It was eight o'clock, and the evening was deliciously warm. Major Kent
and Meldon sat in hammock chairs on the gravel outside Portsmouth
Lodge. They had dined comfortably, and their pipes were lit. For a
time neither of them spoke. Below them, beyond the wall which bounded
the lawn, lay the waters of the bay, where the _Spindrift_, Major
Kent's yacht, hung motionless over her mooring-buoy. The eyes of both
men were fixed on her.
"I feel," said Meldon at last, "like the village blacksmith."
"There are four in Ballymoy," said the Major. "Reilly is the man who
works for me. If you feel like him, I'm sorry for you. He's generally
drunk at this hour."
"I refer," said Meldon, "to Longfellow's village blacksmith. You're
not a highly-educated man, I know, but I thought you'd have heard of
him.
"'The muscles of his brawny arms
Were strong as iron bands.'
It's a poem which most people learn while at school. I am sometimes
tempted to think that you never were at school."
"I don't see, J. J., that your muscles are anything particular to
swagger about."
"I wasn't referring to my muscles," said Meldon. "The resemblance I
speak of lies in the fact that I've 'earned my night's repose.' The
village blacksmith felt that he deserved his after listening to his
daughter singing in the local church choir. I've undergone an even
severer nerve strain. I've practically arranged the marriage between
Simpkins and the murderess."
"I wish very much that I knew exactly what you've been doing all day,
J. J. I always feel nervous when you go out alone. I never know--"
"I'll give you an exact account of my proceedings, if you like. First,
I had a personal interview with Simpkins; and I may as well say at once
that I was on the whole favourably impressed by him. I don't mean to
say that he ought not to be killed, but merely that if left to myself I
would not go out of my way to kill him. I next talked the matter over
with Doyle and Dr. O'Donoghue. I found that they quite agreed with
you; and the doctor is prepared to sign the death certificate as soon
as Miss King--who will then, of course, be Mrs. Simpkins--has finished
him off. I then called at Ballymoy House and arranged with Callaghan,
the gardener, to keep me informed of the progress of events. Finally,
I interviewed Miss King herself. I was unfortunately obliged to offend
her a little, and I expect she won't care about talking to me for the
next few days."
"Did you allude to the trial?"
"No. And she wouldn't have minded in the least if I had. She's quite
frank with me in talking about her art. The fact is, she wanted to
flirt with me, and of course I couldn't have that."
"Are you sure of that, J. J.? It seems to me very unlikely that a lady
of that sort would want to flirt with a clergyman."
"I'm not exactly an ordinary clergyman," said Meldon, "and she
certainly did want to flirt with me. I could see it by the expression
of her eye. Any man who knows anything about women gets into the way
of judging them very largely by the expression of their eyes. You find
after a little practice that you are able to tell with almost absolute
certainty what their intentions are; and there was no mistake about
Miss King's this afternoon."
"I'm glad," said the Major, "that you went away at once."
"I didn't," said Meldon. "It was she who went away. I hurt her
feelings by telling her plainly that I was a married man. She flew
into a temper and pranced off."
"She must be a very--"
"No, she's not--not in the least. It was simply a case of what Virgil
calls 'spretae injuria formae.'"
"Talk English," said Major Kent. "You know I don't understand Latin."
"Never mind," said Meldon; "you wouldn't understand it a bit better if
I put it into English. You haven't the necessary experience. And in
any case it doesn't in the least matter. The important thing for you
to get a hold of is that the marriage is arranged, and unless something
quite unforeseen turns up it will come off. I told Simpkins that she
had a large fortune and was the niece of an earl. Those facts, in
addition to her personal charm, will, I imagine, bring him rapidly up
to the scratch. I can do no more for the present. That's why I said I
was like the blacksmith and had earned my night's repose."
"It's early yet," said the Major. "I seldom turn in before eleven.
But, of course, you can go off at once if you like."
"When I quoted that line about the night's repose," said Meldon, "I was
speaking figuratively. I haven't the least intention of going to bed
at this hour. I don't suppose the original blacksmith did either, even
if he was feeling a bit upset about the choir. What I really meant was
that I am quite entitled now to have a couple of days off in the
_Spindrift_."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," said the Major. "I was afraid you
were going to spend your whole holiday running backwards and forwards
between this and Ballymoy."
"I can't take a regular cruise," said Meldon. "I absolutely must be
back here the day after to-morrow. No matter how carefully you arrange
things, there's always a risk of something going wrong. Quite a
trifling accident might upset the entire plan, and I ought to be on the
spot to straighten things out directly they begin to get into a tangle."
Major Kent made no answer. He sat smoking until his pipe went out.
