“Which gets under your skin most? The patronage or the amateurism?” he enquired with misleading fatuity.
“The ruddy wealth!” said Toberman, speaking the truth and being amused by it. “Terence Kinnit spent a fortune ruining this place in the biggest possible way—he panelled quite two square miles of wall space with pseudo-Tudor plywood for one thing—but it didn’t break him as it ought to have done, because he was able to pay for the lot by instructing us to auction off just a portion of the magnificent stuff he found and recognised in the ruins. The original builders had not only imported their skilled labour from Italy but their ‘garden ornaments’ as well. Classic marbles, old boy, which are now in half the museums in Europe. No one recognised them but Terence. I’ve never forgiven his gho
