When Carruthers Laughed

CONTENTS:-
1. When Carruthers Laughed
2. The Snake Farm
3. The Great Magor Diamond
4. The Broken Record
5. The Taming of Sydney Marsham
6. Dilemma
7. The Baronets of Mertonbridge Hall
8. Touch and Go
9. The Loyalty of Peter Drayton
10. The Madness of Charles Tranter
11. A Student of The Obvious
12. The Second Ride-

an excerpt from the first story:

1. WHEN CARRUTHERS LAUGHED

Henry St. John Carruthers was something of an enigma. Where he lived I have no idea, except that it was somewhere north of Oxford Street. But we were both members of the Junior Strand, which, as all the world knows, is not a club frequented largely by the clergy or the more respectable lights of the legal profession. It is a pot-house frank and unashamed, but withal a thoroughly amusing one.

It is not a large club, and the general atmosphere in the smoking-room is one of conviviality. Honesty compels me to admit that the majority of the members would not find favour in the eyes of a confirmed temperance fanatic, but since the reverse is even truer the point is not of great interest. Anyway, it was there that I first met Henry St. John Carruthers.

He was, I should imagine, about thirty-six years of age-neither good-looking nor ugly. Not that a man's looks matter, but I mention it en passant. He was sitting next to me after lunch, and we drifted into conversation about something or other. I didn't even know his name. I have entirely forgotten what we talked about. But what I do remember, as having impressed me during our talk, is his eyes. Not their size or colour, but their expression.

I sat on for a few minutes after he had gone trying to interpret that expression. It wasn't exactly bored: it certainly wasn't conceited-and yet it contained both those characteristics. A sort of contemptuous resignation most nearly expresses it: the look of a man who is saying to himself-'Merciful heavens! what am I doing in this galaxy?'

And yet, I repeat, there was very little conceit about it: it was too impersonal to be in the slightest degree offensive.

"Rum fellow that," said the man sitting on the other side of me, after he had gone. "You never seem to get any further with him."

It was then I learnt his name and the fact that he was in business in the City. "A square peg in a round hole if ever there was one," went on my informant. "From the little I know of him he'd be happier in the French Foreign Legion than sitting with his knees under a desk."


Genre: Mystery