_ CHAPTER XVI
Major Kent, who was at heart a very kindly man, and had besides a genuine affection for Meldon, repented during the night of his fit of bad temper. He was sorry that he had grumbled about the spoiling of his dinner. While he was shaving in the morning he made up his mind to enter as sympathetically as possible into Meldon's plans, whatever they might be.
"What are you thinking of doing with yourself to-day?" he asked at breakfast. "If you want to go into Ballymoy to rag that judge again I can let you have the cob."
"Thanks," said Meldon, "but I think the judge may be left alone for the present. The wisest line for me to take in this case is to allow the paraffin oil to soak in. I hardly think it will be necessary for me to see him again. He'll probably leave by the mid-day train. The fact is, I'm thinking of taking a half-holiday."
"Do," said the Major. "After what you went through yesterday you must want--"
"No, I don't. And I'm not the kind of man who pretends that he takes holidays because he finds them necessary for his health. I take them simply because I enjoy them."
"We might," said the Major, "have a day in the
Spindrift."
"I said a half-holiday," said Meldon. "In the afternoon I must go in and explain to Simpkins that you don't really mean anything by your rather pronounced attentions to Miss King."
The Major sighed. He had no doubt that Meldon would do exactly as he said, and he foresaw fresh complications of a most embarrassing kind. Still, a half-holiday was something to be thankful for.
"We might," he said, "have a sail in the morning and come back for lunch."
"No," said Meldon, "we can't do that. There's not a breath of wind. But, without actual sailing, we might spend a pleasant and restful morning on board the yacht."
"Do you mean simply to sit on deck while she's at anchor?"
"I rather contemplated lying down," said Meldon, "with my head on a life-buoy."
"I don't think I'd care for that. It strikes me as rather waste of time."
"It would be for you, Major, and I don't advise you to do it. My time won't be wasted, for I shall use it profitably. I shall take a quantity of tobacco and a tin of biscuits. You can let me have some biscuits, I suppose?"
"Certainly. And you'll find a bottle of beer on board, which Simpkins couldn't drink at luncheon the other day, but I must say that, if that's your idea of a profitable use of your time--"
"It isn't. The tobacco and the biscuits are mere accessories. What I really mean to devote my morning to is meditation. One of the greatest mistakes we make nowadays is not giving sufficient time to quiet thought. We go hustling along through life doing things which ought not to be done in a hurry, and when physical exhaustion forces us to pause for a moment, we run our eyes over printed matter of some kind--newspapers, magazines, or books--and never give a single hour from one year's end to another to meditation."
"What do you intend to meditate about, J. J.? That German philosopher of yours, I suppose."
"I haven't settled that yet," said Meldon. "If there's any affair of yours, either practical, or an intellectual difficulty, which you want to have carefully thought out, now is your time. I'll devote myself to it with pleasure."
"Thanks," said the Major, "but there isn't."
"Are you quite sure? A chance like this doesn't occur every day."
"Quite sure; thanks."
"In that case I shall first of all meditate on Simpkins, Miss King, and the judge. Say an hour and a half for them. Then I shall consider the subject of my little daughter's education. Now that the various professions are opening their doors to women, it's most important to have a reasoned out scheme of education for a girl, and you can't get at it too soon. These two subjects, I think, will make a tolerably complete programme for the morning. If you ring a bell outside the door at one o'clock, I shall row in to luncheon. I shall be pretty hungry by that time, I expect, in spite of the biscuits."
Meldon carried out his plan successfully for the first part of the morning. He arranged the biscuits, his tobacco pouch, and a box of matches in convenient places; laid down a life-buoy as a pillow, and stretched himself at full length on the deck. After a time he shut his eyes, so that no insistent vision of the
Spindrift's rigging should interrupt the working of his thought. At half-past eleven he was hailed from the shore. He raised himself slightly, and, leaning on his elbow, looked over the gunwale of the yacht. Major Kent stood on the beach.
"Anything wrong?" shouted Meldon.
"No. Nothing, except that Doyle is up at the house wanting to see you, and he seems to be in an uncommonly bad temper."
"I'm not going to drag myself all the way up to the house to gratify some whim of Doyle's. If he thinks he has a grievance, let him come down to the shore and I'll pacify him."
"Very well," said the Major. "I'll bring him. You row ashore and be ready when he comes."
"I shall do nothing of the sort. I can shout at him from here. He can't possibly have any business of a confidential kind. He merely wants to be soothed down about some trifle, and that can be done just as well from a distance."
A quarter of an hour later Major Kent hailed Meldon again; this time he had Doyle with him on the shore. Meldon sat up on his life-buoy, and leaned both elbows on the boom.
