CHAPTER III.
Meldon stretched himself in a deep chair and lit his pipe. He haddined to his own satisfaction, eating with an appetite whetted by thelong drive from the railway station. He had before him a clearfortnight's holiday, and intended to enjoy it to the full. MajorKent's house was comfortable; his tobacco, which Meldon smoked, wasgood; 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 threeyears since I left, and I'm longing for a look at Doyle and the rest ofthem. The next day, if the weather is any way moderate, we can gosailing. I suppose Ballymoy isn't much changed. I shall find everyone exactly as I left them. Things don't alter much in places likethis where you take life easy."
"The place is changed," said Major Kent; "changed for the worse. You'dhardly know it."
"Nothing has happened to Doyle, I hope. I'd be sorry if poor Doyle hadtaken to drink, or gone bankrupt, or got married, or anything of thatsort. 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 watersupply, or running schemes of technical education, or givingscholarships in the new university, are they? Doyle would have moresense than to allow them to break out into any reckless waste of publicmoney."
"No."
"Then what's the matter with you? I've noticed that you're lookingpretty glum ever since I arrived. Let's have the trouble, whatever itis. I have a fortnight before me, and I need scarcely say, Major, thatif I can set things right in the place, I don't mind sacrificing myholiday in the least. I'm quite prepared to turn to and straighten outany tangle that may have arisen since I left."
"I'm sure you'd do your best, J. J."--the Major dropped naturally intohis old way of addressing his friend by his initials--"but I don'tthink 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 thattroubles you."
"It's that damned Simpkins," said the Major.
"Simpkins may or may not be damned hereafter," said Meldon. "I offerno opinion on that point until I hear who he is and what he's done. Hecan't be damned yet, assuming him to be still alive. That's anelementary theological truth which you ought to know; and, in fact,must know. It will be a great deal more satisfactory to me if you uselanguage accurately. Say that 'damnable Simpkins' if you're quite surehe 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 hedoes--but if he does, I'll do my best to see that he gets it; but Iwon't act in the dark. I have a sense of justice and a conscience, andI absolutely decline to persecute and harry a man simply because youdon't like him. Who is this Simpkins? Is he any kind of governmentinspector?"
"He's an agent that they've sent down here to manage the Buckleyestates."
"Well, I don't see anything wrong about that. I suppose there must bean agent. I could understand Doyle objecting to him on the ground ofhis profession. Doyle is the President of the League, and, of course,he's _ex officio_ obliged to dislike land agents passionately; but Ididn't expect you to take that line, Major. You're a loyalist. Atleast you used to be when I was here, and it's just as plainly yourduty 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. "Iobject to him because he's a meddlesome ass, and keeps the whole placein continual hot water."
"Very well. That's a distinct and definite charge. If you can proveit, 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 toMajor Kent's writing-table. He chose out a pen, took a quantity ofnotepaper and a bottle of ink. With them he returned to his armchairand 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 thatink-bottle, and this is a new carpet."
"We are engaged now," said Meldon, "on a serious investigation. Youhave demanded that a certain man should be punished in a perfectlyfrightful manner. I've agreed to carry out your wishes, _if_--mark mywords--if he deserves it. You ought not to be thinking of carpets orink-bottles. Your mind ought to be concentrated on a single effort totell the truth. It's not such an easy thing to tell the truth as youthink. Lots of men try to and fail. In fact, I'm not sure that anyman could tell the truth unless he's had some training in metaphysicsand theology. When I was in college I took honours in logic--"
"You've often mentioned that to me before," said the Major. "It's oneof 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-nineArticles. Consequently, I may say, without boasting, that I'm more orless 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 onto side issues about ink-bottles and carpets."
He waved his hand oratorically as he spoke, and tipped the ink-bottleoff 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 workwith it."
The Major seized the blotting-paper from his writing-table and wentdown 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 itwill 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 ameddlesome ass. I was up early this morning, owing to the baby's beingrestless during the night. Did I mention to you that she's gotwhooping-cough? Well, she has, and it takes her in the form of a rapidsuccession of fits, beginning at 10 p.m. and lasting till eight thenext morning. That was what happened last night, so, as you'll readilyunderstand, I want to get to bed in good time to-night. It may, itprobably will, take hours to drag your grievance out of you, and Idon't see any use in wasting time at the start."
"I paid twenty guineas for that carpet," said the Major. "It's aPersian one."
"Has that anything to do with Simpkins? Did he force you to buy thecarpet, 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 andstraightforwardly 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 intoeverybody's business. Now, who is everybody?"
"Who is what, J. J.?"
"Who is everybody? That's plain enough, isn't it? For instance, areyou everybody?"
"No, I'm not. How could I be?"
"Then I take it that Simpkins has not poked his nose into yourbusiness. Is Doyle everybody?"
"He _has_ poked his nose into my business."
"Be careful now, Major. You're beginning to contradict yourself. Whatbusiness 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 abeastly fuss about my fishing in the river above the bridge. Hethreatened to prosecute me."
"He may have been perfectly justified in that," said Meldon. "Whatright 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," s
aid Meldon, "are often extremelycomplicated. There may very well be something to be said on bothsides. I don't think I can proceed to deal with Simpkins in the wayyou suggest, unless he has done something worse than interfere withyour fishing. What else have you got against him?"
"He tried to stir up the dispensary doctor to prosecute Doyle onaccount of the insanitary condition of some of his houses."
"I expect he was perfectly right there," said Meldon. "From what Irecollect of those houses that Doyle lets I should say that he richlydeserves prosecution."
