Major Kent, like most men who lead an open-air life, had a healthy appetite at breakfast-time. His table was always well supplied with eggs, bacon, and, when possible, fish. In honour of Meldon's visit, he had a cold ham on the sideboard, and a large dish of oatmeal porridge. He was a man of primitive hospitality, and he surveyed the feast with an air of proud satisfaction while he waited for his guest. He had to wait for a quarter of an hour, and his glow of pleasure was beginning to give way to a feeling of irritation when Meldon burst into the room.
"This place," he said, by way of apology for his unpunctuality, "is certainly the sleepiest in the world. I had forgotten how sleepy it is. I didn't so much as turn round in bed for nine solid hours, and I assure you I never felt less inclined to get up in my life. I daresay I'll get over it in a day or two; but just at present I feel that the night wasn't long enough."
"Have some breakfast," said the Major, "and then you can go to sleep again."
Meldon helped himself to porridge and milk.
"No, I can't," he said. "I've too much to do."
He worked through a helping of bacon and eggs. Then he attacked the cold ham.
"There's nothing," he said, "like a good breakfast when you have a hard day's work before you. I expect to be pretty busy, and I'll hardly be in for lunch. I suppose you've no objection to my making myself a few sandwiches before I start? I may pick up a meal somewhere in the course of the day, but I may not. It's always well to be on the safe side."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to marry Simpkins to Miss King, of course. I thought we settled that last night."
"Don't keep up that joke, J. J. It was all very well pulling my leg last night, and I didn't mind it a bit; but a thing like that gets to be stale the next morning."
"There's no joke that I can see," said Meldon. "If you read the papers with any sort of attention lately, you'd understand that Mrs. Lorimer is the last woman in the world who can be regarded as comic."
"We weren't talking about Mrs. Lorimer."
"Yes, we were. We were talking about Miss King, and she is Mrs. Lorimer; although at present she prefers to be called Miss King. I think she's quite right. It would be extremely bad taste to go on using poor Lorimer's name after what she did to him. He wouldn't like it. You wouldn't like it yourself, Major, if she'd killed you."
"I don't know that she did kill him," said the Major. "Even supposing that you're right in identifying the two women—which of course you're not—you'd still have no earthly right to assume that Mrs. Lorimer is a murderess. The jury found her innocent."
"Of course it did. Any jury would. She's a most attractive-looking woman. You'd have found her innocent yourself if you'd been on that jury."
"I would not."
"Yes, you would. I've seen her, remember. You haven't, so you can't possibly tell what you'd have done."
"I don't see," said the Major, "that her being good-looking proves that she murdered her husband."
"No, it doesn't, but it accounts for the jury letting her off. The evidence was amply sufficient for a conviction, and the judge summed up dead against her. And any way it doesn't matter to us about the evidence, for she owned up to me in the train. I told her I'd keep her secret for her, and I don't intend to tell anybody except you. Apart from her feelings altogether it wouldn't suit us for the story to get out in Ballymoy. Simpkins would be choked off at once if he knew it. Men have such a ridiculous prejudice against marrying a woman with any sort of past."
"I don't think Simpkins would mind," said the Major, "if he thought she had any money. That's the kind of beast he is."
"She has plenty," said Meldon, "Lorimer's, I daresay. At least she looks as if she had plenty, and that's the same thing in this case. If Simpkins marries her, it's extremely unlikely that he'll live long enough to find out whether she really has a large fortune, or is simply spending her capital."
After breakfast Major Kent returned to the subject of Miss King.
"I suppose," he said, "that you're absolutely certain that you've got a hold of the right woman? You couldn't be making any sort of mistake?"
"I told you last night that I was certain, and I gave you my reasons; pretty convincing ones I imagine—the sort of reasons that would be conclusive to any man at all accustomed to criminal investigation. I don't myself see how you can get behind the portrait and the lady's own confession."
"You couldn't possibly have mistaken about that, could you? I mean she couldn't have been confessing anything else which you could have taken up to mean murder?"
"No, she couldn't. In the first place, it isn't at all likely that there would be two attractive-looking lady criminals, travelling about in trains at the same time, both wanting to confess what they had done. In the second place, her crime must have been pretty serious, for she was particularly anxious to find out whether it was likely to shock you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. She mentioned you by name, and asked particularly whether you'd be likely to be shocked, when you found out who she was. Now, if she had simply been slipping trifling articles off shop counters into her muff, she wouldn't have expected you to be shocked. That's what makes me say her crime was a serious one."
"Still," said the Major, "even supposing she really was afraid of shocking me; though I can't see how she came to consider me at all—"
"She did. You may take that for certain."
"There are other things besides murder that I should strongly disapprove of."
"You're thinking of divorce court proceedings now. But she's not that sort of woman at all. I had every opportunity of studying her character in the train, and I'm certain that she wouldn't mix herself up with anything of a disreputable kind. Whatever poor Lorimer may have had to complain of—and I don't in the least deny that he had a grievance—he'd have been the last man to accuse her of anything ofthatsort. I never met a woman who impressed me more strongly as being thoroughly respectable."
"Come now, J. J. Murder! Surely murder—"
"Not when treated as an art. De Quincey wrote an essay on the subject. If you'd read it, you'd know better than to mix up artistic murder with the commonplace assassinations of the ordinary burglar. You might just as well say that Beethoven is the same sort of person as the Italian organ-grinder who plays abominable tunes under your window, in the hope of your giving him twopence to go away."
"Nothing you've said so far," said the Major, "convinces me in the least that your identification of the lady is certain, or even likely to be right."
