Honeywood Settlement

by Creswell, H. B.

  SPINLOVE TO BRASH

  Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 20.10.26.

  This is to confirm arrangement by telephone, that I will meet you at Charing Cross on the 5.25 to-morrow. I am astonished at what you tell me. Why these smells should suddenly reappear, and worse than formerly, is extraordinary—as indeed is the fact that there should be any smells. I will do my best to get to the bottom of the matter, though I cannot think that the trouble can be due to any defect in the work.

  I have also to thank you for your letter. I will let you have particulars of my charges. The final payment to Grigblay falls due on 10th November, as you know.

  I should mention that the refund of £92 from the brick manufacturer is included in the Statement of Account. I will bring the Statement with me to-morrow, for you to see.

  Yours sincerely,

  We may hope, for Spinlove’s peace of mind, that it has not occurred to him that the smells may be those associated with extensive dry rot, but, in point of fact, the early manifestation of the smells, their complete disappearance and their sudden return, does not indicate such a source.

  We may also hope that the reflection that this was the last of Spinlove’s snatching exploits reconciled Brash to the vanishing of the £92 with which he had endowed himself.

  SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

  Dear Sir, 22.10.26.

  I went yesterday to Honeywood at the urgent request of Sir Leslie Brash to investigate the smells complained of. I am at a loss to understand Mr. Grigblay’s report to me earlier in the year that there were no smells; for there is no doubt whatever that the house is pervaded by a sour, stuffy atmosphere. What the cause of this is I have no idea. The smell was described to me as like that of a third-class carriage in a tunnel on the Southern Railway, and I was myself once or twice reminded of a smoky chimney; but there were no fires in the house except the heating and hot water furnaces and the kitchen range, and the smell is most noticed at the opposite end of the house, partiularly in the bedrooms; in fact, the stuffy odour can be at once detected in Nos. 9, 10, 12, 15 and 16 if they are kept shut up for a few hours, but it is scarcely noticeable—if at all—anywhere downstairs. I slept in the small spare room (No. 9 on plan) with the windows shut, and the disgusting atmosphere was proved when in the morning I opened the windows and breathed fresh air. I was conscious of an oppressive sensation in my chest and a listless enervated feeling when I first got up, and I had a slight headache.

  I may say that Sir Leslie Brash naturally expects that the state of affairs shall be put an end to at once, and I will ask Mr. Grigblay to meet me at Honeywood either at 3.30 tomorrow afternoon, or in the course of the following day, and I shall expect to hear from you by telephone in the morning. Yours faithfully,

  If we had not such frequent cause to resent the peremptory, ill-mannered tone in which Spinlove addresses those under his direction, I should call attention to this instance of it. It is particularly to be regretted when he is addressing Grigblay to whom he has been in the past greatly indebted.

  A CONSULTING CHEMIST

  (HOLOGRAPH) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

  Sir, 23.10.26.

  I was away all to-day, but your letter was sent up to the house so I should see it to-night. I understand they rang up from the office to let you know I could not meet you to-day, and I now write to let you know I cannot meet you to-morrow and for the following reason.

  I may have as good a nose as most, but I don’t hold out to have a better and there is no use my joining in any sniffing match up at Honeywood, for that, if you will pardon me, is all it would amount to. If what you say is fact-and I do not doubt it is, for you will find that I dropped a hint of the same in the report I made last spring—I can make a guess what is the matter, and it is no small matter either; but the first thing is to find out whether the trouble is what we think, and to do that we want something a lot better than any nose, and that is a “detector,” and my advice, sir, is to ask Mr. F. T. Pricehard, Consulting Analyst (somewhere in Westminster he used to be), to send down and test the air same as they do in mines, and he will tell us what the fumes are-if there are any—or if it’s dead mice he will tell us that. He will not charge a large fee, and if the trouble’s any fault of mine I will pay it, and if not I take it the old gentleman will.

  You will excuse me telling you what I think best, but if Sir Leslie wants the trouble put right the first thing is to find out what trouble it is, and if Pricehard can’t say, nobody can.

  I am, sir,

  Yours faithfully,

  In the report referred to, Grigblay attributes a stuffy smell he noticed to down-draught in the flues carrying smoky air from adjoining chimney-pots into certain rooms: and it now seems that he suspects the present smells to derive from smoke fumes. The 170 he refers to is a simple apparatus for the ready measuring of the deadly monoxide gas that accumulates in mines, and other places. Pricehard’s methods, however, would be more exact than those made possible by the use of such an Instrument.

  SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

  Dear Mr. Grigblay,25.10.26.

  Thank you for your letter. I have spoken to Sir Leslie, and have to-day sent instructions to Mr. Pricehard.

  Yours truly,

  SPINLOVE TO PRICEHARD

  Dear Sir, 25.10.26.

  In confirmation of arrangements made over the telephone to-day, I enclose the full history of the “smells” at Honeywood and particulars of the construction of the building. Plans showing drains and all service pipes are hanging in the kitchen passage.

  Sir Leslie Brash has arranged for doors and windows of bedrooms to be kept shut on Thursday, and will send his car to meet the 2.5 from Charing Cross at Wedgefield Junction.

