Edgar Wallace: The Yellow Snake

Eight months later, Mr Joe Bray brought a bride to his quaint house on the hills above Siangtan. In the marriage register he had been described as ‘Joseph Henry Bray, bachelor,

“And I might tell you,” said Clifford ominously, “that men have got penal servitude in this country for making false statements on their marriage certificates.”

To his orphaned bride Joe suggested a cause for Clifford Lynne’s implacable hostility.

“Me being so young makes him look old,” he suggested; and Mabel was in complete agreement, for she had spent that particular morning in the Rue de la Paix and had gathered to herself many wonderful possessions that only a millionaire can bestow upon his wife.

“The difference,” said Joe complacently, as he drew through a straw the luscious drink with which a waiter (privately instructed) had provided him—“the difference between our marriage and his is this, Mabel: ours is a love match, and his is, so to speak—well–-“

“He would never have married Joan but you told him to,” said Mabel scornfully. “I hope Joan will be happy. I have my doubts, but I hope she will be.”

Mabel went to Siangtan, and had a reception from the European inhabitants of that noble town that was due to one who bore a family relationship with the Concession. And, curiously enough, she liked Siangtan, for it is better to be a great person in a small place than a nobody in Sunningdale.

One day there came to them a letter from Joan which suggested that the unhappiness of marriage was an experience to be indefinitely postponed. Mabel read the letter and sniffed, not uncharitably.

“‘Carrying on the line’? What does she mean by that?” she asked, having her suspicions.

Joe coughed and explained.

“That was my idea too,” he said modestly.

THE END