"I knew you'd be sceptical. You always are sceptical about anything the least out of the common; so while I was shaving this morning I arranged the evidence in such a way that you can't possibly escape from it. In the first place, there are the portraits. I don't dwell on them because you haven't seen Miss King, and so they won't—for the present—carry much weight with you. In the second place, there is her confession. You choose to consider that I was mistaken about that, and that Miss King was really confessing something of quite a different kind. I say nothing about the improbability of my being mistaken in a perfectly simple matter. I simply leave the confession on one side, and offer you corroborative evidence of a quite unmistakable description. Here's a copy of a Dublin paper. I put it in my pocket on purpose to show it to you. I suppose you'll believe what you see printed in a newspaper?"
"It depends very much what it is. I don't believe everything I see in papers."
"That, if you'll excuse my saying so, seems to me to be carrying your habit of scepticism to the verge of actual mania. I don't think you ought to adopt that kind of attitude, Major. If you had been trained in theology, or even secular metaphysics, it might be excusable; though then, of course, you wouldn't do it. But in a simple and almost entirely uneducated country gentleman like you, it's simply grotesque."
"Go on about the newspaper, J. J."
"Here it is for you; but I don't see that it's much use giving it to you if your mind is made up beforehand to disbelieve every word that's in it."
He took a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to Major Kent, indicating with his thumb a column on the middle page.
"The Lorimer Case. Judge's Charge to the Jury. Acquittal.
"Scene outside the Court. Enthusiasm of the Crowd. A Demonstration."
The Major read aloud the heavily-leaded lines which filled half the column.
"Skip that part," said Meldon. "The cheers don't matter to us, though I daresay Miss King enjoyed them at the time. Go on to the bottom of the next column where you see the words 'An Interview' in large print."
"Our representative," read the Major, "called this evening at Mrs. Lorimer's hotel. He was at once shown up to her sitting-room, where he found her—"
"Go on," said Meldon; "that part about her being cool and unembarrassed, and the next bit about her wearing a well-cut grey travelling-dress, isn't important; though, as a matter of fact, her dress was grey."
The Major skipped a paragraph, and then began to read again.
"'I always felt quite certain,' said Mrs. Lorimer, in reply to a question asked by our representative, 'about what the jury's verdict would be. I have perfect confidence in the commonsense and justice of Englishmen. In fact, I had all my arrangements made, through my solicitors, for my movements after the trial. I have taken a house in a very quiet neighbourhood, where I shall be free from all inquisitive publicity.'"
"There," said Meldon, "those are almost the exact words Miss King used to me in the train."
The Major went on, reading aloud.
"'May I ask,' said our representative, 'in what part of the country—?' 'No,' said Mrs. Lorimer, smiling. 'You may not ask that; or, if you do, I shall not answer you. But you may do this for me, if you like. You may tell the hall porter to order a cab for me, a four-wheeler. I have a good deal of luggage.'"
"She had," said Meldon; "I saw it when we got out at Dunbeg station, and it wasn't all there, for one of her trunks had got lost on the way."
"'Our representative,' read the Major, 'shook hands with Mrs. Lorimer as she entered the cab. The order given to the driver was Euston station. Thus a lady of great personal charm, whose terrible experience has for some weeks focussed the attention of the civilised world upon the affairs of her private life passes—'"
"You needn't go on," said Meldon. "The rest of the article is mere piffle. The essential part is what you've read out, and I imagine it ought to pretty well clinch the matter. She drove to Euston, intending to travel from that station to some very quiet neighbourhood in which she had taken a house beforehand. Now where could you possibly find a quieter neighbourhood than this?"
"I don't see that you've proved your point, J. J. There are a lot of other places for which you might start from Euston."
"Not so many quiet neighbourhoods. Think of where the London and North-Western Railway runs. Lancashire! You wouldn't call Bolton a quiet neighbourhood, I suppose. North Wales! You know what it is at this season of the year, thick with holiday people. No. You may take it for certain that if she left Euston she came to Ireland. Now all English people head straight for the west as soon as they land in this country, especially those who have any kind of a past that they are anxious to keep dark. Dublin and Wicklow are just as thick with people as England is. Nobody ever stops half-way across the country. Besides, there wasn't another woman in the train with me who could possibly have been Mrs. Lorimer."
Major Kent rose from his chair and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
"I don't suppose, J. J., that it's any use telling you that you're going to make an ass of yourself."
"Not a bit, because it isn't true. I'm going to proceed in the most circumspect and cautious manner. Not that I'm the least afraid of making an ass of myself. I should never do that under any circumstances. But because I have a conscience and I am afraid of doing a grave injustice, I am going to convince myself first of all that this fellow Simpkins really deserves to be killed. I admit the force of all you said about him last night, especially that part about the heating of the church; but it's a serious thing to condemn a man to death. It's a thing that you can't undo again once you've done it. I must see the man myself before I take any further steps."
"You can't have him here, J. J. He's a horrid little cad, and I won't have him inside this house."
"I'm not asking you to, at present. Later on if it becomes necessary in the interests of justice to patch up some appearance of a reconciliation between you and him I shall, of course, ask him here; but in the meanwhile—"
"You may entertain him yourself, if you do."
"I may. But that won't deter me from doing my duty. You haven't had the education in philosophy and literature, Major, that you ought to have had; but the years that you spent in the army ought to have taught you that no amount of unpleasantness should prevent a man doing his duty. I thought that was one of the things which military life impressed on me. Suppose now that it was your duty to stand in a pool of water on a wintry night looking out for the approaching army of a powerful enemy. You wouldn't like doing it because you'd know that you'd have a cold in your head next day which would probably last you for the rest of that particular campaign. But would you allow that fact to interfere with your duty? I'll give you credit, Major, for not even considering your own comfort in the matter. You'd stand in the pool. You wouldn't so much as splash about, and when your feet got wet you'd bear it without grumbling. Why can't you admit that I am actuated by the same sort of motives in doing my duty?"
