HAVE ANOTHER CIGAR
"Well, William, what do you think of it all?"
The two men had sat in silence for quite a considerable time after
Frederick Power had marched out of the room. Colonel Harris buried in
thought was in no hurry to talk things over. Sir Thomas Ryder--a very
busy man--was the more impatient of the two.
"I must tell you," he said, seeing that his brother-in-law seemed
disinclined to speak, "that our man Travers, as soon as Power had
pointed Luke out to him, went and rang the bell at Radclyffe's house
and quickly enough established beyond a doubt that the man who had
just entered it was Mr. Luke de Mountford. I tell you this now, so as
to disabuse your mind once and for all in case you should imagine that
this might be a case of mistaken identity. Moreover you yourself know
and have admitted to me that Luke's intention was to seek out his
uncle and his cousin at the Veterans' Club, after he parted from you
at eight o'clock last night."
"Yes," said Colonel Harris, "I know that. I was not thinking of
mistaken identity."
"You," rejoined the other, "were thinking of Luke, and so am I. I have
thought little of any one else since first the crime was reported to
me last night. And long before Travers gleaned the outlines of the
story which Power has just amplified for us, I vaguely guessed at the
broad lines of it. Now that I know it in all its details, I can see
the whole scene in the lobby of the Veterans' Club before me. You may
believe me or not as you like, but as a matter of fact I know quite a
good deal about Luke de Mountford. I have often met him, of course,
and though we have never been very intimate--for I am a busy man and
have but little time for intimacy with my fellow-men--I have had many
opportunities of studying him. He has a very curious power of
self-control--almost an abnormal one I call it, and a morbid hatred of
public scenes or scandal. This of course he shares with a great many
men of his class, and his self-control is all the more remarkable as
he is not by any means the impassive young man about town which he
pretends to be. Well, that same power, I suppose, stood him in good
stead in the lobby of the Veterans' Club. In Power's picturesque
parlance 'there was murder in his eye.' Of course he had been provoked
beyond the bounds of endurance, and if he had rushed at Philip de
Mountford and strangled him then and there, no one would have been
astonished. I should," continued Sir Thomas with emphasis, "because it
would not have been like the Luke whom I had studied. The picture of
two gentlemen at fisticuffs like a pair of navvies would not have been
an edifying one, and Luke--as I know him--would above all wish not to
make a spectacle of himself before the hall porter or before a crowd
in the ante-room of a second-rate club. He naturally--for that sort of
thing becomes second nature--pulled himself together and walked out
into the street."
You must not think for a moment that Sir Thomas Ryder was habitually a
talkative man. Englishmen of his class and type are rarely talkative,
and Sir Thomas's position and occupation had rendered him less
communicative than most. But Colonel Harris and he had been brother
officers, friends long before family ties were closely knit by
marriage, and he considered the present crisis a very serious one.
He had had enough to do with crime in the past few years since he had
obtained the interesting post which he now occupied, but never with a
crime which affected him personally as this one did. Luke de Mountford
was of course nothing to him, except in connection with Louisa Harris.
But this was a strong tie. Louisa was his own wife's niece; she was
the daughter of a friend, of a brother officer. No one who is not in
some manner or other in touch with military men can have the slightest
idea of how much those two magic words mean: "brother officer": what
magnetism lies in them: what appeal they make to all that is most
loyal, most willing, most helpful in a man.
Sir Thomas felt that the mud of irretrievable disgrace which was bound
to smirch Luke de Mountford would in no small measure redound on
Louisa too. Instinctively too all his sensibilities recoiled against
the idea of a gentleman, one of his own caste, being dragged in this
peculiarly loathsome mire. It seemed impossible that that type of man
should commit a murder--a murder--just an ordinary, brutal,
commonplace murder, such as the rough and tumble herd of humanity
commit when under the stress of vulgar passions: greed, avarice,
jealousy. It was this juxtaposition of the mean and sordid against his
own class that revolted Sir Thomas Ryder. He was loyal to his brother
officer in his endeavour to induce him to keep out of all that mud
which would be scattered all round presently, when the papers came out
with their sensational headlines; but he was also--perhaps more
so--loyal to his caste: his was the _esprit de corps_, not only of
militarism but of birth and breeding. He would not, if he could, have
a gentleman held up to opprobrium, and if this could be avoided by the
unfortunate criminal's flight from justice--well, Sir Thomas was ready
and willing to take upon his shoulders the burden of contempt and
ridicule, which the press and the general public would presently be
hurling at him and at his department for their hopeless incompetence
in allowing a murderer to escape.
