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[Frontispiece: "No thanks. No tea for me."]
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Simpkins Plot, by George A. Birmingham
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Title: The Simpkins Plot
Author: George A. Birmingham
Release Date: October 19, 2006 [eBook #19586]
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START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIMPKINS PLOT
E-text prepared by Al Haines
"No thanks. No tea for me."
The Simpkins Plot
G. A. Birmingham
T. Nelson & Sons
London and Edinburgh
Paris: 189, rue Saint-Jacques
Leipzig: 35-37 Köningstrasse
IN MEMORY OF MANY SUMMER EVENINGS WHEN WE
DRIFTED HOME, UNTROUBLED BY THE
LOVE AFFAIRS OF SIMPKINS.
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SIMPKINS PLOT.
The platform at Euston was crowded, and the porters' barrows piled high with luggage. During the last week in July the Irish mail carries a heavy load of passengers, and for the twenty minutes before its departure people are busy endeavouring to secure their own comfort and the safety of their belongings. There are schoolboys, with portmanteaux, play-boxes, and hand-bags, escaping home for the summer holidays. There are sportsmen, eager members of the Stock Exchange or keen lawyers, on their way to Donegal or Clare for fishing. There are tourists, the holders of tickets which promise them a round of visits to famous beauty spots. There are members of the House of Lords, who have accomplished their labours as legislators—and their wives, peeresses, who have done their duty by the London season—on their way back to stately mansions in the land from which they draw their incomes. Great people these in drawing-rooms or clubs; greater still in the remote Irish villages which their names still dominate; but not particularly great on the Euston platform, for there is little respect of persons there as the time of the train's departure draws near. A porter pushed his barrow, heavy with trunks and crowned with gun-cases, against the legs of an earl, who swore. A burly man, red faced and broad shouldered, elbowed a marchioness who, not knowing how to swear effectively, tried to wither him with a glance. She failed. The man who had jostled her had small reverence for rank or title. He was, besides, in a hurry, and had no time to spend in apologising to great ladies.
Sir Gilbert Hawkesby was one of his Majesty's judges. He had won his position by sheer hard work and commanding ability. He had not stopped in his career to soothe the outraged dignity of those whom he pushed aside; and he had no intention now of delaying his progress along the railway platform to explain to a marchioness why he had jostled her. It was only by a vigorous use of his elbows that he could make his way; and it ought to have been evident, even to a peeress, that he meant to go from one end of the train to the other. His eyes glanced sharply right and left as he pushed on. He peered through the windows of the carriages. He scanned each figure in the crowd. At last he caught sight of a lady standing beside the bookstall. She wore a long grey cloak and a dark travelling-hat. She stooped over the books and papers on the stall before her; and her face, in profile as Sir Gilbert saw it, was lit by the flaring gas above her head. Having caught sight of her, the judge pushed on even more vigorously than before.
"Here I am, Milly," he said. "I said I'd be in time to see you off, and I am; but owing to—"
The lady at the bookstall turned and looked at him. She flushed suddenly, and then as suddenly grew pale. She raised her hand hurriedly and pulled her veil over her face. Sir Gilbert stared at her in amazement. Then his face, too, changed colour.
"I—I beg your pardon," he said; "I mistook you for my niece. It's quite inconceivable to me how I—a most remarkable likeness. I'm astonished that I didn't notice it before. The fact is—under the circumstances—"
Sir Gilbert was acutely uncomfortable. Never in the course of a long career at the bar had he felt so hopelessly embarrassed. On no occasion in his life, so far as he could remember, had he been reduced to stammering incoherences. It had not occurred to him to apologise to the jostled marchioness a few minutes before. He was now anxious to abase himself before the lady at the bookstall.
"I sincerely beg your pardon," he said. "I should not have dreamed for a moment of intruding myself on you if I had known. I ought to have recognised you. I can't understand—"
The lady laid down the book she held in her hand, and turned her back on Sir Gilbert. She crossed the platform, and entered a carriage without looking back. Sir Gilbert stood stiff and awkward beside the bookstall.
"It's a most extraordinary likeness," he muttered. "I can't understand why I didn't notice it before. I can't have ever really looked at her."
Then, avoiding the carriage which the lady had entered, he walked further along the platform. He was much less self-assertive in his progress. He threaded his way instead of elbowing it through the crowd. The most fragile peeress might have jostled him, and he would not have resented it.
"Uncle Gilbert! Is that you? I was afraid you were going to be late."
The judge turned quickly. A lady, another lady, leaned out of the window of a first-class compartment and greeted him. He stared at her. The likeness was less striking now when he looked at his niece's full face; but it was there, quite unmistakable; a sufficient excuse for the blunder he had made.
"Ah, Milly," he said; "you really are Milly, aren't you? I've just had a most extraordinary encounter with your double. It's a most remarkable coincidence; quite the thing for one of your novels. By the way, how's the new one getting on?"
"Which one? I'm just correcting a set of proofs, and I'm deep in the plot of another. That's what's taking me over to Ireland. I thought I'd told you."
"Yes, yes; local colour you said in your letter. Studying the wild Hibernian on his native soil; but really, Milly, when you've heard my story you won't want to go to Ireland for wild improbabilities. But I can't tell you now. There isn't time. We'll meet in Bally-what-do-you-call-it next week."
"And you'll stay with me, Uncle Gilbert, won't you? The house I've taken appears to be a perfect barrack. According to the agent, there are any amount of spare bedrooms."
"No," said the judge; "I've taken rooms at the hotel. The fact is, Milly, when I'm fishing I like to rough it a bit. Besides, I should only be in your way. You'll be working tremendously hard."
Neither excuse expressed Sir Gilbert's real reason for refusing his niece's invitation. He did not like roughing it, and he did not think it the least likely that his presence in the house would interfere with her work. On the contrary, her work was likely to interfere with his comfort. He was fond of his niece, but he disliked her habit of reading passages from her MSS. aloud in the evenings. She was very much absorbed in her novel-writing, and took her work with a seriousness which struck the judge as ridiculous.
"I'll dine with you occasionally," he said, "but I shall put up at the hotel. By the way, Milly, am I your tenant or are you mine? I left all the arrangements in your hands."
"I took the house and the fishing," she said. "The agent man wouldn't let one without the other; but you have to pay most of the rent. The salmon are the really valuable part of the property, it appears."
"All right," said Sir Gilbert; "so long as the fishing is good I won't quarrel with you over my share of the rent. The house would only have been a nuisance to me. I should have had to bring over servants, and that would have worried your aunt. Ah! Your time's up, I see. Good-bye, Milly, good-bye. Take care of yourself, and don't get mixed up with shady people in your search for originality. I'll start this day week as soon as ever I get your aunt settled down at Bournemouth."
Millicent King, Sir Gilbert Hawkesby's niece, was a young woman of some little importance in the world. The patrons of the circulating libraries knew her as Ena Dunkeld, and shook their heads over her. The gentlemen who add to the meagre salaries they earn in Government offices by writing reviews knew her under both her names, for no literary secrets are hid from them. They praised her novels publicly, and in private yawned over her morality. Many people, her aunt Lady Hawkesby among them, very strongly disapproved of her novels. Certain problems, so these ladies maintained, ought to be discussed only in scientific books, labelled "poison" for the safety of the public, and ought never to be discussed at all by young women. Millicent King, rendered obstinate by these criticisms, plunged deeper and deeper into a kind of mire which, after a time, she began to dislike very much. She had in reality simple tastes of a domestic kind, and might have been very happy sewing baby clothes if she had married a peaceable man and kept out of literary society. Fortunately, or unfortunately—the choice of the adverb depends upon the views taken of the value of detailed analysis of marriage problems—Miss King had not come across any man of a suitable kind who wanted to marry her. She had, on the other hand, met a large number of people who praised, and a few who abused her. She liked the flattery, and was pleased to be pointed out as a person of importance. She regarded the abuse as a tribute to the value of her work, knowing that all true prophets suffer under the evil speaking of a censorious world. Latterly she had begun to consider whether she might not secure the praise, without incurring the blame, by writing novels of a different kind. With a view to perfecting a new story of adventure and perfectly respectable love, she determined to isolate herself for a couple of months. As certain Irishmen played a part in her story, she fixed upon Connacht as the place of her retirement, intending to study the romantic Celt on his native soil. A house advertised in the columns of The Field seemed to offer her the opportunity she desired. She took it and the fishing attached to it; having bargained with her uncle, Sir Gilbert Hawkesby, that she was to be relieved of the duty of catching salmon, and that he should pay a considerable part of the heavy rent demanded by the local agent.
CHAPTER II.
These are a few things better managed in Ireland than in England, and one of them is the starting of important railway trains. The departure, for instance, of the morning mail from the Dublin terminus of the Midland and Great Western Railway is carried through, day after day, with dignity. The hour is an early one, 7 a.m.; but all the chief officiate of the company are present, tastefully dressed. There is no fuss. Passengers know that it is their duty to be at the station not later than a quarter to seven. If they have any luggage they arrive still earlier, for the porters must not be hustled. At ten minutes to seven the proper officials conduct the passengers to their carriages and pen them in. Lest any one of independent and rebellious spirit should escape, and insist on loitering about the platform, the doors of the compartments are all locked. No Irishman resents this treatment. Members of a conquered race, they are meek, and have long ago given up the hope of being able to resist the mandates of official people.
Strangers, Englishmen on tour, are easily recognised by their self-assertive demeanour and ill-bred offences against the solemn etiquette of the railway company. Since it is impossible to teach these people manners or meekness, the guards and porters treat them, as far as possible, with patient forbearance. They must, of course, be got into the train, but the doors of their compartments are not locked. It has been found by experience that English travellers object to being imprisoned without trial, and quote regulations of the Board of Trade forbidding the locking of both doors of a railway carriage. There is nothing to be gained by a public wrangle with an angry Englishman. He cannot be got to understand that laws, those of the Board of Trade or any other, are not binding on Irish officials. There is only one way of treating him without loss of dignity, and that is to give in to him at once, with a shrug of the shoulders.
Thus, Miss King, entering upon the final stage of her journey to Ballymoy, reaped the benefit of belonging to a conquering and imperial race. She was, indeed, put into her compartment, a first-class one, ten minutes before the train started; but her door, alone of all the doors, was left unlocked. The last solemn minutes before the departure of the train passed slowly. Grave men in uniform paraded the platform, glancing occasionally at their watches. The engine-driver watched from his cabin for the waving of the green flag which would authorise him to push over his levers and start the train. The great moment had almost arrived. The guard held his whistle to his lips, and had the green flag ready to be unfurled, in his left hand. Then a totally unexpected, almost an unprecedented, thing occurred. A passenger walked into the station and approached the train with the evident intention of getting into it. He was a clergyman, shabbily dressed, imperfectly shaved, red-haired, and wearing a red moustache. He carried a battered Gladstone bag in one hand. The guard glanced at him and then distended his cheeks with air, meaning to blow his whistle.
"Hold on a minute," said the clergyman. "I'm thinking of travelling by this train."
The audacity of this statement shook the self-possession of the guard.
"Can't wait," he said. "Time's up. You ought to have been here sooner."