"But is it your duty? I can't see, really, that there's any need for you to mix yourself up in it at all."
"It is my duty," said Meldon, "for several reasons. In the first place you are my friend, and you've always been kind to me; so it's plainly my duty to do you a good turn when I can. Next, I liked what I saw of Miss King. I'm convinced that she's in earnest about her art, and is really working at it simply for art's sake and not from any selfish motives. Therefore, as an educated man, it's my duty to help her if I can, without outraging my own conscience or acting in any way unsuitable for a clergyman. Assuming Simpkins to be the kind of man you describe, it is a public duty, the duty of every good citizen, to put him out of the world altogether. He's nothing but a nuisance here, and he can't be really happy. I imagine that even for his own sake he'd be a great deal better dead. He may not see that himself, but it's very likely to be true. What's the use of his dragging out a miserable existence in a place where he is getting more and more unpopular every year? He can't like it. Where does he live?"
"He lives," said Major Kent, "in that little house just beyond the police barrack."
"That won't save him," said Meldon. "Miss King would laugh at our police after slipping through the fingers of the Scotland Yard authorities, and any way he'd have to go and live with her once they're married. I'll call there."
"At this time of day," said the Major, "he'll probably be in his office, next to Doyle's hotel."
"I'll leave a card at his house first," said Meldon. "It's only civil. Then I'll go on to the office. I suppose you can send me in, Major? I'll walk back. I wouldn't like to keep your horse in town all day. I shall probably be a long time. I can't scamp the business, you know. I must thoroughly investigate Simpkins. After that, I'll look in and have a chat with Doyle."
Mr. Eustace St. Clair Simpkins preferred to have his letters addressed "E. St. Clair-Simpkins, Esq.," as if his second Christian name were part of his surname. He belonged by birth to thehaute aristocratie, and believed that the use of a hyphen made this fact plain to the members of the middle classes with whom he came in contact. He was a man of thirty-five years of age, but looked slightly older, because his hair was receding rapidly from the left side of his forehead. He had enjoyed, for a time, the education afforded by one of the greatest of the English public schools; but at the age of sixteen, being then classed with boys so small that he looked ridiculous among them, he was removed at the special request of the headmaster. A private tutor, heavily paid, took him in hand, but was no more successful with him than the schoolmasters had been. At the age of eighteen he was found unfit to pass any of the examinations which open the way to gentlemanly employment. Various jobs were found for him by his desponding parents, but on every occasion he was returned to them politely. He drifted at last into an Irish land-agent's office. Mr. Tempest was a successful man of business, and managed estates in various parts of the country from his Dublin office. He was under an obligation to a London solicitor, whose wife was the sister of Mrs. Simpkins, the mother of Eustace St. Clair. He felt that he could not very well refuse to give the young man such a chance as a clerkship afforded. Things went on fairly satisfactorily until Mr. Simpkins conceived the idea of marrying his employer's daughter. He reasoned, quite rightly, that Miss Tempest, being an only child, was likely to have a substantial fortune. Mr. Tempest, unimpressed by the hyphened St. Clair, was unwilling to allow the courtship to proceed. He sent Mr. Simpkins down to Ballymoy, and charged him with the management of such parts of the Buckley estate as were not already sold to tenants.
Mr. Simpkins, for the first time in his life, felt that he had found a position which really suited him. There was very little work to do. He received the ground rents of the town of Ballymoy; saw that Ballymoy House was kept in repair and the grounds in tolerable order; and let the fishing of the river every year by means of advertisements in sporting papers. Many men would have found the life dull, but Mr. Simpkins had a busy and vigorous mind of a sort not uncommon among incompetent people. By temperament he was a reformer of minor abuses, and Ballymoy afforded him an almost unique opportunity for the exercise of his powers. There were, of course, difficulties. The inhabitants of Ballymoy, long unaccustomed to the presence of a reformer amongst them, had drifted into quiet, easy ways of living. Mr. Simpkins, who was not lacking in a certain quality of quiet persistence, troubled every one with fine impartiality, and became exceedingly unpopular in Ballymoy. The Resident Magistrate hated being obliged to enforce unnecessary laws such as that which forbids cyclists to ride on footpaths, and that which ordains the carrying of lighted lanterns on carts at night. The postman, at the other end of the official scale, liked loitering on his rounds, and had adopted a pleasant habit of handing on letters to any wayfarer who might be supposed to be proceeding in the direction of the place to which the letters were addressed. Every one with a public duty of any sort to perform was stimulated by Mr. Simpkins, and consequently came to hate him.
After a while Mr. Doyle, on whom, as chief citizen, the duty naturally devolved, got up a petition to Mr. Tempest. The necessity for removing Mr. Simpkins was presented in the strongest terms. Mr. Tempest, who was a man of wide experience and kindly heart, sympathised with Mr. Doyle and the others who signed the petition, but he did not recall Mr. Simpkins. He knew of no place in Ireland further from Dublin than Ballymoy is; and it appeared to him above all things desirable to keep Mr. Simpkins at a distance. It was better, in his opinion, that Ballymoy should suffer, than that his own house should be haunted on Sundays and his office disorganised on week-days by Mr. Simpkins. He acknowledged the receipt of the Ballymoy petition, and promised, mendaciously, to consider the matter.
