“Ah, dear!” said Mr. Farebrother in wistful reminiscence, “how well I remember the day Miss Chase sent for me to assist her in the making of that will; it was just such a day as this, and after I had been waiting a little while she came into the room, a black lace cap on her white hair, and her beautiful hands leaning on the top of her stick—she had very beautiful hands, your aunt, Mr. Chase, beautiful cool ivory hands—and I remember she was singularly gracious, singularly gracious; a great lady of the old school, and she was pleased to twit me about my reluctance to admit that some day even _she_ ... ah, well, will-making is a painful matter; but I remember her, gallant as ever....” “That’s all rubbish, Farebrother,” said Mr. Nutley rudely, as his partner showed signs of meandering indefinitely on; “gracious, indeed! When you know she terrified you nearly out of your life. You always get mawkish like this about people once they’re dead.” Mr. Farebrother blinked mildly, and Nutley continued without taking any further notice of him. “You haven’t done so well out of this as John Fortune,” he said to Stanforth, “and you’ll have a deal more trouble.” “I take it,” said Stanforth, getting up and striding about the room, “that in the matter of this estate there are a great many liabilities and no assets to speak of, except the estate itself? To start with, there’s a twenty-thousand-pound mortgage. What’s the income from the farms?” “A bare two thousand a year.” “So you start the year with a deficit, having paid off your income tax and the interest on the mortgage. Disgusting,” said Stanforth. “One thing, at any rate, is clear: the place must go. One could just manage to keep the house, of course, but I don’t see how anyone could afford to live in it, having kept it. The land isn’t worth over much, but luckily we’ve got the house and gardens. What figure, Nutley? Thirty thousand? Forty?” Mr. Nutley whistled. “You’re optimistic. The house isn’t so very large, and it’s inconvenient, no bath-rooms, no electric light, no garage, no central heating. The buyer would have all that on his hands, and the moat ought to be cleaned out too. It’s insanitary.” “Still, the house is historical,” said Stanforth; “I think we can safely say thirty thousand for the house. It’s a perfect specimen of Elizabethan, so I’ve always been told, and has the Tudor moat and outbuildings into the bargain. Thirty thousand for the house,” he noted on a piece of paper. “I wouldn’t care for it myself,” said Mr. Nutley, looking round, “low rooms, dark passages, a stinking moat, and a slippery staircase. If that’s Tudor, you’re welcome to it.” His voice had a peculiarly malignant intonation. “Still, it’s a gentleman’s place, I don’t deny, and ought to make an interesting item under the hammer.” He passed the tip of his tongue over his lips, a gesture horridly voluptuous in one so sharp and meagre.