_ CHAPTER XIX
"On the whole," said Meldon, "things are turning out better than I expected. They developed in a way that at first a little surprised me. In fact, for an hour or two I was rattled, and hardly knew what to say or do; but on thinking the whole affair over quietly, after an interview I had with Callaghan, I have every reason to feel fairly well satisfied."
He and Major Kent sat together at afternoon tea on the verandah of Portsmouth Lodge. The Major was evidently nervous and uncomfortable. The teaspoon tinkled in the saucer as he handed a cup to his friend, and he forgot to help himself to a lump of sugar.
"I took Doyle quite the right way," said Meldon, "and I don't think he'll sack Sabina. I should have been sorry if Sabina had got into serious trouble--"
"What about the judge?" said the Major.
"I'm talking about Sabina Gallagher at present, I'll come to the judge later on. As a matter of fact he's perfectly well able to look after himself. Sabina isn't, and it is my practice--it ought to be yours, Major, but of course it isn't--it is my practice to look after the poor and helpless, especially when they happen to be women, before I do anything for those who are rich and powerful. You, I regret to say, go upon a different plan. Because Sabina happens to be a friendless servant, with no one to take her part, you don't care a pin what happens to her. You are interested only in this judge, who is well off and has the whole force of the British constitution at his back if any one attempts to do him any harm."
The Major accepted the rebuke meekly.
"I only meant," he said, "that I'd like to hear about the judge now I know that Sabina is all right. And after all, J. J., the British constitution isn't much use to a man when you are set on ragging him."
"Of course not," said Meldon. "In fact, the British constitution is a greatly over-rated thing. It didn't save poor Lorimer from his untimely end. It wouldn't save this judge if I had determined to make him miserable. It won't save Simpkins when his time comes. However, as things turn out, I don't want to harry the judge. There's no particular point in it. I don't much mind now even if he goes back to Doyle's hotel."
"He really left then?"
"Yes. Doyle was rather upset about it. It's a serious loss to him, and I'm sorry it occurred, for it turns out now that it was quite unnecessary. I couldn't possibly be expected to guess; but, as a matter of fact, I needn't have worried about that judge at all. He won't do us any harm. In fact, I expect he'll turn out to be a most valuable ally. I shall see him to-morrow and try to enlist his sympathies for our Simpkins plot. I expect he'll simply jump at it."
"I thought you said he'd gone."
"He has gone from the hotel, but not from Ballymoy. He's at present staying with his niece."
"I didn't know he had a niece."
"Miss King, or, to be quite accurate, Mrs. Lorimer, is his niece, and he's staying with her."
Major Kent started and laid down his teacup. Then a look of relief came into his face, and he smiled.
"You'll give up that absurd theory of yours now, I suppose," he said, "and admit that Miss King isn't a murderess. I always knew she wasn't, though I couldn't convince you."
"I don't see," said Meldon, "that anything has happened to invalidate the evidence on which we originally concluded that Miss King is Mrs. Lorimer."
"Don't be an ass, J. J. You say she's the judge's niece; so of course she can't--"
"You apparently think," said Meldon, "that a judge's niece, merely because her uncle happens to occupy a position of legal eminence, couldn't possibly commit a crime. You're entirely wrong. Some of the greatest women criminals the world has ever seen have been the nieces of men of high position. Look at Lucrezia Borgia, for instance. Her uncle was a Pope; and whatever our religious opinions may be we must admit that a Pope is a bigger man than an ordinary judge, and yet Lucrezia is famous for some of the most remarkable crimes in all history. I could quote other instances, but that one ought to be sufficient to convince you that relationship to a judge is no safeguard--"
"That wasn't what I meant, J. J. You say that this judge tried Mrs. Lorimer. Now if--"
"Do you mean to suggest," said Meldon, "that a judge wouldn't try his own niece for murder?"
"Of course he wouldn't. How could he?"