Meldon drove into Ballymoy on the first morning of his holiday, and went straight to Mr. Simpkins' house. He left a card there, and then walked on to the office. Mr. Simpkins was in the office, and Meldon greeted him with a warmth which seemed actually affectionate. Mr. Simpkins was surprised, and rubbed his hand, which had been hurt by the hearty way in which Meldon shook it.
"Is there," he asked, in a puzzled tone, "anything that I can do for you?"
"Nothing," said Meldon; "nothing whatever. If there was I'm sure you'd do it, and I shouldn't hesitate to ask you. But there isn't. I simply called in to have a chat. You won't mind if I smoke, will you?"
"I never smoke in my office," said Simpkins. "I dislike free and easy and slipshod ways of doing business."
Meldon filled and lit his pipe.
"You're perfectly right," he said. "There's nothing impresses the intelligent stranger so unfavourably as the smell of tobacco in an office when he comes into it in the hope of doing business with a competent man. I wish you would impress your idea on that subject, and I may say a good many other subjects, on the people of this town. They are lamentably deficient in what I may call the etiquette of commercial life; and yet all these little points count for a lot. You and I know that."
Simpkins hesitated. He was at first inclined to be angry. Meldon was smoking vigorously, and his tobacco was of the kind described as "full-flavoured." But the remarks about the etiquette of business were certainly sound. Mr. Simpkins really believed that he had a mission to teach manners and method to the people of Ballymoy.
"Would you mind telling me," he said at last, "who you are?"
"Not in the least," said Meldon; "I shall be quite pleased. At the same time I think I ought to point out to you that, if you'd been on speaking terms with Major Kent, you'd have heard all about me weeks ago, and very likely would have been asked to dinner to meet me last night. Why have you quarrelled with the poor Major? He's a nice enough sort of man, and most people find him easy enough to get on with."
"It was he who quarrelled with me. I had no intention—"
"So it was. I remember that now; something about fishing, wasn't it? Curious how people will lose their tempers about ridiculous little trifles. That's the worst of places like this. The people who have never lived anywhere else become irritable and take offence about nothing, simply because their minds are cut off from wider interests. You and I, now, know that no fish in the world, however large, is worth fighting about. We wouldn't, either of us, mind a bit if some other fellow came along and hooked the whale which we had marked down as our private prey."
Simpkins was puzzled again. The doctrine about fishing rights struck him as slightly socialistic. It might possibly be applicable in the case of whales, but society could scarcely survive as an organised whole if many men regarded the possession of salmon as of no importance. At the same time he was pleased; it gratified him immensely to be hailed as a fellow citizen of a larger world.
"Would you mind," he said, speaking in quite a friendly tone, "telling me your name?"
"Not in the least," said Meldon. "I said so before. As a matter of fact, so far from having any wish to conceal my name from you, I went round to your house before I called here and left my card on you. You'll find it there when you get back. I always like to be strict in the observance of the rules of civilised society. I particularly dislike the slack ways into which people in places like this are inclined to drift. I must say for the Major, he's not as bad as the rest in that respect. He always dresses for dinner."
"So do I."
"I'm glad to hear it. That ought to be a bond of union between you and the Major. You must be the only two men in Ballymoy who do. By the way, have you met Miss King?"
"No. She arrived yesterday, I hear; but I haven't seen her."
"You ought to go up and call on her at once. You'll like her, I'm sure. She's very good-looking."
He paused for a moment. The announcement did not seem to excite Simpkins' interest. He was, indeed, not of the temperament which is strongly moved by beauty or personal charm.
"She's also very rich," said Meldon.
"I thought she must be pretty well off when she took Ballymoy House."
"She is. And what's more, she's uncommonly well connected. Her uncle is an earl. I forget at this moment what his exact title is; but I know he's an earl, and I have it on very good authority that he's likely to be made a marquis quite soon."
He paused, and was gratified to observe that Simpkins appeared to be greatly interested by this information about Miss King. He pursued his advantage at once.
"I shall call on her myself," he said, "though there's not really much use in my making myself agreeable to her. I'm married already. The Major would have told you that, too, if you'd been on speaking terms with him. You really must make it up with the Major, Simpkins. I hope to see a good deal of you while I'm in Ballymoy, and it will be most inconvenient for me if you won't speak to the Major while I'm staying in his house."
"Did you say that you knew Miss King?"
"Not intimately," said Meldon; "at least not very intimately. I travelled down in the train with her yesterday, and we had a pleasant chat together. If I wasn't married already—but there's no use talking about that. And I don't for a moment suppose that the Major will care about having a try. He's a confirmed old bachelor. Though it would be a right good thing for him if he did. Miss King must have a whole pot of money, and she looks to me the sort of woman whom it would be quite easy to marry. I'm afraid I must be going now. I'm so glad I caught you, Simpkins. I've heard a lot about you during the short time I've been in Ballymoy; and I may say, without the least wish to flatter, that I was most anxious to meet you. Good-bye, and be sure to call on Miss King. It's a pity to think of that poor girl all alone in a great barrack of a place like Ballymoy House, without a civilised creature to speak to."
Meldon left the Office very well satisfied with himself. He went next into the hotel. The day was hot, and there was very little going on in the town. The streets were almost empty, for the country people were busy on their farms. The hotel appeared to be entirely deserted. The waiter had left the coffee room, and gone to visit a friend in the police barrack. The barmaid, after finishing one penny novel, had gone into the shop next door to borrow another from the milliner. Meldon penetrated to the kitchen, and found an untidy maid asleep, very uncomfortably, on an upright chair. She woke with a start when he banged a frying-pan against the front of the oven.
"I hope I haven't startled you," he said politely. "I shall be greatly obliged if you will tell me where Mr. Doyle is to be found."
