"Not for a thousand a year," replied Herrick with a laugh. "I never made so much in all my medical life. Not to mention the delights of your society. What have you been doing?"
"Shopping mostly. Then I called in on Frith and Frith to talk about business. I heard of your friend Joyce there."
"The deuce you did!" said Jim wheeling round. "I have just been dining with him, and I do not think he is improved. Frith and Frith are his lawyers I know. How did his name crop up?"
"In the course of my talk about the Colonel's business."
Herrick stared. "What do you mean?" he asked roughly.
"Well, you will be rather astonished," continued Marsh lighting his pipe, "but the fact is Colonel Carr allowed Mrs. Joyce, the mother of your friend an income of five hundred a year."
"No!" said Herrick, and thought that this was just the sum Robin said he had been left by his mother's will.
"Yes! Why, I do not know. Nor could Frith tell me. The Colonel never called to see Mrs. Joyce; he never wrote her a letter. But he directed Frith to pay her an annuity of five hundred pounds."
"An annuity? Then it ceased at her death?"
"Of course. The son gets nothing. The reason Frith mentioned it, was that he wished to know if I had found anything amongst my uncle's papers likely to show why the annuity had been paid, and whether it ought to be continued to the son."