him as a courtroom; there I would hear the magistrate’s return; there I could read without fear of interruption by Clarissa. I browsed through the Latin grammar and found it not near so difficult as I had expected; I resolved to buy one like it as soon as we got back to London. I put it aside and picked up
It was Molly Sarton who woke me. She came blustering in, table linen in hand, and began preparing the deal table for dining, the one at which her husband had sat during his morning court session. She looked across the room at me and chuckled.
“Ah, so this is where you went to hide!” said she.
“I wasn’t hiding, I was reading,” said I quite defensively. Then I added, ”Is it late?”
“Late enough. We’ll be eating soon as Clarissa and I can get things on the table. Should be about a quarter of an hour, or not much longer.”
“May I help?”
“You can help by going upstairs and attending to Sir John. He’s been making waking-up noises for the past five minutes, and it’s time somebody looked in on him.”
And I, of course, was that somebody. I ascended to the floor above and had no difficulty in finding which of the two rooms he had situated himself in. It was the door from which issued a medley of coughs and throat- clearing sounds. I opened it and found that he was having his usual difficulty finding his way into his coat. He signaled for his kerchief, which had fallen to the floor. Once he had it in hand, he blew his nose, sneezed, blew his nose again, and thanked me.
It was not long before we were both ready to sup in polite society. I guided Sir John through the door and down the stairs, and then into the courtroom where all but Mrs. Sarton awaited us. Mr. Sarton was engaged in reducing a magnificent haunch of beef to portions of slices, chunks, and chips. Indeed, he had carved so much from it that it was evident he had great confidence in the capacity of his guests. Clarissa looked across the table at me with something akin to fright. At about that time, Mrs. Sarton came into the room, beautifully dressed, her hair nicely coifed with no more than touches of rouge upon her lips and cheeks. She had transformed herself completely.
“Oh, Berty,” said she, ”that’s quite enough, I think.”
“I’m never quite sure. After all, there are five of us.”
“No, that will be fine for the time being. Just dish out the pudding, and serve the wine, and we’ll be underway.”
With that, she smiled and took her place at the foot of the table, whence she presided over the carrots, sauce, and all those condiments and additional pleasures that can make a good meal into a great one.
Reader, I know not how you stand on matters of cookery. There are some, it is true, who hold that the French cooking is the best in all the world. We had had a fair sample of it the past two evenings, with its plenitude of small courses, wines with each, subtly spiced sauces with all. And I admit that I thought the strangeness of it quite grand.
Nevertheless, to my mind there is naught that can compare with a good English dinner for hearty flavor, abundance, and pure satisfaction. Be it beef, mutton, pork, or whatever, when cooked to perfection in the English manner, it cannot be equaled. And there could be no question but that Molly Sarton cooked that haunch of beef to perfection. Sir John and I asked so often for more that Mr. Sarton had unexpectedly to carve a bit more. And the Yorkshire pudding was as I had never had it-crisp and buttery, and subtle to the taste. There was but one wine, an excellent claret, yet it was abundantly available-bottles of the best. We were silent through the main course, so absorbed were we in the eating of it. We sighed contentedly through dessert (a fine apple tart), and only when the plate of cheese was brought out did we begin to talk in our usual voluble manner. The Sartons were eager to draw us out, and they questioned Clarissa and me direct on our tour of their town. Mr. Sarton gave forth on the history of Deal Castle; and afterward, I asked him rather pointedly about the shipwreck which was mired in the ocean sands just off the beach and not far from this very house: Did he know how long it had been there? What were the circumstances that had put it there? He had no real information to give, but the odd look that he gave me told me what I wished to know: owlers.
There was an awkward lull thereafter. Sir John saved the moment, however, by putting to Mr. Sarton a question, one which had troubled me as well.
“Sir,” said he, ”I’ve noted that you and your wife are very careful to whom you open your front door. Understand me, I believe you both act prudently in this. Nevertheless, is it not difficult to manage such a degree of security when your court is in session?”
“Ah, well,” said Mr. Sarton, ”there you’ve put your finger upon it, sir. Our house must be more or less open to the public during court hours. If it were left to us, we would keep the door locked and bolted during those hours, as well. As you may have heard, Sir John, our town jail burned down some months past-with no loss of life, I hasten to add. So far, they have not yet found the money to build another. When they do, I requested that they build it large enough so that the court may be convened there next to the cells with perhaps no more than a wall between.”
“We have a similar arrangement on the ground floor at Number 4 Bow Street.”
“The problem will be solved then,” said Mr. Sarton. ”We can keep our place in Middle Street locked up just as tight as a drum.”
“Why do you feel it necessary to do so?”
“I should think that would be obvious. It’s because of what happened to my predecessor.”
”Oh? What was that?”
“You were never told?”
“Not a word. I assumed he had died of natural causes. He was of an advanced age, was he not?”
“Sixty-four. Since you were not told of any of this, you may not even know his name. It was Herbert Kemp. He held the post here for many years, married, had children, brought them up in this very house. His wife had died a few years before, and he lived alone here. A woman from town came in each day to do the cooking and cleaning. Aside from a peculiar tendency to be more stringent in his application of the law in his rulings, he seemed not to have changed in any way from the man who had been magistrate for so many years before.
“Nevertheless, on a certain night, long after the hour when there were possible witnesses roaming about the streets, a knock came upon his door and he opened it, and he was promptly shot dead by him who had knocked. That, in any case, was what was later supposed to have happened, for there were none about to see what had happened, and naught left by the murderer but a body in the open doorway, which was not found until the morning. Strange, is it not, that these houses be so close together, yet none heard the shot fired. Or, having heard, came down to investigate.”
Sir John shook his head in a manner which seemed to indicate his bewilderment. ”And despite all that, you accepted this post?”
“Despite all that,” said he.
“Were I you, I do not believe I would have done.”
“And that’s just what I told him, as well,” said Molly Sarton. ”Yet if he had not come, we wouldn’t’ve met, and my life would have been much poorer for it.” And she smiled solemnly at her husband across the length of the table.
Following Mr. Sarton’s story, it became rather difficult to recapture our former mood at table. All the lightness had leaked out. It was not long before Sir John shuffled his feet politely and said that perhaps we had better be getting on.
“I’ve provided for your trip back,” said Mr. Sarton.
“Oh? And in what way?”
“We’ve a most dependable hackney coachman here in Deal, perhaps the only
