Meldon stretched himself in a deep chair and lit his pipe. He had
dined to his own satisfaction, eating with an appetite whetted by the
long drive from the railway station. He had before him a clear
fortnight's holiday, and intended to enjoy it to the full. Major
Kent's house was comfortable; his tobacco, which Meldon smoked, was
good; his yacht, the _Spindrift_, lay ready for a cruise.
"To-morrow," he said, "I shall stroll round and see my old friends.
I'm bound to do that; and, in point of fact, I want to. It's three
years since I left, and I'm longing for a look at Doyle and the rest of
them. The next day, if the weather is any way moderate, we can go
sailing. I suppose Ballymoy isn't much changed. I shall find every
one exactly as I left them. Things don't alter much in places like
this where you take life easy."
"The place is changed," said Major Kent; "changed for the worse. You'd
hardly know it."
"Nothing has happened to Doyle, I hope. I'd be sorry if poor Doyle had
taken to drink, or gone bankrupt, or got married, or anything of that
sort. I always liked Doyle."
"Doyle," said the Major sadly, "is suffering like everybody else."
"New priest?"
"No. Father Morony's alive still."
"They're not piling on the rates under the pretence of getting a water
supply, or running schemes of technical education, or giving
scholarships in the new university, are they? Doyle would have more
sense than to allow them to break out into any reckless waste of public
money."
"No."
"Then what's the matter with you? I've noticed that you're looking
pretty glum ever since I arrived. Let's have the trouble, whatever it
is. I have a fortnight before me, and I need scarcely say, Major, that
if I can set things right in the place, I don't mind sacrificing my
holiday in the least. I'm quite prepared to turn to and straighten out
any tangle that may have arisen since I left."
"I'm sure you'd do your best, J. J."--the Major dropped naturally into
his old way of addressing his friend by his initials--"but I don't
think you can help us this time."
Major Kent sighed heavily and struck a match. His pipe had gone out.
"I certainly can't," said Meldon, "if you won't tell me what it is that
troubles you."
"It's that damned Simpkins," said the Major.
"Simpkins may or may not be damned hereafter," said Meldon. "I offer
no opinion on that point until I hear who he is and what he's done. He
can't be damned yet, assuming him to be still alive. That's an
elementary theological truth which you ought to know; and, in fact,
must know. It will be a great deal more satisfactory to me if you use
language accurately. Say that 'damnable Simpkins' if you're quite sure
he deserves it; but don't call him damned until he is."
"He does deserve it."
"If he does," said Meldon--"I'm not, of course, certain yet that he
does--but if he does, I'll do my best to see that he gets it; but I
won't act in the dark. I have a sense of justice and a conscience, and
I absolutely decline to persecute and harry a man simply because you
don't like him. Who is this Simpkins? Is he any kind of government
inspector?"
"He's an agent that they've sent down here to manage the Buckley
estates."
"Well, I don't see anything wrong about that. I suppose there must be
an agent. I could understand Doyle objecting to him on the ground of
his profession. Doyle is the President of the League, and, of course,
he's _ex officio_ obliged to dislike land agents passionately; but I
didn't expect you to take that line, Major. You're a loyalist. At
least you used to be when I was here, and it's just as plainly your
duty to support agents as it is Doyle's to abuse them."
"I don't object to him because he's an agent," said Major Kent. "I
object to him because he's a meddlesome ass, and keeps the whole place
in continual hot water."
"Very well. That's a distinct and definite charge. If you can prove
it, I'll take the matter up and deal with the man. Pass the tobacco."
Meldon filled and lit his pipe. Then he got up and walked across to
Major Kent's writing-table. He chose out a pen, took a quantity of
notepaper and a bottle of ink. With them he returned to his armchair
and sat down. He put the ink-bottle on the arm of the chair and,
crossing his legs, propped the paper on his knee.
"Do be careful, J. J.," said the Major. "You'll certainly upset that
ink-bottle, and this is a new carpet."
