The story of the lemon tree

    In England there is a village called Downton. Friendly people live there who know each other very well. Near Downton there is a castle on a hill. This castle is famous for the lemon tree, that grows behind it. Noboby knows why is it interesting – except some old people who have lived there since the 1970s.

    This story tells you about the secret of that tree. Everything happened about thirty years ago. An old man lived in the castle, whose name was Tom Patman. He lived there with his wife, Helen, and their daughter, Enid. Villagers taught, Mr Patman is a fool old man, because he never left the castle, only when he went hunting in the forest. People were afraid of him, and it was getting worse when Helen and Enid suddenly disappeared.

    It was the end of November, everything was covered with snow. Police was looking for two bodies near Downton for a month, but nobody found Helen and Enid. Some women were sure about Helen and Enid wanted to escape from the castle and they were lying frozen somewhere. The local police had an idea to find out if it was a murder. They sent their best detective, Henry Palmer to the castle, as a poor man who needs an accomodation for that night.

    It was Friday night and Mr Patman was sitting in the kitchen, peered out of the window. He couldn’t see anything through the thick fog. Tom felt miserable. He often thought of his biggest secret. He was angry and lonely. Mr Patman couldn’t forget that night when he killed his wife and his daughter. He remembered everything clearly. He poured poison in their tea and to the lemon slices, too. Helen used to drink her tea with lemon. Tom knew that and made her tea poisonous. Fifteen minutes later they were both dead…

    As Tom was thinking, he heard something. Somebody knocked on the door. It was a young man who said, he lost his way in the storm and he couldn’t go anywhere to sleep. He was Henry. He noticed immediately that Mr Patman wasn’t a polite person.

    Tom showed him a room. There were only a bed, a mirror and a wardrobe. It was strange that the room was spacious, but there were only a few things in it. After 11 o’clock Henry slipped out silently to the living room, started to search for some kind of evidence. He found a wooden box. He was trying to open it when somebody touched his shoulder. „What are you doing here?!” asked Mr Patman angrily. There was a cup of tea with lemon in his hands. „I made you some tea to warm you up. It’s cold outside.” Tom tried to be kind. Henry went back to the room and drank the tea before he went to bed. Then he fell asleep and never woke up again… Mr Patman put the same poison in the lemon, as a month before.

    The next few days the police was looking for Henry. Tom knew he would be put into prison, he woudn’t escape. He didn’t want to die locked in the prison, so he wrote a letter, then made himself a cup of tea. Tom drank it with lemon, just like his wife did.

    On that day he poisoned himself, too.

    Two days later the villagers lyed him to rest behind the castle, and with a lemon next to him. He asked for it in his last letter.

    After many years, the lemon tree started to grow there on the hill. Since then, nobody goes there and no one lived in that castle. They say, there is the family’s ghost in it.