ours
be putting phosphorous paste, or any of those patent rat poisons, into
Mr. Simpkins' food. She'll get herself into trouble if she does."

CHAPTER VI.

Meldon opened the door of Mr. Doyle's private sitting-room without
knocking and walked in. The hotel keeper and Dr. O'Donoghue were sitting
at opposite ends of the table, with a bottle of whisky and a jug of water
between them. Doyle, who was placed with his back to the door, spoke
without looking round.

"Didn't I tell you, Sabina Gallagher," he said, "that if you came into
this room, interrupting me and the doctor, I'd cut the two ears off you,
and send you back to your mother with them in a box in the well of the
car? Did I tell you that or did I not? And now nothing will do you but
to fling open the door as if the Lord-Lieutenant and the rest of them
playboys beyond in Dublin Castle was--"

The expression of Dr. O'Donoghue's face made Mr. Doyle pause. He turned
and saw Meldon standing on the threshold.

"Be damn!" he said, "if it isn't Mr. Meldon. The Major was telling me
last week he was expecting you. You're looking well, so you are.
England agrees with you."

"I can't say as much for you," said Meldon. "You're getting fat. You
ought to take more exercise. Why don't you start a golf links? It would
do you all the good in the world, and be an attraction to the hotel
besides."

"If I'm putting on flesh," said Doyle, "it's a queer thing, for the
life's fair tormented out of me."

"Simpkins, I suppose," said Meldon.

"The same," said Doyle. "The like of that man for making trouble in a
place I never seen; no, nor nobody else."

"I hear," said Meldon, "that the doctor's thinking of poisoning him."

"Whoever told you that told you a lie," said Dr. O'Donoghue; "not but
what--"

"Myself and the doctor," said Doyle, "was making up plans when you come
in on us. We was thinking of what you might call an ambuscade, worked so
as we'd get the better of him without his being able to take the law of
us; and he's mighty fond of the law, that same gentleman--too fond."

"If I can be of any help to you," said Meldon, "you can count on me. I
have a good deal of natural talent for ambuscades. Trot out the details
of your scheme, and I'll be able to tell you in two words whether it's
workable or not."

"They do say," said Doyle, "that he has the fishing let to an English
gentleman; and he's mighty particular about preserving it. Now the
doct