t to come off all right. If it fails, I shall try another. I
shall try two or three more if necessary."

"I wish you wouldn't. These plans of yours always end in involving us
all in such frightful complications."

"Do you mean to say, Major, that you wish to give up the idea of
Simpkins' marriage and subsequent death?"

"I've always wished to give it up," said the Major. "Since the day you
first suggested I never liked it, and I like it much less now that I
have got to know Miss King. It seems to me a wicked thing even to
think of a girl like that being married to such an utter cad as
Simpkins."

"I don't know how you can sit there and confess without a blush that
you don't know your own mind for two days together. I'd be ashamed to
go back on a thing the way you do. And I'm not going back on this.
For one thing, I have a duty to perform to you and Doyle, and
O'Donoghue and Sabina Gallagher, and the rector and the police
sergeant. In the next place, after all the trouble I've taken to carry
this scheme through, I'm not going to give in just at the moment of
success. I shall go in this morning and see O'Donoghue. To-morrow he
and I will drive over to Donard--"

"I can't give you a horse to-morrow," said the Major.

"You can if you like."

"I won't, then."

"Why not?"

"Because, if you go playing off fools' tricks on a judge, you'll end in
getting yourself put in prison. There is such a thing as contempt of
court, and judges are just about the most touchy men there are about
their dignity. They don't hesitate for an instant to--"

"A judge isn't a court," said Meldon, "when he hasn't got his wig on,
and besides an English judge has no jurisdiction in this country.
However, I'm not going down on my knees to you for the loan of a horse
and trap. If you don't choose to oblige me in the matter of your own
free will I won't place myself under any obligation to you. I shall
simply borrow a bicycle and ride to Donard. O'Donoghue will have to
ride too, though I don't expect he'll like it. It's twenty miles, and
O'Donoghue drinks more than is good for him."

"Are you going to tell O'Donoghue the whole cock-and-bull plan about
Simpkins and Miss King and the murder?"

"No. O'Donoghue is a reasonable man. He doesn't argue and browbeat me
the way you do. When I tell him that the removal of Simpkins, and
consequently his own future happiness and comfort, depend very largely
on our being able to keep S