The Middle of Things | Page 3

forgeries,
what about old Barrett, who was the great man at Pumpney, when your
mother and I were girls there? That was a fine case of crime going on
for years and years and years, undetected--aye, and not even
suspected!"
"What was it?" asked Viner, who had begun by being amused and was
now becoming interested. "Who was Barrett?"
"If you'd known Pumpney when we lived there," replied Miss

Penkridge, "you wouldn't have had to ask twice who Mr. Samuel
Barrett was. He was everybody. He was everything--except honest. But
nobody knew that--until it was too late. He was a solicitor by
profession, but that was a mere nothing--in comparison. He was chief
spirit in the place. I don't know how many times he wasn't mayor of
Pumpney. He held all sorts of offices. He was a big man at the parish
church--vicar's warden, and all that. And he was trustee for half the
moneyed people in the town--everybody wanted Samuel Barrett, for
trustee or executor; he was such a solid, respectable, square-toed man,
the personification of integrity. And he died, suddenly, and then it was
found that he'd led a double life, and had an establishment here in
London, and was a gambler and a speculator, and Heaven knows what,
and all the money that had been intrusted to him was nowhere, and he'd
systematically forged, and cooked accounts, and embezzled corporation
money--and he'd no doubt have gone on doing it for many a year longer
if he hadn't had a stroke of apoplexy. And that wasn't in a novel!"
concluded Miss Penkridge triumphantly. "Novels--Improbability--pooh!
Judged by what some people can tell of life, the novel that's improbable
hasn't yet been written!"
"Well!" remarked Viner after a pause, "I dare say you're right, Aunt
Bethia. Only, you see, I haven't come across the things in life that you
read about in novels."
"You may yet," replied Miss Penkridge. "But when anybody says to me
of a novel that it's impossible and far-fetched and so on, I'm always
inclined to remind him of the old adage. For you can take it from me,
Richard, that truth is stranger than fiction, and that life's full of queer
things. Only, as you say, we don't all come across the strange things."
The silvery chime of the clock on the mantelpiece caused Miss
Penkridge, at this point, to bring her work and her words to a summary
conclusion. Hurrying her knitting into the hand-bag which she carried
at her belt, she rose, kissed her nephew and departed bedward; while
Viner, after refilling his pipe, proceeded to carry out another nightly
proceeding which had become a habit. Every night, throughout the year,
he always went for a walk before going to bed. And now, getting into

an overcoat and pulling a soft cap over his head, he let himself out of
the house, and crossing the square, turned down a side-street and
marched slowly in the direction of the Bayswater Road.
November though it was the night was fine and clear, and there was a
half-moon in the heavens; also there was rather more than a suspicion
of frost in the air, and the stars, accordingly, wore a more brilliant
appearance. To one who loved night strolling, as Viner did, this was
indeed an ideal night for the time of year; and on this occasion,
therefore, he went further than usual going along Bayswater Road as
far as Notting Hill Gate, and thence returning through the various
streets and terraces which lay between Pembridge Gardens and
Markendale Square. And while he strolled along, smoking his pipe,
watching the twinkling lights of passing vehicles and enjoying the
touch of frost, he was thinking, in a half-cynical, half-amused way, of
his Aunt Bethia's taste for the sensational fiction and of her evidently
sincere conviction that there were much stranger things in real life than
could be found between the covers of any novel.
"Those were certainly two very odd instances which she gave me," he
mused, "those of the prosperous banker and the pretty bride. In the first,
how on earth did the man contrive to get away unobserved from a town
in which, presumably, every soul knew him? Why did he go? Did he go?
Is his body lying at the bottom of some hole by some roadside? Was he
murdered in broad daylight on a public road? Did he lose his reason or
his memory, and wander away and away? I think, as my aunt sagely
remarked, that nobody is ever going to find anything about that affair!
Then my Lady Marshflower--there's a fine mystery! Who was the man?
What did she know about him? Where had they met? Had they ever
met? Why did he shoot her? How on earth did he contrive to disappear