Therefore he was putting the case against Luke more clearly and with a
greater wealth of detail before his brother-in-law than the
conscientious discharge of duty should have allowed. In fact we see
Sir Thomas Ryder--a hard disciplinarian, a hide and tape bound
official--freely transgressing the most elementary rules which duty
prescribes. He was sitting in his private office with his
brother-in-law, giving away secrets that belonged not to him but to
his department, conniving through the words which he spoke at the
fleeing from justice of a criminal who belonged not to him but to the
State.
He was making the case against Luke de Mountford to appear as black as
it was in effect, so that Colonel Harris and Louisa might take fright
and induce the unfortunate man to realize his danger in time and to
shrink from facing the consequences of his own terrible deed.
But Colonel Harris--with the obstinacy of those who throughout life
have never led but have always been ruled--would not see the case
through his brother-in-law's spectacles. He clung to his own
repudiation of the possibility of Luke de Mountford's guilt. He
behaved quite unconsciously, just as Louisa would have wished him to
behave, had she been present here to prompt him.
To Sir Thomas's most convincing _exposé_ of the situation he lent an
attentive ear, but the shrug of his shoulders when the other man
paused to take breath was in itself a testimony of loyalty to Luke's
cause.
"Hang it all, man," he said, "you are not going to sit there and tell
me that Luke de Mountford--the man whom I myself would have chosen as
a son-in-law had Lou not forestalled me--that Luke would commit a
deliberate murder? In the name of common-sense, Tom, why it's
unthinkable! Do you mean to say that you actually believe that Luke,
after he left that God-forsaken club, joined his cousin again as if
nothing had happened; that he got into a taxicab with him, and poked
him through the neck whilst the man was looking another way."
"Roughly speaking," assented Sir Thomas, "I believe that's what
happened."
"And you call yourself a shrewd detective!" exclaimed Colonel Harris
hotly. "And you hold the lives of men practically in the hollow of
your hand! Why, man! have you forgotten one thing?" he continued, his
gruff voice assuming a note of triumph, "the most important in all
this damnable business?"
"What have I forgotten, Will?" asked the other not at all ruffled by
the gallant colonel's sudden tone of contempt.
"The weapon, Tom!"
"I haven't forgotten the weapon," rejoined Sir Thomas calmly.
"Oh, yes, you have! Do you mean to tell me that Luke de Mountford
habitually walks about the streets of London with an Italian stiletto
in his trousers pocket? for I am told that it was with a thing of that
sort that the murder was committed. Or according to you did Luke
escort Louisa to a dinner-party with the avowed intention at the back
of his mind of committing a murder later on if occasion offered? Did
he bring an Italian stiletto from home when he came to meet his
fiancée at the Langham Hotel, or did he buy one on the way to the
Veterans' Club? Which of these cock-and-bull theories do you hold,
Tom?"
"Neither," admitted Sir Thomas with a placid smile.
"Then," concluded Colonel Harris contemptuously, "you think that Luke
was--as I said--in the habit of carrying an Italian stiletto in his
trousers pocket?"
"No," rejoined the other, still unruffled, "but I know that Luke de
Mountford is in the habit of carrying a snake-wood walking stick,
which he once bought--years ago--somewhere abroad, and the top of
which contains a short pointed dagger which fits into the body of the
stick. And what's more you know that stick too, Will; you have often
seen it. Are you prepared to swear that Luke hadn't it with him last
night?"
"He hadn't it with him."
"You are prepared to swear to that?" insisted the other earnestly.
Colonel Harris was silent. For the first time since the beginning of
this long interview he felt as if all the blood in his body was
receding back to his heart causing it to beat so wildly that he
thought it was about to choke him. The colour fled from his cheeks and
the cigar dropped from between nerveless fingers. Swift as lightning a
recollection came back to him--a vision of Luke entering the
sitting-room of the Langham Hotel with his coat on and his hat and
stick in the left hand.
But he would not give in even now--not on such paltry surmises. Any
number of men he knew carried sticks that contained weapons of
self-defence. He himself possessed a very murderous-looking swordstick
which he had once bought in Paris. He fought down this oncoming attack
of weakness, and blamed himself severely for it too. It savoured of
disloyalty to Louisa and to Luke. He stooped and picked his cigar up
and looked his brother-in-law boldly in the face.
"I wouldn't," he said, "swear either way, whether Luke had his stick
with him last night or not. I know that stick, of course. I have got
one very like it myself."
"So have I," rejoined Sir Thomas with his placid smile.
"And if that's one of the proofs on which you are going to accuse my
future son-in-law of having committed a murder, then all I can say is,
Tom, that you and I are seeing the last of one another to-day."
But Sir Thomas took this threat, as he had taken Colonel Harris's
undisguised expressions of contempt, with perfect equanimity.
