The Simpkins Plot
 "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 
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