The Simpkins Plot Part 4

"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 with the intention of making other people uncomfortable. In a properly civilised 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 at all events killed in some other way."

"There's no use talking that way, J. J. You can't go out and murder the man."

"It won't be murder in this case," said Meldon. "It will be a perfectly 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 perfectly satisfied 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 man who's capable of annoying the poor old rector, who has chronic bronchitis 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 the rector, who's not physically strong enough to bear it, and who certainly does not deserve it. I didn't mind his attacking you or Doyle. You can both hit back, and if you were any good would have hit back 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 species of 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 thought he'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, and people of that sort, tried to bully me, because, owing to their own ridiculous officiousness, I was forced to travel first cla.s.s on a third-cla.s.s ticket. They thought they could do what they liked with impunity when they saw I was a clergyman. You don't know how common that kind of anti-clerical spirit is. Simpkins is evidently swelled out with it. It's going now, like an epidemic. Look at France and Italy. The one chance we have of keeping Ireland free from it is to isolate each case the moment it appears. By far the wisest thing we can do is to have Simpkins killed at once."

"I don't quite see how you are going to manage it, J. J., without being hanged 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 professional murderess."

"Do try to talk sense, J. J."

"Her speciality is husbands," said Meldon. "I don't know exactly how many she has done for in her time, but there must be several. She said their ghosts haunted her at night, and that sometimes she couldn't sleep on account of them."

"I suppose," said Major Kent, "that it amuses you to babble like an idiot in an asylum."

"It doesn't amuse me in the least. I feel desperately depressed when I think of those poor fellows lying in their graves with ounces and ounces of strychnine in their stomachs. That's not the kind of thing I consider amusing, though you may. Miss King doesn't consider it amusing either. She said she often cries when she thinks of her victims, and very often she can't sleep at night."

"Miss King!" said the Major. "That's the name of the lady who has taken 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 think she'd be a suitable match for Simpkins. It's what she will do. She'll murder him."

"Nonsense."

"It's not nonsense. She will. She told me herself that she has come to Ballymoy for the express purpose of murdering another husband. She said she wanted quiet and security from interruption in order to go on with 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 was a 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'll recognise it, too, when you see it. Or more probably you won't. I suppose you still read nothing but _The Times_, and it doesn't publish the 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, and got off."

"Precisely," said Meldon. "I happened, by the merest chance, to have five portraits of her in three different papers. I compared them carefully with Miss King, and I haven't the slightest doubt that she's the same woman."

"You're probably quite mistaken," said the Major. "Those pictures in the daily papers are never the least like the person they're supposed to represent."

"I might have been mistaken, though I very seldom am; but in this case I certainly was not. She seemed quite pleased when I said I recognised her, and told me frankly that she had murdered several husbands, and hoped to live to murder many more. I urged her to give it up. Being a clergyman I was bound to do that. But it wasn't the least use. She said it was her art; and you know, Major, when people start talking about 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 always the same. That's the reason I've made up my mind not to allow my daughter to learn drawing. I won't have her moral sense blunted while she's young. I don't deny that pictures and books and music are great things in their way, but a simple sense of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, are much more important. I'm sure you agree with me in that."

"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 during this holiday, as I'm quite ent.i.tled to do. Instead of which I mean to devote my time to the troublesome task of marrying Simpkins, whom I don't know at all, to a lady whom I have only seen once. If I hadn't a remarkably pus.h.i.+ng sort of a conscience I wouldn't sacrifice myself in that way."

"She won't marry Simpkins," said the Major.

"Oh yes, she will. I don't antic.i.p.ate any difficulty about that part of the programme."

"Wait till you've seen Simpkins. Wait till you've talked to him. No woman would marry Simpkins."

"Miss King will," said Meldon. "She wants a man on whom to practise her art, and she'll be all the better pleased if he's a particularly undesirable kind of beast. She won't find herself regretting him afterwards. Now that we have that settled, Major, I think I'll dodge off to bed. I don't mind confessing to you that I'm just as glad that I shan't have the baby in her little cot beside me. I'm extremely fond of the child, but she's a little trying at night; the fits of coughing come on at such frequent intervals."

CHAPTER IV.

Major Kent, like most men who lead an open-air life, had a healthy appet.i.te at breakfast-time. His table was always well supplied with eggs, bacon, and, when possible, fish. In honour of Meldon's visit, he had a cold ham on the sideboard, and a large dish of oatmeal porridge.

He was a man of primitive hospitality, and he surveyed the feast with an air of proud satisfaction while he waited for his guest. He had to wait for a quarter of an hour, and his glow of pleasure was beginning to give way to a feeling of irritation when Meldon burst into the room.

"This place," he said, by way of apology for his unpunctuality, "is certainly the sleepiest in the world. I had forgotten how sleepy it is. I didn't so much as turn round in bed for nine solid hours, and I a.s.sure you I never felt less inclined to get up in my life. I daresay I'll get over it in a day or two; but just at present I feel that the night wasn't long enough."

"Have some breakfast," said the Major, "and then you can go to sleep again."

Meldon helped himself to porridge and milk.