AND WHAT OF THE SECRET?
When Luke arrived at his uncle's house early the next morning, he was
met in the hall by Doctor Newington, who was descending the stairs and
who gravely beckoned to the young man to follow him into the library.
"They called me in last night," he said in reply to Luke's quick and
anxious query. "The butler--or whatever he may be--told me that he was
busy fastening up the front door preparatory to going to bed when he
heard a heavy thud proceeding from the library. He found his master
lying full length on the floor: the head had come in violent contact,
as he fell, with the corner of this table; blood was trickling from a
scalp wound, and Lord Radclyffe himself was apparently in a swoon. The
man is a regular coward and a fool besides. He left his master lying
just as he had fallen, but fortunately he knew me and knew where to
find me, and within ten minutes I was on the spot, and had got Lord
Radclyffe into bed."
"Is it," asked Luke, "anything serious?"
"Lord Radclyffe has not been over strong lately. He has had a great
deal to put up with, and at his age the system is not sufficiently
elastic or--how shall I put it?--sufficiently recuperative to stand
either constant nerve strain or nagging worries."
"I don't know," interposed Luke stiffly, "that my uncle has had either
nerve strain or worry to put up with."
"Oh," rejoined the doctor, whose gruff familiarity seemed to Luke's
sensitive ear to be tainted with the least possible note of
impertinence, "I am an old friend of your uncle, you know, and of all
your family; there isn't much that has escaped my observation during
the past year."
"You have not yet told me, doctor," said Luke, a shade more stiffly
than before, "what is the matter with Lord Radclyffe."
There was distinct emphasis on the last two words.
Doctor Newington shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly.
"Your uncle has had something in the nature of a stroke," he said
bluntly, and he fixed keen light-coloured eyes on those of Luke,
watching the effect which the news--baldly and crudely put--would have
on the young man's nerves. He was a man with what is known as a
fashionable practice. He lived in Hertford Street and his rounds were
encircled by the same boundaries as those of the rest of Mayfair. He
had had plenty of opportunity of studying those men and women who
compose the upper grades of English society. They and their perfect
_sang-froid_, their well-drilled calm under the most dire calamities,
or most unexpected blows had often caused him astonishment when he was
a younger man, fresh from hospital work, and from the haunts of
humbler folk, who had no cause or desire to hide the depth of their
feelings. Now he was used to his fashionable patients and had ceased
to wonder, and Luke's impassiveness on hearing of his uncle's sudden
illness did not necessarily strike him as indifference.
"Is it serious?" asked Luke.
"Serious. Of course," assented the doctor.
"Do you mean that Lord Radclyffe's life is in danger?"
"At sixty years of age, life is always in danger."
"I don't mean that," rejoined Luke with a slight show of impatience.
"Is Lord Radclyffe in immediate danger?"
"No. With great care and constant nursing, he may soon rally, though I
doubt if he will ever be as strong and hearty as he was this time last
year."
"Then what about a nurse?"
"I'll send one down to-day, but----"
"Yes?"
"Lord Radclyffe's present household is--well, hardly adequate to the
exigencies of a long and serious illness--he ought to have a day and a
night nurse. I can send both, but they will want some waiting on and
of course proper meals and ordinary comforts----"
"I can see to all that. Thank you for your advice."
"A good and reliable cook is also necessary--who understands invalid
cooking--all that is most important."
"And shall be attended to at once. Is there anything else?"
"Perfect rest and quiet of course are the chief things."
"I shan't worry him, you may be sure, and no one else is likely to
come near him."
"Except the police," remarked the doctor dryly.
"The police?"
The grave events of the night before, and those that were ready to
follow one another in grim array for the next few days had almost fled
from Luke's memory in face of the other--to him more
serious--calamity--his uncle's illness.
"Oh! Ah, yes!" he said vaguely. "I had forgotten."
"The nurses," rejoined the doctor with a pompousness which somehow
irritated Luke, "will have my authorization to forbid any one having
access to Lord Radclyffe for the present. I will write out the
certificate now, and this you can present to any one who may show a
desire to exercise official authority in the matter of interviewing my
patient."
"I daresay that I can do all that is necessary at the inquest and so
on--Lord Radclyffe need not be worried."
"He mustn't be worried. To begin with he would not know any one, and
he is wholly unable to answer questions."
"That settles the matter of course. So, if you will write the
necessary certificate, I'll see the police authorities at once on the
subject. Would Lord Radclyffe know me, do you think?" added the young
man after a slight pause of hesitancy.
