A Duel Part 27

"A good thing too. It'd have been a good thing if it had been the death of both of them. I've no bowels for such tomfoolery.

Where is she? What's she doing? Is she married to the other fool? If she is, don't they both wish that they were dead?"

"You've a sharp tongue, Andrew--if your wits were like it! Not all married folks wish that they were dead; there's just as much desire to live among the married as among the single--maybe more. To hear you talk one would suppose that one had only to remain single to be happy. You and I know better than that."

"Speak for yourself, David, speak for yourself--I'm happy enough."

"Then your looks belie you."

"What's the matter with my looks, you old croaker?"

"I'm a doctor of medicine, Andrew McTavish; I've learned to turn the smoothest side to a patient; so you must excuse me if to your inquiry I return no answer."

"After the dinner I've given him!"

"It's the ill-a.s.sorted food you have caused me to cram down my throat that I'm beginning to fancy has given me a touch of the spleen."

"Something has. The next time you dine in this house it will be off porridge."

"We'll leave the next time till it comes. To return to Margaret Wallace. She's not married yet, and, so far as I can judge, she's not likely to be. It's want of pence, both with him and with her. If she had some of Cuthbert Grahame's money, as she ought to have, it'd make all the difference."

"It's in part your fault that she hasn't."

"I'm not denying it, and I'm not forgetting it. If I've been guilty of the unforgivable sin, it was when I brought that woman to Cuthbert Grahame's bedside. I sometimes think that I'll see it chalked up against me in letters of fire when I'm brought up before the throne."

"Stuff!"

"Maybe--to you. You're devoid of decent feeling, Andrew McTavish; to you all's stuff. What's become of the woman?"

"What woman?"

"She who calls herself Mrs. Grahame?"

"She calls herself Mrs. Grahame no longer."

"How's that?"

"She's married again."

"The creature! The poor fool she's married! What is his name?"

"Gregory Lamb."

Dr. Twelves rose from his chair as if impelled by a spring.

Opening his mouth in apparent forgetfulness of what was between his lips, his cigar fell to the floor, where it remained apparently unnoticed.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"What name was that you said?"

"Why, man, what's the matter now? I'm wondering whether the sucking-pig's mounted to your head instead of descending to your stomach. David, you're easily upset these days. Pick up your cigar, it's burning a hole in my floor covering."

"d.a.m.n the cigar!"

"And welcome! It's not that I mind. What I object to is your cigar d.a.m.ning my carpet. Pick it up at once, sir."

"You're fussy about your old carpet."

"Old carpet! it cost me a guinea a yard not twelve months since."

"You're wasteful with your money."

"I am, when I spend it entertaining such as you."

"What's the name of the man you say that woman married?"

"Gregory Lamb."

"It's past believing!"

"Is it? I haven't found it so."

"That's because you're walking in darkness. Do you know that the youngster Margaret's plighted to is private secretary to Mrs.

Gregory Lamb?"

"Is he? Then I should say that that's presumptive evidence that he's not bad looking. She has an eye for a good-looking man."

"Gregory Lamb was staying at Pitmuir when she was at Cuthbert Grahame's, calling herself his wife. A half-bred, ill-conditioned young scamp he was."

"I should imagine that Mr. Lamb was not born in the caste of Vere de Vere."

"Were they acquainted then? What was there between them? How come they to be married now?--he without a penny, to my knowledge, she with all that money. She'd not marry such a creature as he was--for love, that I'll swear. They were birds of a feather, only he was more fool than knave, and she more knave than fool."

"That about describes them now--if a lawyer may say as much--under privilege."

"Andrew, can you keep a still tongue?"

"If I couldn't I shouldn't be sitting here."

"I've always had a suspicion that there was something wrong about that will."

"Do you mean the one under which she inherits? You needn't confine yourself to suspicion upon that point--it's about as wrong as it could be. If there had been substantial opposition she'd have found it hard to bring it in."

"I'm not meaning it in your sense. I know that Grahame signed it in the presence of those two daft la.s.sies; but I don't believe that he knew what he was signing, although the evidence is all the other way. I've kept my doubts to myself until this moment, and even now I can't tell you just why I don't believe it--but I don't."

"Quite possibly you're right, but you can't prove it."