"You're entirely wrong," said Meldon. "As a matter of fact any right-minded and really upright judge, such as we have every reason to suppose this Sir Gilbert Hawkesby is, would take a special pride in trying his own niece. He'd like to hang her if he could, always supposing that he felt sure that she was guilty. If there's one thing judges are more determined about than another it's their independence of all considerations of private friendship in the discharge of their duties. There are several recorded instances of judges hanging their own sons. The expression, 'A Roman father,' arises, as well as I recollect, from an incident of the sort, and the men who have done that kind of thing have always been regarded as the brightest examples of incorruptibility. Every lawyer is brought up in the tradition that he can't do a finer action, if he becomes a judge--and they all expect to become judges in the end--than to hang a relative of his own. Sir Gilbert saw his opportunity when Miss King was brought up before him, and the moment he became convinced of her guilt he summed up against her in the most determined way."
"You may talk as you like, J. J., but no judge would do it."
"You have evidently a very low opinion of judges," said Meldon. "So has Doyle. He thinks that they are all influenced by political prejudices, and are ready to condemn a man who belongs to any League, without waiting to find out whether he has committed a crime or not. That's bad enough; but what you charge them with is infinitely worse. You say that they are habitually guilty of nepotism--that is to say of partiality to their own nieces, which is one of the worst crimes there is in a judge, as bad as simony would be in a bishop."
"I don't say anything of the sort. I say--"
"Either you say that Miss King isn't his niece or you say that he wouldn't try her for murder. You must be saying one or the other, though you don't express yourself very distinctly, because there's nothing else you could say."
"I don't, of course, agree with you," said the Major, after a pause. "In fact, I think you're talking downright nonsense, but I'm not going to argue with you. I'm--"
"I wish you'd always take up that attitude," said Meldon. "Your arguments waste a lot of time."
"I'm just going to ask you one question. Supposing Miss King is Mrs. Lorimer--"
"She is. There's no supposition about it."
"And supposing the judge tried her as you say--"
"That's in all the papers. There's no use attempting to deny that, whatever else you deny."
"And supposing she's his niece--"
"Callaghan says the cook told him she was," said Meldon, "and it appears that she kissed him when they met, which she'd hardly have done if they weren't relations."
"Then," said the Major triumphantly, "how can you account for his going to stay with her as if she hadn't done anything wrong?"
"I don't quite catch your point, Major."
"Is it likely that, knowing his niece to be a murderess, or at all events believing her to be a murderess, a judge--a judge, mind you, J. J.--would go and stay in the house with her, and kiss her?"
"It was she who kissed him," said Meldon, "but that's a minor point. I see your difficulty now, Major, and I quite admit there's something in it, or appears to be something in it to a man like you who doesn't understand the legal point of view."
"No point of view can alter facts," said the Major, "supposing they are facts, which of course they're not."
"Yes, it can," said Meldon. "To the legal mind a fact ceases to be a fact the moment a properly qualified court has decided the other way. The judge may be, in this particular case he is, as we know, absolutely convinced that his niece is a murderess. But a jury says she isn't, and so from a legal point of view she's a perfectly innocent and upright woman. The judge can't hang her. He can't even warn her not to do it again. He is bound, whatever his private feelings and convictions are, to accept the jury's verdict at its face value, and to treat his niece exactly as he did before all the unpleasantness arose."
"He needn't kiss her," said the Major.
"If he's a consistently just man and was on what we may call kissing terms with her before," said Meldon, "he'll of course kiss her again afterwards. He can't do anything else. In the eye of the law--that's what I mean by the legal standpoint--she's an innocent woman. Now the judge's whole position in society and even his income depends on his keeping up the theory that the law is infallible. Whatever you and I as private individuals may do, a judge has only one course open to him. He must take the view that the law takes. That's why I say that it's quite natural for Sir Gilbert to go and stop with his niece and kiss her, though, as I said before, it was really she who kissed him. If he didn't, he'd be admitting publicly that the law was wrong, and he can't do that without giving himself and his whole position away hopelessly."
"It doesn't strike me as a bit natural," said the Major. "In fact, it's quite impossible. That's why I say--"
"I can understand your feeling," said Meldon. "Indeed I was a good deal surprised at first; but when I came to think it all out, and to realise the sort of way the judge would look at it, I saw, as you'll probably be able to see some time tomorrow--"
"No. I won't. I'll never see that. It's absurd to suppose--"
"I don't deny," said Meldon, "that when we consider Sir Gilbert Hawkesby as a private individual, separating for a moment the man from the judge, we must credit him with the feeling that Miss King is rather a--what the French would call a
mauvais sujet."