To say this he was obliged to take the whistle from his lips; and the engine-driver, who had a strict sense of duty, was unable to start.
"As a matter of fact," said the clergyman, "I'm not only here soon enough, I'm an hour and a half too soon. The train I intended to catch is the next one."
The guard put his whistle to his lips again.
"If you blow that thing," said the clergyman, "before I'm in the train, I'll take an action against the company for assault and battery."
The guard hesitated. He did not see how such an action could be sustained in court; but he felt the necessity of thinking over his position carefully before running any risks. The law, especially in Ireland, is a curious thing, and no wise man entangles himself with it if he can help it. Railway guards are all wise men, otherwise they would not have risen to their high positions.
"Now that I am here," said the clergyman, "I may as well go by this train. Excuse me one moment; I want to get a few newspapers."
This was gross impertinence, and the guard was in no mood to stand it. He blew his whistle. The engine shrieked excitedly, and the train started with a violent jerk.
The clergyman seized a handful of newspapers from the bookstall. Clinging to them and his bag he ran across the platform. He tried the doors of two third-class compartments as they passed him, and found them locked. He happened next upon that which was occupied by Miss King, opened the door, and tumbled in.
"I've only got a third-class ticket," he said cheerfully; "but I shall travel first class the whole way now, and I shan't pay a penny of excess fare."
"Won't they make you?" said Miss King.
She realised that she had found an unexpectedly early opportunity of studying the peculiarities of the Irish character, and determined to make the most of it.
"Certainly not," said the clergyman. "The position is this. I have a through ticket—I bought it yesterday—which entitles me to travel on this railway to Donard. If the doors of all the third-class carriages are locked when I arrive at the station, I take it that the company means me to travel first class. Their own action is a clear indication of their intention. There isn't a jury in Ireland would give it against me, even if the case came into court, which, of course, it won't."
"I'm going to Donard, too," said Miss King.
"Are you? It's a wretched hole of a place. I don't advise you to stop there long."
"I'm not staying there at all. I'm driving straight on to Ballymoy."
"If you're at all familiar with Ballymoy, I expect you've heard of me. My name's Meldon, the Reverend J. J. Meldon, B.A. I was curate of Ballymoy once, and everybody who was there in my time will be talking about me still. I'm going back there now for a holiday."
"But I'm quite a stranger," said Miss King. "I've never been in Ballymoy."
Meldon glanced at the bag which lay on the seat before her. There was no label on it, but it bore the initials M. K. in gold letters on its side.
"I suppose," he said, "that you're not by any chance a sister or a niece of Major Kent's?"
"No. I'm not. I don't even know Major Kent. My name is King. Millicent King."
A clergyman is, necessarily, more or less educated. Mr. Meldon had proclaimed himself a bachelor of arts. It was natural to suppose that he would have known the name, even the real name, of a famous living novelist. Apparently he did not. Miss King felt a little disappointed.
"I daresay," said Meldon, without showing any signs of being impressed, "that you're going to stop with the Resident Magistrate."
"No," said Miss King decisively.
"You don't look like the sort of person who'd be going on a visit to the rectory."
Miss King was handsomely dressed. She appeared to be a lady of high fashion; not at all likely to be an inmate of the shabby little rectory at Ballymoy. She shook her head. Then, because she did not like being cross-questioned, she put an end to the conversation by opening her bag and taking out a bundle of typewritten papers. She was quite prepared to study Mr. Meldon as a type, but she saw no reason why Mr. Meldon should study her. He appeared to be filled with an ill-bred curiosity which she determined not to satisfy.
Meldon did not seem to resent her silence in the least. He leaned back in his seat and unfolded one of the papers he had snatched from the bookstall. It was a London evening paper of the day before, and contained a full account of the last scene of a sensational trial which had occupied the attention of the public for some time. A Mrs. Lorimer was charged with the murder of her husband. Her methods, if she had done the deed, were cold-blooded and abominable; but she was a young and good-looking woman, and the public was very anxious that she should be acquitted. The judge, Sir Gilbert Hawkesby, summed up very strongly against her; but the jury, after a prolonged absence from court, found her "not guilty." The paper published a portrait of Mrs. Lorimer, at which Meldon glanced. Suddenly his face assumed an expression of great interest. He studied the portrait carefully, and then looked at Miss King. She sat at the other end of the carriage, and he saw her face in profile as she bent over her papers. Mrs. Lorimer's side face was represented in the picture; and she, too, was bending over something. Meldon laid down the paper and took up another, this time an Irish morning paper. It contained an interview with Mrs. Lorimer, secured by an enterprising reporter after the trial. Meldon read this, and then turned to the magazine page and studied the picture of the lady which appeared there. In it Mrs. Lorimer wore a hat, and it was again her side face which was represented. Meldon looked from it to Miss King. The likeness was quite unmistakable. He took up a third paper, a profusely illustrated penny daily. He found, as he expected, a picture of Mrs. Lorimer. This was a full-length portrait, but the face came out clearly. Meldon took up the Irish paper again, and re-read very carefully the interview with the reporter on the evening of the trial. Then he folded up all three papers and leaned over towards Miss King.
"You must excuse me," he said, "if I didn't recognise you just now. You put me out by giving your name as Miss King. I'm much more familiar with your other name. Everybody is, you know."
Miss King was mollified by the apology. She looked up from her papers and smiled.
"How did you find me out?" she asked.
"By your picture in the papers," he said. "If you'll allow me to say so, it's a particularly good likeness and well reproduced. Of course, in your case, they'd take particular care not to print the usual kind of smudge."
Miss King was strongly inclined to ask for the papers. Her portrait had, she knew, appeared in the Illustrated London News and in two literary journals. She did not know that it had been reproduced in the daily press. The news excited and pleased her greatly. She had a short struggle with herself, in which self-respect triumphed. She did not ask for the papers, but assumed an air of bored indifference.
"They're always publishing my photograph," she said. "I can't imagine why they do it."
"I quite understand now," said Meldon, "why you're going down to Ballymoy. You couldn't go to a better place for privacy and quiet; complete quiet. I'm sure you want it."
"Yes," said Miss King. "I feel that I do. Now that you know who I am, you will understand. I chose Ballymoy because it seemed so very remote from everywhere."
She did not think it necessary to mention that she wanted to study the Irish character. Now that Meldon was talking in an interesting way she felt inclined to encourage him to reveal himself.
"Quite right. It is. I don't know a remoter place. Nobody will know you there, and if anybody guesses, I'll make it my business to put them off the scent at once. But there'll be no necessity for that. There isn't a man in the place will connect Miss King with the other lady. All the same, I don't think I'd stop too long at Doyle's hotel if I were you. Doyle is frightfully curious about people."
"I'm not stopping there," said Miss King. "I have taken a house."
"What house? I know Ballymoy pretty well, and there isn't a house in it you could take furnished, except the place that belonged to old Sir Giles Buckley."
"I've taken that for two months," said Miss King.
Meldon whistled softly. He was surprised. Ballymoy House, even if let at a low rent, is an expensive place to live in.
"My servants went down there yesterday," said Miss King. She opened her bag and groped among the contents as she spoke.
"Would you be very much shocked if I smoked a cigarette?" she asked.
"Not in the least," said Meldon. "I smoke myself."
"I was afraid—being a clergyman—you are a clergyman, aren't you? Some people are so prejudiced against ladies smoking."
"I'm not," said Meldon. "I'm remarkably free from prejudices of any kind. I pride myself on being open-minded. My wife doesn't smoke, but that's merely because she doesn't like it. If she did, I shouldn't make the slightest objection. All the same, you oughtn't to go puffing cigarettes about the streets of Ballymoy. The Major's a bit old-fashioned in some ways, and I don't expect Doyle is accustomed to see ladies smoking. You'll have to be very careful. If you start people talking they may find out who you are, and then there will certainly be unpleasantness."
"Would they disapprove of me?"
"Almost sure to. We Irish have the name of being a wild lot, I know; but—well, if you don't mind my saying so, most of us would be rather shy of you. I don't mind you myself in the least, of course. I'm not that kind of man. Still, your reputation! You've been a good deal in the papers, haven't you?"
Miss King, curiously enough, seemed pleased at this account of her reputation. It is gratifying to a novelist to be famous, and even notoriety is pleasant. She felt that, having braved the censure of Lady Hawkesby, she could afford to despise the morality of the people of Ballymoy.
"The Major?" she said. "You've mentioned him once or twice. What sort of man is he? Does my work shock him?"
"I expect it does," said Meldon. "I haven't seen him for some time, and so we haven't discussed you. But from what I know of him I should say that your work, as you call it, will shock him frightfully. You can't altogether blame him. He's a bachelor, and has very strict ideas about a wife's duty to her husband."
Miss King was moved by a desire to startle Meldon. She was really engaged on quite an innocent novel, but she chose to pretend that she was going on in her old way.
"What will he say," she said, "when he finds out that I'm going on with my work under his very eyes, so to speak, in Ballymoy?"
Meldon sat up suddenly.
"You don't mean that? Surely you can't intend—"
"Now you're shocked," said Miss King, "and you said you wouldn't be."
"I am a little. I didn't think I could be. But I am. I never imagined—"
"But that's exactly what I'm going to Ballymoy for. I want complete quiet in a lonely place where I shan't be disturbed."
"Of course, it's no business of mine," said Meldon. "But don't you think that perhaps you've done enough?"
"No. I have a great deal to do yet. If it were simply a question of earning money—"
Meldon looked at her. She was very well dressed. The bag which lay open at her side was fitted with silver-topped bottles. Her cigarette case appeared to be of gold. She was travelling first class. She had taken Ballymoy House for two months. He was quite ready to believe that she did not want money.
"Do you mean to say that you're doing it simply for amusement?" he asked.
"No. Not amusement." Her voice dropped to a kind of solemn whisper. "For the love of my art."
Miss King took herself very seriously indeed, and was accustomed to talk a good deal about her art. Literary people who might have known better, and critics who certainly did know better, encouraged her. They also talked about her art.
"Of course, if you look at it that way," said Meldon, "there's no more to be said; but you mustn't expect me to help you."
"You!"
"No. As a clergyman I can't possibly do it. Nor will the Major, unless he's greatly changed. I don't expect Doyle will either. He's president of the local branch of the League, but I'm sure he draws the line at—"
"But I don't want any of you to help me. Why should I?"
"I'm glad to hear that, at all events," said Meldon. "For, unless under very exceptional circumstances, I couldn't conscientiously assist you in any way."
"You said just now," said Miss King, "that you had no prejudices, and that nothing shocked you."
"Very few things do," said Meldon. "In fact I can't recollect ever having been shocked before; but this idea is a little new to me. I candidly confess that I never—hullo! We're slowing down into a station. Now I expect there'll be trouble about my ticket."
There was—considerable trouble. But Meldon emerged from it victoriously. He flatly refused to move from the carriage in which he sat. The guard, the station-master, a ticket-collector, and four porters gathered round the door and argued with him. Meldon argued fluently with them. In the end they took his name and address, threatening him with prosecution. Then, because the train was a mail train and obliged to go on, the guard blew his whistle and Meldon was left in peace.
"It's a nuisance," he said to Miss King, "being worried by those men. I wanted to send a telegram, but I couldn't. If I'd ventured out of the carriage they'd never have let me back again. The Major won't be expecting me till the next train. I only caught this one by accident."
"By accident?"