"Well," replied the doctor evasively, "I don't think I would worry him
to-day. We'll see how he gets on."
"He'll probably ask for me."
"That is another matter, and if he does, you must of course see him.
But unless there is a marked improvement during the day, he won't ask
for any one."
Luke was silent a moment or two while the doctor sat down at the
writing table and sought for pen and ink.
"Very well," he said after awhile, "we'll leave it at that. Lord
Radclyffe--I can promise you this--shall on no account be disturbed
without permission from you. How soon will the nurse arrive?"
"Within the hour. The night nurse will come after tea."
Doctor Newington wrote out and signed the usual medical certificate to
the effect that Lord Radclyffe's state of health demanded perfect
quietude and rest and that he was unable to see any one or to answer
any questions. He read his own writing through very carefully, then
folded the paper in half and handed it to Luke.
"This," he said, "will make everything all right. And I'll call again
in a couple of hours' time. You won't forget the cook?"
"No, I won't forget the cook."
When the doctor had taken his leave, Luke stood for a moment quietly
in the library: he folded up the medical certificate which he had
received at the hands of Doctor Newington, and carefully put it away
in his pocket-book.
"You won't forget the cook?"
I don't think that ever in his life before had Luke realized the
trivialities of life as he did at this moment. Remember that he was
quite man of the world enough, quite sufficiently sensible and shrewd
and English, to have noticed that the degree of familiarity in the
doctor's manner had passed the borderland of what was due to himself;
the tone of contemptuous indifference savoured of impertinence. And
there was something more than that.
Last night when Luke wandered up and down outside the brilliantly
lighted windows of the Danish Legation, trying to catch a few muffled
sounds of the voice he so passionately loved to hear, he heard the
first rumours that an awful crime had been committed which, for good
or ill, would have such far-reaching bearings on his own future; but
he had also caught many hints, vague suggestions full of hidden
allusions, of which the burden was: "Seek whom the crime benefits."
Luke de Mountford was no fool. Men of his stamp--we are accustomed to
call them commonplace--take a very straight outlook on life. They are
not hampered by the psychological problems which affect the moral
balance of a certain class of people of to-day; they have no sexual
problems to solve. Theirs is a steady, wholesome, and clean life, and
the mirrors of nature have not been blurred by the breath of
psychologists.
Luke had never troubled his head about his neighbour's wife, about his
horse, or his ass, or anything that is his; therefore his vision about
the neighbour himself had remained acute.
Although I must admit that at this stage the thought that he might
actually be accused of a low and sordid crime never seriously entered
his head, he nevertheless felt that suspicion hovered round him, that
some people at any rate held it possible that since he would benefit
by the crime, he might quite well have contemplated it.
The man Travers thought so certainly; the doctor did not deem it
impossible--and, of course, there would be others.
No wonder that he stood and mused. Once more the aspect of life had
changed for him. He was back in that position from which the advent of
the unknown cousin had ousted him so easily--the cousin who had come,
had seen, and had conquered the one thing needful--the confidence and
help of Uncle Rad.
By what means he had succeeded in doing that had been the great
mystery which had racked Luke's mind ever since he felt his uncle's
affection slipping away from him.
Uncle Rad who had loudly denounced the man as an impostor and a
blackmailer before he set eyes on him, was ready to give him love and
confidence the moment he saw him: and Luke was discarded like an old
coat that no longer fitted. The affection of years was turned to
indifference; and what meant more still the habits of a lifetime were
changed. Lord Radclyffe, tyrannical and didactic, became a nonentity
in his own household. The grand seigneur, imbued with every instinct
of luxury and refinement, became a snuffy old hermit, uncared for, not
properly waited on, feeding badly, and living in one room.
All this Philip de Mountford had accomplished entirely by his mere
presence. The waving of a wand--a devil's wand--and the metamorphosis
was complete! What magic was there in the man himself? What in the
tale which he told? What subtle charm did he wield, that the news of
his terrible death should strike the old man down as some withered old
tree robbed of its support?
Now he lay dead, murdered, only God knew as yet by whom. People
suspected Luke, because Fate had given a fresh turn to her wheel and
reinstated him in the pleasing position from which the intruder had
ousted him.
Luke de Mountford was once more heir presumptive to the earldom of
Radclyffe, and the stranger had taken the secret of his success with
him to the grave.