"A what?"
"A black sheep," said Meldon, "a disgrace to the family. The sort of relation whom one is inclined to keep in the background as much as possible. I am relying on that feeling to secure the help of the judge."
"For what?"
"To marry Miss King to Simpkins, of course. The thing we've been at all along."
"He won't do that. No man living would marry his niece to Simpkins."
"That depends on the nature of the niece. There are nieces--there's no use denying it, Major, because it's unfortunately true. There are nieces that a man would be glad to see married to any one. And there's a great deal to be said in favour of the Simpkins alliance in this particular case."
"No, there isn't. The man is a cad."
"I don't think nearly so badly of Simpkins as you do, Major. I've told you that before. But, even granting what you say is true, the judge probably argues that Miss King with her record can't expect anything better. He'll be glad enough to get Simpkins for her. He'll recollect that Ballymoy is a frightfully out-of-the-way place, and that if Miss King is married to a man who lives here none of her friends will ever see any more of her. That's exactly what he wants; and so I confidently expect that, once the position is explained to him, he'll simply jump at the chance."
"Do you mean to say," said the Major--"I am now supposing that all your ridiculous ideas are true, and that Miss King will really--"
He hesitated.
"Kill Simpkins?" said Meldon. "That's what you want done, isn't it?"
"Do you mean to say that you think the judge will go out of his way to encourage her to commit another crime?"
"It's not the business of a judge to prevent crime," said Meldon. "You mustn't mix him up with the police. The police have to see that people don't do what's wrong. Judges have to punish them afterwards for what the police fail to stop them from doing. The judge won't step out of his proper sphere and start doing police work. If he did there'd be endless confusion. And besides that, I don't expect the judge will think that she means to kill Simpkins. He doesn't understand as we do that she is acting in the interests of her art. She probably, in fact certainly, hasn't told him what she told me--that she has come to Ballymoy with the intention of going on with her work. He'll think that the narrow shave she had over the Lorimer affair will have given her a lesson, and that from now on she'll want to settle down and live a quiet, affectionate kind of life. When she kissed him in that spontaneous way this morning, what do you suppose was passing through his mind? What was he thinking? Remember that he hadn't seen her since the day of the trial, and then ask yourself what thoughts those two kisses would suggest to him."
"I don't know. That she was glad to see him, I suppose."
"A great deal more than that. A judge doesn't stop short at those superficial views of things. He looks deep down into the more recondite emotions of the human heart. As soon as he felt those kisses he said to himself: 'Here is a poor girl who's really sorry for what she's done--'"
"I thought you said he didn't believe she'd done it. I certainly don't."
"As a judge he doesn't; but I'm speaking of him now as an uncle, a simple unofficial uncle. As an uncle he can't help recollecting poor Lorimer, but he'll want to give his niece every possible fair play, and as soon as she showed signs of penitence--her kisses were a pretty convincing sign of penitence, considering the way he summed up against her--he'd be all for burying the past and letting her get a fresh start in life if she could."
"Of course I don't attach the smallest importance to anything you've said. I don't believe, in the first place, that Miss King is Mrs. Lorimer. I don't believe any judge would try to hang his own niece. I don't believe, if he had tried her, he'd go and stop in the house with her afterwards, and I'm perfectly certain he wouldn't kiss her. But you apparently like to pretend to me that you do believe all the rot you've been talking, and that being so, I'd rather like to know what you intend to do next."
"It doesn't in the least matter to you what I do," said Meldon. "If I'm the kind of drivelling idiot you make out, my actions are of no importance, either to you or to any one else."
"All the same, I'd like to know what they're going to be."
"Why?"
"So that I can do my best to prevent their doing any irreparable mischief, if possible; though I don't expect it is possible."
"I shall do no irreparable mischief to any one," said Meldon; "except Simpkins; and you always said you wanted him poisoned."
"I never said such a thing."
"Keep cool, Major. There's no use losing your temper. You and Doyle and O'Donoghue all said you'd be glad to gloat over Simpkins' corpse. If you hadn't said so I shouldn't be taking all this trouble. If I didn't still believe that you hate Simpkins I should drop the matter at once. After all, it's no business of mine."
