Happily Mrs. Lewknor's problem solved itself as by miracle.
Alf Caspar, who had his garage in the Goffs at the foot of Old Town and, in spite of the continued protests of Mrs. Trupp and Bess, still drove for Mr. Trupp (the old surgeon refusing steadfastly to keep a car of his own), had from the start evinced an almost prurient interest in the conception of the hostel. In the very earliest days when Mr. Trupp and Mrs. Lewknor talked it over as they drove through Paradise, the beech-hangar between old Town and Meads, to visit the prospective site in Cow Gap, he would sit at his wheel manipulating his engine to ensure the maximum of silent running, his head screwed round and big left ear reaching back to lick up what was passing between the two occupants of the body of the car.
Later, when it had actually been decided to embark upon the scheme, he said to Mr. Trupp one day in his brightest manner:
"Should be a paying proposition, sir, with you behind it."
The old surgeon eyed his chaffeur through his pince-nez shrewdly.
"If you like to put £3,000 or so into it, Alfred, you wouldn't do yourself any harm," he said.
Alf sheathed his eyes in that swift bird-like way of his, and tittered.
"Three thousand pounds!" he said. "Me!" ....
A few days later when Mr. Trupp called at the Colonel's tiny villa in Meads. Mrs. Lewknor ran out to him, eager as a girl.
She had received from Messrs. Morgan and Evans, the solicitors in Terminus Road, an offer of the sum required on behalf of a client on the security of a first mortgage.