Sinister Street, Compton Mackenzie [classic books for 10 year olds .TXT] 📗

were to involve themselves in such events as those in which himself had lately been involved. Duty was owing all the time to people nearer at hand than Barnes. No doubt the world would be better for being rid of him; diseases of the body must be fought, and the corruption of human society must be cleansed. Any pity for Barnes was a base sentimentalism; it was merely a reaction of personal discomfort at having seen an unpleasant operation. The sentimentalism of that cry “Don’t hurt him!” was really contemptible, and since it seemed that he was likely to be too weak to bear the sight of the cleansing knife, he must in future avoid the occasion of its use. Otherwise his intellectual outlook was going to be sapped, and he would find himself in the ranks of the faddists.

“I think I shall stay down here the rest of the summer, if I may,” he said to Stella.

“My dear, of course you can. We’ll have a wonderful time. Hullo, Alan is retiring.”

Alan came up and sat beside them in the buttercups.

“I thought I saw you just as I was going in,” he said. “Anything going on in town?”

“No, nothing much,” said Michael. “I saw a man arrested for murder this afternoon.”

“Did you really? How beastly! Our team’s just beginning to get into shape. I say, Stella. That youth working on old Rundle’s farm is going to be pret-ty good. Did you see him lift their fast bowlers twice running over the pond?”

Michael strolled away to take a solitary walk. It seemed incredible now to think that he had brought Lily down here, that he had wandered with her over this field. What an infringement it must have seemed to Stella and Alan of their already immemorial peace. They had really been very good about his invasion. And here was the wood where he and Stella had fought. Michael sat down in the glade and listened to the busy flutterings of the birds. Why had Stella objected to his marriage with Lily? All the superficial answers were ready at once; but was not her real objection only another facet of the diamond of selfishness? Selfishness was a diamond. Precious, hard, and very often beautiful⁠—when seen by itself.

Michael spent a week at Hardingham, during which he managed to put out of his mind the thought of Barnes in prison awaiting his trial. Then one day the butler informed him of a person wishing to speak to him. In the library he found the detective who had asked for his address at Leppard Street.

“Sorry to have to trouble you, sir, but there was one or two little questions we wanted to ask.”

Michael feared he would have to appear at the trial, and asked at once if that was going to be necessary.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. We’ve got it all marked out fair and square against Mr. Meats. He doesn’t stand a chance of getting off. How did you come to be mixed up with him?”

Michael explained the circumstances which had led up to his knowing Meats.

“I see; and you just wanted to give him a bit of a helping hand. Oh, well, the feeling does you credit, I’m bound to say; but another time, sir, I should make a few inquiries first. We should probably have had him before, if he hadn’t been helped by you. Of course, I quite understand you knew nothing about this murder, but anyone can often do a lot of harm by helping undeserving people. We mightn’t have nabbed him even now, if some woman hadn’t brought us a nice little bit of evidence, and I found some more things myself after a search. Oh, yes, he doesn’t stand an earthly. We knew for a moral cert who did it, straightaway; but the police don’t get a fair chance in England. We let all these blooming Radicals interfere too much. That’s my opinion. Anyone would think the police was a lot of criminals by the way some people talk about them.”

“Is anybody defending him?” Michael asked.

“Oh, he’ll be awarded a counsel,” said the detective indignantly. “For which you and me has to pay. That’s a nice thing, isn’t it? But he doesn’t stand an earthly.”

“Where will he be hanged?”

“Pentonville.”

Michael thought how Mrs. Murdoch in Neptune Crescent would shudder some Tuesday morning in the near future.

“I’m sorry you should have had to come all this way to find me,” Michael said. He hated himself for being polite to the inspector, but he could not help it. He rang the bell.

“Oh, Dawkins, will you give Inspector⁠—what is your name, by the by?”

“Dawkins,” said the inspector.

“How curious!” Michael laughed.

“Yes, sir,” the inspector laughed.

“Lunch in the gun room, Dawkins. You must be hungry.”

“Well, sir, I could do with a snack, I daresay.” He followed his namesake from the room, and outside Michael could hear them begin to chatter of the coincidence.

“But supposing I’d been in the same state of life as Meats,” Michael said to himself. “What devil’s web wouldn’t they be trying to spin round me?”

He was seized with fury at himself for his cowardice. He had thought of nothing but his own reputation ever since Meats had been arrested. He had worried over the opinion of a police inspector; had been ashamed of the appearance of the rooms; had actually been afraid that he would be implicated in the disgraceful affair. So long as it had been easy to flatter himself with the pleasure he was giving or the good he was doing to Meats, he had kept him with money. Now when Meats had been dragged away, he was anxious to disclaim the whole acquaintanceship for fear of the criticism of a big man with a bristly mustache. The despair in Meats’ last cry to him echoed round this library. He had seen society in action: not all the devils and fiends imagined by medieval monks were so horrible as those big men with bristly mustaches. What did they