mrs. Kellerman and the string quartet when the money runs out). Mr. Ainstey worries that Lydia will never marry or have self supporting job -- he will be paying for Lydia forever. Mrs. Merrion's brother-in-law, Esmond, comes to visit her and stay in Mrs. Merrion's guest cottage. Esmond has a slightly shady past and does not get along with his mother Lady Charlotte, who has cut him out of her will. Esmond is a noisy guest, throwing midnight parties with friends who dance in the nude. As the stor