They both looked resentfully at the still figure under the sheet on the bed, but Mr. Chase could not help feeling that the solicitor was a little over-inclined to dot his i’s in the avoidance of any possible hypocrisy. He reflected, however, that it was, in the long run, preferable to the opposite method of Mr. Farebrother, Nutley’s senior partner, who was at times so evasive as to be positively unintelligible.
“Very tidy, everything. H’m—handkerchiefs, gloves, little bags of lavender in every drawer. Yes, just what I should have expected: she was a rare one for having everything spick and span. She’d go for the servants, tapping her stick sharp on the boards, if anything wasn’t to her liking; and they all scuttled about as though they’d been wound up after she’d done with them. I don’t know what you’ll do with the old lady’s clothes, Mr. Chase. They wouldn’t fetch much, you know, with the exception of the lace. There’s fine, real lace here, that ought to be worth something. It’s all down in the heirloom book, and it’ll have to be unpicked off the clothes. But for the rest, say twenty pounds. These silk dresses are made of good stuff, I should say,” observed Mr. Nutley, fingering a row of black dresses that hung inside a cupboard, and that as he stirred them moved with the faint rustle of dried leaves; “take my advice, and give some to the housekeeper; that’ll be of more value to you in the end than the few pounds you might get for them. Always get the servants on your side, is my axiom. However, it’s your affair; you’re the sole heir, and there’s nobody to interfere.” He said this with a sarcastic inflection detected only by himself; a warning note under the ostensible deference of his words as though daring Chase to assert his rights as the heir. “And, anyway,” he concluded, “we’re not likely to find any more papers in here, so we’re wasting time now. Shall we go down?”
“Wait a minute, listen: what’s that noise out in the garden?”
“Oh, that! one of the peacocks screeching. There are at least fifty of the damned birds. Your aunt wouldn’t have one of them killed, not one. They ruin a garden. Your aunt liked the garden, and she liked the peacocks, but she liked the peacocks better than the garden. Screech, screech—you’ll soon do away with them. At least, I should say you would do away with them if you were going to live here. I can see you’re a man of sense.”
Mr. Chase drew Mr. Nutley and his volubility out on to the landing, closing the door behind him. The solicitor ruffled the sheaf of papers he carried in his hand, trying to peep between the sheets that were fastened together by an elastic band.
“Well,” he said briskly, “if you’re agreeable I think we might go downstairs and find Farebrother and Colonel Stanforth. You see, we are trying to save you all the time we possibly can. What about the old lady? do you want anyone sent in to sit with her?”
“I really don’t know,” said Chase, “what’s usually done? you know more about these things than I do.”
“Oh, as to that, I should think I ought to!” Nutley replied with a little self-satisfied smirk. “Perhaps you won’t believe me, but most weeks I’m in a house with a corpse. There are usually relatives, of course, but in this case if you wanted anyone sent in to sit with the old lady, we should have to send a servant. Shall I call Fortune?”
“Perhaps you had better—but I don’t know: Fortune is the butler, isn’t he? Well, the butler told me all the servants were very busy.”
“Then it might be as well not to disturb them? At any rate, the old lady won’t run away,” said Mr. Nutley jocosely.