  Yours faithfully,

  PRICEHARD TO SPINLOVE

  Dear Sir, 6.11.26.

  I enclose report which gives analysis of samples of air taken in the rooms at Honeywood Grange specified in the report, at the times and under the conditions described.

  The slight trace of sulphur dioxide (SO2) would account for the smell noticeable. The presence of sulphuretted hydrogen (H2S) was not revealed by the ordinary tests used. Carbon dioxide (CO2) 0·048 is scarcely more than would be found in normal air. Carbon monoxide (CO) 0·015 (in the worst sample) be likely to produce headache, giddiness and oppression, after some hours.

  I am of opinion that fumes from closed coke fires are present in all the samples of air I took. There are two such coke furnaces in the house, that of the heating service and that of the hot-water supply, either of which might be the source of such fumes; but I am not in a position to say how those fumes are dispersed through parts of the house remote from the furnaces.

  I enclose note of my charges.

  Yours faithfully,

  So Lady Brash is vindicated at last! Carbon monoxide, which is colourless and without smell, is in high favour with suicides who find their most exacting needs supplied at a quite trifling cost by the public gas companies, but an architect who lays on a continuous supply of it to the bedrooms is likely to be regarded as officious. If the percentage Spinlove appears to have arranged for at Honeywood had been 0·15 instead of 0·015, no one would be likely to have survived one night.

  Pricehard’s investigation probably took the form of drawing samples of the suspected air through burettes with ball-bellows until the original air in the burette was displaced by the tainted air, and then closing the cocks at each end of the burettes. The contents of the burettes, each of which would have a capacity of about 200 c.cs., would then be analysed in the laboratory.

  (HOLOGRAPH) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

  Sir, 6.11.26.

  I write confidentially to let you know, as I don’t suppose you have any hand in the matter, that I have received a letter from Russ & Coy., solicitors, threatening proceedings for the failure of this new novelty patent supercrawling and crocodiling paint your client insist I use; but there are others can employ solicitors besides Sir Leslie Brash as he will find out. I never put anyone into Court my
self, and never was brought there except for once, and the man who put me there has been sorry ever since and so will this one be; for I have learnt a bit, these last months, about the successes of the Riddoppo Company with their wonderful extra super face-cream, or whatever it is, and if they have any customers left now, they won’t have any I have done with them. No one had ought to be better pleased than me for the old gentleman to go on and see what be will get for his trouble; but I am a poor man and have my work to attend to, and it will do me no good being in all the papers and I think it hard I should have all this trouble put on me because I used the stuff on the understanding I was not responsible, which I should never have done except to oblige; so I just take the liberty to write and ask you, sir—as you know bow things are—to drop a hint to Sir Leslie and put him in better mind of where he stands, for this Riddoppo soup of his has given the belly-ache to near everyone who has tasted it, and he will surely lose his case if he tries to make me responsible for the mess at Honeywood.

  You will pardon me writing, but thought just as well as it will save a lot of trouble for everyone if the old gentleman can be persuaded to see reason just for once.

  I am, sir,

  Yours truly,

  (CONFIDENTIAL) SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

  Dear Mr. Grigblay, 7.11.26.

  As you know, I am entirely on your side in this dispute about the painting. Sir Leslie Brash well understands this, but he shows extreme impatience whenever I refer to the matter. However, he certainly ought to be told of the general failure of Riddoppo of which you speak, and I will drop him a hint of it.

  I have just received Mr. Pricehard’s report and will write to you to-morrow.

  Yours truly,

  I have several times expressed the opinion that it was long ago Spinlove’s duty, as architect, to take control of the position and guide his client’s discretion; and have deprecated his policy of sitting on the fence—though, in point of fact, his was no policy, but a mere instinct of weak evasion. I have now to confess, however, that his inertia has given him a position of neutrality which astute diplomacy might well fail to effect; he has avoided falling out either with Grigblay or with Brash, and has still an opportunity—if he can but use it—of intervening to prevent the miserable disaster of an action at law.

  SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

  Dear Sir, 8.11.26.

  I enclose copy of Mr. Pricehard’s letter covering his report of the tests he made. The question is, How do the fumes get into remote bedrooms when they are not noticeable downstairs; and how is the nuisance to be cured? It is clear there must be some serious flaw in the building of the house, and I must call on you to find out what it is and to let me have your proposals for putting things right, and without delay; for this is a serious matter as you will see from what Mr. Pricehard says of the poisonous effect of the fumes. I am not writing to Sir Leslie on the subject until I can give him your explanation and tell him the defect is being remedied.

  Yours faithfully,

  Spinlove’s readiness to dissociate himself from the disaster and to deny all sympathy to Grigblay, is not only wrong in policy, but has the appearance of being thoroughly bad-natured. For two years Grigblay has served Spinlove as a devoted colleague, and on many occasions has helped him out of difficulties with his wise advice and kindly forethought; and Spinlove must know Perfectly well that this defect in the building, whatever it may be, is not Grigblay’s fault but his misfortune. Grigblay has before endured similar treatment from Spinlove, with patience, and he no doubt understands that these gaucheries are merely due to want of self-confidence in the person he probably regards, and perhaps speaks of, as “the young gent.”