"We are engaged now," said Meldon, "on a serious investigation. You
have demanded that a certain man should be punished in a perfectly
frightful manner. I've agreed to carry out your wishes, _if_--mark my
words--if he deserves it. You ought not to be thinking of carpets or
ink-bottles. Your mind ought to be concentrated on a single effort to
tell the truth. It's not such an easy thing to tell the truth as you
think. Lots of men try to and fail. In fact, I'm not sure that any
man could tell the truth unless he's had some training in metaphysics
and theology. When I was in college I took honours in logic--"
"You've often mentioned that to me before," said the Major. "It's one
of the things about you that I have most firmly fixed in my mind."
"And I won a prize for proving the accuracy of the Thirty-nine
Articles. Consequently, I may say, without boasting, that I'm more or
less of an expert in the matter of truth. My mind is trained. Yours,
of course, isn't. That's why I'm trying to help you to tell the truth.
But I won't--in fact, I can't--go on helping you if you wander off on
to side issues about ink-bottles and carpets."
He waved his hand oratorically as he spoke, and tipped the ink-bottle
off the arm of the chair.
"There," said the Major, "I knew you'd do that."
"Never mind," said Meldon. "I have a pencil in my pocket. I'll work
with it."
The Major seized the blotting-paper from his writing-table and went
down on his knees on the carpet.
"When you've finished making that mess worse than it is," said Meldon,
"and covering your own fingers all over with ink in such a way that it
will take days of careful rubbing with pumice-stone to get them clean,
perhaps you'll go on telling me why you call this fellow Simpkins a
meddlesome ass. I was up early this morning, owing to the baby's being
restless during the night. Did I mention to you that she's got
whooping-cough? Well, she has, and it takes her in the form of a rapid
succession of fits, beginning at 10 p.m. and lasting till eight the
next morning. That was what happened last night, so, as you'll readily
understand, I want to get to bed in good time to-night. It may, it
probably will, take hours to drag your grievance out of you, and I
don't see any use in wasting time at the start."
"I paid twenty guineas for that carpet," said the Major. "It's a
Persian one."
"Has that anything to do with Simpkins? Did he force you to buy the
carpet, or did he try to prevent you?"
"No, he didn't. I wouldn't let the beast inside this house."
"Very well then. Don't go on about the carpet. Tell me plainly and
straightforwardly why you call Simpkins a meddlesome ass."
"Because he pokes his nose into everybody's business," said the Major,
"and won't let people alone."
Meldon took a note on a sheet of paper.
"Good," he said. "Simpkins--meddlesome ass--pokes his nose into
everybody's business. Now, who is everybody?"
"Who is what, J. J.?"
"Who is everybody? That's plain enough, isn't it? For instance, are
you everybody?"
"No, I'm not. How could I be?"
"Then I take it that Simpkins has not poked his nose into your
business. Is Doyle everybody?"
"He _has_ poked his nose into my business."
"Be careful now, Major. You're beginning to contradict yourself. What
business of yours has he poked his nose into? Was it the carpet?"
"No. I told you he had nothing to do with the carpet. He made a
beastly fuss about my fishing in the river above the bridge. He
threatened to prosecute me."
"He may have been perfectly justified in that," said Meldon. "What
right have you to fish in the upper part of the river?"
"I always fished there. I've fished there for thirty years and more."
"These questions of fishing rights," said Meldon, "are often extremely
complicated. There may very well be something to be said on both
sides. I don't think I can proceed to deal with Simpkins in the way
you suggest, unless he has done something worse than interfere with
your fishing. What else have you got against him?"
"He tried to stir up the dispensary doctor to prosecute Doyle on
account of the insanitary condition of some of his houses."
"I expect he was perfectly right there," said Meldon. "From what I
recollect of those houses that Doyle lets I should say that he richly
deserves prosecution."
"Nobody was ever ill in the houses," said the Major. "There hasn't
been a case of typhoid in the town as long as I can remember."
"That's not the point," said Meldon. "You're looking at the matter in
the wrong way altogether. There never is typhoid anywhere until you
begin to be sanitary. The absence of typhoid simply goes to show that
sanitation has been entirely neglected. That's probably one of
Simpkins' strongest points."
"If that's so, we'd be better without sanitation."
