Chapter I: Front Matter

The Amateur Crime

by A. B. Cox

Contents

Prologue
I. The Nesbitt Combination
II. From Cocktails to Criminology
III. Mr. Priestley Is Adventurous
IV. Red Blood and Red Ink
V. Confusing the Issue
VI. Adventures of a Pair of Handcuffs
VII. Inspector Cottingham Smells Blood
VIII. Two into One Will Go
IX. George Says Nothing, Much
X. Laura Surpasses Herself
XI. Perspicacity of a Chief Constable
XII. Mr. Priestley Becomes an Uncle
XIII. Cynthia Begins to Smile
XIV. Interesting Scene in a Tool-Shed
XV. Various People Get Busy
XVI. Mr. Priestley Bursts a Bombshell
XVII. Awkward Predicament of Some Conspirators
XVIII. Mr. Priestley Solves His Last Problem

TO
MY SISTER

Prologue

The young man waved his arms violently. “You’re a cabbage!” he shouted. “A turnip! A vegetable marrow! A—” He paused. “A snail!” he concluded, relinquishing this horticultural catalogue.

Mr. Matthew Priestley blinked at him mildly through his glasses. “Am I, Pat?” he asked, not without surprise.

“Yes, you are.” From his stand upon the hearthrug the young man contemplated his host with extreme severity. “How old are you, Priestley?” he demanded at length.

“Thirty-six,” apologised Mr. Priestley.

“Thirty-six!” repeated the young man with remarkable scorn. “And what do you think people would take you for?”

“Thirty-five?” hazarded Mr. Priestley optimistically.

“Certainly not!” said the young man sharply. “Sixty-five, more like.”

“Oh, no, Pat,” protested Mr. Priestley, pained.

“At least sixty-five,” rejoined the young man firmly. “And no wonder. Do you know what you are, Priestley?”

“Well, yes,” said Mr. Priestley, a little doubtfully, “I’m a cabbage, and a vegetable-marrow, and a snail, and——”

“You’re a limpet!”

“A limpet as well?” said Mr. Priestley, with distress. “Now, what makes you say that, Pat?”

“Well, look at you!” observed the young man shortly.

Mr. Priestley obeyed. “I seem much the same as usual,” he ventured.

“That’s the whole point!” the young man said with force. “You’re always much the same as usual. Always!”

“I wear a different suit nearly every day,” Mr. Priestley protested wistfully.

“You know what I mean. Look at you—thirty-six, and as set and unenterprising as a man of sixty! Why don’t you move out of your rotten little rut, man? Move about! See life! Have adventures!” The young man ran a sensitive hand through his rather long black hair.

Mr. Priestley looked round the cosy bachelor room in the cosy bachelor flat; if it was a rut, it was a remarkably pleasant one. “It’s curious how restless love seems to make a man,” he observed mildly.

The young man stamped violently several times up and down the room. “I’m not restless!” he exclaimed loudly. “I’m happy!”

“I see,” replied Mr. Priestley with humility. “Have another drink, won’t you?”

The young man manipulated the decanter and siphon. “I do hate to see a man vegetating,” he growled into his glass.

“I suppose it’s the result of getting engaged,” Mr. Priestley meditated. “That sort of thing must be upsetting, no doubt.”

“It makes a fellow so happy, he wants to make his friends happy, too,” the young man condescended to explain.

“But I am happy, Pat! Remarkably happy.”

“You’re nothing of the sort,” snapped the young man.

“Aren’t I?” queried Mr. Priestley in surprise. “Well, I certainly thought I was.”

“Oh, yes,” said the young man with remarkable bitterness. “You think you are, of course. But you’re nothing of the sort. How can you be? Is a cabbage happy? Why don’t you live, man? Get about! Fall in love! Have adventures!”

“But adventures don’t happen to me.”

“Of course they don’t. Because you never let them. If you saw an adventure coming, you’d shut both eyes and wrap your head up in a rug. You’re turning into a regular hermit, Priestley: that’s what’s the matter with you. And hermits have a habit of becoming most confoundedly dull.”

Soon after that the young man took his leave; and quite time, too.

After his departure Mr. Priestley sat for a few moments turning over in his mind what had been said. Was it true that he was getting into a rut? Was he a turnip? Was he in danger of becoming a hermit, and a confoundedly dull hermit at that? He looked round his comfortable room again and sighed gently. Certainly most of his interests were concentrated in the flat—his books, for instance, and his china, and his collection of snuff-boxes. It was equally certain that, with a comfortable income which precluded his having to work for his living, and a valet who looked after him better than a nurse, he found himself very much more comfortable in his home than out of it. But did that necessarily mean that he was a snail?

“Poof!” observed Mr. Priestley with mild decision. “Ridiculous! Pat has just become engaged, to, as I understand, a charming and beautiful girl, and his whole world is upset. Out of the exuberance of his spirits he wants to upset everybody else’s world as well. Hermit, indeed.”

And he reached happily for his Theocritus.

Thus, regardless of his doom, the little victim played.