The Simpkins Plot Part 29

"The woman herself. I know she isn't a murderess. She can't possibly be, and no amount of evidence will make me think she is."

"You've seen her twice," said Meldon; "once on Sunday afternoon when she had just been to church, and was in a chastened and gentle mood owing to the effect of my sermon on her, when the lethal side of her character was temporarily in abeyance. You couldn't form much of an opinion about her real character at a time like that. The other occasion on which you saw her was when she was sea-sick, and no woman is her true self when she's profoundly humiliated. Yet, on the strength of these two interviews, you are apparently prepared to contradict the result of a careful induction of mine and the lady's own express statement. I don't know how you manage to work yourself into a frame of mind in which that is possible."

"As a matter of fact," said the Major, "I've seen her three times."

"Twice."

"No; three times. The third time--" He paused.

"Well?"

"I spent the afternoon with her to-day," said the Major sheepishly, "while you were at Donard with the judge."

"I don't wonder," said Meldon, "that you're ashamed of yourself. I begin to see now why Simpkins has behaved in the extraordinary way he has. I was inclined to blame him at first. In fact, I'm afraid I said rather hard things about him. I admit now that I was wrong. Simpkins couldn't and wouldn't go near her while you were there. It would have been no use if he had. I must say, Major, you are a most difficult man to work with. Here I've been sacrificing the whole of my short holiday to carrying through a difficult negotiation for your benefit, and all you do is to balk me at every turn, to fling obstacles in my way, to foul every rope I'm trying to get a pull on. How can I marry Simpkins to Miss King if you won't let him go near her?"

"She won't marry him, J. J.; so you may put the idea out of your head once for all. She doesn't like him."

"I suppose," said Meldon, "that you spent the afternoon crabbing him; saying all the evil you could think of about him. But you've wasted your time. Miss King's views of marriage are entirely unconventional.

She doesn't marry her husbands with the intention of living with them.

The less she likes a man the more willing she is to marry him, because she'll feel less compunction afterwards if she thoroughly detests her husband to start with."

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

"Did she tell you so?"

"Not in plain words. I gathered that she wouldn't from the way she spoke of him."

"You've gathered, as you call it, so many entirely wrong things from the way Miss King speaks, that you can place absolutely no reliance on this impression of yours. You gathered, for instance, that she isn't Mrs. Lorimer."

"I did."

"And you are wrong about that, so the chances are that you're wrong about this too. I see no reason to alter my opinion that she will marry and afterwards kill Simpkins as soon as ever she gets the chance."

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 p.r.o.nounced 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 embarra.s.sing 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 quant.i.ty 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e and I'll pacify him."

"Very well," said the Major. "I'll bring him. You row ash.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e. Meldon sat up on his life-buoy, and leaned both elbows on the boom.