Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair

(“MAN ENDS EIGHTY-TWO DAY FAST”—Silly creature! “OIL DISCOVERY IN BAHAMAS”—Did I tell you that paraffin is up a penny, dear?) But she gave the impression of never really believing that the world the papers reported did in fact exist. The world for Aunt Lin began with Robert Blair and ended within a ten-mile radius of him.

“What kept you so late tonight, dear?” she asked, having finished her soup.

From long experience Robert recognised this as being in a different category from: “Have you had a busy day, dear?”

“I had to go out to The Franchise – that house on the Larborough road.

They wanted some legal advice.”

“Those odd people? I didn’t know you knew them.”

“I didn’t. They just wanted my advice.”

“I hope they pay you for it, dear. They have no money at all, you know. The father was in some kind of importing business – monkey-nuts or something – and drank himself to death. Left them without a penny, poor things.

Old Mrs. Sharpe ran a boarding-house in London to make ends meet, and the daughter was maid-of-all-work. They were just going to be turned into the street with their furniture, when the old man at The Franchise died. So providential!”

“Aunt Lin! Where do you get those stories?”

“But it’s true, dear. Perfectly true. I forget who told me – someone who had stayed in the same street in London – but it was first-hand, anyhow. I am not one to pass on idle gossip, as you know.

Is it a nice house? I always wondered what was inside that iron gate.”

“No, rather ugly. But they have some nice pieces of furniture.”

“Not as well kept as ours, I’ll be bound,” she said, looking complacently at the perfect sideboard and the beautiful chairs ranged against the wall. “The vicar said yesterday that if this house were not so obviously a home it would be a show place.” Mention of the clergy seemed to remind her of something.

“By the way, will you be extra patient with Christina for the next few days. I think she is going to be �saved’ again.”

“Oh, poor Aunt Lin, what a bore for you. But I was afraid of it. There was a �text’ in the saucer of my early-morning tea today. �Thou God seest me’ on a pink scroll, with a tasteful design of Easter lilies in the background. Is she changing her church again, then?”

“Yes.