"He's within in his own room; and what's more, the doctor's along with him, and he did say that nobody was to be let next or nigh him by reason of his being busy."
"If he's busy," said Meldon, "he's the only man in Ballymoy that is, excepting myself; and any way that prohibition doesn't apply to me. I'm an old friend. I'll just step in and see him. You needn't announce me. If you like you can go to sleep again; but if I were you I'd be beginning to get the dinner. It's near twelve o'clock."
"Is it, then?"
"It is. Is your name Bridget or Mary?"
"It's Sabina they call me."
"You're not a bad-looking girl, Sabina; and if you'd attend to your business instead of going to sleep in the middle of the day, you might die a rich woman yet."
"I would not, then. How would the like of me be rich?"
"You certainly won't be," said Meldon, "if you don't do your work."
"The potatoes is in the pot," said Sabina.
"They may be; but Mr. Doyle will be looking for more than potatoes at dinner time. He doesn't look as if he lived entirely on potatoes."
Sabina grinned. Doyle was a portly man.
"It won't take me long to fry a couple of rashers," she said, "once the grease is hot."
"And is fried bacon and potatoes all you're going to give the poor man? What wages does he pay you?"
"Six pounds."
"Very well. Now listen to me, Sabina. You put your back into it and cook the man a decent dinner. Give him soup, and then a nicely done chop with a dish of spinach and some fried potatoes. After that a sweet omelette—"
"Glory be to God!" said Sabina.
"And then a little savoury, tomato and olives, beaten to a cream, with the yolk of a hard-boiled egg served up on toast, cut into dice."
"Arrah, what talk!" said Sabina.
"Get him accustomed to that sort of dinner for three weeks or a month, and then ask him for a rise in your wages. He'll give it to you."
"He would not."
"He would. Any man would. The mistake you make is half-starving him. That makes his temper bad, and—"
"I wouldn't say then that ever I heard a cross word out of his mouth," said Sabina, "unless it might be when he'd be talking of Mr. Simpkins or the like."
"I suppose he swears then," said Meldon.
"He does terrible."
"I don't wonder. I never swear myself. Being a clergyman, I can't, of course. But from what I've seen of Mr. Simpkins, and from what I've heard about him, I should think he'd make most men swear. Do you know him at all intimately, Sabina?"
"I do not; but the girl that's with him beyond in the house is a cousin of my own, and I hear her talking about him. She does be saying that the like of him for nonsensical goings on she never seen. She—"
"Thank you," said Meldon. "I don't want to hear your cousin's views of Mr. Simpkins' domestic arrangements. She's red-haired, if she's the girl that opened the door to me a while ago, and I never knew one of her colour that spoke the truth."
Sabina was loyal to her family. She resented Meldon's remark.
"If you were to put me on my oath," she said, "I wouldn't call the hair that's on your own head black, nor yet yellow."
"My hair," said Meldon, "is what's called auburn; and in any case I have more strength of character than to be driven into untruthfulness by the colour of my hair. Did you say it was Dr. O'Donoghue was inside with Mr. Doyle?"
"It is," said Sabina.
"I suppose, now, he isn't particularly fond of Mr. Simpkins either."
Sabina grinned broadly.
"From the pleasant way in which you're smiling," said Meldon, "I think I may take it for granted that Dr. O'Donoghue wouldn't go far out of his way to find out exactly the kind of medicine that would cure Mr. Simpkins if by any chance he happened to fall sick."
"He would not. But they do say he'd poison him if he got the chance."
"I don't want him to do that. I should be very sorry if he did. All I want to be sure of is that the doctor wouldn't put himself out to cure Mr. Simpkins if anybody else poisoned him."
"The Lord save us!" said Sabina. "Is it murder you're thinking of?"
"It is not," said Meldon. "Don't get any foolish idea of that kind into your head. I'm not a murderer. I'm merely putting what is called a supposititious case, with a view to finding out what Dr. O'Donoghue's real feelings are. I don't suppose you know what a supposititious case is?"
"I do not. It was a backward place where I was reared, and I wasn't kept to school regular; and what's more, the Irish wasn't taught in them times."
"It wouldn't have helped you much if it was," said Meldon. "A supposititious case is the same thing, very nearly, as a hypothetical proposition. It consists of two parts, a protasis and an apodosis. For instance—"
"It's laughing at me you are."
"It is not, but trying to educate you a little. For instance, I should be putting a hypothetical case if I were to say, 'Supposing you cooked the dinner I described every day for Mr. Doyle—'"
"I couldn't do it then, for I wouldn't be fit."
"That's exactly what makes it a supposititious case," said Meldon. "Now perhaps you'll understand that I don't intend to poison Mr. Simpkins myself."
"Nor the doctor won't do it for you," said Sabina.
"You said a minute ago that he would."
"He would not, for he's a nice gentleman, as simple and innocent as a child, only an odd time when his temper would be riz."
"Any way he won't be asked to. Good-bye, Sabina. I'll look in and see you next time I'm passing. Don't let that red-haired cousin of yours be putting phosphorous paste, or any of those patent rat poisons, into Mr. Simpkins' food. She'll get herself into trouble if she does."
Meldon opened the door of Mr. Doyle's private sitting-room without knocking and walked in. The hotel keeper and Dr. O'Donoghue were sitting at opposite ends of the table, with a bottle of whisky and a jug of water between them. Doyle, who was placed with his back to the door, spoke without looking round.
