The Simpkins Plot Part 3

"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 pa.s.sionately; 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 a.s.s, 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. Pa.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 a.s.s. 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 a.s.s."

"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 a.s.s--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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 fis.h.i.+ng. 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."

"n.o.body 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 G.o.dchild. 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 a.s.s.

You've got half way. He's certainly an a.s.s. Didn't he know that Doyle was chairman of the Board of Guardians?"

"He must have known that, of course."

"Then he's an a.s.s. No one who wasn't an a.s.s could possibly expect Doyle to pa.s.s 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 a.s.ses, 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."