"Yes. The fact is I was up early this morning, wakened by my little daughter, a baby not quite two years old yet. I told you I was married, didn't I? The poor child was upset by the journey from England, and didn't sleep properly. When she had me wakened I thought I might as well get up. I intended to stroll up towards the station quietly. I walked rather faster than I meant to, and when I got within about three hundred yards of the station I discovered that I might just catch this train by running; so, of course, I ran. I'm very glad I did now. If I hadn't I shouldn't have met you."
"What did you do with the baby?"
"I didn't drop her on the way, if that's what you're thinking of. I'm not that kind of man at all, and I am particularly fond of the child. I scarcely ever complain when she keeps me awake at night, though many men I know would want to smother her. She and my wife are stopping with my mother-in-law in Rathmines. I'm going down for a fortnight's yachting with the Major. I might persuade him to give you a day's sailing, perhaps, if he doesn't find out who you are, and we succeed in keeping it dark about your going on with your work. I daresay it would cheer you up to go out on the bay. I expect you find your work pretty trying."
"It is very trying. I often feel completely exhausted at the end of the day."
"Nerve strain," said Meldon. "I don't wonder. It's a marvel how you stand it."
"Then I can't sleep," said Miss King. "Often I can't sleep for two or three nights together."
"It surprises me to hear that you ever sleep at all. Don't they haunt you? I've always heard—"
"My people?"
"Yes, your people, if that's what you call them. I'd have thought they'd never have let you alone."
"Some of them do haunt me. I often cry when I think of them. It's very foolish, of course; but in spite of myself I cry."
"Then why on earth do you go on with it?"
"It's my art," said Miss King.
"I'm not an artist myself," said Meldon, "in any sense of the word, so I can't exactly enter into your feelings; but I should say, speaking as a complete outsider, that the proper thing for you would be to drop the whole thing, take to smoking a pipe instead of those horrid scented cigarettes, drink a bottle of porter before you go to bed, and then sleep sound."
Miss King sighed. There was something in the ideal which Meldon set before her which was very attractive. The details she ignored. Bottled porter was not a drink she cared for, and no woman, however emancipated, likes a pipe. In spite of the satisfaction she found in her literary success, there was in her a desire for quiet and restful ways of life. There was no doubt that she would sleep sounder at night if she lived simply, somewhere in the country, and forgot the excitements of the novelist's art. Meldon, indeed, did not seem to enjoy absolutely unbroken rest at night; but Miss King's imagination, although she wrote improper novels, did not insist on representing a baby as an inevitable part of domesticated life. She got no further than the dream of a peaceful house, with the figure of an inoffensive husband somewhere in the background.
CHAPTER III.
Meldon stretched himself in a deep chair and lit his pipe. He had dined to his own satisfaction, eating with an appetite whetted by the long drive from the railway station. He had before him a clear fortnight's holiday, and intended to enjoy it to the full. Major Kent's house was comfortable; his tobacco, which Meldon smoked, was good; his yacht, the Spindrift, lay ready for a cruise.
"To-morrow," he said, "I shall stroll round and see my old friends. I'm bound to do that; and, in point of fact, I want to. It's three years since I left, and I'm longing for a look at Doyle and the rest of them. The next day, if the weather is any way moderate, we can go sailing. I suppose Ballymoy isn't much changed. I shall find every one exactly as I left them. Things don't alter much in places like this where you take life easy."
"The place is changed," said Major Kent; "changed for the worse. You'd hardly know it."
"Nothing has happened to Doyle, I hope. I'd be sorry if poor Doyle had taken to drink, or gone bankrupt, or got married, or anything of that sort. I always liked Doyle."
"Doyle," said the Major sadly, "is suffering like everybody else."
"New priest?"
"No. Father Morony's alive still."
"They're not piling on the rates under the pretence of getting a water supply, or running schemes of technical education, or giving scholarships in the new university, are they? Doyle would have more sense than to allow them to break out into any reckless waste of public money."
"Then what's the matter with you? I've noticed that you're looking pretty glum ever since I arrived. Let's have the trouble, whatever it is. I have a fortnight before me, and I need scarcely say, Major, that if I can set things right in the place, I don't mind sacrificing my holiday in the least. I'm quite prepared to turn to and straighten out any tangle that may have arisen since I left."
"I'm sure you'd do your best, J. J."—the Major dropped naturally into his old way of addressing his friend by his initials—"but I don't think you can help us this time."
Major Kent sighed heavily and struck a match. His pipe had gone out.
"I certainly can't," said Meldon, "if you won't tell me what it is that troubles you."
"It's that damned Simpkins," said the Major.
"Simpkins may or may not be damned hereafter," said Meldon. "I offer no opinion on that point until I hear who he is and what he's done. He can't be damned yet, assuming him to be still alive. That's an elementary theological truth which you ought to know; and, in fact, must know. It will be a great deal more satisfactory to me if you use language accurately. Say that 'damnable Simpkins' if you're quite sure he deserves it; but don't call him damned until he is."
"He does deserve it."
"If he does," said Meldon—"I'm not, of course, certain yet that he does—but if he does, I'll do my best to see that he gets it; but I won't act in the dark. I have a sense of justice and a conscience, and I absolutely decline to persecute and harry a man simply because you don't like him. Who is this Simpkins? Is he any kind of government inspector?"
"He's an agent that they've sent down here to manage the Buckley estates."
"Well, I don't see anything wrong about that. I suppose there must be an agent. I could understand Doyle objecting to him on the ground of his profession. Doyle is the President of the League, and, of course, he's ex officio obliged to dislike land agents passionately; but I didn't expect you to take that line, Major. You're a loyalist. At least you used to be when I was here, and it's just as plainly your duty to support agents as it is Doyle's to abuse them."
"I don't object to him because he's an agent," said Major Kent. "I object to him because he's a meddlesome ass, and keeps the whole place in continual hot water."
"Very well. That's a distinct and definite charge. If you can prove it, I'll take the matter up and deal with the man. Pass the tobacco."
Meldon filled and lit his pipe. Then he got up and walked across to Major Kent's writing-table. He chose out a pen, took a quantity of notepaper and a bottle of ink. With them he returned to his armchair and sat down. He put the ink-bottle on the arm of the chair and, crossing his legs, propped the paper on his knee.
"Do be careful, J. J.," said the Major. "You'll certainly upset that ink-bottle, and this is a new carpet."
"We are engaged now," said Meldon, "on a serious investigation. You have demanded that a certain man should be punished in a perfectly frightful manner. I've agreed to carry out your wishes, if—mark my words—if he deserves it. You ought not to be thinking of carpets or ink-bottles. Your mind ought to be concentrated on a single effort to tell the truth. It's not such an easy thing to tell the truth as you think. Lots of men try to and fail. In fact, I'm not sure that any man could tell the truth unless he's had some training in metaphysics and theology. When I was in college I took honours in logic—"
"You've often mentioned that to me before," said the Major. "It's one of the things about you that I have most firmly fixed in my mind."
"And I won a prize for proving the accuracy of the Thirty-nine Articles. Consequently, I may say, without boasting, that I'm more or less of an expert in the matter of truth. My mind is trained. Yours, of course, isn't. That's why I'm trying to help you to tell the truth. But I won't—in fact, I can't—go on helping you if you wander off on to side issues about ink-bottles and carpets."
He waved his hand oratorically as he spoke, and tipped the ink-bottle off the arm of the chair.
"There," said the Major, "I knew you'd do that."
"Never mind," said Meldon. "I have a pencil in my pocket. I'll work with it."
The Major seized the blotting-paper from his writing-table and went down on his knees on the carpet.
"When you've finished making that mess worse than it is," said Meldon, "and covering your own fingers all over with ink in such a way that it will take days of careful rubbing with pumice-stone to get them clean, perhaps you'll go on telling me why you call this fellow Simpkins a meddlesome ass. I was up early this morning, owing to the baby's being restless during the night. Did I mention to you that she's got whooping-cough? Well, she has, and it takes her in the form of a rapid succession of fits, beginning at 10 p.m. and lasting till eight the next morning. That was what happened last night, so, as you'll readily understand, I want to get to bed in good time to-night. It may, it probably will, take hours to drag your grievance out of you, and I don't see any use in wasting time at the start."
"I paid twenty guineas for that carpet," said the Major. "It's a Persian one."
"Has that anything to do with Simpkins? Did he force you to buy the carpet, or did he try to prevent you?"
"No, he didn't. I wouldn't let the beast inside this house."
"Very well then. Don't go on about the carpet. Tell me plainly and straightforwardly why you call Simpkins a meddlesome ass."
"Because he pokes his nose into everybody's business," said the Major, "and won't let people alone."
Meldon took a note on a sheet of paper.
"Good," he said. "Simpkins—meddlesome ass—pokes his nose into everybody's business. Now, who is everybody?"
"Who is what, J. J.?"
"Who is everybody? That's plain enough, isn't it? For instance, are you everybody?"
"No, I'm not. How could I be?"
"Then I take it that Simpkins has not poked his nose into your business. Is Doyle everybody?"
"He has poked his nose into my business."
"Be careful now, Major. You're beginning to contradict yourself. What business of yours has he poked his nose into? Was it the carpet?"
"No. I told you he had nothing to do with the carpet. He made a beastly fuss about my fishing in the river above the bridge. He threatened to prosecute me."
"He may have been perfectly justified in that," said Meldon. "What right have you to fish in the upper part of the river?"
"I always fished there. I've fished there for thirty years and more."
"These questions of fishing rights," said Meldon, "are often extremely complicated. There may very well be something to be said on both sides. I don't think I can proceed to deal with Simpkins in the way you suggest, unless he has done something worse than interfere with your fishing. What else have you got against him?"
"He tried to stir up the dispensary doctor to prosecute Doyle on account of the insanitary condition of some of his houses."
"I expect he was perfectly right there," said Meldon. "From what I recollect of those houses that Doyle lets I should say that he richly deserves prosecution."
"Nobody was ever ill in the houses," said the Major. "There hasn't been a case of typhoid in the town as long as I can remember."
"That's not the point," said Meldon. "You're looking at the matter in the wrong way altogether. There never is typhoid anywhere until you begin to be sanitary. The absence of typhoid simply goes to show that sanitation has been entirely neglected. That's probably one of Simpkins' strongest points."
"If that's so, we'd be better without sanitation."
"Certainly not," said Meldon. "You might just as well say that we'd be better without matches because children never died of eating the heads off them before they were invented. Which reminds me that I caught the baby in the act of trying to swallow a black-headed pin the other day; and that, of course, would have been a great deal worse than getting whooping-cough. The thing had been stuck into the head of a woolly bear by way of an eye. She pulled it out, which I think shows intelligence, and—"
"I thought you said, J. J., that you wanted to get through with this enquiry and go to bed."
"I do," said Meldon. "But I naturally expected you'd take some interest in the mental development of my baby. After all, she's your godchild. You wouldn't have liked it if she'd swallowed that pin. However, if you don't care to hear about her, I won't force her on your attention. Go on about Doyle and the drains. What happened?"
"The doctor refused to act, of course," said the Major.
"Naturally," said Meldon; "he didn't care about bringing typhoid into the town."
"You'd have thought Simpkins would have dropped it then, but he didn't. He reported the doctor to the Board of Guardians for neglect of duty."
"We're getting on," said Meldon, taking a note on a fresh sheet of paper. "You started out to prove that Simpkins is a meddlesome ass. You've got half way. He's certainly an ass. Didn't he know that Doyle was chairman of the Board of Guardians?"
"He must have known that, of course."
