A Book of Bargains by Vincent O’Sullivan

Author:Vincent O’Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub

A Study in Murder

As I got out of a cab at Piccadilly Circus, I was hailed by Gladwin.

“Just the man I was looking for!” he cried. “Let us go somewhere and have a drink.”

At that moment a glass of brandy happened to be the thing I wanted; so I followed Gladwin to the Criterion readily enough. Besides, he was excited: and people are always interesting when they are excited.

“A man feels strange,” said Gladwin, sitting down by a table, “when he looks around this place and thinks that everybody in it will outlive him.”

“Do you feel like that, by any chance?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.

“Yes, I do. Let me tell you this, my friend,” he went on, in his earnest, impulsive way, which was wont to become a little wearisome: “You know that I’m not much better than a pauper. Well! I’m sick of slaving away for a wretched paltry salary, and I’m going to end it all. I’ve thought about it for a long time, and something that happened to‐day has quite settled it.— By the way, do you think I’m mad?”

“Oh Lord, no!” says I.

“Because I’m not. Now, you know as well as I do, that all this time, since luck has taken to using me as a football, I’ve been kept together by the thought of Margaret. I thought, that somehow or other, if I only pegged on, I might — Well! I have seen her to‐day. She was kind enough to state that she could never marry me, and that her father didn’t want her to see me again. She was also so good as to mention that it would be insane, considering my position, for her to marry against her father’s wishes. Then she spoke of you.— Hullo! you’ve upset your glass! Waiter, another soda and brandy here!— As I was saying, she spoke of you. She said that her father was most anxious to have her married to you, and was doing his utmost to bring about the match. I suppose you never did have any feeling in that way for Margaret?”

“My dear fellow!”

“I thought not; and I told her so. Besides, I said that you were too good a friend of mine to try to step into my shoes. But she only shook her head, and went out of the room weeping. And so to‐night I’m going to end it all! In your company I’m going to do everything that makes a man’s life bright and merry; and then I’m going to blow the soul out of my body somewhere by the river.— You’ll come with me?”

“Yes — of course!” I said, with a slight hesitation. “But what are these things that make a man’s life bright and merry? Only the usual stupidities — dining, a theatre or music hall, and all that!”

“But it is these very banalities that I want!” exclaimed Gladwin. “I have done them so often when I was fairly happy, that I am anxious to learn what they seem like on the night when I’m going to die.

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