"I'll send it to Aunt Judit of 'Rosie's Weekly Bits'," said Wimsey. "A makes a remark to which there is no answer. What is B to do?"
"Sorry," said George, "my conversation doesn't seem to be up to standard. I'm forgetting all my civilized habits. You'd better go on and pay no attention to me."
"What's the mystery on hand now?" asked Sheila, taking her husband at his word.
"Well, actually it's about this funny business of the old General's will," said Wimsey. "Murbles suggested I should have a look into the question of the survivorship."
"Oh, do you think you can really get it settled?"
"I hope so very much. But it's a very fine-drawn business—may resolve itself into a matter of seconds. By the way, Fentiman, were you in the Bellona smoking-room at all during the morning of Armistice Day?"
"So that's what you've come about. Why didn't you say so? No, I wasn't. And what's more, I don't know anything at all about it. And why that infuriating old hag of a Dormer woman couldn't make a decent, sensible will while she was about it, I don't know. Where was the sense of leaving all those wads of money to the old man, when she knew perfectly well he was liable to peg out at any moment. And then, if he did die, handing the whole lot over to the Dorland girl, who hasn't an atom of claim on it? She might have had the decency to think about Robert and us a bit."
"Considering how rude you were to her and Miss Dorland, George, I wonder she even left you the seven thousand."
"What's seven thousand to her? Like a five-pound note to any ordinary person. An insult, I call it. I daresay I was rude to her, but I jolly well wasn't going to have her think I was sucking up to her for her money."
"How inconsistent you are, George. If you didn't want the money, why grumble about not getting it?"