"Then he's an ass. No one who wasn't an ass could possibly expect Doyle to pass a vote of censure on the doctor for not prosecuting him about his drains. You needn't elaborate that point further. I admit it. But I don't see yet that you've proved any actual malice. Lots of quite good men are asses, and mean to do what's right. Simpkins may have been acting from a mistaken sense of duty."
"He wasn't. He was acting from a fiendish delight in worrying peaceable people."
"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 class on a third-class 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 entitled 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 pushing 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 anticipate 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 appetite 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 assure 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.
"No, I can't," he said. "I've too much to do."
He worked through a helping of bacon and eggs. Then he attacked the cold ham.
"There's nothing," he said, "like a good breakfast when you have a hard day's work before you. I expect to be pretty busy, and I'll hardly be in for lunch. I suppose you've no objection to my making myself a few sandwiches before I start? I may pick up a meal somewhere in the course of the day, but I may not. It's always well to be on the safe side."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to marry Simpkins to Miss King, of course. I thought we settled that last night."
"Don't keep up that joke, J. J. It was all very well pulling my leg last night, and I didn't mind it a bit; but a thing like that gets to be stale the next morning."
"There's no joke that I can see," said Meldon. "If you read the papers with any sort of attention lately, you'd understand that Mrs. Lorimer is the last woman in the world who can be regarded as comic."
"We weren't talking about Mrs. Lorimer."
"Yes, we were. We were talking about Miss King, and she is Mrs. Lorimer; although at present she prefers to be called Miss King. I think she's quite right. It would be extremely bad taste to go on using poor Lorimer's name after what she did to him. He wouldn't like it. You wouldn't like it yourself, Major, if she'd killed you."
"I don't know that she did kill him," said the Major. "Even supposing that you're right in identifying the two women—which of course you're not—you'd still have no earthly right to assume that Mrs. Lorimer is a murderess. The jury found her innocent."
"Of course it did. Any jury would. She's a most attractive-looking woman. You'd have found her innocent yourself if you'd been on that jury."
"I would not."
"Yes, you would. I've seen her, remember. You haven't, so you can't possibly tell what you'd have done."
"I don't see," said the Major, "that her being good-looking proves that she murdered her husband."
"No, it doesn't, but it accounts for the jury letting her off. The evidence was amply sufficient for a conviction, and the judge summed up dead against her. And any way it doesn't matter to us about the evidence, for she owned up to me in the train. I told her I'd keep her secret for her, and I don't intend to tell anybody except you. Apart from her feelings altogether it wouldn't suit us for the story to get out in Ballymoy. Simpkins would be choked off at once if he knew it. Men have such a ridiculous prejudice against marrying a woman with any sort of past."
"I don't think Simpkins would mind," said the Major, "if he thought she had any money. That's the kind of beast he is."
"She has plenty," said Meldon, "Lorimer's, I daresay. At least she looks as if she had plenty, and that's the same thing in this case. If Simpkins marries her, it's extremely unlikely that he'll live long enough to find out whether she really has a large fortune, or is simply spending her capital."
After breakfast Major Kent returned to the subject of Miss King.
"I suppose," he said, "that you're absolutely certain that you've got a hold of the right woman? You couldn't be making any sort of mistake?"
"I told you last night that I was certain, and I gave you my reasons; pretty convincing ones I imagine—the sort of reasons that would be conclusive to any man at all accustomed to criminal investigation. I don't myself see how you can get behind the portrait and the lady's own confession."
"You couldn't possibly have mistaken about that, could you? I mean she couldn't have been confessing anything else which you could have taken up to mean murder?"
"No, she couldn't. In the first place, it isn't at all likely that there would be two attractive-looking lady criminals, travelling about in trains at the same time, both wanting to confess what they had done. In the second place, her crime must have been pretty serious, for she was particularly anxious to find out whether it was likely to shock you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. She mentioned you by name, and asked particularly whether you'd be likely to be shocked, when you found out who she was. Now, if she had simply been slipping trifling articles off shop counters into her muff, she wouldn't have expected you to be shocked. That's what makes me say her crime was a serious one."
"Still," said the Major, "even supposing she really was afraid of shocking me; though I can't see how she came to consider me at all—"
"She did. You may take that for certain."
"There are other things besides murder that I should strongly disapprove of."
"You're thinking of divorce court proceedings now. But she's not that sort of woman at all. I had every opportunity of studying her character in the train, and I'm certain that she wouldn't mix herself up with anything of a disreputable kind. Whatever poor Lorimer may have had to complain of—and I don't in the least deny that he had a grievance—he'd have been the last man to accuse her of anything of that sort. I never met a woman who impressed me more strongly as being thoroughly respectable."
"Come now, J. J. Murder! Surely murder—"
"Not when treated as an art. De Quincey wrote an essay on the subject. If you'd read it, you'd know better than to mix up artistic murder with the commonplace assassinations of the ordinary burglar. You might just as well say that Beethoven is the same sort of person as the Italian organ-grinder who plays abominable tunes under your window, in the hope of your giving him twopence to go away."
"Nothing you've said so far," said the Major, "convinces me in the least that your identification of the lady is certain, or even likely to be right."
"I knew you'd be sceptical. You always are sceptical about anything the least out of the common; so while I was shaving this morning I arranged the evidence in such a way that you can't possibly escape from it. In the first place, there are the portraits. I don't dwell on them because you haven't seen Miss King, and so they won't—for the present—carry much weight with you. In the second place, there is her confession. You choose to consider that I was mistaken about that, and that Miss King was really confessing something of quite a different kind. I say nothing about the improbability of my being mistaken in a perfectly simple matter. I simply leave the confession on one side, and offer you corroborative evidence of a quite unmistakable description. Here's a copy of a Dublin paper. I put it in my pocket on purpose to show it to you. I suppose you'll believe what you see printed in a newspaper?"
"It depends very much what it is. I don't believe everything I see in papers."
"That, if you'll excuse my saying so, seems to me to be carrying your habit of scepticism to the verge of actual mania. I don't think you ought to adopt that kind of attitude, Major. If you had been trained in theology, or even secular metaphysics, it might be excusable; though then, of course, you wouldn't do it. But in a simple and almost entirely uneducated country gentleman like you, it's simply grotesque."
"Go on about the newspaper, J. J."
"Here it is for you; but I don't see that it's much use giving it to you if your mind is made up beforehand to disbelieve every word that's in it."
He took a newspaper from his pocket and handed it to Major Kent, indicating with his thumb a column on the middle page.
"The Lorimer Case. Judge's Charge to the Jury. Acquittal.
"Scene outside the Court. Enthusiasm of the Crowd. A Demonstration."
The Major read aloud the heavily-leaded lines which filled half the column.
"Skip that part," said Meldon. "The cheers don't matter to us, though I daresay Miss King enjoyed them at the time. Go on to the bottom of the next column where you see the words 'An Interview' in large print."
"Our representative," read the Major, "called this evening at Mrs. Lorimer's hotel. He was at once shown up to her sitting-room, where he found her—"
"Go on," said Meldon; "that part about her being cool and unembarrassed, and the next bit about her wearing a well-cut grey travelling-dress, isn't important; though, as a matter of fact, her dress was grey."
The Major skipped a paragraph, and then began to read again.
"'I always felt quite certain,' said Mrs. Lorimer, in reply to a question asked by our representative, 'about what the jury's verdict would be. I have perfect confidence in the commonsense and justice of Englishmen. In fact, I had all my arrangements made, through my solicitors, for my movements after the trial. I have taken a house in a very quiet neighbourhood, where I shall be free from all inquisitive publicity.'"
"There," said Meldon, "those are almost the exact words Miss King used to me in the train."
The Major went on, reading aloud.
"'May I ask,' said our representative, 'in what part of the country—?' 'No,' said Mrs. Lorimer, smiling. 'You may not ask that; or, if you do, I shall not answer you. But you may do this for me, if you like. You may tell the hall porter to order a cab for me, a four-wheeler. I have a good deal of luggage.'"
"She had," said Meldon; "I saw it when we got out at Dunbeg station, and it wasn't all there, for one of her trunks had got lost on the way."
"'Our representative,' read the Major, 'shook hands with Mrs. Lorimer as she entered the cab. The order given to the driver was Euston station. Thus a lady of great personal charm, whose terrible experience has for some weeks focussed the attention of the civilised world upon the affairs of her private life passes—'"
"You needn't go on," said Meldon. "The rest of the article is mere piffle. The essential part is what you've read out, and I imagine it ought to pretty well clinch the matter. She drove to Euston, intending to travel from that station to some very quiet neighbourhood in which she had taken a house beforehand. Now where could you possibly find a quieter neighbourhood than this?"
"I don't see that you've proved your point, J. J. There are a lot of other places for which you might start from Euston."
"Not so many quiet neighbourhoods. Think of where the London and North-Western Railway runs. Lancashire! You wouldn't call Bolton a quiet neighbourhood, I suppose. North Wales! You know what it is at this season of the year, thick with holiday people. No. You may take it for certain that if she left Euston she came to Ireland. Now all English people head straight for the west as soon as they land in this country, especially those who have any kind of a past that they are anxious to keep dark. Dublin and Wicklow are just as thick with people as England is. Nobody ever stops half-way across the country. Besides, there wasn't another woman in the train with me who could possibly have been Mrs. Lorimer."
Major Kent rose from his chair and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
"I don't suppose, J. J., that it's any use telling you that you're going to make an ass of yourself."
"Not a bit, because it isn't true. I'm going to proceed in the most circumspect and cautious manner. Not that I'm the least afraid of making an ass of myself. I should never do that under any circumstances. But because I have a conscience and I am afraid of doing a grave injustice, I am going to convince myself first of all that this fellow Simpkins really deserves to be killed. I admit the force of all you said about him last night, especially that part about the heating of the church; but it's a serious thing to condemn a man to death. It's a thing that you can't undo again once you've done it. I must see the man myself before I take any further steps."
"You can't have him here, J. J. He's a horrid little cad, and I won't have him inside this house."
"I'm not asking you to, at present. Later on if it becomes necessary in the interests of justice to patch up some appearance of a reconciliation between you and him I shall, of course, ask him here; but in the meanwhile—"
"You may entertain him yourself, if you do."
"I may. But that won't deter me from doing my duty. You haven't had the education in philosophy and literature, Major, that you ought to have had; but the years that you spent in the army ought to have taught you that no amount of unpleasantness should prevent a man doing his duty. I thought that was one of the things which military life impressed on me. Suppose now that it was your duty to stand in a pool of water on a wintry night looking out for the approaching army of a powerful enemy. You wouldn't like doing it because you'd know that you'd have a cold in your head next day which would probably last you for the rest of that particular campaign. But would you allow that fact to interfere with your duty? I'll give you credit, Major, for not even considering your own comfort in the matter. You'd stand in the pool. You wouldn't so much as splash about, and when your feet got wet you'd bear it without grumbling. Why can't you admit that I am actuated by the same sort of motives in doing my duty?"


