‘Well, I am afraid they are not.’

‘Not in debt, are they, eh? Dear, dear, dear, dear! Just like poor Hartley. He never could save a farthing …’

‘There is only this bill for twenty-one pounds, so far as I know, about which I have already told you.’

‘So far as you know, eh? Do you suspect that there may be other debts that we don’t know about?’

‘Miss Garden did not mention any others, and I think that she would have done so, had there been any. She seemed rather distressed.’

‘And how much have they got?’ asked Uncle Preston, who had been dreading to ask this question.

‘There is some forty-six pounds in hand from the practice. And I have great hopes of Dr Cameron. He really seems,’ said Mr Marriot in a tone of musing wonder, ‘eager to purchase the practice and take over the house.’

‘That would mean some two thousand pounds, I think you said?’

‘Yes. Though of course the bargain is not yet concluded.’

‘Come, that’s not so bad, though,’ murmured Uncle Preston, reassured. ‘Of course, it is not handsome, and there is the future to think of, but they need not starve just yet.’

‘So I told Miss Garden. Nevertheless, I appreciate her anxiety, and I may say that I respect it.’

And Mr Marriot, who knew what a small sum of money two thousand pounds is, tied up some documents with pink tape, looking dryly the while at Uncle Preston’s silly worried face.

The man had all a fool’s respect for money in the lump; such men mentally kept money in an old stocking, though actually they might keep it in a bank. They never saw it as a sharp gleaming weapon, nor as a silent golden god moving about the world and shaping history.

‘Of course. Of course.’

‘I think we may hope for two thousand pounds,’ the lawyer went on. ‘Of course, the practice has dropped considerably in numbers since your brother’s death, and when the poverty of the neighbourhood is taken into consideration, and the inconvenience of the house, and the lack of amenities, to say nothing of the hard and disagreeable work involved, I think two thousand pounds will be a very handsome price. I consider,’ he confessed, ‘that I was over-optimistic when I estimated the probable value at three thousand pounds some months ago. Still, I have, as I say, great hopes of Dr Cameron.’

But Uncle Preston’s mind had gone straying. He did not take in the sense of what Mr Marriot said; he was staring at the tip of his shoe with a surprised expression.

‘Extraordinary,’ he murmured. ‘You actually mean that people preferred to be attended by my brother? I should have thought that they would have welcomed Dr Casey as a new broom.’

‘So should I,’ said Mr Marriot dryly, ‘but people seldom behave as one would expect them to. There is not the slightest doubt that Dr Garden was very popular in Enbury Fields. I might almost go so far as to say that he was loved. Your brother, Mr Garden, was a most unusual personality and a very handsome man, and he had that gift of mixing with all classes of people which makes a man popular. Oh, there is no doubt that they liked him.’