“Yes, I’m back, Mr. Spooner, and I’m quite well,” said Doggie. “I want to see you on very important business. When can you fix it up? Any time? Can you come along now to Denby Hall?”
Mr. Spooner would be pleased to wait upon Mr. Trevor immediately. He would start at once. Doggie went out and sat on the front doorstep and smoked cigarettes till he came.
“Mr. Spooner,” said he, as soon as the elderly auctioneer descended from his little car, “I’m going to sell the whole of the Denby Hall estate, and, with the exception of a few odds and ends, family relics and so forth, which I’ll pick out, all the contents of the house—furniture, pictures, sheets, towels and kitchen clutter. I’ve only got six days’ leave, and I want all the worries, as far as I am concerned, settled and done with before I go. So you’ll have to buck up, Mr. Spooner. If you say you can’t do it, I’ll put the business by telephone into the hands of a London agent.”
It took Mr. Spooner nearly a quarter of an hour to recover his breath, gain a grasp of the situation and assemble his business wits.
“Of course I’ll carry out your instructions, Mr. Trevor,” he said at last. “You can safely leave the matter in our hands. But, although it is against my business interests, pray let me beg you to reconsider your decision. It is such a beautiful home, your grandfather, the Bishop’s, before you.”
“He bought it pretty cheap, didn’t he, somewhere in the ’seventies?”
“I forget the price he paid for it, but I could look it up. Of course we were the agents.”
“And then it was let to some dismal people until my father died and my mother took it over. I’m sorry I can’t get sentimental about it, as if it were an ancestral hall, Mr. Spooner. I want to get rid of the place, because I hate the sight of it.”
“It would be presumptuous of me to say anything more,” answered the old-fashioned country auctioneer.
“Say what you like, Mr. Spooner,” laughed Doggie in his disarming way. “We’re old friends. But send in your people this afternoon to start on inventories and measuring up, or whatever they do, and I’ll look round to-morrow and select the bits I may want to keep. You’ll see after the storing of them, won’t you?”