he can't be really happy. I imagine that even for his own sake he'd be a great deal better dead. He may not see that himself, but it's very likely to be true. What's the use of his dragging out a miserable existence in a place where he is getting more and more unpopular every year? He can't like it. Where does he live?" 

 "He lives," said Major Kent, "in that little house just beyond the police barrack." 

 "That won't save him," said Meldon.  "Miss King would laugh at our police after slipping through the fingers of the Scotland Yard authorities, and any way he'd have to go and live with her once they're married. I'll call there." 

 "At this time of day," said the Major, "he'll probably be in his office, next to Doyle's hotel." 

 "I'll leave a card at his house first," said Meldon.  "It's only civil. Then I'll go on to the office. I suppose you can send me in, Major? I'll walk back. I wouldn't like to keep your horse in town all day. I shall probably be a long time. I can't scamp the business, you know. I must thoroughly investigate Simpkins. After that, I'll look in and have a chat with Doyle." 

 

 

 CHAPTER V. 

 Mr. Eustace St. Clair Simpkins preferred to have his letters addressed "E. St. Clair-Simpkins, Esq.," as if his second Christian name were part of his surname. He belonged by birth to the haute aristocratie, and believed that the use of a hyphen made this fact plain to the members of the middle classes with whom he came in contact. He was a man of thirty-five years of age, but looked slightly older, because his hair was receding rapidly from the left side of his forehead. He had enjoyed, for a time, the education afforded by one of the greatest of the English public schools; but at the age of sixteen, being then classed with boys so small that he looked ridiculous among them, he was removed at the special request of the headmaster. A private tutor, heavily paid, took him in hand, but was no more successful with him than the schoolmasters had been. At the age of eighteen he was found unfit to pass any of the examinations which open the way to gentlemanly employment. Various jobs were found for him by his desponding parents, but on every occasion he was returned to them politely. He drifted at last into an Irish land-agent's office. Mr. Tempest was a successful man of business, and managed estates in various parts of the country from his Dublin office. He was 

 Prev. P 30/202 next