Bodies from the Library: Lost Classic Stories by Masters of the Golden Age by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780008289232
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-07-26T05:00:00+00:00

BREAD UPON THE WATERS

A. A. Milne

‘Kindness doesn’t always pay,’ said Coleby, ‘and I can tell you a very sad story which proves it.’

‘Kindness is its own reward,’ I said. I knew that nobody else would say it if I didn’t.

‘The reward in this case was the hangman’s rope. Which is what I was saying.’

‘Is it a murder story?’

‘Very much so.’

‘Good!’

‘What was the name of the kind gentleman?’ asked Sylvia.

‘Julian Crayne.’

‘And he was hanged?’

‘Very unfairly, or so he thought. And if you will listen to the story instead of asking silly questions, you can say whether you agree with him.’

‘How old was he?’

‘About thirty.’

‘Good-looking?’

‘Not after he was hanged. Do you want to hear this story or don’t you?’

‘Yes!’ said everybody.

So Coleby told us the story.

Julian Crayne (he said) was an unpleasantly smooth young man who lived with his Uncle Marius in the country. He should have been working, but he disliked work.

He disliked the country, too; but a suggestion that he should help the export drive in London with a handsome allowance from Marius met with an unenthusiastic response; even when he threw in an offer to come down regularly for week-ends and bring some of his friends with him.

Marius didn’t particularly like his nephew, but he liked having him about. Rich, elderly bachelors often become bores, and bores prefer to have somebody at hand who cannot escape.

Marius did not intend to let Julian escape. To have nobody to talk to through the week, and then to have a houseful of rowdy young people at the weekend, none of whom wanted to listen to him, was not his idea of pleasure. He had the power over his nephew which money gives, and he preferred to use it.

‘It will all come to you when I die, my boy,’ he said, ‘and until then you won’t grudge a sick old man the pleasure of your company.’

‘Of course not,’ said Julian. ‘It was only that I was afraid you were getting tired of me.’

If Marius had really been a sick old man, any loving nephew such as Julian might have been content to wait.

But Marius was a sound 65, and in that very morning’s newspaper there had been talk of somebody who had just celebrated his 105th birthday at Runcorn.

Julian didn’t know where Runcorn was, but he could add 40 years to his own age and ask himself what the devil would be the use of this money at 70; whereas now, with £150,000 in the bank and all life to come—well, you can see for yourself how the thing would look to him.

I don’t know if any of you have ever wondered how to murder an uncle; I mean an uncle whose heir and only relation you are.

As we all know, the motives for murder are many. Revenge, passion, gain, fear, or simply the fact that you have seen the fellow’s horrible face in the paper so often that you feel it to be almost a duty to eliminate it.

The only person I have ever wanted to murder is—well, I won’t mention names, because I may do it yet.

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