IT WOULD NOT DO, YOU KNOW
Since Lord Radclyffe was too ill to attend to anything, or to see any
one, it devolved upon Luke to make what arrangements he thought
fitting for the lying in state and the subsequent obsequies of the
murdered man. For the present, Philip de Mountford lay in the gloomy
mortuary chamber of the Victoria police court. Luke had sent over
massive silver candelabra, flowers and palms and all the paraphernalia
pertaining to luxurious death.
The dead man lay--not neglected--only unwatched and alone, surrounded
by all the evidences of that wealth which he had come a very long way
to seek, but which Fate and a murderer's hand had snatched with
appalling suddenness from him.
And in the private sitting room at the Langham, Louisa Harris sat
opposite her father at breakfast, a pile of morning papers beside her
plate, she herself silent and absorbed.
"That's a queer tale," Colonel Harris was saying, "the papers tell
about that murder in Brussels a year ago--though I must say that to my
mind there appears some truth in what they say. What do you think,
Louisa?"
"I hardly know," she replied absently, "what to think."
"The details of that crime, which was committed about a year ago, are
exactly the same as those which relate to this infernal business of
last night."
"Are they really?"
No one could have said--and Louisa herself least of all--why she was
unwilling to speak on that subject. She had never told her father, or
any one for a matter of that, except----that she had been so near to
the actual scene of that mysterious crime in Brussels, and that she
had known its every detail.
"And I must say," reiterated Colonel Harris emphatically, "that I
agree with the leading article in the _Times_. One crime begets
another. If that hooligan--or whatever he was--in Brussels had not
invented this new and dastardly way of murdering a man in a cab and
then making himself scarce and sending the cab spinning on its way, no
doubt Philip de Mountford would be alive now. Not that that would be a
matter for great rejoicings. Still a crime is a crime, and if we were
going to allow blackguards to be murdered all over the place by other
blackguards, where would law and order be?"
He was talking more loudly and volubly than was his wont, and he took
almost ostentatiously quantities of food on his plate, which it was
quite obvious he never meant to eat. He also steadily avoided meeting
his daughter's eyes. But at this juncture she put both elbows on the
table, rested her chin in her hands, and looked straight across at her
father.
"It's no use, dear," she said simply.
"No use what?" he queried with ungrammatical directness.
"No use your pretending to talk at random and to be eating a hearty
breakfast, when your thoughts are just as much absorbed as mine are."
"Hm!" he grunted evasively, but was glad enough to push aside the
plateful of eggs and bacon which, indeed, he had no desire to eat.
"You have," she continued gently, "read all the papers, just as I
have, and you know as well as I do what to read between the lines when
they talk of 'clues' and of 'certain sensational developments.'"
"Of course I do," he retorted gruffly, "but it's all nonsense."
"Of course it is. But worrying nevertheless."
"I don't see how such rubbish can worry you."
"Not," she said, "for myself. But for Luke. He must have got an
inkling by now of what is going on."
"Of course he has. And if he has a grain of sense he'll treat it with
the contempt it deserves."
"It's all very well, father. But just think for a moment. Place
yourself in Luke's position. The very idea that you might be suspected
must in itself be terrible."
"Not when you are innocent," he rejoined with the absolute certitude
of a man who has never been called upon to face any really serious
problem in life. "I shouldn't care what the rabble said about me, if I
had a clear conscience."
Louisa was silent for a moment or two, then she said:
"Luke is different somehow. He has been different lately."
"He has a lot to put up with, with old Radclyffe going off his head in
that ridiculous way."
But Louisa did not reply to that suggestion. She knew well enough
that it was neither Lord Radclyffe's unkindness, nor the arrogance of
the new cousin that had changed and softened Luke's entire nature.
The day that he had sat beside her on the stain at Lady Ducies' ball,
the completeness of the change had been fully borne in on her. When
Luke said to her: "I would give all I have in the world to lie on the
ground before you and to kiss the soles of your feet," she knew that
Love had wrought its usual exquisite miracle, the absorption of self
by another, the utter sinking of the ego before the high altar of the
loved one. She knew all that, but dear old Colonel Harris had
forgotten--perhaps he had never known.
That knowledge comes to so few nowadays. Life, psychology, and sexual
problems have taken the place of the divine lesson which has glorified
the world since the birth of Lilith.
All that Louisa now remarked to her kind and sensible father was----
"You know, dear, suspicion has killed a man before now. It was but a
very little while ago that a noble-hearted gentleman preferred death
to such dishonour."
"You've got your head," he retorted, "full of nonsense, Lou. Try and
be a sensible woman now, and think of it all quietly. Is there
anything you would like me to do, for instance?"
"Yes, if you will."
"What is it?"
"Couldn't you see Uncle Ryder?"
"At Scotland Yard, you mean?"
"He is at the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, isn't
he?"
"I've always understood so."
"Would he see you, do you think, at his office?"
"Tom not see me?" exclaimed Colonel Harris. "Of course he would. What
do you want me to see him about?"
"He could tell you exactly how matters stood with regard to--to Luke,
couldn't he?"
"He could. But would he?"
"You can but try."
"It's a great pity your aunt is out of town; you might have heard a
good deal from her."
"Oh, Sir Thomas never tells aunt anything that's professional," said
Louisa with a smile. "She'd be forever making muddles."
"I am sure she would," he assented with deep conviction.
"Do you think I might go with you?"
"What? To Tom's? I don't think he would like that, Lou: and it
wouldn't quite do you know."
"Perhaps not," she agreed with hardly even a sigh of disappointment.
She was so accustomed, you see, to being thwarted by convention,
whenever impulse carried her out of the bounds which the world had
prescribed. Moreover, she expected to see Luke soon. He would be sure
to come directly after an early visit to Grosvenor Square.
She helped her father on with his coat. She was almost satisfied that
he should go alone. She would have an hour with Luke, if he came
early, and it was necessary that she should have him to herself,
before too many people had shouted evil and good news,
congratulations, opprobrium, and suspicions at him.
Colonel Harris, she knew, would get quite as much if not more
information out of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Ryder, than he could
do if she--a mere woman--happened to be present at the interview. Sir
Thomas would trust Colonel Harris with professional matters which he
never would confide to a woman, and Louisa trusted her father
implicitly.
She knew that, despite the grumblings and crustiness peculiar to every
Englishman, when he is troubled with domestic matters whilst sitting
at his own breakfast table, her father had Luke's welfare just as much
at heart as she had herself.