This page displays sold house prices for Sandmoor Close in Bradford.
Sandmoor Close in Thornton, Bradford consists predominantly of semi-detached houses. Properties on Sandmoor Close typically have values around £150,000 - £150,000, ranging upwards of £150,000 for larger semi-detached houses.
Map showing Sandmoor Close in Bradford.


text:
Q: Elegant way to reduce code duplication between prompting the user to save when closing the program? When exiting the program if the programmer handles the FormClosing event if there is unsaved data the programmer can prompt a save dialog asking them if they want to save, not save, or cancel the operation.
In the FormClosing event if they hit Cancel, to cancel the operation you set e.Cancel = true;. This is fine. However, in the menu if the user hits the Exit button then the same thing should occur except instead of doing e.Cancel = true; it should just do return; because it's handle menu item Click event instead of a FormClosing event.
Right now I pretty much have the code duplicated and was wondering if there was a way to handle this to avoid the duplication in an elegant and understandable fashion.
private void FrmEditorFormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
{
    if (NeedsToSave)
    {
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MessageBox.Show("There are unsaved changes. Save now?",
"Xml Editor", MessageBoxButtons.YesNoCancel, MessageBoxIcon.Question);

        if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Yes)
        {
            Save();
        }
        else if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Cancel)
        {
            e.Cancel = true; // Only difference
        }
    }
}

private void ExitToolStripMenuItemClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (NeedsToSave)
    {
        DialogResult saveChangesDialog =
MessageBox.Show("There are unsaved changes. Save now?",
"Xml Editor", MessageBoxButtons.YesNoCancel, MessageBoxIcon.Question);

        if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Yes)
        {
            Save();
        }
        else if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Cancel)
        {
            return; // Only difference
        }
    }

    Close();
}

A: You shouldn't need to do this. Calling Close in your menu click handler should cause the FormClosing event to fire and you can cancel it there.

A: Place the common code in a method that returns a bool to indicate whether a save happened or not
private bool PromptSave()
{
    if (NeedsToSave)
    {
        DialogResult saveChangesDialog =
            MessageBox.Show("There are unsaved changes. Save now?", "Xml Editor",
            MessageBoxButtons.YesNoCancel, MessageBoxIcon.Question);

        if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Yes)
        {
            Save();
            return true;
        }
        else if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Cancel)
        {
            return false;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        return false;
    }
}

Use that return value to set e.Cancel

A: Separate it into a different function that return a boolean value. Something like this:
bool ConfirmSave()
{
    if (NeedsToSave)
    {
        DialogResult saveChangesDialog = MessageBox.Show("There are unsaved changes. Save now?", "Xml Editor",
                                                            MessageBoxButtons.YesNoCancel, MessageBoxIcon.Question);

        if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Yes)
        {
            Save();
            return true;
        }
        else if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Cancel)
        {
            return false;
        }
    }
}

This function can be called from anywhere a close event happens, and you can handle the results accordingly.
private void FrmEditorFormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
{
    if(!ConfirmSave())
    {
        e.Cancel = true;
    }
}

private void ExitToolStripMenuItemClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ConfirmSave();

