Mr Fortune Wonders by Bailey H. C

Author:Bailey, H. C. [Bailey, H. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Anthology
Published: 1933-03-08T05:00:00+00:00

CASE V

THE FAIRY CYCLE

A FULL moon in a violet velvet sky diminished the stars to points and flecks of white. Its light fell on the upturned face of Mr. Fortune, in which the eyes were closed, the silvered roundness of the face showing the world the bliss of well - being, ineffable peace. The warm air bore about him a mingled fragrance of syringa, of madonna lilies and lavender, and to this he added an undertone of tobacco. From one of the corners of his small, curved mouth a cigar pointed straight to the sky.

He was lying in a long chair on the terrace of his garden. No sound disturbed the night but the fall of the weir mellowed by distance and the voices of his wife and Lomas in mild flirtation. It turned to his conjugal defects.

‘“Fundamentally,” said Lomas in a sad, judicial tone, reproachful but compassionate, “fundamentally a small boy, Mrs. Fortune. He cannot satisfy your deeper needs.”

“I don’t want a man to satisfy me,” she murmured. “I should feel snubbed.”

“The tragedy of the satisfactory marriage,” said Lomas. “I know. Hence my abstinence. You would have found me wholly satisfying. But there ” - he pointed to the round and innocent face with the cigar in it - ” you prefer the perpetual variety of the irresponsible. Look at him! A lawless cherub.”

“But so moral, Mr. Lomas!” she said reverently.

“Good Gad!” Lomas laughed with some bitterness. “You can believe that! Being a wife perverts the moral sense. There’s only one thing worse - being a mother. We’ve just seen it. Take care.”

“Fathers can be amusing too,” said Mrs. Fortune, contemplating Reggie’s serenity.

It spoke. “Yes. Ultimate reason for existence of the male. You didn’t know that, Lomas. Speakin’ of myself - moral is right. Practically nothing but moral force. Special purpose - to make officials safe for human life. Necessary function. Difficult function. However. Grosser evils of official mind sometimes averted.”

“I said you were a small boy,” Lomas complained. “The natural anarchist, Reginald.”

“Oh, no. No. Not anarchist. Small boys aren’t. Beautiful sense of a fair deal. Same like nature. The official interferes, on general principles. And muddles. I’m quite natural.” His voice dwindled drowsily. “Effect for cause. Reaping what is sown. That’s me.”

But all this was afterwards. He began the case of the fairy cycle in Lomas’s room in Scotland Yard.

He had come to declare the innocence of the Vicar’s halibut - testimony which, he is wont to argue, is the final proof of his austere, scientific impartiality, for every genial instinct asks vengeance on the man who sets halibut before a guest. A secretary smirked at the sight of him and jumped to carry the good news to Lomas.

Then he heard Lomas curt and crisp, and after Lomas, a high voice, the voice of a superior person, drawling, peevish, inexhaustibly fluent. It passed the door, it whined away.

The door opened and Lomas beckoned. He took Reggie to his room, he pushed forward the biggest chair, he beamed. “My dear fellow! Delightful! Make yourself comfortable.

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