"Didn't I tell you, Sabina Gallagher," he said, "that if you came into this room, interrupting me and the doctor, I'd cut the two ears off you, and send you back to your mother with them in a box in the well of the car? Did I tell you that or did I not? And now nothing will do you but to fling open the door as if the Lord-Lieutenant and the rest of them playboys beyond in Dublin Castle was—"
The expression of Dr. O'Donoghue's face made Mr. Doyle pause. He turned and saw Meldon standing on the threshold.
"Be damn!" he said, "if it isn't Mr. Meldon. The Major was telling me last week he was expecting you. You're looking well, so you are. England agrees with you."
"I can't say as much for you," said Meldon. "You're getting fat. You ought to take more exercise. Why don't you start a golf links? It would do you all the good in the world, and be an attraction to the hotel besides."
"If I'm putting on flesh," said Doyle, "it's a queer thing, for the life's fair tormented out of me."
"Simpkins, I suppose," said Meldon.
"The same," said Doyle. "The like of that man for making trouble in a place I never seen; no, nor nobody else."
"I hear," said Meldon, "that the doctor's thinking of poisoning him."
"Whoever told you that told you a lie," said Dr. O'Donoghue; "not but what—"
"Myself and the doctor," said Doyle, "was making up plans when you come in on us. We was thinking of what you might call an ambuscade, worked so as we'd get the better of him without his being able to take the law of us; and he's mighty fond of the law, that same gentleman—too fond."
"If I can be of any help to you," said Meldon, "you can count on me. I have a good deal of natural talent for ambuscades. Trot out the details of your scheme, and I'll be able to tell you in two words whether it's workable or not."
"They do say," said Doyle, "that he has the fishing let to an English gentleman; and he's mighty particular about preserving it. Now the doctor here has the name of being a good fisherman."
"If he goes poaching," said Meldon, "he'll get the worst of it. The Major appears to have tried that on, and he simply made things unpleasant for himself, without annoying Simpkins in the least."
"It's not poaching we're thinking of," said Doyle; "but—you know I'm a magistrate these times, on account of being the Chairman of the Urban Council."
"I know that; but if you're thinking of dragging up Simpkins before the Petty Sessions on a bogus charge, you may as well put the idea out of your head at once. It won't work. You'll have the Major on the Bench with you, and though he doesn't like the man, I don't think he'd commit him to prison for cruelty to children, or breaking windows while under the influence of drink, or anything of that sort, unless he'd really done it."
"I wouldn't do the like," said Doyle, "and no more would the doctor."
"Our plan," said the doctor, "is to get a salmon, a large salmon."
"Poach it?" said Meldon.
"No; buy it. Doyle would buy it. Then he'd give it to me in the presence of several witnesses—"
"Sabina would do for one," said Meldon, "She's a most intelligent girl, and I'm sure she'd swear anything afterwards that she was wanted to."
"She wouldn't have to swear anything but the truth," said Doyle.
"Of course not," said Meldon. "But lots of people won't do even that."
"I'd go up the river," said Dr. O'Donoghue, "and I'd take my rod and landing-net and the salmon with me, and I'd sit down on the bank and wait."
"Simpkins," said Doyle, "does be walking up along the river every evening, so the doctor wouldn't be there for very long before he'd be caught."
"I see," said Meldon. "The idea would be for Simpkins to prosecute the doctor for poaching that salmon, and then to trot out Sabina in court to prove—"
"Sabina and the rest of the witnesses," said Doyle. "We'd have plenty."
"It's not a bad ambuscade at all," said Meldon.
"The Major," said Doyle, "would talk straight to him off the Bench, the way he'd feel small; and I'd have a word or two myself to say to him after the Major was done. And the police would be standing round smiling like—"
"I can't imagine anything more unpleasant," said Meldon, "than being grinned at by a policeman. All the same, I think it will be better not to catch him in that ambuscade."
"And why not?" said Doyle.
"The fact is," said Meldon, "I'm thinking of dealing with the man myself, and I'd rather he was left entirely in my hands for the present."
"Be damn!" said Doyle, "but I wouldn't ask better than just for yourself to take in hand and hunt him out of the place altogether."
"It's you could do it," said Dr. O'Donoghue.
"It is," said Doyle. "Divil the better man at devising of ambuscades ever I come across, and I've known some in my day that you might call gladiators."
"I'm not precisely a professional gladiator," said Meldon modestly; "but I've studied strategy a little in my time, and I rather think I'll get the better of Mr. Simpkins. I suppose now you would not object to attending his funeral?"
"I would not," said Doyle, "if so be there was no risk of my being hanged for any share I might have in bringing the same about."
"There's not the least chance of that," said Meldon. "You won't have to do anything except refrain from making a public fool of the man with any kind of tricks about salmon for the next fortnight."
"What is it you're thinking of doing?" asked Doyle.
"The doctor," said Meldon, "will of course have to sign the death certificate."
"I'll do that," said Dr. O'Donoghue, "as soon as ever you satisfy me that the man's dead. If there isn't a hole drilled in his skull with a bullet, I'll say it's heart failure that finished him. After the way he behaved to me, I can't be expected to make apost mortemof him. I daresay the Major was telling you what he did."
"I hear he wanted you to put some ridiculous sanitary act in force against poor Doyle. That, of course, was quite intolerable."
"There was worse besides that," said Dr. O'Donoghue gloomily.
"He had it put out against the doctor," said Doyle, "that old Biddy Finnegan died for the want of proper medical attendance, and her a woman of near ninety, that was bound to die any way, and would have died sooner, most likely, if the doctor hadn't let her alone the way he did."
