At this moment, Job Kossiter announced to the assembled company that it was time to close the bar, so in a few moments the room was empty of all save Nestley and his two companions. Dick asked him to have a glass of ale but he refused.
"I never drink," he said bluntly, "I'm teetotal."
They both opened their eyes at this, but were too polite to make any comments, so in order to relieve the awkwardness of the situation, Dr. Nestley began to speak.
"I suppose you've got some queer characters down here," he said, filling a fresh pipe of tobacco.
"Rather," said Dick, promptly, "old Garsworth for instance."
"Is that the squire you're talking of?" said a drawling voice at the door, and on looking towards it, the trio saw Mr. Basil Beaumont strolling into the room. Nestley grew a shade stiffer in his manner as his enemy came towards them, but Dick Pemberton turned his merry face to the new comer and nodded an answer.
Beaumont took up his favourite position in front of the fire and smoked complacently.
"Yes. When I left this place twenty-three years ago, I heard a lot about him."
"He was when I left, and I presume he still is," replied Beaumont, "but from all I've heard, he used to be pretty gay in his youth."
"Youth," echoed Dick scornfully, "was he ever a youth?"
"I believe he was, somewhere about the Flood. Why he must be ninety now."
"Thank you for the correction," answered Beaumont, casting a sidelong look at him; "over seventy, yes, I should say seventy-three or four, as he was about fifty when I left; he had lived a riotous life up to the age of forty, then he suddenly took to saving money, why, nobody knows."
"Oh yes, they do," said Reginald, taking his cigar out of his mouth. "It's common gossip now."
"Tell us all about it," said Nestley, settling himself in his chair.
"It's a curious story," said Blake leisurely. "Squire Garsworth led a fast life, as Beaumont says, till he was forty, then he stumbled on some books about the transmigration of the soul."
"Yes, and Allan Kardec, spiritualism and re-incarnation; he learned from those books to believe that his soul would be incarnated in another body; from long study of this theory he became a monomaniac."
Nestley did not want to speak either directly or indirectly to Beaumont, but this observation appealed to his professional pride, therefore he spoke.