"Then do drop it. Like a good man, J. J., leave Miss King alone, and let the judge fish in peace."
"No; I won't. I'll see the thing through now I'm this far, and within easy reach of success. I don't want to have you reproaching me afterwards for going back on my word."
"I won't reproach you. I promise not to."
"You'd mean not to; but when the present flurry is over, and when Simpkins begins to annoy you again about the fishing and other things, you won't be able to help reproaching me. Even if you refrain from actual words I shall see it in your eye. I can't go through life, Major, haunted by your eye with a mute, unspoken reproach in it."
Major Kent sighed heavily.
"Then what do you mean to do?" he asked.
"I shall see the judge to-morrow," said Meldon, "and--"
"I advise you not to. He's sure to have found out about the paraffin oil by that time."
"I'm prepared for that. There may be some slight temporary unpleasantness, but that will pass away at once when the judge hears the proposal that I have to make."
"What's that?"
"That he should encourage the marriage between Simpkins and his niece. I shall explain to him that it is very much to his own interest to do so, and of course he'll see the force of what I say at once. I shan't mention the ultimate fate of Simpkins. I don't suppose he'd care much if I did. He can't be particularly keen on preserving Simpkins' life, for he doesn't know him. Still it is best to avoid all risks, and I shall treat the marriage as the ordinary conventional love-match, without hinting at any connection between it and Miss King's peculiar art. When I've settled things up with him--that'll be about twelve or one o'clock, if I get at him before he starts fishing for the day--I shall go down to the village and get a hold of Simpkins. He'll be in his office, I expect. I shall lunch with him, and then lead him up and lay him at Miss King's feet."
"Will he go for you? He hasn't shown any great eagerness for the match so far."
"I shan't give him much choice," said Meldon. "I shall tell him that the thing has got to be done at once. Very few men are able to stand up to me when I take a really determined tone with them, and I shall speak in the strongest way to Simpkins. When I have, so to speak, deposited him in front of Miss King--"
"On his knees?" said the Major.
"Very probably. In these matters of detail I must of course be guided by circumstances; but when I have put him down, either on his knees or in some other posture, I shall slip away unobtrusively--"
"I should like to see you doing that. I don't think you could. You're generally more obtrusive than any one else I've ever met."
"Leaving them together," said Meldon, "with Callaghan watching from behind a tree, so as to be able to report to me exactly what happens. In the meanwhile I shall stroll up the river and find the judge. If he isn't actually into a fish at the moment, I shall bring him straight down to the house and let him hear the result at once. If he has a salmon hooked, I shall of course wait till it's landed, and then bring him down. Afterwards I shall take Simpkins up to the rectory and make arrangements about the licence. We ought, bar accidents, to have the whole thing finished in the inside of a fortnight from now. After that I must leave it in the hands of O'Donoghue. He'll have to be careful how he treats Simpkins when he's called in. It won't do to make mistakes and go curing him accidentally."
"I suppose," said the Major bitterly, "that you'll employ Sabina Gallagher to make the wedding-cake. She might begin the poisoning."
"Certainly not," said Meldon. "Sabina couldn't make a wedding-cake, and in any case Simpkins won't eat enough of his own wedding-cake to do him any harm, whatever it's made of. If you were accustomed to weddings, Major, you'd know that the whole cake is invariably eaten by the postoffice officials--a most deserving class, whom nobody wants to poison. Besides, in a case like this, it will be better to avoid all publicity and show. It wouldn't do to have the newspapers getting hold of the fact that Mrs. Lorimer is being married again so soon. There'd be paragraphs, and the suspicions of Simpkins would be excited. On the whole, I don't think we'll have a wedding cake, or bridesmaids, or anything of that sort. But you can be best man if you like."
"I know you don't mean a word you're saying, J. J., and that you won't really do anything."
"Wait and see."
"But if I thought you meant to cause Miss King the slightest uneasiness or discomfort, I should simply turn you straight out of my house. I wouldn't be a party for a single moment to any plan for insulting a really nice woman like Miss King."
"Don't fret about that," said Meldon. "What I'm doing is exactly what Miss King wants done. She told me so herself." _