"Certainly not," said Meldon. "You might just as well say that we'd be
better without matches because children never died of eating the heads
off them before they were invented. Which reminds me that I caught the
baby in the act of trying to swallow a black-headed pin the other day;
and that, of course, would have been a great deal worse than getting
whooping-cough. The thing had been stuck into the head of a woolly
bear by way of an eye. She pulled it out, which I think shows
intelligence, and--"
"I thought you said, J. J., that you wanted to get through with this
enquiry and go to bed."
"I do," said Meldon. "But I naturally expected you'd take some
interest in the mental development of my baby. After all, she's your
godchild. You wouldn't have liked it if she'd swallowed that pin.
However, if you don't care to hear about her, I won't force her on your
attention. Go on about Doyle and the drains. What happened?"
"The doctor refused to act, of course," said the Major.
"Naturally," said Meldon; "he didn't care about bringing typhoid into
the town."
"You'd have thought Simpkins would have dropped it then, but he didn't.
He reported the doctor to the Board of Guardians for neglect of duty."
"We're getting on," said Meldon, taking a note on a fresh sheet of
paper. "You started out to prove that Simpkins is a meddlesome ass.
You've got half way. He's certainly an ass. Didn't he know that Doyle
was chairman of the Board of Guardians?"
"He must have known that, of course."
"Then he's an ass. No one who wasn't an ass could possibly expect
Doyle to pass a vote of censure on the doctor for not prosecuting him
about his drains. You needn't elaborate that point further. I admit
it. But I don't see yet that you've proved any actual malice. Lots of
quite good men are asses, and mean to do what's right. Simpkins may
have been acting from a mistaken sense of duty."
"He wasn't. He was acting from a fiendish delight in worrying
peaceable people."
"Prove that," said Meldon, "and I'll make the man sorry for himself.
There's no crime I know more detestable than nagging and worrying with
the intention of making other people uncomfortable. In a properly
civilised society men who do that would be hanged."
"I wish Simpkins was hanged."
"Prove your point," said Meldon, "and I'll see that he is hanged, or at
all events killed in some other way."
"There's no use talking that way, J. J. You can't go out and murder
the man."
"It won't be murder in this case," said Meldon. "It will be a
perfectly just execution, and I shan't do it myself. I'm a clergyman,
and not an executioner. But I'll see that it's done once I'm perfectly
satisfied that he deserves it."
"He had a row with the rector at a vestry meeting," said the Major,
"about the heating of the church."
"That settles it," said Meldon. "I ask for nothing more. The man
who's capable of annoying the poor old rector, who has chronic
bronchitis and must keep the church up to a pretty fair temperature--"
"What Simpkins said was that the church wasn't hot enough."
"It's all the same," said Meldon. "The point is that he worried the
rector, who's not physically strong enough to bear it, and who
certainly does not deserve it. I didn't mind his attacking you or
Doyle. You can both hit back, and if you were any good would have hit
back long ago in a way which Simpkins would have disliked intensely.
But a clergyman is different. He can't defend himself. He is obliged,
by the mere fact of being a clergyman, to sit down under every species
of insult which any ill-conditioned corner-boy chooses to sling at him.
There was a fellow in my parish, when I first went there, who thought
he'd be perfectly safe in ragging me because he knew I was a parson.
No later than this morning a horrid rabble of railway porters, and
people of that sort, tried to bully me, because, owing to their own
ridiculous officiousness, I was forced to travel first class on a
third-class ticket. They thought they could do what they liked with
impunity when they saw I was a clergyman. You don't know how common
that kind of anti-clerical spirit is. Simpkins is evidently swelled
out with it. It's going now, like an epidemic. Look at France and
Italy. The one chance we have of keeping Ireland free from it is to
isolate each case the moment it appears. By far the wisest thing we
can do is to have Simpkins killed at once."
"I don't quite see how you are going to manage it, J. J., without being
hanged yourself."
"Is he a married man?"
"No, he isn't."
"Then the matter's perfectly simple. I don't think I mentioned to you,
Major, that I travelled down in the train to-day with a professional
murderess."
"Do try to talk sense, J. J."