"If," he said quietly, "I did accuse Luke de Mountford or any other
man of murder on such paltry grounds as that, Will, you would be
perfectly justified in turning your back on me, if for no other reason
than that I should then be an incompetent ass."
"Well, what more is there then?"
"Only this, Will. That the stick which you have so often seen in Luke
de Mountford's hand, was found this morning inside the railings of
Green Park; it bears unmistakable signs of the use to which it was put
last night."
"You mean--that it was stained----?"
How long a time elapsed between the beginning of that query and its
last words Colonel Harris could not say. The uttering of the words was
a terrible effort. They seemed to choke him ere they reached his lips.
A buzzing and singing filled his ears so that he did not hear Sir
Thomas's reply, but through a strange veil which half obscured his
vision he saw his brother-in-law's slow nod of affirmation. For the
first time in his life, the man who had fought against naked savages
in the swamps or sands of Africa, who had heard, unflinching, the news
of the death of his only son, felt himself totally unnerved. He heard
as in a dream the hum of the busy city in the street below, hansoms
and omnibuses rattling along the road, the cries of news vendors or
hawkers, the bustle of humdrum, every-day life: and through it the
ticking of his own watch in his waistcoat pocket.
He remembered afterward how strangely this had impressed him: that he
could hear the ticking of his own watch. He had never been conscious
before of such an acute sense of hearing. And yet the buzzing and
singing in his ears went on. And he was horribly, painfully conscious
of silly, trivial things--the ticking of his watch which obsessed him,
the irregularity in the design of the wall paper, the broken top of
the inkstand on Sir Thomas's desk.
The great, all-important fact had escaped momentarily from his
consciousness. He forgot that Philip de Mountford had been murdered,
and that Luke's stick, bloodstained and damning, had been found inside
the railings of the park.
A cycle of time went by--an eternity, or else a few seconds. Sir
Thomas Ryder pulled open the long drawer of his monumental desk.
Colonel Harris watched him doing it, and long before Sir Thomas took a
certain Something from out the drawer, the colonel knew what that
something would be.
A familiar thing enough. The colonel had seen it over and over again
in Luke de Mountford's hand. A slender stick of rich looking, dark
wood, only very little thicker at the top than at the base and with a
silver band about six inches from the top. On the band the initials L.
de M. daintily engraved.
"Put it away, Tom, for God's sake!" Colonel Harris hardly recognized
his own voice; he had spoken more from a sudden instinct of shrinking
from loathsome objects, than from any real will of his own. One glance
at the stick had been enough. It was thickly coated with mud, and
about six inches from the top there where the silver band showed a
deep dark cleft between it and the length of the stick, there were
other stains--obvious stains of blood.
Yet Colonel Harris had seen worse sights than this in Zululand and at
Omdurman. But on this stained stick, that discoloured silver band, he
felt it impossible to look.
"I have broken it to you, Will, as gently as I could," said Sir
Thomas, not quite as placidly as before. He too was not unmoved by
the distress of his old friend. "You see that I had no option, but to
tell you all. You must keep out of all this, old man, and above all
you must keep Louisa out of it. Take her abroad, Will, as soon as you
can."
"She won't go!" murmured the father, dully.
"Nonsense!"
"She won't go," he reiterated. "She has given her heart to Luke."
"She'll soon forget him."
"Not she!"
"And she'll be horrified--when she knows."
"She'll not believe it."
"If he is wise, he'll plead guilty--his solicitor will advise him to
do that. It is his one chance. . . ."
"His one chance?" queried the other vaguely.
"Of escaping the gallows. If he pleads guilty, many extenuating
circumstances will be admitted--his own spotless reputation--and also
intense provocation. He'll get a life sentence, or even perhaps----"
But with a loud oath, the most forcible one he had ever uttered in his
life, Colonel Harris had jumped to his feet and brought a heavy fist
crashing down upon the table.
"And by the living God, Tom," he said, "I'll not believe it. No! not
for all your witnesses, and your cross questionings, and your damnable
proofs. No! I'll not believe it, and I know that my girl will not
believe it either--not until we hear the word 'guilty' spoken by
Luke's own lips. And we'll not leave London, we'll not go abroad,
we'll not desert Luke; for I swear, by God that I don't believe that
he is an assassin."
Men who have always been accounted weak often have moments of
unexpected strength. Colonel Harris now seemed to tower morally and
mentally over his brother-in-law. The passion of loyalty was in him,
and caused his eyes to sparkle and his cheeks to glow. The oath he
uttered he spoke with fervour: there would be no faltering, no
wavering in his defence of Luke.
Sir Thomas waited a minute or two, allowing his old friend to recover
his normal self-control as well as his breath, which was coming and
going in quick gasps. Then he said quietly:
"As you will, old man. Have another cigar."