A Change of Heir Read Online Free PDF Page B

palate had of late been confined within the gastronomic range of Mrs Lapin, it seemed very good indeed. Comberford, however, pronounced it no more than modestly meritorious. It would be at about the level, he supposed, of what the ‘old girl’ put up with at home, and no doubt she came here for the same thing when she had to visit London. It was a bit pathetic, surely, just not knowing what you could command if you wanted to. Still, although she was as old as the hills, she was not perhaps beyond the reach of education in these and other matters.
    Gadberry listened to these remarks for the most part in silence. He naturally found Comberford’s oblique manner of approaching whatever it was he had to propose more than a little irritating. Who the ‘old girl’ was simply hadn’t so far appeared, although it seemed a reasonable guess that she was some rich and eccentric relative. Certainly riches were well in the centre of the picture; they were the first element, so to speak, to take solid form through the haze of Comberford’s random and elusive talk. Gadberry saw that there was a certain cleverness in this sort of softening-up process; he was being edged into a mood of suspense and irritated curiosity. Of course something disreputable was going to be proposed to him. Of this there could be no doubt. It would almost certainly be a thoroughly predatory plan, with those carefully emphasised riches for quarry.
    Gadberry found that he had coffee and brandy before him, and that he was smoking a highly agreeable cigar. He withdrew his attention from Comberford for a time – the man seemed not ready to come to the point – in order to consider these pleasures soberly. Casting Comberford in the role of a Mephistopheles and himself in that of Dr Faustus, he tried to decide for just how many cigars and just how many brandies he would be prepared to do just what. But the equation, he found, had no real meaning. Cigars were all right in themselves, but he certainly wouldn’t risk much in the way of trouble in return for a lifetime’s supply. But change a box of cigars magically into a hareem of houris – and what then? He suspected he didn’t know. On the large speculative issue of Everything-that-money-can-buy he didn’t really have a clue. He had been brought up to believe that the quest of riches is ignoble and delusory. For all he knew, this pious conclusion might be precisely true.
    But Gadberry was much clearer about penury. Pious praise of poverty, at least, was poppycock. The ability to command this and that might ultimately prove pretty futile. But the inability to do the same thing was something he was fairly confident there was little to be said for. And particularly in the simple world of modest satisfactions: beer, if not brandy; fags if not cigars.
     
    Happy the man whose wish and care
    A few paternal acres bound…
     
    Alexander Pope had been right, and that happy man – Gadberry felt – could be him. Only, the little plot of ground had never come his way, whether paternally or otherwise.
    Further examined in the context of the Mephistopheles idea, all this perhaps led to the conclusion that he was prepared for mild turpitude for the sake of small gains. Put that way, it sounded more than a shade inglorious. Nor did it seem to fit the present situation – not with Comberford talking mysteriously of high stakes or whatever.
    ‘For a start, I’d say, one ought to be clear about the theory of the thing. Wouldn’t you agree?’
    Gadberry turned his attention back to Comberford with a jerk. It sounded as if the man had at last said something definite – and while he himself had been doing this wool-gathering.
    ‘Theory of what?’ Gadberry asked. He tried to speak in his best tough and grudging manner. But the Martinis and the hock – for there had been hock – and the brandy had undoubtedly been doing a bit of a job. It might have been premature to say that he was feeling co-operative, but he could