If Winter Don't Part 12

"We shall dine in the kitchen," said Mabel. "The dining-room and drawing-room are finished, but I am keeping them locked up until the workmen are out of the house, and all the mess is cleared away."

"You are an excellent housekeeper," said Luke. "Won't it be jolly to dine in the kitchen with Dot and Dash?"

"Ellen will sit in the garden while we are at dinner. Kate will wait on us as usual. I am sorry to say that a workman spilt a pail of whitewash in your room. Most of it went over your books. After dinner we will sit in the den."

"Mabel," said Luke, "when I told you of the suffering that would happen to me in consequence of Effie having the illegitimate child, which she never did, you said that it was all impossible. Part of it has come true. They don't want me to go to the business any more, and they've said so."

"Have they?" said Mabel. "Of course I knew they would. I've been expecting it for some time past. You see, you're not fitted for business. I don't know that you're particularly fitted for anything.

Well, when you talked to me about that Effie nonsense, I told you I'd arrange a little martyrdom for you if I could. Haven't I done it?"

"You have. In the interest of my sanity----"

"In the interests of your what?"

"In the interests of my sanity I shall go to Brighton for the week-end."

"Do," said Mabel. "You're terribly in the way here. It's about the first sensible idea you've had for this last year."

By half-past ten next morning he was on the platform at Victoria station. Would Jona be there?

Apparently not. He caught a distant glimpse of Lord Tyburn, but it was not with him that he was proposing to elope. Besides, Tyburn was accompanied by a somewhat highly painted and decorated young lady.

Luke waited till the last moment, and waited in vain. He stepped into the train just as it was moving off.

2

At this point we will ask our Mr. Alfred Jingle to oblige again.

"Tell you what," he said to his artist friend. "I was wrong about Sharper again. I thought he'd reached the limit of human mess and martyrdom. He hadn't. He'd not got within a street of it. He's there now. Right up to the limit and leaning over the edge.

"Down at Brighton this week-end with my old missus. Sitting out on the pier. Sunday morning. Listening to the band. Overture to 'William Tell.' Always is. Whenever I strike a band, it's 'William Tell' or 'Zampa.' Every time.

"Suddenly the missus says to me, 'Who's that old chap over there with a face like a turnip?'

"I looked up. It was Luke Sharper. Looking ghastly. His hair was grey.

His face was grey. Even his flannel trousers were grey. All grey and worn. I don't mean the trousers particularly. General effect, you know. Ears drooping down with no life or motion in them. I went up to him and asked him what brought him down to Brighton.

"'Go away,' he said. 'I'm a leper. I'm an outcast. I'm a pariah dog.

Go before I bring misery on you.'

"I told him I'd chance it, and asked him again what he was doing at Brighton.

"'I've eloped,' he said.

"'With whom?' I asked.

"'n.o.body. She never turned up. That's not my fault. In the sight of Heaven we are all equal, and I'm an eloper. I'm a faithless hound.

That's not all, Jingle. They've thrown me out of the business. And that's not all. I bought four packets of oxalic acid. I've put them down where Mabel is bound to see them. There's one on her pillow, one on the clock, one on the piano, and one on the mantelpiece. You see?

I'm a murderer. Mabel will take the hint, and will commit suicide.

That will upset Dot and Dash, and they will commit suicide too. I only hope the man who spilt whitewash over my bookcase will commit suicide as well. Don't come and see me in the condemned cell. I don't want to see anybody any more. That's why I'm sitting on Brighton pier on a warm Sunday morning.'

"'You've got this wrong, Sharper,' I said. 'I know your wife. She won't commit suicide because you've gone. She possibly might have done it if you had stopped. So your maids won't be upset, and they won't commit suicide either. And the painter's man who spilt the whitewash over your books will be enjoying the joke over his Sunday dinner.

You're no good at the leper-and-pariah business. Come over and be introduced to my missus.'

"'What you say might be true if I were a real man, but I have horrible doubts. I don't feel like a real man.'

"'Come off it,' I said. 'What do you feel like, then?'

"'I feel like a lot of tripe out of some d.a.m.n-silly book.'

"Well, I took him over to the missus, and she got on the buzz. She's an energetic talkist. He never got time to say he was a leper once.

Then some pals of hers came up to talk to her, and he and I escaped. I asked him what he was going to do. He said he was going back to Halfpenny Hole directly, in order to save the coroner's officer the trouble of fetching him. Then he asked me to have a drink. We had three each. He rushed off to the station, and left me to pay. A man in that state is not fit to be alone. And it's not too safe for anybody who happens to be with him. I let him go."

3

It was half-past five when Luke got back to Jawbones again. He rang the bell. As the door was not opened, he rang again.

Then from the garden behind the house he heard the sound of voices and laughter. He recognized the laugh. It was Dot's. It was a full-bodied, fruity laugh. Luke walked round the house and into the garden to see what was happening.

On the lawn sat Dot, Dash, and the first and second footmen from Gallows. A table showed that tea, including bottled beer, had been served with some profusion. But the banquet was over and all four reclined in deck-chairs, smoking cigarettes.

Luke stared at them blankly. "Afraid I'm rather interrupting," he stammered.

"Well, old bean," said Dot. "You do come as a bit of a surprise. We'd not expected you before Tuesday. But our two gentlemen friends--Albert and Hector--I think you've met them--have to be back at their job at six. So we shan't keep you long. The kitchen door's open if you care to slip into the house and wait."

Luke's powerful mind made a rapid deduction. This could never have happened if Mabel had not been powerless to prevent it. So Mabel must have ... Yes, the oxalic acid.

"Can you tell me," he said in sepulchral tones, "where I shall find the body of my poor wife?"

"Afraid I can't," said Dot. Her laughter jarred on him.

"Let us," he said, "be reverent. When did she die?"

Here Dash, under the pink parasol, broke in, "But she's alive. And I'll bet she's a good deal livelier than she's been for years past. I helped her pack, and it was some trousseau. The old girl's done a bunk. See? Skipped it with a gentleman friend of hers."

"You might have mentioned that before," said Luke, aggrieved. "I quite thought that something was the matter."

"Well, she's left a letter for you in your almost-silver cigarette case. You'll find it in the bath-room, balanced on the hot-water tap.

You run along and read it. You're the least little bit in the way at this tea party."

4

Seated on the edge of the bath, Luke read as follows:

"You could always see every point of view except one, and that was your wife's.