The Simpkins Plot Part 30

"That's right, Major," he shouted. "You've brought him down. Just stay where you are. I won't keep you long. Now then, Doyle! I understand that you are in an abominably bad temper about something, and have come down here with the intention of working it off on me. I may tell you that I don't at all care for being interrupted while I'm meditating; and as a general rule I simply refuse to do any business until I've finished. However, as you're an old friend, I'm making an exception in your case. Can you hear what I say?"

"I cannot," shouted Doyle, "nor n.o.body could."

"You can," said Meldon. "If you couldn't, how did you answer me?"

"We can't," said the Major, shaking his head vigorously.

Meldon pulled the punt alongside the yacht, got into her and rowed towards the sh.o.r.e. When he was within about ten yards of it, he swung the punt round and rested on his oars facing Doyle and Major Kent.

"Now," he said, "trot out your grievance; but speak briefly and to the point. I can't and won't have my morning wasted. If you meander in your statements, I shall simply row back again to the yacht and leave you there."

"It's a curious thing," said Doyle, "that a gentleman like you would find a pleasure in preventing a poor man from earning his living."

He spoke truculently. He was evidently very angry indeed.

"Don't," said Meldon, "wander off into generalities and silly speculations about things which aren't facts. So far from taking a pleasure in preventing poor men from living, I'm always particularly anxious to help them when I can."

"You didn't help me then with your d.a.m.ned tricks, the like of which no gentleman ought to play."

"If you refer to yourself as a poor man," said Meldon, "you're simply telling a lie. You're rich, n.o.body knows how rich, but rich enough to buy up every other man in the town of Ballymoy."

"And if I was itself, is that any reason why them that would be staying in my hotel should be hunted out of it?"

"Are you talking about Sir Gilbert Hawkesby?"

"I am," said Doyle. "Who else would I have in my mind?"

"And is he gone?"

"He is not gone yet? but he's going without something would be done to stop him."

"I'm glad to hear it. I hardly hoped it would have happened so soon.

I told you, Major, that I was appealing to him in the right way."

"It's a loss of three pounds a week to me," said Doyle, "without reckoning what he might take to drink. I'll be expecting you to make that good to me--you and the Major between you."

"It was the cooking did it, I suppose," said Meldon.

"That and the state his bed was in," said Doyle. "It was close on eleven o'clock last night, and I was sitting smoking quiet and easy along with the doctor, when there came a noise like as if some one would be ringing a bell, and him in a hurry. It was the doctor drew my attention to it first; but I told him he'd better sit where he was, for it was Sabina's business to go up to any one that would ring a bell.

Well, the ringing went on terrible strong, for maybe ten minutes, and--"

"Sabina funked it, I suppose," said Meldon.

"She did be in dread," said Doyle, "on account of the way the bell was going, not knowing what there might be at the other end of it. That's what she said any way, and I believe her. The doctor spoke to her, encouraging her, the way she'd go and see whatever it might be, and we'd be at peace again. But for all he said to her she wouldn't move an inch. Then I told the doctor that maybe he'd better go himself, for it could be that the gentleman was ill. 'It's hardly ever,' I said, 'that a man would ring a bell the way that one's being rung without there'd be some kind of a sickness on him. It'll be a pound into your pocket, doctor, and maybe more,' I said, 'if you get at him at once before the pain leaves him.'"

"I should think O'Donoghue jumped at that," said Meldon.

"He did not then, but he sat there looking kind of frightened, the same as Sabina did; like as if there might be something that the judge would want to be blaming on him. At the latter end I had to go myself. It was in his bedroom he was, and devil such a state ever you saw as he had the place in. The sheets and the blankets was off the bed, scattered here and there about the floor, and the pillow along with them. It was like as if they'd been holding a meeting about the land, and the police were after interfering with it, such a scatteration as there was. I hadn't the door hardly opened before he was at me. 'You detestable villain,' says he, 'what do you mean by asking me to sleep in a bed like that? Isn't it enough for you to have me near poisoned with paraffin oil without--' 'If there's h.e.l.l raised on the bed,' said I, 'and I don't deny but there is, it's yourself riz it. The bed was nice enough before you started on it. I had the sheets damped with the stuff the doctor give me--'"

"Did you say that?" asked Meldon, pus.h.i.+ng the punt a little nearer to the sh.o.r.e.

