THE MAN WITH THE DARK BEARD (Murder Mystery Classic). Annie Haynes

      Chapter I

       Table of Contents

      "The fact of the matter is you want a holiday, old chap."

      Felix Skrine lay back in his easy chair and puffed at his cigar.

      "I don't need a holiday at all," his friend contradicted shortly. "It would do me no good. What I want is—"

      "Physician, heal thyself," Skrine quoted lazily. "My dear John, you have been off colour for months. Why can't you take expert advice—Gordon Menzies, for instance? You sent old Wildman to him last session and he put him right in no time."

      "Gordon Menzies could do nothing for me," said John Bastow. "There is no cure for mental worry."

      Felix Skrine made no rejoinder. There was an absent look in his blue eyes, as, tilting his head back, he watched the thin spiral of smoke curling upwards.

      The two men, Sir Felix Skrine, K.C., and Dr. John Bastow, the busy doctor, had been friends from boyhood, though in later life their paths had lain far apart.

      Skrine's brilliance had made its mark at school and college. A great career had been prophesied for him, and no one had been surprised at his phenomenal success at the Bar. The youngest counsel who had ever taken silk, his name was freely spoken of as certain to be in the list for the next Cabinet, and his knighthood was only looked upon as the prelude to further recognition. His work lay principally among the criminal classes; he had defended in all the big cases in his earlier days, and nowadays was dreaded by the man in the dock as no other K.C. of his time had been.

      Dr. John Bastow, on the other hand, had been more distinguished at college for a certain dogged, plodding industry than for brilliance. Perhaps it was this very unlikeness that had made and kept the two men friends in spite of the different lines on which their lives had developed.

      John Bastow still remained in the old-fashioned house in which he had been born, in which his father had worked and struggled, and finally prospered.

      Sometimes Bastow had dreamed of Wimpole Street or Harley Street, but his dreams had never materialized. Latterly, he had taken up research work, and papers bearing his signature were becoming fairly frequent in the Medical Journals. Like his friend, Felix Skrine, he had married early. Unlike Bastow, however, Skrine was a childless widower. He had married a wife whose wealth had been of material assistance in his career. Later on she had become a confirmed invalid, but Skrine had remained the most devoted of husbands; and, since her death a couple of years ago, there had been no rumour of a second Lady Skrine.

      In appearance the two friends presented a remarkable contrast. Bastow was rather beneath middle height, and broad, with square shoulders; his clean-shaven face was very dark, with thick, rugged brows and large, rough-hewn features. His deep-set eyes were usually hidden by glasses. Skrine was tall and good-looking—the Adonis of the Bar he had been called—but his handsome, ascetic-looking face was almost monk-like in its severity. Many a criminal had felt that there was not a touch of pity in the brilliantly blue eyes, the firmly-closed mouth. Nevertheless the mouth could smile in an almost boyish fashion, the blue eyes could melt into tenderness, as Dr. John Bastow and his motherless children very well knew.

      The two men smoked on in silence for some time now.

      John Bastow sat huddled up in his chair, his rather large head bent down upon his chest, his eyes mechanically watching the tiny flames spring up and then flicker down in the fire that was burning on the hearth.

      From time to time Skrine glanced across at him, the sympathetic curiosity in his eyes deepening. At last he spoke:

      "John, old chap, what's wrong? Get it off your chest, whatever it is!"

      John Bastow did not raise his head or his eyes. "I wish to Heaven I could."

      "Then there is something wrong," Skrine said quickly. "I have thought several times