"That old woman," said the doctor, "wasn't neglected. She had a bottle by her, when she died, that I sent out to her less than a week before, and she hadn't the half of it drunk. What's more, I wouldn't have minded a bit if Simpkins had had any right to be interfering; but he hadn't. Thady Flanagan—that's married to old Biddy's grand-daughter—was contented enough with the way she died, and asked me civilly would I have any objection to his taking home the half-bottle of medicine for the use of one of his own children. What I say is, that if the woman's own relations had no complaint to make, what business had Simpkins to be putting in his oar? What aggravated me was that kind of gratuitous and unnecessary interfering."
"I quite see your point," said Meldon. "It's—"
"You've only heard the half of it," said Doyle. "The doctor's backward in telling you, and small blame to him; but Simpkins wrote off to the Local Government Board, preferring a lot of charges against the doctor, and against myself as Chairman of the Board of Guardians—things you'd wonder any man would have the face to say."
"What happened?" said Meldon.
"We've quietened them down for the present," said Doyle, "but there was a lot of talk of a sworn enquiry. And what did Simpkins do it for if it wasn't just the delight he takes in destroying the peace of the town? You know very well, Mr. Meldon, the way we all pulled together here, Catholics and Protestants, and never had any bad feeling. And where's the good of bringing in the Local Government Board to be stirring up strife among us? But that's not all he did, nor the half or it. He wrote a letter last October to the Inspector-General of the Police, complaining of the sergeant beyond, that he wasn't doing his duty."
"I wouldn't expect you to be taking the part of the police," said Meldon. "You always went in for being a strong Nationalist."
"And so I am," said Doyle. "And so's the doctor. In a general way there isn't two men in Ireland that hates the police worse than the doctor and myself; but the sergeant was a decent, poor man, with a long family dependent on him, and I never heard tell of his doing any harm to any one."
"Perhaps," said Meldon, "that was the reason Mr. Simpkins complained of him. After all, Doyle, we must be reasonable. What are the police for, if it isn't to do harm to people—objectionable people? A policeman who never injures anybody isn't worth his keep. If what you say about the sergeant is true, or anything like true, Simpkins was evidently perfectly justified in acting as he did."
"You won't say that," said Doyle, "when you hear the way it happened. There's two apple trees in the garden at the back of the house Simpkins lives in."
"I remember them," said Meldon; "but there never were any apples on them in my time."
"There were apples on them last year," said Doyle, "however they came there. Simpkins did be saying it was on account of the way he pruned the trees; but he'd be talking a long time before I'd believe the like of that. Any way, the apples were there, and a good many of them. I didn't see them myself, but they tell me there might have been up to ten stone altogether. Well, one night the half of them was gone. The gossures from about the town had them ate."
"Of course they had," said Meldon. "What would you expect?"
"What nobody would expect," said Doyle, "was the temper Simpkins was in in the morning. He was up and down, in and out of the police barrack, cursing all sorts. Well, the sergeant came out and looked at the trees, and he asked Simpkins did he have the apples counted before they were took, and would he be prepared to swear to them if so be that the police found them for him. You'd think that would have pacified him, but it didn't. So the sergeant, who wanted to do the best he could for the peace of the town, went down to the house again after he had his dinner ate, and two constables along with him, and asked the girl that does be with Mr. Simpkins—"
"Sabina's red-haired cousin," said Meldon.
"Asked her," said Doyle, "was there ever a boy about the place at night; which of course there wasn't, her being a respectable girl that wasn't keeping company with any boy, unless it might be walking out now and then of a Sunday with Jamesy Carroll. Believe you me, it took the sergeant all he knew to quieten down her mother that was over at the barracks asking for the name of the villain that was taking away her daughter's character. That night the rest of the apples was took, and Simpkins was fit to be put in the asylum in the morning. He said the sergeant was an incompetent jackass.—Wasn't them the words he used, doctor?"
"And others along with them," said Dr. O'Donoghue.
"The sergeant, being a man who'd always kept himself to himself and didn't mix with bad company, wasn't going near the house while the like of that language was going on. But he sent down the whole of the four constables to look at the apple trees; which they did. But Simpkins got worse instead of better. He wrote off a note to the District Inspector complaining of the sergeant. But the D.I. had more sense than to take any notice, knowing well that if there's an apple in the place the gossures will get it, and small blame to them."
"Sensible man," said Meldon.
"When Simpkins got no satisfaction out of him," said Doyle, "he wrote to the County Inspector. I can tell you he took mighty little by that. It was a week after, or maybe more, when he got an answer back. It was Sabina Gallagher told me what was in it, having got it out of her cousin, that's servant to Simpkins and seen the letter, so I know what I'm telling you is the truth. The County Inspector said that if there was boycotting in the place, or cattle driving, or any kind of lawlessness, he'd be quick enough to have extra police drafted in and a baton charge up and down upon the streets of the town; but that he wasn't going to upset the policy of the Government, and maybe have questions asked about him in Parliament, for the sake of a few shillings' worth of apples. You'd think that would have been enough for Simpkins, but it wasn't. He wrote another letter, up to Dublin Castle, to the Inspector-General of Police, no less, and the end of it, was that the sergeant was moved out of this."
"Poor fellow," said Meldon. "Did he mind much?"
"He did not then, for they sent him to a better station. It was only last week they moved him, there being a lot of enquiries to be gone through that occupied them the whole of the winter and the spring. The doctor and myself is thinking of getting up a subscription to present him with an illuminated address on account of the way he conducted himself to the satisfaction of the inhabitants of this town while he was in it, and as a protest against the underhand way that Simpkins went about trying to injure him and take the bread out of the mouth of his children."
"I'll see that the Major subscribes to that," said Meldon.
"Tell Mr. Meldon," said Doyle, "what it was you were saying ought to be on the address."
