Buy what?
Buy Sea-views all below five shillings. Hirsch.
He sat looking at the words for some time, puzzled, then rode on, his mind busy with the problem; but the puzzle remained until, as he was going into the telegraph office at Wellhampton, he met Mr. Jenkin coming out. Then the memory of Mr. Hirsch's laugh of relief at "getting rid of Jenkin," which he had hardly noticed at the time, came back to him. Jenkin apparently was to be given time to sell, while Mr. Hirsch was to buy. It was a straight lead-over. What if he were to follow it even to the extent of but a hundred pounds? His heart gave a great throb; he felt as a man might, when put on a horse for the first time and the reins given into his hand. Who was to prevent him going where he chose--except, of course, the horse!
He returned to the Keep by breakfast time, but for a wonder he had no appetite, since he was of that healthy strong-nerved sort to whom even personal sorrow comes as an expenditure of force which requires recuperation. And there was no personal feeling in this tragedy except for Blackborough's share in it; for that he was unfeignedly sorry. He, however, had been finally ordered to his room by Dr. Ramsay who was too busy to speak to any one. The Wrexhams left early, followed at intervals by the other guests, and the Keep settled down into the slack collapse which always follows on the excitement of a catastrophe. The servants seemed to remember they had been up all night; Mr. Hirsch was the only person who was really awake, but Ted did not somehow care to see Mr. Hirsch; though as the day wore on and the latter went off once more to Cam's point, Ted took down some telegrams which had come for him, and watched him read them anxiously. They seemed satisfactory, but by this time Ted was telling himself he had behaved like a fool in sending that wire to his friend on the Stock Exchange.
The desolation on the point, where workmen were still searching for any traces of Mr. Charteris' body, made him still more depressed, so he strolled over to Camshaven, thereby letting himself in for additional dreariness; since, just as he abutted on the little quay, he saw one of the transport's boats, disembarking a coffin. The dead officer, of course. Poor chap, to die like that within sight of home was rough luck. He stood with bared head watching the guard of honour form up and prepare to take the body to the church, where it was to lie until directions came by wire from the relatives.
"You don't happen to know the name?" he asked of the local pilot who was close beside him.
"Not for sure, sir," he replied, "tho' I did hear'm say Massin'ham; same name as the poor madam they people burnt in her bed las' night."
"Massingham!" echoed Ted--"that is very curious."
It was. Indeed, Mr. Hirsch, coming back to the Keep half an hour afterwards, was quite pale, and called for a whisky-and-soda before he could explain to Dr. Ramsay the extraordinary coincidence of Major Massingham's body being brought in for burial to Camshaven, where those of his poor wife and child already awaited him as it were. But he, Mr. Hirsch, had seen the captain of the transport, and everything was quite simple--terribly simple. Major Massingham had come on board at Bombay ill, but had not, however, let his people know of his illness, as he expected the voyage to set him up. He had unfortunately taken a chill off Gibraltar: pneumonia had set in, and in his delirium he had constantly talked of his wife and child, and begged not to be buried at sea. The latter idea had been quite an obsession with him; almost the last words he spoke being "Not at sea--not at sea!" That had been two hours before the ship struck, and when they discovered there was no danger, it had seemed another curious coincidence to ensure poor Massingham's wish. But the whole affair was ...
Here Mr. Hirsch became quite unintelligible in his admixture of English and German.