The Adventure of the Cardboard Box Read Online Free Page B

dollar. My God, whoever would have
thought that it could have come to this? Whoever would have dreamed it?
    "'I used to be home for the week-ends very often, and sometimes if the
ship were held back for cargo I would have a whole week at a time, and
in this way I saw a deal of my sister-in-law, Sarah. She was a fine
tall woman, black and quick and fierce, with a proud way of carrying
her head, and a glint from her eye like a spark from a flint. But when
little Mary was there I had never a thought of her, and that I swear as
I hope for God's mercy.
    "'It had seemed to me sometimes that she liked to be alone with me, or
to coax me out for a walk with her, but I had never thought anything of
that. But one evening my eyes were opened. I had come up from the ship
and found my wife out, but Sarah at home. "Where's Mary?" I asked.
"Oh, she has gone to pay some accounts." I was impatient and paced up
and down the room. "Can't you be happy for five minutes without Mary,
Jim?" says she. "It's a bad compliment to me that you can't be
contented with my society for so short a time." "That's all right, my
lass," said I, putting out my hand towards her in a kindly way, but she
had it in both hers in an instant, and they burned as if they were in a
fever. I looked into her eyes and I read it all there. There was no
need for her to speak, nor for me either. I frowned and drew my hand
away. Then she stood by my side in silence for a bit, and then put up
her hand and patted me on the shoulder. "Steady old Jim!" said she,
and with a kind o' mocking laugh, she ran out of the room.
    "'Well, from that time Sarah hated me with her whole heart and soul,
and she is a woman who can hate, too. I was a fool to let her go on
biding with us—a besotted fool—but I never said a word to Mary, for I
knew it would grieve her. Things went on much as before, but after a
time I began to find that there was a bit of a change in Mary herself.
She had always been so trusting and so innocent, but now she became
queer and suspicious, wanting to know where I had been and what I had
been doing, and whom my letters were from, and what I had in my
pockets, and a thousand such follies. Day by day she grew queerer and
more irritable, and we had ceaseless rows about nothing. I was fairly
puzzled by it all. Sarah avoided me now, but she and Mary were just
inseparable. I can see now how she was plotting and scheming and
poisoning my wife's mind against me, but I was such a blind beetle that
I could not understand it at the time. Then I broke my blue ribbon and
began to drink again, but I think I should not have done it if Mary had
been the same as ever. She had some reason to be disgusted with me now,
and the gap between us began to be wider and wider. And then this Alec
Fairbairn chipped in, and things became a thousand times blacker.
    "'It was to see Sarah that he came to my house first, but soon it was
to see us, for he was a man with winning ways, and he made friends
wherever he went. He was a dashing, swaggering chap, smart and curled,
who had seen half the world and could talk of what he had seen. He was
good company, I won't deny it, and he had wonderful polite ways with
him for a sailor man, so that I think there must have been a time when
he knew more of the poop than the forecastle. For a month he was in
and out of my house, and never once did it cross my mind that harm
might come of his soft, tricky ways. And then at last something made
me suspect, and from that day my peace was gone forever.
    "'It was only a little thing, too. I had come into the parlour
unexpected, and as I walked in at the door I saw a light of welcome on
my wife's face. But as she saw who it was it faded again, and she
turned away with a look of disappointment. That was enough for me.
There was no one but Alec Fairbairn whose step she could have mistaken
for mine. If I could have seen him then I should have killed him, for
I have always been like a madman when my temper gets loose. Mary saw
the