The Mynns' Mystery

“No. It is hard; and for unselfish reasons.”

“I wouldn’t stop another hour with the rowdy Yankee scoundrel, only Mrs Hampton says I must.”

“For Gertrude’s sake, of course.”

“Oh, hang your of ‘course,’” cried the lawyer angrily.

“Call yourself a friend! Why don’t you advise me to go?”

“Can’t,” said the doctor, putting his hat upon the top of his cane, and spinning it slowly round.

“Don’t do that, man. It fidgets me.”

The doctor took his hat off the cane meekly, and set it on the table, after which he laid his cane across his knees, and began to roll it slowly to and fro, as if he were making paste.

“I say, Lawrence,” cried the old lawyer querulously, “don’t do that. You give me the creeps.”

The doctor meekly laid his stick beside his hat, and put his hands in his pockets.

“Look here,” he said, “what about that poor girl?”

“Well, what about her?”

“Are we to standstill and see her throw herself away upon this wretched man?”

“Can you show me a way out of the difficulty? If so, for goodness’ sake speak out.”

“Your wife! Cannot she influence her?”

“No. She has done everything. The poor girl looks upon it as a duty to the old man, and to his grandson; and she has made up her mind.”

“Tut – tut – tut – tut – tut!”

“She believes that she can bring the fellow round to a better way of life.”

“I don’t, Hampton.”

“No more do I.”

“Think she loves him?”

“No. Not a bit. She doesn’t dislike him though, for he can make himself agreeable when he chooses.”

“Then she will marry him?”

“Not a doubt about it, doctor.”

There was a pause, broken by the lawyer doubling his fist and striking the table so heavy a blow that there was a cloud of pungent dust directly after in the doctor’s nostrils, and he sneezed violently again and again.

“Oh, you old fool!” cried the lawyer.

“I beg your pardon,” said the doctor, blowing his nose upon a great yellow silk handkerchief. “It was your dust.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean for not letting the brute die when you had him in your hands. It would have been a blessing for everybody.”

“Saul Harrington included, eh? I wonder what he would have given me to have let him die.”

“Five thousand at least!”

“Don’t talk nonsense, man. Let’s see if we cannot do something.”

“We can do nothing, sir. The wedding-day is fixed, and the poor little girl is going to swear she will love, honour, and obey a scoundrel, who will break her pretty little heart while she sees him squander away that magnificent estate.”

“It’s very, very terrible,” said Doctor Lawrence thoughtfully; “and I came here this morning in the hope that as co-executors we might do something to save the girl, even if we cannot save the estate.”

“There’ll be nothing to save in half-a-dozen years, if he goes on as he’s going now. In the past three months there are ten thousand pounds gone spang!”

“Spent?”

“Heaven knows! Gambled away, I suppose. I have to keep on selling stock, regardless of losses, and I do the best I can for him. If the applications were made to some shady firm, they’d plunder him wholesale.”

“It’s very sad,” said the doctor, meekly.

“Sad, sir! It’s criminal. I don’t know what he does with it all, but, between ourselves, Lawrence, I’ve a shrewd suspicion that he is remitting a good deal to the States.”

“What for?”

“How should I know, sir? To pay old debts, perhaps. Ah, it’s a sorry business.”

“But surely we can do something.”

“Bah!”

“Now, don’t be angry, Hampton. If it was a leg or a wing diseased, I should know what to do, but in these legal matters I am a perfect child.”

“You are, Lawrence, you are.”

“Well,” said the doctor tartly, “knowing that, I came to you, as a legal light, to give me your opinion. Do you mean to tell me that we, as old Harrington’s executors, cannot interfere to stop this man from wasting his substance and wrecking the life of that poor girl?”

“Yes, sir, I do, plump and plain. Our duties were limited to seeing that, after all bequests were paid, this gentlemanly young fellow from the Far West had all the money his old lunatic of a grandfather left him.”

“But – ”

“There, butt away till you break your skull, if you like, against the stone wall of the law. I, as a lawyer, can do nothing, but perhaps you can – as a doctor.”

“In heaven’s name, then, tell me what, for I feel heartbroken to see the way things are going.”

“Kill him.”