Mrs. Beauchamp smiled indulgently, and straightway forgot the momentary qualm of uneasiness called up by the half-tone of irritation in her son's reply to her questions about the inquest. Like the fond match-making mother she was, she had immediately jumped to the conclusion that her first diagnosis had been wrong, and that the boy's wool-gathering was really due to the sprightly maiden whose knock was even now resounding on the front door. For the Admiral's widow, with happy memories of her own gallant husband to egg her on, had woven all sorts of fairy visions round the two young people who were now meeting on her doorstep. She approved of the lively Enid, was the devoted friend of her blind mother, and had the most profound respect for Mr. Vernon Mallory himself.
"It is as it should be; they are outgrowing the old playmate stage, and are honestly falling in love with each other," the good lady murmured as she caught a glimpse through the venetians of the pair strolling side by side across the dewy little lawn.
For, with set purpose, Reggie had not invited Enid into the house, but had suggested that they should betake themselves to a garden seat under the branches of a great horse-chestnut that grew in the boundary hedge. Mrs. Beauchamp, however, would have heard no lover-like phrases could she have listened to their matter-of-fact conversation.
"Well, have you decided what it is best for us to do?" said the girl, as soon as they were seated.
"For goodness sake don't screech like that," Reggie reproved her, with an apprehensive glance at the thick privet hedge that separated his mother's premises from those next door. "That beast Lowch is probably on the prowl over there, listening for all he's worth."
"That's where you're wrong," retorted Enid promptly, but, nevertheless, lowering her voice. "As I came up the street Mr. Lowch was up to his old game—walking up and down in front of the police station so as to get spotted for the jury by the sergeant."
Mr. Lazarus Lowch, Mrs. Beauchamp's nearest neighbour, was one of those freaks of humanity intended by an all-wise Providence to be as a thorn in the flesh of his fellow-men. His one idea of enjoying life was to creep about endeavouring to catch people doing wrong. He was known to carry a stop-watch for timing the speed of motor cars; he spent hours in "shadowing" small boys whom he hoped to detect stealing apples; he followed the municipal labourers about to see that they did not scamp their work; he had a finger in every one's pie, always with the intention of spoiling it; he was never really happy, but his nearest approach to the beatific state was when he was doing his level best to make some one else miserable.
A lean, cadaverous, lantern-jawed creature, more resembling the galvanized corpse of a dyspeptic ourang-outang than a man, he stalked the earth full of petty guile and mischief. His origin and reason for settling in the place were veiled in obscurity, though naturally there were many legends on the subject. Equally of course, he was not a favourite locally, and he would have been sorry to have it so. A man whose hand is raised against everybody neither courts nor expects popularity.
One of the eccentricities of this peculiar being was a morbid love of anything pertaining to the realm of the King of Terrors. He doted on funerals, and was always present at the cemetery when these solemn functions were being performed. Though somewhat stiff in the joints, he would run a mile to see a drowned man taken out of the sea; he had been heard to lament the fact that murderers were not hanged in public nowadays, and that he was consequently deprived of a spectacle that would have been as meat and drink to a starving man.
But his great opportunity came whenever it was necessary to hold an inquest in the bright little resort. On these occasions he would thrust himself under the notice of the police with a view to getting summoned on the jury, and, as it saved trouble, his tactics were always successful. Moreover, since he occupied a superior social position to the general ruck of jurymen he was invariably chosen foreman, with the result that he reaped a double joy—that of viewing the corpse and of making himself disagreeable to every one concerned.