"Nobody was ever ill in the houses," said the Major. "There hasn'tbeen 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 inthe wrong way altogether. There never is typhoid anywhere until youbegin to be sanitary. The absence of typhoid simply goes to show thatsanitation has been entirely neglected. That's probably one ofSimpkins' 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 bebetter without matches because children never died of eating the headsoff them before they were invented. Which reminds me that I caught thebaby 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 gettingwhooping-cough. The thing had been stuck into the head of a woollybear by way of an eye. She pulled it out, which I think showsintelligence, and--"
"I thought you said, J. J., that you wanted to get through with thisenquiry and go to bed."
"I do," said Meldon. "But I naturally expected you'd take someinterest in the mental development of my baby. After all, she's yourgodchild. 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 yourattention. 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 intothe 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 ofpaper. "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 Doylewas 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 expectDoyle to pass a vote of censure on the doctor for not prosecuting himabout his drains. You needn't elaborate that point further. I admitit. But I don't see yet that you've proved any actual malice. Lots ofquite good men are asses, and mean to do what's right. Simpkins mayhave been acting from a mistaken sense of duty."
"He wasn't. He was acting from a fiendish delight in worryingpeaceable 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 withthe intention of making other people uncomfortable. In a properlycivilised 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 atall events killed in some other way."
"There's no use talking that way, J. J. You can't go out and murderthe man."
"It won't be murder in this case," said Meldon. "It will be aperfectly 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 perfectlysatisfied 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 manwho's capable of annoying the poor old rector, who has chronicbronchitis 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 therector, who's not physically strong enough to bear it, and whocertainly does not deserve it. I didn't mind his attacking you orDoyle. You can both hit back, and if you were any good would have hitback 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 speciesof 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 thoughthe'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, andpeople of that sort, tried to bully me, because, owing to their ownridiculous officiousness, I was forced to travel first class on athird-class ticket. They thought they could do what they liked withimpunity when they saw I was a clergyman. You don't know how commonthat kind of anti-clerical spirit is. Simpkins is evidently swelledout with it. It's going now, like an epidemic. Look at France andItaly. The one chance we have of keeping Ireland free from it is toisolate each case the moment it appears. By far the wisest thing wecan do is to have Simpkins killed at once."
"I don't quite see how you are going to manage it, J. J., without beinghanged 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 professionalmurderess."
"Do try to talk sense, J. J."
"Her speciality is husbands," said Meldon. "I don't know exactly howmany she has done for in her time, but there must be several. She saidtheir ghosts haunted her at night, and that sometimes she couldn'tsleep on account of them."
"I suppose," said Major Kent, "that it amuses you to babble like anidiot in an asylum."
"It doesn't amuse me in the least. I feel desperately depressed when Ithink of those poor fellows lying in their graves with ounces andounces of strychnine in their stomachs. That's not the kind of thing Iconsider amusing, though you may. Miss King doesn't consider itamusing either. She said she often cries when she thinks of hervictims, and very often she can't sleep at night."
"Miss King!" said the Major. "That's the name of the lady who hastaken 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 thinkshe'd be a suitable match for Simpkins. It's what she will do. She'llmurder him."
"Nonsense."
"It's not nonsense. She will. She told me herself that she has cometo Ballymoy for the express purpose of murdering another husband. Shesaid she wanted quiet and security from interruption in order to go onwith 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 wasa 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'llrecognise it, too, when you see it. Or more probably you won't. Isuppose you still read nothing but _The Times_, and it doesn't publishthe 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, andgot off."
"Precisely," said Meldon. "I happened, by the merest chance, to havefive portraits of her in three different papers. I compared themcarefully with Mi
ss King, and I haven't the slightest doubt that she'sthe same woman."
"You're probably quite mistaken," said the Major. "Those pictures inthe daily papers are never the least like the person they're supposedto represent."
"I might have been mistaken, though I very seldom am; but in this caseI certainly was not. She seemed quite pleased when I said I recognisedher, and told me frankly that she had murdered several husbands, andhoped to live to murder many more. I urged her to give it up. Being aclergyman I was bound to do that. But it wasn't the least use. Shesaid it was her art; and you know, Major, when people start talkingabout 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 alwaysthe same. That's the reason I've made up my mind not to allow mydaughter to learn drawing. I won't have her moral sense blunted whileshe's young. I don't deny that pictures and books and music are greatthings in their way, but a simple sense of right and wrong, of truthand falsehood, are much more important. I'm sure you agree with me inthat."
"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 duringthis holiday, as I'm quite entitled to do. Instead of which I mean todevote my time to the troublesome task of marrying Simpkins, whom Idon't know at all, to a lady whom I have only seen once. If I hadn't aremarkably pushing sort of a conscience I wouldn't sacrifice myself inthat way."
"She won't marry Simpkins," said the Major.
"Oh yes, she will. I don't anticipate any difficulty about that partof the programme."
"Wait till you've seen Simpkins. Wait till you've talked to him. Nowoman would marry Simpkins."
"Miss King will," said Meldon. "She wants a man on whom to practiseher art, and she'll be all the better pleased if he's a particularlyundesirable kind of beast. She won't find herself regretting himafterwards. Now that we have that settled, Major, I think I'll dodgeoff to bed. I don't mind confessing to you that I'm just as glad thatI shan't have the baby in her little cot beside me. I'm extremely fondof the child, but she's a little trying at night; the fits of coughingcome on at such frequent intervals."