    Close();
}

A: This should be pretty close
private void ExitToolStripMenuItemClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  if (DoSaveOnExit())
    Save();
  else
    return;
}

private void FrmEditorFormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
{
   if (DoSaveOnExit())
    Save();
   else
    e.Cancel = true;
}
private bool DoSaveOnExit()
{
  if (NeedsToSave)
  {
     DialogResult saveChangesDialog = MessageBox.Show("T", "Xml Editor",
     MessageBoxButtons.YesNoCancel, MessageBoxIcon.Question);

    if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Yes)
    {
        return true;
    }
    else if (saveChangesDialog == DialogResult.Cancel)
    {
        return false;
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
A grisly new charge has been brought against Charlise Muten, the killer of Charlise, for interfering in a body.
A gruesome new charge has been brought against the man accused of the murder of nine-year-old schoolgirl Charlise Mutten.
Justin Stein, 32, has been charged with disturbing a corpse after police alleged he shot and killed Charlsie at the Stein family's luxury Blue Mountains estate in January 2022 and then placed her remains in a barrel and placed them on a riverbank had dumped.
Penrith local court heard the new charge on Friday and that Stein's murder charge had been amended to classify it as a domestic violence offence.
Stein, who was the fiancé of Charlise's mother Kallista at the time of the alleged murder, has been described as the schoolgirl's "stepfather."
However, Stein's lawyer, Peter Katsoolis, told Daily Mail Australia that was not the case.
He said Kallista Mutten had a "distant relationship" with her daughter and questioned the nature of Charlise and Stein's relationship at the time of the girl's death.
Mr Katsoolis said he did not believe the case would go to court until 2024 and there was a huge amount of evidence to go through.
Stein is accused of shooting the Tweed Heads primary school student on his family's property on Mt Wilson while on holiday with her mother in NSW after Christmas.
Attorney for accused killer Justin Stein has claimed that the domestic violence murder charge did not reflect the genuine nature of his client's relationship with nine-year-old Charlise Mutten (above)
Justin Stein has been charged with a new charge related to the January incidents of disturbing a corpse (above, a barrel allegedly containing Charlise's remains in Stein's red ute)
Justin Stein, 31, (pictured) has been charged with domestic violence-related murder, interference with a corpse, possession of a firearm and two counts of possession of child abuse material
He was arrested shortly after Charlise's body was found on January 18 in bushland near the Colo River and charged with murder, which Mr Katsoolis has said he intends to fight.
Stein has since been charged with gun possession and two counts of possession of child abuse material.
Kallista Mutten pleaded guilty to stealing two guns and silver household items, allegedly in the company of Justin Stein during a burglary at a house belonging to a neighbor of Stein's mountain estate last August.
Mutten, 39, was sentenced to community service and returned to a Campbelltown drug rehabilitation center for further treatment.
The gun charges relate to two firearms – a Winchester lever-action shotgun and a BSA .22 caliber bolt action rifle – and ammunition in bushland near where the schoolgirl disappeared.
Police records say on forensic examination by the expert detectives investigating the schoolgirl's death that "Ballistics of BSA .22 bolt action rifle identified features consistent with the firearm used in the (alleged) murder, but was unable to to make a final comparison'.
Stein's charges are: one count of domestic violence-related murder, one count of breaking into a corpse, two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm, two counts of possession of an unauthorized firearm, possession of unlicensed ammunition/ permit and aggravated burglary in company.
Two counts of possession of child abuse material were for unrelated matters, police said.
Charlise (pictured) is believed to have been fatally shot with a 'small bore rifle' sometime between January 10 and 11
The schoolgirl's mother, Kallista Mutten (above), pleaded guilty to stealing two guns and silver household items. She was sentenced to community service and is expected to testify against her former lover
Mr Katsoolis said 'there is no clear motive' for his client or anyone else to allegedly kill Charlise and that he had 'a long way to go analyzing all that movement' in relation to CCTV footage provided by police were released and allegedly driving Stein. shortly after the girl's death with a barrel in the back of his red ute.
At the time of the alleged murder, Charlise's mother, Kallista, was staying at a trailer park in Lower Portland on the Hawkesbury River, 50 miles (81 km) from the luxury Mount Wilson estate, where Charlise is believed to have died, according to police.
Charlise was reportedly fatally shot with a 'small bore rifle' between January 10 and 11.
Ms. Mutten reported her daughter missing on the Wildenstein property on the morning of January 14, and police found her remains in a blue barrel 40 miles away on the banks of the Colo River on the afternoon of January 18.
Kallista Mutten (above) took her daughter Charlise on holiday to NSW with new boyfriend Justin Stein, a trip that ended with the schoolgirl's tragic alleged murder
Stein was arrested the same night and charged with the alleged murder of Charlise.
An autopsy on Charlise's remains revealed the cause of death, and investigators released CCTV footage in February reportedly showing Stein's red Holden Colorado ute with a barrel-shaped object in the back under a blue tarpaulin driving a white boat around several Sydney locations. drags.
Kallista Mutten has indicated she will testify against her former lover in Justin Stein's murder trial.
TIMELINE OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHARLISE MUTTEN
January 13: Charlise Mutten, 9, was last seen on the porch of an estate called Wildenstein in Mount Wilson, northwest of Sydney.
January 14: Charlise was reported missing at 8:20 am. Police flocked to the 30-acre wedding venue and established a crime scene.
Neighbors told detectives they saw a car with no headlights at 4:20 a.m. Friday.
Investigators seized a Holden Colorado ute on the High Street in Penrith for forensic examination, which belongs to her mother's fiancé.
Her mother Kallista Mutten, 31, collapsed and was taken to hospital.
Ms Mutten's fiancé, Justin Stein, whose family owns the lavish estate, spoke to police in Penrith.
January 15: Homicide detectives took over the search.
Police divers seized a boat in the Hawkesbury River and scanned it for fingerprints. The boat is also preserved for forensic examination.
Investigators continued to scan for traces of fire in dense undergrowth surrounding the property.
January 16: RFS volunteers found "very small and barefoot" prints along a fire trail.
"Certain items" were discovered by detectives, but police have been unable to determine the whereabouts of the schoolgirl.
January 17th: A convoy of five police vehicles and detectives on foot entered the property around 11:30 am.
A detective ordered the media to "leave now!" from outside the gates of the five acre wedding venue retreat.
A police van followed by unmarked police cars rolled through the gates while a uniformed officer kept watch.
Earlier, child protection officers drove into the building in civilian clothes.
Mrs. Mutten will be questioned by the police.
January 18: Police say Charlise is likely to be 'sluggish' and 'still' if she is lost in the bush.
January 19: The police reveal that Charlise's stepfather Justin Stein has been charged with murder after finding a body in a barrel overnight.
Later, the police reveal that they have not yet been able to interview Charlise's mother because she remains under guard at the hospital and is difficult to access.
January 25: Police reveal further CCTV footage of a red ute traveling between Marsden Park and Drummoyne as they continue to investigate Charlise's death.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


UAS-Max will help determine the projection of future UAS flights.
Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are one of the fastest growing sectors of aviation today. Given the growing concern among both regulators and the general public with respect to the safety of these flights, new tools are needed to understand the demand and the associated impact of UAS on the National Airspace (NAS). UAS-Max, developed by Intelligent Automation Inc. (IAI), is a UAS demand forecast generation tool that provides NAS stakeholders with sample UAS demand datasets that can be used to model and study the impact of UAS flights in controlled Airspace.
UAS-Max generated data is focused on UAS flights 2,000 feet above ground level or higher. The UAS missions and mission specific flight data are developed based on interviews with SME's and the key stakeholders that are planning to fly UAS. Based on these inputs, detailed demand forecasts are generated and validated using advanced modeling and simulation techniques. UAS-Max data sets provide users with critical data, such as UAS mission characteristics, mission specific demand estimates, aircraft types, flight routes, departure/arrival airports and other flight plan data, that are needed to model UAS traffic in the NAS for a wide range of relevant use cases. Each UAS-Max mission data product has the relevant data needed to model and analyze the impact of UAS operations in the NAS for the representative use case.
Study the safety characteristics of UAS flights in the future.
Analyze the impact of UAS on the frequency communication spectrum.
Compute the impact of UAS on noise and emissions throughout the NAS.
Route of flight, aircraft type, departure time, and the origin and arrival airports.
An airport database with the airport code, name, latitude/longitude, and altitude.
Flights at the forecast maximum demand level.
Documentation for each mission, to understand its purpose and basis of forecast.
15 mins. to 2 hrs.


