The Middle of Things | Page 2

pipe and began to fill it from a
tobacco-jar on the mantelpiece. The clock had ticked several times
before Miss Penkridge spoke.
"Well!" she said, with the accompanying sigh which denotes complete
content. "So he did it! Now, I should never have thought it! The last
person of the whole lot! Clever--very clever! Richard, you'll get all the
books that that man has written!"
Viner lighted his pipe, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers
and leaned back against the mantelpiece.
"My dear aunt!" he said half-teasingly, half-seriously. "You're worse
than a drug-taker. Whatever makes a highly-respectable, shrewd old
lady like you cherish such an insensate fancy for this sort of stuff?"
"Stuff?" demanded Miss Penkridge, who had resumed her knitting.
"Pooh! It's not stuff--it's life! Real life--in the form of fiction!"
Viner shook his head, pityingly. He never read fiction for his own
amusement; his tastes in reading lay elsewhere, in solid directions.
Moreover, in those directions he was a good deal of a student, and he
knew more of his own library than of the world outside it. So he shook
his head again.
"Life!" he said. "You don't mean to say that you think those things"--he
pointed a half-scornful finger to a pile of novels which had come in
from Mudie's that day--"really represent life?"

"What else?" demanded Miss Penkridge.
"Oh--I don't know," replied Viner vaguely. "Fancy, I suppose, and
imagination, and all that sort of thing--invention, you know, and so on.
But--life! Do you really think such things happen in real life, as those
we've been reading about?"
"I don't think anything about it," retorted Miss Penkridge sturdily. "I'm
sure of it. I never had a novel yet, nor heard one read to me, that was
half as strong as it might have been!"
"Queer thing, one never hears or sees of these things, then!" exclaimed
Viner. "I never have!--and I've been on this planet thirty years."
"That sort of thing hasn't come your way, Richard," remarked Miss
Penkridge sententiously. "And you don't read the popular Sunday
newspapers. I do! They're full of crime of all sorts. So's the world. And
as to mysteries--well, I've known of two or three in my time that were
much more extraordinary than any I've ever read of in novels. I should
think so!"
Viner dropped into his easy-chair and stretched his legs.
"Such as--what?" he asked.
"Well," answered Miss Penkridge, regarding her knitting with
appraising eyes, "there was a case that excited great interest when your
poor mother and I were mere girls. It was in our town--young Quainton,
the banker. He was about your age, married to a very pretty girl, and
they'd a fine baby. He was immensely rich, a strong healthy young
fellow, fond of life, popular, without a care in the world, so far as any
one knew. One morning, after breakfasting with his wife, he walked
away from his house, on the outskirts of the town--only a very small
town, mind you--to go to the bank, as usual. He never reached the
bank--in fact, he was never seen again, never heard of again. He'd only
half a mile to walk, along a fairly frequented road, but--complete,
absolute, final disappearance! And--never cleared up!"

"Odd!" agreed Viner. "Very odd, indeed. Well--any more?"
"Plenty!" said Miss Penkridge, with a click of her needles. "There was
the case of poor young Lady Marshflower--as sweet a young thing as
man could wish to see! Your mother and I saw her married--she was a
Ravenstone, and only nineteen. She married Sir Thomas Marshflower,
a man of forty. They'd only just come home from the honeymoon when
it--happened. One morning Sir Thomas rode into the market-town to
preside at the petty sessions--he hadn't been long gone when a fine,
distinguished-looking man called, and asked to see Lady Marshflower.
He was shown into the morning-room--she went to him. Five minutes
later a shot was heard. The servants rushed in--to find their young
mistress shot through the heart, dead. But the murderer? Disappeared as
completely as last year's snow! That was never solved, never!"
"Do you mean to tell me the man was never caught?" exclaimed Viner.
"I tell you that not only was the man never caught, but that although Sir
Thomas spent a fortune and nearly lost his senses in trying to find out
who he was, what he wanted and what he had to do with Lady
Marshflower, he never discovered one single fact!" affirmed Miss
Penkridge. "There!"
"That's queerer than the other," observed Viner. "A veritable mystery!"
"Veritable mysteries!" said Miss Penkridge, with a sniff. "The world's
full of 'em! How many murders go undetected--how many burglaries
are never traced--how many forgeries are done and never found out?
Piles of 'em--as the police could tell you. And talking about