Then for a while he sat with the empty pipe in his mouth, sucking at it
as if it were still alight. He was thinking deeply. The evening
darkened slowly, and a faint breeze stole in from the sea.
"Every prospect of a fine day to-morrow," said Meldon.
The Major took no notice of the remark. Meldon filled a fresh pipe,
and watched the _Spindrift_ tugging at her moorings as the breeze
freshened or died and the tide caught her.
"J. J.," said the Major at last, speaking very solemnly, "I'd rather
you didn't."
"Didn't what?"
"I know you enjoy this sort of thing, and I don't want to spoil your
holiday. I'd like you to have a really good time, but I wish you'd hit
on some other amusement."
"Try and be a little more explicit, Major. I'm a quick-witted man, and
I can generally guess at your meaning, no matter how you wrap it up in
paraphrases, but this time I really can't. The only amusement I've
proposed so far is a short trip in your yacht. I suppose you don't
grudge me that?"
"You know very well I don't, J. J. But I wish you wouldn't play these
tricks with Simpkins. He's a man I don't like."
"You told me that last night," said Meldon, "and I agreed at once to
have him murdered."
"Of course I know that you like talking in that sort of way, and I
don't mind it a bit. It's your way of making jokes, and you don't mean
any harm by what you say; but I'd really rather not be mixed up with
Simpkins even by way of a joke. I don't like the man at all."
"Don't repeat that again," said Meldon. "I quite believe you. And as
for the murder of Simpkins being a joke, I assure you it's nothing of
the sort. I may be flippant--several people have called me
flippant--but I draw the line at making jokes about murder. It's a
serious subject. In fact I've more than once hesitated about going
into this business at all. It's mainly for your sake that I'm doing
it."
"Then don't do it," said the Major. "I know quite well that you don't
mean a word you say, but--"
"I mean it all. Am I the kind of man who says what he doesn't mean?
Come now, Major; you've known me a good many years, and we've been in
some tight places together. Have you ever heard me say a thing I
didn't mean?"
"To be quite candid," said the Major, "I have, once or twice."
"You're entirely mistaken. You have not. And in any case I mean what
I say now. Do you really suppose that I'd have spent the whole of this
hot day fagging up and down the roads about Ballymoy if I wasn't in
earnest about what I was at?"
"But you don't. You can't think that this lady--Miss King or whatever
her name is--will really murder Simpkins?"
"She'll try to if she marries him. I can't be absolutely certain that
she'll succeed, but I think it's very likely that she will. She's had
a lot of practice, and by her own account she's been unusually
successful."
"That's all rot, of course," said the Major. "Murder isn't committed
in that sort of way. No woman would deliberately with her eyes open--"
"Did Mrs. Lorimer murder her husband by accident, or did she intend to
do it and plan the whole thing out beforehand?"
"I don't know."
"You do know. You read the evidence and you read the judge's charge,
and you know as well as I do that she proceeded in the most deliberate
way possible."
"It looked like it," said the Major. "I must say it looked like it."
"Very well. Is Miss King Mrs. Lorimer, or is she not?"
"I don't know."
"I proved to you yesterday evening that she is. I proved it in a way
that left no possible room for doubt in your mind, if you are honest
with yourself and look facts plainly in the face. I am not going into
the proof again, because it's a very exhausting thing and I've had a
hard day. Besides, if it didn't convince you the first time, it
wouldn't the second. Trains of reasoning aren't like advertisements.
You come to believe that a certain kind of pill will prevent your going
bald because you've seen statements to that effect ten thousand times.
It's the cumulative weight of repeated assertion which compels belief
in that case. But the kind of belief which depends on reasoning is
quite different. If you've the sort of intellect which cannot grasp
the proof which Euclid gives of one of his propositions, no number of
repetitions of it will help you in the least. That's a curious
psychological law, but it is a law. Therefore it would be the merest
waste of time for me to demonstrate to you again that Mrs. Lorimer and
Miss King are the same person. I pass on to the next stage in our
enquiry. Will Miss King murder her next husband?"
"If she's Mrs. Lorimer," said the Major, "and if Mrs. Lorimer
murdered--"
"There are no 'ifs' about the matter," said Meldon; "she unquestionably
will. She told me so herself, and whatever else she is she's a woman
of her word. There remains now only one question, Who is her next
husband to be? And the answer to that may be given in two
syllables--Simpkins."
"If you really believe all that," said the Major, "and--"
"I do," said Meldon.
"Then you're going to commit a horrible crime, and I insist on your
stopping at once."
"I can't stop it now. I've set the thing going, and it can't be
stopped. You might have stopped it yesterday, but you're too late now.