"It isn't worth speaking about," said the doctor modestly.
"You'd better tell me," said Meldon. "If I'm to be responsible for revenging the wrongs of the community on Simpkins, I ought to be well up in every detail of what's going on."
"It was nothing but just an idea that came across my mind," said the doctor.
"It may be only that," said Meldon, "but it may be more. The proper person to judge of its importance is me. You must have frequently observed, doctor, that the man to whom an idea occurs is not by any means the best judge of its value. Sometimes he thinks too much of it. Take Galileo, for instance. He hit upon the fact that the earth goes round the sun, and it struck him as immensely important. He gassed on about it until everybody got so tired of the subject that the authorities had to put him in prison and keep him there until he said it wasn't true, and that he'd stop writing books to say it was. As a matter of fact it was true, but it didn't matter. We'd all be doing exactly the same things we are doing to-day if he had never made his beastly telescope. On the other hand, men who get a hold of really important ideas often think very little of them. Look, for example, at the case of the man who first thought of collecting a lot of people together and making them pass a unanimous resolution. He didn't even take the trouble to patent the process, and now there's no record left of when and where he hit upon his idea. And yet, where would we all be without unanimous resolutions? Doyle will tell you that government couldn't be carried on and civilisation would practically become extinct. It may be the same with this idea of yours, and I've no doubt that I'll be able to judge if you tell me what it is."
"He was thinking," said Doyle, "of having a picture of an apple tree in the top left-hand corner of the address with apples on it, and the same tree in the top right-hand corner with no apples. He says it would be agreeable to the sergeant."
"I don't think much of that," said Meldon. "It strikes me as a poor idea, for three reasons. In the first place, you'll not be able to get an artist who can draw the apple trees so that any ordinary man could recognise them. I know what I'm talking about, for apple trees necessarily come a good deal into ecclesiastical art, the kind of art I'm most familiar with. I give you my word that the most of them might as well be elms, and I've seen lots that look like Florence Court yews. As a general rule, you wouldn't have a ghost of a notion what they were meant for if it wasn't for Eve and the serpent. In the next place, I don't think the sergeant would care for it. The whole business must be painful to him, and he won't care to be obliged every day of his life to be staring at something that would remind him of Simpkins. In the third place, it would almost certainly irritate Simpkins when he heard of it."
"It's that," said Doyle, "that we were hoping it might do."
"Well, then, you may put the idea out of your heads. I can't have Simpkins irritated at present. It's of the utmost possible importance that he should be lulled into a sense of security. I can't deal with him if his suspicions are aroused in the slightest. I've been with him myself this morning, lulling him."
"Were you, then?" said Doyle.
"I was, and I think I may say that for the immediate present he's lulled."
"And how did you like him?" said Doyle.
"My feelings don't matter," said Meldon. "As a matter of fact, judging from a single interview, I should say he was a pleasant enough, straightforward sort of man who is trying to do what is right."
"If he tried less," said Doyle, "he'd get on better."
"Quite so. And you mustn't think that I'm going to allow my personal feelings to interfere with my action in the matter. The Major is my friend, and I have a great regard for the poor old rector, in spite of his suffering from bronchitis. Also I like the people of Ballymoy, and I'm ready to help them in any way I can. So, whatever opinion I have formed of Simpkins, I'm going to deal with him precisely as if he were my personal enemy."
"What do you mean to do to him?" said the doctor. "You were speaking this minute of apost mortem."
"It won't come to that," said Meldon, "unless you boggle over the death certificate. But the precise details of my scheme I must keep to myself for the present, merely saying that I shall be severe with him. I couldn't, in fact, be severer if I caught him throwing stones at my infant daughter."
"Is that the one the Major stood for?" said Doyle. "He was talking to me about her. A fine child she is by all accounts."
"She was a fine child," said Meldon, "until she got the whooping-cough. Since then she's been wakeful at night.—By the way, doctor, what do you think is the proper way to feed a child that has the whooping-cough? At the present time she's living chiefly on a kind of yellow drink made up out of a powdery stuff out of a tin which tastes like biscuits when it's dry. Would you say now that was a good food for her?"
"You can rear a child," said the doctor, "whether it has the whooping-cough or not, on pretty near anything, so long as you give it enough of whatever it is you do give it."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Meldon; "for my wife has a notion that food ought to be weighed out by ounces, so that the child wouldn't get too much at a time."
"Did she get that out of a book?"
"She did—a little book with a pink cover on it. Do you know it?"
"I do not; but if I were you I'd burn it."
"I did," said Meldon. "I burned it before it was a week in the house. If I hadn't been a good-tempered man, I'd have burned the baby along with it. She spent the whole of four nights crying, and that was before she got the whooping-cough, so there was no excuse for her."
"It was hunger ailed her then," said the doctor.
"It was," said Meldon. "I found that out afterwards, for she stopped crying as soon as ever she got enough to eat. If I'd allowed her to be brought up on the principles laid down in that book her temper would have been ruined for life, and she'd have been a nuisance to every one she came across."
"I wouldn't wonder," said Doyle, "but it might be according to that book that Simpkins was reared. It would be hard to account for the kind of man he is any other way."
"It might be that," said the doctor; "but I'd say myself it's more likely to be the want of beating when he was young that's the matter with him."
"Will you stay and have a bit of dinner now you're here, Mr. Meldon?" said Doyle. "I wouldn't like your temper would be destroyed for the want of what I'd be glad to give you."
Meldon looked at his watch.
"Thank you," he said, "I will. It's one o'clock, and Sabina ought to have the bacon ready by now if she started cooking it the time I told her."