"Her speciality is husbands," said Meldon. "I don't know exactly how
many she has done for in her time, but there must be several. She said
their ghosts haunted her at night, and that sometimes she couldn't
sleep on account of them."
"I suppose," said Major Kent, "that it amuses you to babble like an
idiot in an asylum."
"It doesn't amuse me in the least. I feel desperately depressed when I
think of those poor fellows lying in their graves with ounces and
ounces of strychnine in their stomachs. That's not the kind of thing I
consider amusing, though you may. Miss King doesn't consider it
amusing either. She said she often cries when she thinks of her
victims, and very often she can't sleep at night."
"Miss King!" said the Major. "That's the name of the lady who has
taken Ballymoy House for the summer."
"Exactly. The lady whom I propose to marry to your friend Simpkins."
"Good Lord! J. J. Why? What has the poor woman done?"
"It's not so much what she has done," said Meldon, "that makes me think
she'd be a suitable match for Simpkins. It's what she will do. She'll
murder him."
"Nonsense."
"It's not nonsense. She will. She told me herself that she has come
to Ballymoy for the express purpose of murdering another husband. She
said she wanted quiet and security from interruption in order to go on
with her work."
"You're going mad, J. J.; stark mad. I'm sorry for you."
"I got into the carriage with her this morning by the merest accident,"
said Meldon. "If the baby hadn't got whooping-cough a fortnight ago,
and kept me awake all night, I shouldn't have caught the early train.
I didn't mean to catch it. Directly I looked at her I saw that she was
a remarkable woman. You've not seen her yet?"
"No," said the Major, "I haven't, and I don't particularly want to."
"Her face seemed more or less familiar to me," said Meldon. "You'll
recognise it, too, when you see it. Or more probably you won't. I
suppose you still read nothing but _The Times_, and it doesn't publish
the portraits of celebrities."
"Is Miss King a celebrity? I never heard of her."
"Not under that name; but when I mention that her real name is Mrs.
Lorimer, you'll remember all about her."
"The woman who was tried the other day for murdering her husband, and
got off."
"Precisely," said Meldon. "I happened, by the merest chance, to have
five portraits of her in three different papers. I compared them
carefully with Miss King, and I haven't the slightest doubt that she's
the same woman."
"You're probably quite mistaken," said the Major. "Those pictures in
the daily papers are never the least like the person they're supposed
to represent."
"I might have been mistaken, though I very seldom am; but in this case
I certainly was not. She seemed quite pleased when I said I recognised
her, and told me frankly that she had murdered several husbands, and
hoped to live to murder many more. I urged her to give it up. Being a
clergyman I was bound to do that. But it wasn't the least use. She
said it was her art; and you know, Major, when people start talking
about art, it simply means that they are dead to all sense of morality.
It doesn't in the least matter what the art is. The effect is always
the same. That's the reason I've made up my mind not to allow my
daughter to learn drawing. I won't have her moral sense blunted while
she's young. I don't deny that pictures and books and music are great
things in their way, but a simple sense of right and wrong, of truth
and falsehood, are much more important. I'm sure you agree with me in
that."
"I wish to goodness you had some sense of right and wrong yourself."
"I have," said Meldon, "If I hadn't I should simply enjoy myself during
this holiday, as I'm quite entitled to do. Instead of which I mean to
devote my time to the troublesome task of marrying Simpkins, whom I
don't know at all, to a lady whom I have only seen once. If I hadn't a
remarkably pushing sort of a conscience I wouldn't sacrifice myself in
that way."
"She won't marry Simpkins," said the Major.
"Oh yes, she will. I don't anticipate any difficulty about that part
of the programme."
"Wait till you've seen Simpkins. Wait till you've talked to him. No
woman would marry Simpkins."
"Miss King will," said Meldon. "She wants a man on whom to practise
her art, and she'll be all the better pleased if he's a particularly
undesirable kind of beast. She won't find herself regretting him
afterwards. Now that we have that settled, Major, I think I'll dodge
off to bed. I don't mind confessing to you that I'm just as glad that
I shan't have the baby in her little cot beside me. I'm extremely fond
of the child, but she's a little trying at night; the fits of coughing
come on at such frequent intervals."