text:
Internet Access Local
Comprehensive Internet Service Provider (ISP) Guide
Fountain Green, UT Internet Access
Internet Connectivity in Fountain Green
^ An estimated 817 Fountain Green residents are connected to the Internet either at home, work, elsewhere or at multiple locations [1].
Internet Availability in Fountain Green
^ Collectively (all cities), 84.7% of all Utah residents live in a household where Internet is available, which ranks 3rd in the nation [2].
Disconnected in Fountain Green
^ There are an estimated 255 Fountain Green residents who are not connected to the Internet at all - whether at home, work, or elsewhere [1].
Fountain Green Internet Speeds
Landline Internet Speed in Fountain Green
Sorry, speed data is not currently available.
Wireless Internet Speed in Fountain Green
How Does Your Internet Speed Compare?
Sorry, speed tests are currently unavailable.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Fountain Green
Landline Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Fountain Green, UT
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Type of Internet Service Offered
Maximum advertised download speed
Maximum advertised upload speed
CentraCom
Asymmetric DSL 10 Mb/s - 25 Mb/s 3 Mb/s - 6 Mb/s
Wireless Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Fountain Green, UT
Wireless 3 Mb/s - 6 Mb/s 1.5 Mb/s - 3 Mb/s
Wireless 768 Kb/s - 1.5 Mb/s 200 Kb/s - 768 Kb/s
Featured ISPs for Fountain Green, UT
Fast, reliable broadband connections
Allows you to connect all Wi-Fi-enabled devices
Bundle with phone or other services for bigger discounts
DSL Extreme
Get fast internet for an unbeatable price!
Packages as low as $17.95/month.
FREE installation (reg. $199); No phone line required.
Up to 75Mbps download speed; Wireless Router included.
Fountain Green Internet Statistics
Fountain Green Internet Connectivity
Fountain Green: 76.3% of residents are connected, with 27.3% of the population connected on multiple devices [1].
Connected to the Internet in Fountain Green
Fountain Green Internet Connectivity [1]
An estimated 817 Fountain Green residents are connected to the Internet in some capacity - either at home, work, elsewhere or at multiple locations.
An estimated 255 Fountain Green residents are not connected to the Internet. These residents are not connected at home, work, or elsewhere.
Fountain Green Internet Availability [2]
It is estimated that 907 Fountain Green residents live in a household where Internet is available.
Household Income in Fountain Green
Utah Internet Access Facts & ISP Statistics
Utah Home Internet Speed
Utah Internet Connectivity
Connected to the Internet in the state of Utah [1]: 76.3% of UT residents are connected to the Internet in one or more locations on one or more devices.
The 76.3% mark ranks Utah 8th in the nation in total Internet connectivity.
31.5% of residents are connected to the Internet only at home.
5.4% are not connected at home, but are connected elsewhere.
12.1% are connected at home and elsewhere on one device.
27.3% are connected at home and elsewhere on more than one device.
23.8% are not connected to the Internet at all.
Utah Internet Availability [2]
84.7% of UT residents have access to the Internet at home.
This ranks Utah 3rd in the country.
Utah Business Internet Speed Data
Additional information about Utah
About Fountain Green
Fountain Green is a city with a population of 1,071 [2] that is located in Sanpete County in the state of Utah.
Fountain Green Internet Access
For more information about Fountain Green Internet Access, or for additional resources regarding Utah Internet access overall, visit Utah Public Service Commission.
More About Fountain Green
Other Cities in UT
ZIP Codes in UT
1. ^ Bureau of Labor Statistics & Bureau of Census
3. ^ Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
4. ^ FCC & National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
5. ^ National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
6. ^ NTIA & U.S. Census Bureau
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About Our Local Internet Guides
Internet Access Local is an extensive collection of data, statistics, information and other resources regarding Internet Service Providers in local areas throughout the United States. Our comprehensive Internet access guides help consumers learn about local ISPs and find fast, affordable service.
Internet Statistics & Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Fountain Green, UT
U.S. Internet Statistics
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text:
Home/Africa and Middle East/Who Owns the Moon? The Current Ambiguity of Space Law
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Who Owns the Moon? The Current Ambiguity of Space Law
This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of Neil Armstrong's 'one small step' on the surface of the moon. With calls to reignite the space race that culminated in mankind's first 'giant leap', now may be time to establish an international legal framework for space.
RecoN August 7, 2019
The Current Ambiguity of Space Law
Recently, several nations and corporations have taken up an interest in space exploration with motives beyond scientific advancement and glory. There have been proposals to explore the moon for resources, colonize and establish settlements on the moon and Mars and to create an industry dedicated to space tourism.
With Russia, China, the US and India proposing missions to explore lunar resources and an increasing number of companies showing an interest in space, maybe now is the time to consider the need to develop and clarify space law in order to prevent future conflicts and establish an internationally recognized legal system– or interstellarly recognized for that matter.
Issues with Current Space Law
The foundation of space law is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 which establishes basic principles such as the idea that space is free for exploration and use by all states and that no claims to sovereignty can be made. In other words – no one can now or ever own the moon. Additional agreements that came later assign liability for damage caused by space objects and require any capable state to help rescue astronauts in distress.
In addition to nations seeking to explore space, a number of space industrialists in the private sector have emerged including such high-profile ventures as Elon Musk's SpaceX, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactica and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin.
The current laws assume that space is a territory dominated by nation-states, leaving large aspects ambiguous when it comes to the rights and, more importantly, responsibilities of private corporations seeking to operate in the realm of space. The current treaty does not state what corporations are allowed to do or explicitly forbidden from doing in space. Two primary areas of growing concern include space debris and resource extraction.
According to NASA – the American space agency – they are currently tracking more than 500,000 pieces of space garbage in the Earth's orbit. This debris poses potential dangers to space stations, satellites and any space exploration projects.
Companies wishing to launch objects into space must obtain licensing and approval from the relevant national governments, but the current international guidelines and system under the UN's International Telecommunication Union lacks authority and operates more like an informal agreement between nations. With more private companies slated to launch hundreds of objects into space in the near future, the problem of accumulating space junk will only worsen, and the danger of collision will be amplified.
Liability and space clean-up laws will likely also require an overhaul to deal with the changing reality of space. According to the current statutes, an object in space belongs to the government that launched it in perpetuity. When you have private companies based in one country launching objects from the territories of others, the water becomes murky quickly.
There are additional issues of liability, responsibility and ownership that complicate any effective space clean-up operations that will increasingly become necessary to prevent future collisions and damage.
Exploring and Extracting Resources in Space
While space mining is a less pressing issue, with the technology to effectively and efficiently mine space resources still under development, international legislation could mitigate future conflict and establish a foundational understanding for the legality of space mining.
One place to look for inspiration for space law could be the current maritime law governing international waters. There are currently two frameworks covering maritime activities. One principle applies to resources such as fish where countries are permitted to harvest without much restriction. The other framework governs seabed exploration and mining which is overseen by an international body, the International Seabed Authority, which grants permission to extract resources. The current trajectory of space law suggests that the former rather than the later framework will likely be more agreeable to most nations.
Another legal space issue that has been raised is the protection of historic space sites like Tranquility Base – Apollo 11's moon landing site. As of now, these sites do not have any legal protection. With ambitious plans for space and moon exploration, these sites could be threatened by increased human activity in space. The moon landing site is scientifically and historically important to mankind and many see its preservation as critical.
While these legal issues surrounding space exploration may not seem pressing, if they are not addressed by the time nations and corporations develop more advanced space exploration and exploitation technology, the temptation to claim resources and celestial bodies could result in parts of outer space no being 'free for all' humanity anymore.
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