I'm sorry for poor Simpkins myself. I thought him a decent enough sort
of man."
"He's a cad."
"There you are again. In one breath you try to stop me, and in the
very next breath you urge me strongly to go on. Which do you mean?
Not that it matters, for the thing is as good as done now. Still you
ought to try and cultivate the habit of definitely making up your mind,
and then sticking to it. You said yesterday distinctly, and so far I
could judge sincerely, that you wished Simpkins was dead. Now you
pretend that it's a shock to you to hear that he's going to be killed.
That's what I call vacillation, and you ought to be ashamed of it."
Major Kent sighed heavily.
"There's no use my talking," he said, "but you'll get yourself into
trouble some day with these jokes of yours."
"Major," said Meldon, "I've absolutely no patience with you. You're
back again at that joke theory of yours, after I've spent half the
evening explaining to you that this isn't a joking matter at all. I
must decline to discuss the matter any further. We'll talk of
something else. I was speaking to O'Donoghue to-day about the proper
way of feeding the child when it has whoping-cough. He says it ought
to be given as much as it wants to eat of any ordinary kind of food.
I'm inclined to agree with him. Now what is your opinion?"
"I suppose you're thinking of your own child?"
"Yes, I am. And don't forget that she's not merely my child. She's
also your god-child."
"Well, I gave her a silver mug. Didn't I?"
"You did. A capital mug, large and heavy. She'll be very grateful to
you for that mug some day; though, up to the present, all she has done
to it is to dint its side one day by dropping it against the corner of
the fender when it was given her to play with. You did your duty in
the matter of a mug, and I'm not suggesting for a moment that you
should give her another. When I reminded you that you are her
god-father, I merely wanted to suggest that you ought to take some
little interest in her health and education."
"But I don't know what babies ought to eat."
"What you really mean is that you don't care. You're so wrapped up in
this miserable local squabble with Simpkins about a salmon that you've
lost all interest in the wider subjects which are occupying the
attention of the world."
"Come now, J. J. Your baby--she's a very nice baby and all that. But
really--"
"I won't talk about her any more if she bores you. I thought, and
hoped, that she might interest you. That's the reason I started her as
a topic of conversation. As she doesn't, I'll drop her again, at once.
But what am I to do? I began this evening with a literary allusion,
and found that you'd never heard of Longfellow's 'Village Blacksmith.'
That wasn't a very encouraging start, you'll admit. Last night I tried
you with art, and all you did was to mix it up with morality, which, as
everybody knows, is a perfectly hopeless thing to do. The ancient
Hebrews had more sense. They were specialists in morality, and they
absolutely forbade art. Whereas the Greeks, who were artists, went in
for a thoroughly immoral kind of life. Finding that you were totally
indifferent to the metaphysics of the aesthetic, I offered you an
interesting chain of abstract reasoning. What was the result? You
were absolutely unable to follow me. I then threw out some hints which
might have led to an interesting psychological discussion, but you
didn't know what I meant. This evening I touched on one of the great
principles which must guide us in the consideration of the whole
feminist question--"
"That was when you talked about judging Miss King's intentions by the
look of her eyes," said the Major.
"Yes; it was. And so far as I can recollect, all you did was to grin
in a futile and somewhat vulgar way. Finally, I tried to talk to you
about child culture, which is one of the most important problems of our
day; a problem which is occupying the attention of statesmen,
philanthropists, philosophers, doctors, and teachers of every kind,
from kindergarten mistresses to university professors. I began in
quite a simple way with a question about the food of an infant. We
might, if you had taken the subject up at all warmly, have got on to
the endowment of motherhood, nature study, medical examination of
schools, the boarding-out of workhouse children, religious education,
boy scouts, eugenics, and a lot of other perfectly fascinating topics.
But what do you do? You say frankly and shamelessly that you know
nothing at all about the matter."
"But I really do not know how to feed babies. What was the use of
pretending that I do?"
"Is there--to get back to the point from which I started--is there any
subject that you do know anything about besides politics and polo
ponies?"
"I'm afraid not, J. J., except the yacht. I do know something about
her."
"Then," said Meldon, "we'll discuss her. I expect we'll come to an end
of her soon, but we can at all events decide where we'll go to-morrow."
The yacht turned out to be a more fruitful subject than Meldon
expected. The Major had made some alterations in her trim, which led
to an animated discussion. He also had a plan for changing her from a
cutter into a yawl, and Meldon was quite ready to argue out the points
of advantage and disadvantage in each rig. It was half-past eleven
o'clock before they parted for the night, and even then they had not
decided where to go next day.