  MR. SNITCH TRIES IT ON

  BRASH TO SPINLOVE

  Dear Mr. Spinlove, 8.11.26.

  I herewith transmit enclosed communication I have received from Mr. Cohen Snitch. This is the gentleman—may I remind you—who endeavoured to foist upon me fraudulent plans of cottages which, it eventually transpired, were a purloined illegal infringement of another practitioner’s copyright.

  You may have observed that within the last few months a number of wretched little common villas have been springing up like mushrooms—or rather I should more appropriately say like toadstools—on either side of the Honeywood Hill Road after it leaves Thaddington Village. These abortions must represent the Honeywood Garden Estate the fellow speaks of. The villas so far built are all exactly similar replicas of one another, and we have been greatly annoyed to observe that they reproduce the form of the bay window, chimney and gable of the little pretty Den projection of Honeywood Grange which, as you know, is visible from our entrance gates; and the names all up the road, “Honeywood House,” “Honeywood Lodge,” “Honeywood Manor” are also an intolerable violation of my rights! Has it come to this, that a gentleman may scarcely call his house his own? It is clearly evident that Mr. Snitch intends to retaliate on my refusal to submit to his attempted fraudulent extortion of fees, and I shall have no hesitation whatever in taking all possible necessary steps to stop his proceedings and compel him to alter his designs or even to pull the places down. I therefore desire you will be so obliging as to notify me exactly what are the liabilities for the infringement of my copyright, of which this must be a most flagrant example.

  I am even more disturbed at this threat of Mr. Barthold—who is an auctioneer and house-agent in Marlford—of covering the land up to the eastern boundary of my Honeywood property with the insupportable eyesore of shoddy bungalow abominations, though I apprehend that the whole proposal may be a monstrous pretext for bluffing me into extortionate disbursements. The price this saucy fellow asks is nearly three times the rate at which I acquired my Honeywood estate, and approximates to nine times the agricultural value—a most unheard-of proposition. The whole thing is intolerable and beyond bearing, and I have still to consider what suitable reply I can make to the man. If you have any views on this matter I shall be grateful if I may have the advantage of knowing them.

  I regret to intimate that the repulsive emanations continue to cause us considerable discomfort, and shall be obliged by the anticipated early communication from you anent the ascertained reason of the odoriferous conditions.

  Yours sincerely,

  (ENCLOSURE) SNITCH TO BRASH

  My dear Sir, 4.10.26.

  Re Honeywood Garden Estate. I beg to think you may be interested to know that my client, Mr. Vincent Barthold, who is taking an active local line in this national housing proposition, is considering extending his development up Honeywood Hill to boundary of your property as preliminary to layout of back land with Rural Bungalow Allotments the same as has proved so popular below Westerham Hill, as extension of motor bus service to Wedgefield Junc. offers fascinating rural amenities to Londoners.

  As adjoining owner, Mr. V. Barthold begs to hope you might be interested to support same and join small syndicate he is contemplating with a view to flotation of a Honeywood Dainty Houselets Co., and will be glad to hear from you privately re same.

  Mr. Barthold is willing to dispose of part or whole of same, freehold, at from £170 (back) to £450 (front) per acre according to location.

  If this proposition interests you, shall be glad to hear from you at early date as other investors are in the market, and will Supply further particulars on application.

  Yours faithfully,

  “The Honeywood File” recounts how Brash, with the idea of reducing cost, employed this same Mr. Snitch—who practises locally as an architect and surveyor-to build a block of cottages, and how Mr. Snitch sold Brash the design of another architect which he copied, for the purpose, from an architectural magazine. Spinlove warned Brash that if he used the plans he would make himself liable to an action for infringement of copyright, and this is what Brash has in mind when he notices features of his own house travestied in the villas of “Honeywood Garden Estate.”

  It is no new thing for commercial enterprise in housing to find profit in the execration its achievem
ents provoke, by acquiring land and then coercing the owners of adjoining houses to buy it at an enhanced price under threat of building on it, and just as the highwayman obliged sometimes to shoot so that his formula “Your money or your life” might be respected and yield a due harvest, so “Buy or we build” is by no means an empty threat, even when there is no intention of building. A cottage, however hideous, can readily be let, and is a profitable investment it serves as a warning to rebellious mansion-owners. I know of a remote, solitary, bleak, raw red brick labourer’s cottage compromising four stark walls and a drain pipe, set in a break of the hedge on a country road. Its position—which would be readily understood if cottages were jettisoned from passing aircraft—is explained by the entrance drive to a large private house on the opposite side of the road, up which the cottage stares unwinkingly like a village idiot entranced. It is there, as is notorious, in fulfilment of a threat, because the owner of the mansion refused to buy it stands.

  This is the happy instance of the way commercial enterprise advances the cause of civilization by establishing blackmail as a recognized source of revenue and of increase to the wealth of the Empire. By building cheaply and rapidly instead of in the old-fashioned way, not only are larger profits immediately accrued, but future profits are secured by the early need for renewal, and good money earned merely by refraining from building.