The Simpkins Plot Part 31

"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 G.o.d.' '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 circ.u.mstances, 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 n.o.body else about the place I could trust to clear them up."

CHAPTER XVII.

"You may as well drive me into Ballymoy, Doyle," said Meldon, as they walked up together from the sh.o.r.e. "You've your trap with you, I suppose?"

"I have, and I'll drive you of course, but I'll be expecting that you'll do something when we get there the way the judge won't be leaving the hotel altogether."

"You may put that out of your head at once," said Meldon, "for I'll do nothing of the sort. I've already explained to you at some length that my chief object at present is to chase away the judge, not only from your hotel but from Ballymoy."

Doyle relapsed into a sulky silence. He did not speak again until he and Meldon were half way into Ballymoy. Then he broke out suddenly.

"Any way," he said, "Sabina Gallagher won't spend another night under my roof. She'll be off back to her mother as soon as ever she can get her clothes packed. I'll give her a lesson that will cure her of playing off tricks on the gentlemen that stops in my hotel."

"If you take that kind of revenge on Sabina," said Meldon, "you will be doing an act of gross injustice for which you will be sorry up to the day of your death."

"I will not, but I'll be serving her out the way she deserves."

"She has been acting all through," said Meldon, "in your interests, though you can't see it; and you'll make a kind of dog Gelert of her if you sack her now. You know all about the dog Gelert, I suppose, Doyle?"

"I do not," said Doyle, "and what's more I don't care if there was fifty dogs in it. Sabina'll go. Dogs! What has dogs got to do with Sabina and myself? It's not dogs I'm thinking of now."

"You evidently don't know anything about the dog I'm speaking of," said Meldon. "He belonged to a Welsh king whose name at this moment I forget. The king also happened to have a baby which slept, as many babies do, in a cradle. You're listening to me, I suppose, Doyle?"

"I am not," said Doyle. "It's little good I, or any other body, would get by listening to you. Sabina Gallagher listened to you, and look at the way she is now. It's my belief that the less anybody listens to you the better off he'll be."

"All the same, I expect you are listening," said Meldon. "In any case, as I'm speaking distinctly, and you can't get away, you're bound to hear, so I'll go on with the story. One day the king came in and found the dog close to the cradle with his mouth all covered with blood. He leaped to the conclusion that he'd eaten the baby."

"He was a d.a.m.ned fool if he thought that," said Doyle. "Who ever heard of a dog eating a baby?"

"You are listening to me," said Meldon. "I thought you would when the story began to get interesting. And you're perfectly right. The king was a fool. He was such a fool that he killed the dog. Afterwards it turned out that the dog had really been behaving in the most n.o.ble way possible--had, in fact, been fighting a wolf which wanted to eat the baby. Then the king was sorry, frightfully sorry, because he saw that through his own hasty and ill-considered action he had killed his best friend, a friend who all along had been acting in his interests. You see the point of that story, don't you? You'll be exactly in the position of the king, and you'll suffer endless remorse just as he did if you go and sack Sabina."