Corpse in a Gilded Cage Read Online Free

beneath him. The moment he heard, with horror, of the young Earl’s death he had realized that the new Earl and his Countess might not be up to par. Quite how stupendously below par they would turn out to be he had not for a moment suspected.
    â€˜The point I tried to make at our last meeting,’ he said, with what he felt was heroic patience, ‘was that in these matters there is something more tobe considered, something more than mere money. There are the family obligations, as custodians over the centuries of part of the nation’s artistic and architectural heritage. This is one part— one part, only—of what we understand by the phrase noblesse oblige. It is this obligation that noble families like your own strive to uphold in these admittedly difficult times.’
    â€˜Not all of them they don’t,’ returned the Earl triumphantly. ‘Do you think I haven’t read in the papers about that lot that live in the South of France and are selling the old ’ome bit by bit and living off the proceeds like pigs in clover? And I don’t blame ’em either. The nation can’t have it both ways: you can’t slam on death duties and income tax and wealth tax and I don’t know what, and then scream “noblesser bleege” when the people who’ve got the stuff want to cash in their chips and get what they can while the going’s good.’
    â€˜Of course we would not disagree about death duties—’
    â€˜I’m damn sure we wouldn’t. And another thing: when you talk about “the national heritage” and all that rot, how come this place was only open to the public one day a year in the old Earl’s time, eh?’
    â€˜Er . . . the old Earl felt . . .’
    â€˜Well now, I’m going to hand it to you straight: this is one nobless that isn’t going to bleege. I don’t owe no favours to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor to the nation. Neither the one nor the other has ever done any great favour to me. I’ll be forking out enough from this little lot as it is.’
    â€˜True, I can’t deny it. There is, of course, the option of offering Chetton to the National Trust,’ murmured Mr Lillywaite, following that line of thought reluctantly. ‘But I’m afraid that, even were you to do that, you would also have to offer it a considerable sum to cover the upkeep.’
    The Earl stared at him in disbelief.
    â€˜You must be joking.’
    The lawyer did not pursue that option.
    â€˜I suppose,’ he said, ‘it will be necessary to offer the nation certain works of art, in lieu of death duties.’
    The Earl looked suspicious.
    â€˜Does that mean they’ll be getting them on the cheap?’
    â€˜As a rule the sum agreed is rather less than the piece would fetch on the open market.’
    â€˜Forget it. Sell to the highest bidder, and then pay the death duties.’ The Earl stopped in his tracks. Talk with Mr Lillywaite always made him feel ‘badgered’. He had felt the same way, not long before, when he had beenquestioned after a road accident by the police. It brought out all his usually latent aggression and pig-headedness. ‘Here,’ he said, turning to the lawyer with a look of intense suspicion on his face, ‘you’re not in the pay of the Chancellor or something, are you?’
    Mr Lillywaite screwed up his face in an expression of pain and outrage, as if he had been accused of frequenting a credit-card brothel.
    â€˜Lord Ellesmere, I am merely trying to serve you—and the good name of your family—as best I can, in difficult circumstances. As I have done, and my father before me, all our working lives.’
    â€˜Okay,’ said the Earl, speedily appeased, and equably resuming his walk, ‘no offence. But from now on I’d be happier if you served me and let the family’s good name take care of itself. The