"The Baronets of Mertonbridge 'All do not murder their wives," said Mr. Parker icily, regarding me as if I was something a trifle more insignificant than a cockroach.
"This h'ain't the movies, young man," remarked a stout woman with a permanent sniff, indignantly following Mr. Parker's flock.
I could have laughed aloud: if only they had known what I knew. And after a while I slipped quietly away, and left them to it, doubtless confirming Mr. Parker's opinion of my position in the scheme of things, when he failed to receive my contribution for his trouble.
The months slipped past into years and, only naturally, the memory of that dream grew dim. And then one morning I saw in the papers an announcement that brought it back to my mind.
SIR BRYAN MERTONBRIDGE, BART., AND MISS J. TOMKINS.
"An engagement is announced between Sir Bryan Mertonbridge, Bart., of Mertonbridge Hall, Sussex, and Joan, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R. Tomkins, of Sydney, New South Wales."
And that, too, passed out of my head until the day I lunched with John Carmichael at his club—the day that I now look back on with a sort of horrified fascination. For I knew then what was going to happen, as surely as I knew that the sun was going to set. And yet—what could I have done?
He was sitting two tables away from us, magnificently handsome, with clean-cut aquiline features, and I knew the answer before I asked.
"That's Mertonbridge," said Carmichael. "Good looking, isn't he?"
"Not as good looking as the third baronet," I said, "though astoundingly like him."
"The third baronet! A bit before our time, old boy," he laughed.
"I have seen his portrait," I said briefly. "This fellow is engaged, isn't he?"
Carmichael nodded and lowered his voice. "Australian girl. The father rolls in it: wool or something. And it'll put Mertonbridge on his feet: he's absolutely in Queer Street. Up to his neck with money-lenders. It's that, of course, that made him do it, because—between ourselves—old Tomkins is a bit wild and woolly like his sheep, and the girl ain't a scream of beauty. Very worthy family and all that: pillars of the state, don't you know, but hardly what one would expect a Mertonbridge to marry into. What's the matter, old man: you're looking quite queer?"
"Nothing." I said, and my voice sounded strange to me. "By the way, wasn't there some other girl?"
"Yes: but it's not generally known. He and Lady Janet Pulborough have been crazy about one another for years. At one time there was a sort of engagement I believe, but old Storrington hasn't a bean, and if he had his daughter would see damned little of it. So it fell through. And it was then that Mertonbridge went abroad, and hooked the wool. By Jove! old boy, you're looking devilish funny. Are you certain there's nothing wrong?"
"Quite; thanks, Jack," I said. "I'll have a cup of coffee in the smoking-room."
Yes: I knew it then. I knew it, I say—and yet what could I do? That was six months ago, and you all saw it in the papers.
'DREADFUL TRAGEDY AT MERTONBRIDGE HALL
"A shocking tragedy occurred last night at Mertonbridge Hall, the Sussex seat of Sir Bryan Mertonbridge, Bart. It will be recalled that his wedding three weeks ago to Miss Joan Tomkins was one of the events of the season. It appears that the happy pair returned from their honeymoon yesterday afternoon, and that after dinner Sir Bryan, who is a noted traveller, was showing his bride some of the trophies he had collected in the course of his wanderings. Amongst them were some native darts, the tips of which are soaked in a deadly poison. He warned her particularly to be careful, and then a sudden call to the telephone took him from the room. While he was at the instrument, a piercing scream rang out, and dashing back he found the unfortunate lady writhing on the floor. Half a minute later she died in her husband's arms.
"What happened is only too clear. By some terrible mischance Lady Mertonbridge must have pricked her hand with one of the darts: the mark could be seen. And the poison, which is a native secret, did its deadly work. The sympathy of everybody will go out to the bereaved husband, who is quite prostrate with grief.
"An amazing coincidence is the fact that an almost similar tragedy occurred to one of Sir Bryan's ancestors—the third baronet."
Coincidence! All day long Mr. Parker's words have been ringing in my head—"The Baronets of Mertonbridge Hall do not murder their wives."
I wonder.
VIII. — TOUCH AND GO
THE fair-haired man in the corner had taken no part in the conversation. He made the fifth of the group that had gathered itself together in the corner of the smoking-room, and I don't think any of us even knew his name. He had come on board the day before at Marseilles with his wife, and it was she who had attracted my attention at dinner to such an extent that I had remarked on her to Sturgis of the Gunners, who was sitting next me.
A pretty woman—extremely pretty, and judging by her face somewhere about thirty. Certainly not more, for there was not a wrinkle to be seen, and her arms and neck were those of a young woman. It was her hair that surprised one, and made one wonder if the age estimated was wrong. For though there was a lot of it, it was snow white.
"Some newfangled fashion," grunted Sturgis in answer to my comment. "Next year it will be pea-green. I'll bet you that woman is not out of the twenties yet."
But somehow she didn't look in the least of the type who go in for freak fancies of that sort. And her husband seemed to be the last man in the world who would marry one of the type. A more prosaic, matter-of-fact-looking Englishman I have seldom seen, and he was quiet to the point of dullness.
It was his first trip out East, we gathered, whereas we calculated that between the rest of us we had just topped the half-century. Which quite possibly accounted for his silence: we were talking of seas and places that, to him, were merely names out of an atlas. And also, as the evening grew older and tongues grew looser, some pretty tall stories began to fly around. Some were perfectly true; some—however, I will not labour the point.
I forget who it was who first started the discussion on tight corners and terrifying experiences generally. Cartwright spun a fairly useful one about three days in the company of some Chinese pirates waiting for a ransom he knew would never come; Sturgis specialised on a singularly unpleasant sect of priests somewhere up in Tibet. In fact, none of us disgraced ourselves, and I think we all had a comfortable feeling that our fair-haired friend was suitably impressed with the perils that lay in wait for the unwary.
"Of course," said Cartwright reassuringly, "it's only when you get off the beaten track that there's any danger. Otherwise you're as safe as you are in England."
The fair-haired man smiled a little thoughtfully. "What age would you put my wife at, gentlemen?" was his somewhat astounding remark.
"Well, really," said Sturgis, after a slightly embarrassed silence, "I—er—"
"I think you noticed her at dinner," went on the other quietly. "And I have a reason for my apparently strange question."
"Twenty-five," I said, determined to err on the right side.
"My wife will be twenty next July," he answered. "And seven months ago, when she was just nineteen, her hair was as dark as yours. Not illness, gentlemen: nothing of that sort. But when you made use of the phrase 'as safe as you are in England,' I couldn't help thinking of that change of colour."
"You mean she had some terrible shock?" said someone.
"Nothing to compare, of course, with that sect of priests in Tibet," he answered mildly, and Sturgis became engrossed in the bowl of his pipe. "Yes, she had a terrible shock."
"Which