“You wish to know more? Betty says she cannot face a life of idleness. Knowing that Miss June is no great shakes as a housekeeper, she has asked to be allowed to live with her after her forthcoming marriage and attempt to keep the place tidy.”
“Oh, Mr. Sidney, you know very well I never said any such thing,” Betty interjected. “I’m sure Miss June will be a splendid manager once she knows the ropes, as they say, but I should feel awfully lost to be cut adrift like in my old age.”
“But you will never be cut adrift, Betty,” Sidney said. “You’ve won your spurs. We all love you. And I believe that is the complete story.”
Sidney sat down in a profound silence, which was presently broken by Mrs. Beattie.
“I have one thing to add, Mr. Grant,” she said. “I owe you a personal debt which I should like to acknowledge here and now, publicly, damaging as it is to my pride. But then I know that my pride has been a factor in all that has gone wrong and to humble it is beneficial. After my dear husband’s death, I had a secret sorrow, which I might have carried to my grave. When Charles was near death, he recovered his speech for a few moments when I was alone with him. He turned and looked at me, and said, fairly clearly: ‘Minerva.’ I was shocked. I said ‘What is that dear?’ He said ‘Minerva? What is Minerva doing?’ I could think of nothing to say. I was deeply hurt. He closed his eyes and never opened them. Those were the last words that he spoke.
“I know that when the late King Edward VII, to whom I was presented at Court, lay dying, Queen Alexandra led one of his mistresses to his bedside to say her farewell. I know that I, myself, am incapable of such ‘civilized’ behavior. I was wounded to think that, in his dying moments, my Charles was thinking of an old flame—or even of—but no, I won’t say it. You, Mr. Grant, among the other things you have done, have lifted this burden from my heart.”
Sidney was appalled to see her daubing her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.
“Very glad I was able to,” he mumbled.
But June, who left the room hurriedly at about that point, didn’t recover her composure nearly as quickly as the old lady recovered hers. Even after she and Sidney left the house she was still in stitches.
“Oh, Gargoyle, darling,” she said, sitting down on an old hitching block at the edge of the Rosedale pavement, “isn’t it too gorgeous? Toronto is the only town on earth where a man could be unfaithful to his wife with a mining stock!”
“But remember,” Sidney said, “most of the mining stocks are priced to suit the little man’s purse.”
June sat on the hitching block and laughed and laughed and laughed.
For more Sidney and June, read John Norman Harris’s Hair of the Dog, now available everywhere. For more about Felony & Mayhem and our catalog of vintage and contemporary titles please visit our website:
FelonyAndMayhem.com
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.
THE WEIRD WORLD OF WES BEATTIE
A Felony & Mayhem mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First Canadian print edition (Macmillan of Canada): 1963
First US print edition (Harper & Row): 1963
First Felony & Mayhem print edition: 2006
Felony & Mayhem digital edition: 2018
Copyright © 1963 by John Norman Harris
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63194-136-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Harris, John Norman, 1915-1964, author.
Title: The weird world of Wes Beattie / John Norman Harris.
Description: New York : Felony & Mayhem Press, 2018. | “First Canadian edition (Macmillan of Canada): 1963; First US edition (Harper & Row): 1963; First Felony & Mayhem edition: 2006; Second Felony & Mayhem: edition 2018” -- Verso title page. | A reissue of an edition published first in 1963 and reissued in 2006.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060955| ISBN 9781631941351 (trade pbk.) | ISBN 9781631941368 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sons--Fiction. | Murder--Fiction. | Belief and doubt--Fiction. | Trials (Murder)--Fiction. | Truth--Fiction. | Toronto (Ont.)--Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Legal stories g
Classification: LCC PR9199.3.H345965 W45 2018 | DDC 813/.54--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017060955
The Weird World of Wes Beattie Page 22