But Agna Jevins said. “What car? I saw no car go into the water.”
“What! You were not out here in the night and saw this car...”
“I?” cried Agna Jevins. “I was in bed the whole night, and Jens too. What car...?”
They told her. She covered her eyes and said, “God forgive me, I heard a cry and thought of saying so to fens, but he was sleeping soundly.”
Jens and the sheriff moved toward her, and when he came up to her Jens began speaking softly: “All our friends, Agna, thinking of us through the night. And who could have imagined that we were spending the whole night so, side by side; and with the sunrise, we still so near to each other, saying nothing. Who could have told us in our early youth: ‘You will rest on that night in a bed of ooze, and none shall know or care that you lie passionless and forgotten’? Who could have known that our wedding day and our death night would be one, because of a pond beyond alders, pleasant and secured? We have died with our dream and our happiness upon us, neither trouble nor weariness has touched us, nor the slow rust of unending days. I have no need to send you to your death, for we have died in the safety of our youth and not in the deep of days already dead...”
They led him to his house. Weeping, Mrs. Jevins said:
“It must have come on him all of a rush. For I pressed his clothes and got his breakfast and he went out of the house. And nothing had changed.”
The legend grew that Jens Jevins had had a vision of that happening of the night, and that it had sent him off his head.
The Lakdoo Dinner
by Bechhofer Roberts
Bechhofer Roberts — his full name is Carl Eric Bechhofer Roberts — was educated at St. Paul’s School, London and Berlin Universities, and then, at Gray’s Inn. Like so many authors, both British and American, Bechhofer Roberts studied to be an attorney-at-law, but drifted into other fields, and eventually became a writer. His widespread career has resulted in a remarkably versatile series of books, both under his real name and under the pseudonym of “Ephesian.” After serving as a foreign correspondent in Russia and the Middle East, and as private secretary to Lord Birkenhead, Bechhofer Roberts wrote books on travel, literary criticism, spiritualism, criminology, and biographies of Winston Churchill, Lord Birkenhead, and Stanley Baldwin. Oh, yes, we omitted one classification. He also invented the character of A. B. C. Hawkes, and wrote at least three books of detective stories about him.
We say “at least three books of detective stories” because we know of only three titles; there are probably more. For a long time we thought the only book of A. B. C. short stories was one titled A. B. C. INVESTIGATES. For years we tried to find a copy of this volume, scouring all the secondhand book markets we ever heard of and employing bookscouts all over the British Ethpire — but we have yet to locate a copy of the book. In the course of the search, however, as so often happens, another volume of A. B. C. shorts came to light, and from this “unknown” book we now bring you “The Lakdoo Dinner.”
“It’s my opinion, Johnstone, that young Dr. Badling is preparing to murder his uncle! But what his plans are, and how we are to frustrate them, if at all, I have no idea whatever.”
Thus did A.B.C. Hawkes address me one morning at breakfast in our Sussex cottage; and very much surprised I was by his remarks.
Of all our neighbors, I think he liked Colonel Badling best. The old gentleman used to call on us nearly every morning when we were down there and, after an enthusiastic if inexpert inspection of A.B.C.’s garden, he would sink into an armchair and chat pleasantly for half an hour. I believe he had had a fine Army career in his younger days and had twice been recommended for a Victoria Cross; moreover, he had shown real administrative ability in one of those military or semi-military governorships which abound on the fringes of the British Empire. But there was little of the ex-soldier about him except perhaps his upright bearing and strict sense of honor, for he had mellowed into a benevolent old gentleman with a definite distaste for everything pertaining to militarism. It amused me to hear him and A.B.C. engaged in one of their frequent arguments on the future of war.
The Colonel declared that armaments and armies were no longer necessary, and that peace could easily be secured, and order maintained, by the friendly cooperation of intelligent men of all nationalities. To which A.B.C. would reply teasingly that the proportion of intelligent men is so small in any country that it would be foolish to rely upon their influence in such matters: possibly, he suggested, a better way to prevent war might be to spread the knowledge of scientific warfare — poison gases, chemical bombs, disease carriers, and atom bombs — so widely that even the stupidest warmongers would hesitate before exposing themselves and their families to such perils.
The argument never ended, for the Colonel’s sweet idealism and A.B.C.’s practical cynicism could not come to an agreement. I don’t think either of them really wanted it to end, for it provided them for a long time with a constant excuse for conversation. But we began to see less of Colonel Badling after his nephew came to live with him.
Young Clive Badling was no favorite of ours, and he seemed to resent his uncle’s friendship with us. The orphan son of the Colonel’s younger brother, he was about twenty-five years old and had already a rather disreputable past.
So far as I gathered, he had been educated on his uncle’s bounty and, after qualifying as a doctor, had been set up by the old gentleman in a London practice; but, instead of working hard, he had allowed his patients to drift away from him and, after being involved in an unsavory police-court case, had abandoned his practice and come down to Sussex as his good-natured uncle’s guest.
His expression was furtive: he could look nobody in the face. He never seemed clean or tidy, and he utterly lacked his uncle’s good nature. Everyone disliked him — the villagers, the snobs, the nobs, and even such nondescript residents as ourselves. If it had not been for the Colonel’s popularity, the young doctor would probably have been boycotted. As it was, he was reluctantly accepted by us all and as reluctantly acknowledged our acquaintanceship. Even the Colonel realized the young man’s unpopularity.
“I’m a lonely old man, Mr. Hawkes,” he said one day to A.B.C., “but I hope I can help to give my nephew a little assistance in life. I don’t want to give him any more money, because he only throws it away. But living down here with me will surely balance him a little, so that he’ll become a better type of young fellow. Then, when I die, he’ll have learned to make good use of what I leave him in my will. Meanwhile, it suits me to have a doctor about the house: I’m not so young as I used to be, and there are a good many running repairs needed for my old carcass. If you can help him to settle down, Mr. Hawkes, you’ll be doing both him and me a great service.”
But with the best will in the world, neither A.B.C. nor I could make Clive Badling popular or persuade him to relax his surly attitude towards his neighbors.
Then the old gentleman began to fail. I had a clue to his trouble one morning when, dozing in a hammock outside the window of A.B.C.’s study, I was awakened by angry voices.
“You ask me, doctor, why I want to see you?” my friend was saying.
“Yes, I do,” replied a rasping voice, which I recognized as Clive Badling’s. “I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want you interfering in my affairs.”