"I did, and if he was mad before he was madder after. I offered to fetch the doctor up to him, but he wouldn't listen to a word I said.

It was twelve o'clock and more before I got him quietened down, and I wouldn't say he was what you'd call properly pacified then. He was growling like a dog would when I left him, and saying he'd have it out with me in the morning."

"I daresay," said Meldon, "he was worse after he got his breakfast."

"He was," said Doyle. "It was Sabina he got a hold of then; for, thanks be to G.o.d, I was out in the yard seeing after the car that was to drive him up to the liver. He went down into the kitchen after Sabina, and he asked her what the devil she meant by upsetting one lamp over his dinner and another over his breakfast. Sabina up and told him straight to his face that it was you done it."

"What a liar that girl is!" said Meldon.

"J. J." said the Major, "did you do it?"

"No. I didn't. How could I possibly have been upsetting lamps in Doyle's hotel when I was sitting in your house talking to you? Don't lose your head, Major."

"Sabina told me after," said Doyle, "that it was by your orders she did it."

"That's more like the truth," said Meldon. "If she'd confined herself to that statement when she was talking to the judge, I shouldn't have complained. I didn't exactly tell her that she was to upset the lamp, but I did say that she was to flavour everything the judge got to eat with paraffin oil."

"It's a queer thing that you'd do the like," said Doyle, "knowing well all the time that no man would stay where he couldn't get a bite to eat, and that I'd be losing three pounds a week by his going."

"If you understood the circ.u.mstances thoroughly," said Meldon, "you would joyfully sacrifice not only three pounds, but if necessary thirty pounds, a week to get rid of that judge."

"I would not," said Doyle confidently. "I wouldn't turn away any man that was paying me, not if he was down here with orders from the Government to put me in jail on account of some meeting that the League would be having."

"Do you or do you not," said Meldon, "want to get rid of Simpkins?"

"I do, of course. Sure, everybody does."

"Very well. In order to secure the death of Simpkins it was necessary to hunt away that judge. I can't explain the whole ins-and-outs of the business to you. It's rather complicated, and I doubt if you'd understand it. In any case, I can't go into it without betraying a lady's confidence, and that's a thing I never do. But you may take my word for it that it's absolutely necessary to remove the judge if you are to have the pleasure of burying Simpkins. If you don't believe what I say ask the Major. He knows all about it."

"No; I don't," said Major Kent.

"You do," said Meldon. "What's the use of denying it when I told you the whole plan myself?"

"Any way," said the Major, "I won't be dragged into it. I've nothing whatever to do with it, and I've always disapproved of it from the start. You and Doyle must settle it between you without appealing to me."

"You can see from the way he speaks," said Meldon to Doyle, "that he knows just as well as I do that we must get the judge out of Ballymoy."

"Out of Ballymoy?" said Doyle.

"Yes," said Meldon, "clear away from the place altogether. Back to England if possible."

"Well, then, he's not gone," said Doyle. "So if it's that you want you're as badly off this minute as I am myself. He's not gone, and what's more he won't go."

"You told me this minute that he was gone. What on earth do you mean by coming up here and pouring out lamentations in gallons about the loss of your three pounds a week if he hasn't gone? What do you mean by representing to me that the judge used bad language about his food if he didn't? I don't see what you're at, Doyle; and, to be quite candid, I don't think you know yourself. Go home and think the whole business over, and I'll see you about it in the afternoon."

"Every word I told you is the truth."

"Either the judge is gone," said Meldon, "or he isn't gone. What do you mean?"