Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/96

 great husky sea voice, as he drew the smoke deliberately through the long clay stem and volleyed it back from his set mouth in blue battle clouds across the table, "we have met here to discuss, as Sir Antony Cobtree has already said better than I ever could, the sad and sudden death of Doctor Sennacherib Pepper, killed violently last night on Romney Marsh. The form of this inquiry I leave to the lawyers whose business it is, but before they get busy I've got a few things bottled up that I must and will say. I don't possess the knack of a crafty tongue myself, I've the reputation among my colleagues of being the most tactless man in the service; but I've also a reputation as a fighter, and when I do fight, it's a hard fight—a straightforward, open fight. So what I've got to say will like enough cause offence to every man in this room from Sir Antony Cobtree downward. I'm no good at strategy; as I say, I fight open; and when I think things—well, I can't bottle them up; I say 'em out bluntly at the risk of offence. So here it is: I don't like this business—this Doctor Pepper business" The captain here paused to roll a large volume of smoke across the room.

The squire took advantage of the pause and said: "If that's all it is, Captain, come now—which of us do?"

The captain thought a moment and added: "If the party or parties who committed the crime didn't like it, why, in thunder's name, did they do it?"