Free The Bath Mysteries by E.R. Punshon Page B

“But you can’t over-drink, because if you do you simply cease to drink and begin to swill. No drunkard can appreciate good wine. But dull food – ginger beer and cold mutton – that’s fatal, too. Kills your interest in life. Good food well cooked – it needn’t be expensive – and good wine – it must be expensive, unfortunately. Make those your slogans and live to be a hundred.” With his conjuring-trick air he flashed his watch from his pocket and back again. “Hope this Lawrence chap is not going to be much longer,” he said. “I suppose they do a big business here, but I’ve another engagement as well. Generally I deal with my regular brokers – most respectable firm; their notion of a flutter is a wild plunge in Consols. So when I want a fling in gold mines I come here. My own man hardly knows gold mines exist. Generally I only risk two or three hundred, but this time I’ve a surprise for these people.”
    â€œIndeed,” said Bobby.
    â€œTwenty thousand,” said Beale; and Bobby looked up quickly, wondering a little at the largeness of the sum, and guessing that perhaps it was a natural excitement over a prospective deal on so large a scale that was making his companion so talkative.
    For the doctor of philosophy did not strike him as being of a type likely to chatter so freely in the general way.
    â€œTwenty thousand,” Beale repeated now, rolling the words on his tongue as if to get the full flavour of their meaning. “Gilt-edged securities yield too low. What does a capital of £20,000 bring in today? Five or six hundred if you’re lucky. And if a woman’s been used to spending a hundred a month – well, it can’t be done, can it?”
    â€œNo,” agreed Bobby, “only there’s always the question of risk.”
    â€œOh, I’ve drawn up a perfectly sound, safe list,” declared the philosopher; and suddenly, Bobby hardly saw how, he was seated again in another of the armchairs with a bundle of papers on his knees. “Jolly good,” he said complacently, “only, of course, my old stick of a broker can’t understand. So I’m going to see what these people think of it. It’s a lady I’m acting for. I’m her trustee. She’s a widow, poor soul, and lost her only son very tragically some time ago.”
    â€œIndeed,” murmured Bobby, beginning to be a little bored by such a stream of confidential reminiscence.
    â€œFound dead in his bath,” added Dr. Beale, and Bobby’s heart nearly stopped with fear and wonder and excitement.
    Dr. Beale was silent then. He was slowly turning over the papers on his knee, but less as if interested in them than as if oppressed by memory of this tragedy he had referred to. Bobby said presently, as indifferently as he could:
    â€œWas that recently?”
    â€œOh, no, two or three years ago,” Dr. Beale answered. “Three years to be exact. Very sad affair altogether. Most tragic. The poor woman’s only son, and making a big name for himself in the City. A financial genius. She misses the liberal allowance he used to make her, too. It stopped with his death.”
    â€œDidn’t he leave anything?” Bobby asked.
    â€œNot a penny,” Beale answered. “Liabilities, in fact. Very sad affair – it happened on the Continent, no one could explain how. He was found dead in his bath in a furnished villa he had taken for holidays. They thought he fainted and his head went under the water. He had a number of big schemes in hand, and he had probably been overworking. Of course, everything collapsed with his death. I can tell you I’ve been very careful ever since never to fill my bath too full.”
    â€œWasn’t he insured?” Bobby asked.
    â€œOh, heavily – £20,000, I believe, including £1,000 on a coupon from a diary they wouldn’t pay because it happened out of