The door snarled on its hinges, and disclosed a space drearier certainly, and if possible uglier, than its promise.
‘Really, Mr Coningham,’ I said, ‘I don’t see why you should have brought me to look at this place.’
‘It answered for a bait, at all events. You’ve had a good long ride, which was the best thing for you. Look what a wretched little vestry that is!’
It was but a corner of the east end, divided off by a faded red curtain.
‘I suppose they keep a parish register here,’ he said. ‘Let us have a look.’
Behind the curtain hung a dirty surplice and a gown. In the corner stood a desk like the schoolmaster’s in a village school. There was a shelf with a few vellum-bound books on it, and nothing else, not even a chair in the place.
‘Yes; there they are!’ he said, as he took down one of the volumes from the shelf. ‘This one comes to a close in the middle of the last century. I dare say there is something in this, now, that would be interesting enough to somebody. Who knows how many properties it might make change hands?’
‘Not many, I should think. Those matters are pretty well seen to now.’
{Illustration: “COUNTRY LAWYERS KNOW A SECRET OR TWO,” HE SAID.}
‘By some one or other—not always the rightful heirs. Life is full of the strangest facts, Mr Cumbermede. If I were a novelist, now, like you, my experience would make me dare a good deal more in the way of invention than any novelist I happen to have read. Look there, for instance.’