"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 nobody 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 shore. 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 damned 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, nobody 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 hell 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, pushing the punt a little nearer to the shore.
"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 God, 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 circumstances 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?"
"What I said was, that he isn't gone yet but he's going, without something's done to stop him."
"That's the same thing," said Meldon, "for nothing will be done."
"But he'll not go from Ballymoy? Why would he when he has the fishing took?"
"He'll have to go out of Ballymoy if he leaves your hotel. He may think he'll get lodgings somewhere else, but he won't. Or he may expect to find some other hotel, but there isn't one. If he has left you it's the same thing as leaving Ballymoy."
"It is not," said Doyle, "and I'll tell you why it's not."
"Has he a tent with him?" said Meldon. "He doesn't look like a man who would care for camping out, but of course he might try it."
"He has no tent that I seen," said Doyle. "But I'll tell you what happened. As soon as ever he'd finished cursing Sabina he said the car was to come round, because he was going off out. Well, it came; for I was in the yard myself, as I told you this minute, and I seen to it that it came round in double quick time, hoping that maybe I'd pacify him that way."
"With my cushions on it?" said the Major.
"He took no notice of the cushions. In the temper he was in at the time he wouldn't have said a civil word if you'd set him down on cushions stuffed full of golden sovereigns. He just took a lep on to the car--I was watching him from round the corner of the yard gate to see how he would conduct himself--and--"
"Wait a minute," said Meldon. "Had he his luggage with him?"
"He had not."
"Well then he can't have been going to the train."
"He was not. But--"
"Had he his rod?"
"He had not. But--"
"He'd hardly have gone fishing without his rod, however bad his temper was. I wonder now where on earth he did go."
"It's what I'm trying to tell you," said Doyle, "if you'd let me speak."
"If you know where he went," said Meldon, "say so at once. What's the use of leaving me to waste time and energy trying to discover by inductive reasoning a thing that you know perfectly well all the time?"
"It's what I'm trying to do is to tell you."
"Stop trying then," said Meldon, "and do it."
"He took a lep on the car," said Doyle, "the same as it might be a man that was in a mighty hurry to be off, and says he to the driver, 'Is there a place here called Ballymoy House?' 'There is, of course,' said Patsy Flaherty, for it was him that was driving the car."
"Ballymoy House!" said Meldon. "Nonsense. He couldn't have asked for Ballymoy House."
"It's what he said. And what's more: 'Is it there that a young lady stops by the name of Miss King?' said he. 'It is,' said Patsy Flaherty, 'and a fine young lady she is, thanks be to God.' 'Then drive there,' says he, 'as fast as ever you can go, and if you have such a thing as a bottle of paraffin oil in the well of the car,' says he, 'throw it out before you start.' Well, of course, there was no oil in the car. Why would there?"
"If Mr. Meldon had seen Patsy Flaherty last night," said the Major, "there probably would have been."
"Do you mean to say," said Meldon, "that he drove straight off to see Miss King?"
"It's where he told the driver to go, any way," said Doyle, "and it's there he went without he changed his mind on the way. What I was thinking was that maybe he's acquainted with Miss King."
"He is," said Meldon. "I know that. I don't believe that he's ever spoken to her except in public, but he certainly knows who she is."
"What I'm thinking," said Doyle, "is that he intended asking if he might go up to the big house and stay there along with her for such time as he might be in Ballymoy."
"He can't have done that," said Meldon. "There are reasons which the Major understands, though you don't, which render that idea quite impossible. Speaking on the spur of the moment, and without thinking the matter out thoroughly, I am inclined to suppose that he connects Miss King with the condition of his bed last night and the persistent flavour of paraffin oil in his food. He's probably gone up to speak to her about that."
"He couldn't," said Doyle, "for Sabina Gallagher told him it was you."
"He wouldn't believe Sabina," said Meldon, "and he has every reason to suspect Miss King of wanting to score off him. I think I may tell you, Doyle, without any breach of confidence, that Miss King has a stone up her sleeve to throw at that judge. He tried to do her a bad turn some weeks ago, and she's just the woman to resent it."
"But the young lady was never in the inside of my house, and never set eyes on Sabina. How could it be that she--"
"I know what you're going to say," said Meldon. "She couldn't have had anything to do with the Condy's Fluid or the paraffin oil. That's true, of course. But my point is that the judge, puzzled by an extraordinary combination of circumstances, all tending to make him uncomfortable, would naturally think Miss King was at the bottom of them. The one thing I don't quite understand is how he came to know she was in Ballymoy. I'll find that out later on. In the meanwhile I think I'd better go into Ballymoy after all. It's a nuisance, for I was extremely comfortable on the yacht, but I can't leave things in the muddle they're in now, and there's nobody else about the place I could trust to clear them up." _