THEN THE MIRACLE WAS WROUGHT
When Colonel Harris once more arrived at the Langham he found Luke and
Louisa comfortably installed in front of the fire in the private
sitting-room up stairs. She was leaning back against the cushions, her
head resting in her hand, he at the foot of the sofa, his hands
encircling one knee, gazing now and then into the fire, now and then
into her face.
Not troubled creatures these, not man and woman fighting a battle
against life, against the world, for honour, for peace, and for love;
not souls racked by painful memories of the past or grim dread of the
future: only two very ordinary human beings, with a life behind them
of serene contentment, social duties worthily performed, a smooth lake
whereon not a ripple of sorrow or disgrace ever dared to mar the shiny
surface.
And the ruling passion strong in death was stronger still in face of
this new life to be led: the life of to-morrow, full of the unknown,
the ugly, the sordid and mean, full of nameless dangers, and of
possible disgrace. The puppets were still dancing, moved by the
invisible strings held by the hand of the implacable giant called
Convention: they danced even as though no gaping and ravenous lions,
no Bulls of Bashan, were there to see. Even before each other they
hid the secret mysteries of their hearts; he his overwhelming passion
for her, she her dread for his immediate future.
They had not forborne to talk of Philip de Mountford's death; they
would not have admitted that there was anything there that could not
be discussed with perfect indifference--she, reclining against the
cushions, and he in immaculate morning coat, with hair smoothly
brushed, and speckless tie and linen, talking of things which meant
life or death for them both.
He had told her all he knew, his visit to Philip at the Veterans'
Club, his quarrel with him, the hatred which he bore to the man that
was dead. He made no secret of the police officer's questionings, nor
of Doctor Newington's extraordinary attitude.
"One would think those fellows had a suspicion that I had murdered
Philip," he said quite lightly.
And her face never moved whilst she listened to these details,
analyzing them in her mind, comparing them with those at which the
morning papers had hinted, the "clues" and "startling developments,"
to obtain confirmation of which her father had gone out to seek Sir
Thomas Ryder.
Luke de Mountford would no more have dreamed of telling Louisa of the
dark suspicions which really threatened him, than he would have laid
bare before her some hideous wound, if he happened to be suffering
from one. The police officer's insolence and the doctor's easy
contempt had sounded a note of warning of what was imminent, but
beyond that he had no fear. Why should he have? And having none, why
worry Lou with plaints that might agitate her?
Remember that he individually was quite convinced that Philip's
murderer would soon be discovered. He too had read his morning paper,
and knew as well as anybody that for the moment suspicion rested upon
him. "Seek whom the crime will benefit!" was a phrase freely used in
the press this morning. But it was only a question of time; an
unpleasant phase to be traversed, some mud that presently would have
to be brushed off. No use to worry Louisa with it. Fortunately she
took it lightly, too. She was far too sensible to attach importance to
such nonsense.
Nevertheless mud thrown in such boundless profusion was apt to hurt
very considerably. Luke had to set his teeth this morning when he
perused the _Times_ and even now there was in him a sensation of
having been bruised all over, after his second interview with Travers,
and his talk with Doctor Newington in the library. Louisa did him
good. She was calm and sensible and a woman of the world. She never
puzzled Luke, nor had she that vague longing to be misunderstood, the
peculiar attribute of the woman of to-day. In face of her serenity he
almost despised himself for the intensity of his own passion. She was
so pure, so womanly in her tenderness, a girl still, she was hardly
conscious of passion. But she knew that he was in pain--morally and
mentally in pain--and that worse was yet to come; and she, the
commonplace, sensible girl, brought forth her full array of calm and
of triviality, checking by a placid smile the faintest onrush of
passion in him, for passion could but torture him now, when his very
soul was troubled and every nerve on the jar.
And thus Colonel Harris found them.
When he entered, Louisa was recounting to Luke the menu of last
night's dinner.
"And 'Homard à la Danoise' was a perfect dream," she was saying. "I
suppose it would not be etiquette to ask Her Excellency for the
recipe."
Luke rose as the colonel entered and passed his hand across the back
of his smooth head, a gesture peculiarly English and peculiarly his
own. The older man was undoubtedly the most troubled of the three.
"It's a damnable business this," he said as soon as he had shaken Luke
by the hand and thrown off hat and coat.
"Does Sir Thomas Ryder," asked Luke lightly, "also think that I have
murdered Philip?"
He knew where Colonel Harris had been. Louisa had not thought of
keeping this from him.
"Tom's a fool!" retorted the colonel involuntarily.
It was tantamount to an avowal. Luke never flinched; he even contrived
to smile. Louisa sat up very straight, and with an instinctive
movement gave the sofa cushions a nervy shake up. But her eyes were
fastened on Luke.
"Don't worry, sir," said Luke very quietly. "I'll get out of it all in
good time."
"Of course you will! Damn it all!" ejaculated the other fervently.
"The inquest you know is to-morrow."
It was Luke who spoke and Colonel Harris looked up quickly.
"Then," he said, "surely some light will be thrown on this mysterious
business."
"Let's hope so, sir," rejoined Luke dryly.
"Has Uncle Ryder told you anything fresh, father? Anything that we
don't yet know?"
Colonel Harris did not reply, and Louisa knew that there was something
that Uncle Ryder had said, something awful, which had caused her
father to wear the troubled look which had terrified her the moment he
came in.
Something awful!--which would affect Luke!
"Won't you tell us, father," she said, "what Uncle Ryder told you?
Luke ought to know."
"Oh," rejoined Luke, "there's no hurry I'm sure. Colonel Harris will
tell me presently. Lou, you were coming to the park this morning. I
suppose we can't go to the Temple Garden Show very well."
"Not very well, I think," she replied, "but I'll come for a walk after
lunch with pleasure. Father must tell us now what Uncle Ryder said."
Then as Colonel Harris still seemed to hesitate, she became more
insistent, and her voice more firm.
"Father dear," she said, "I must know as well as Luke."
The old man took a turn up and down the room, with hands behind his
back. He would not look either at Louisa or at Luke, for it would be
easier to tell them everything without meeting their eyes. And he had
to tell them everything. To her as well as to him. It was no longer
any use trying to avoid the subject, pretending that it was trivial,
unworthy of discussion.
Facts had to be faced at last, like the dervishes at Omdurman, and a
plan of campaign decided on in the event of momentary defeat.
"Ryder," he began quite abruptly at last, "had the hall porter of
that confounded club up to his room while I was there, and questioned
him before me."
"He could," suggested Luke, "only repeat the story which we all know
already. I never denied seeing Philip at the club or quarrelling with
him for a matter of that. Hang it all! I have often quarrelled with
him before."
"Yes," rejoined the colonel, "they've ferreted out the old servants of
your uncle's household, and heard innumerable stories of quarrels."
"Exaggerated, I expect. But what of it?"
"And that hall porter didn't mince matters either. Damn him."
"Philip," remarked Luke dryly, "shouted pretty loudly. I did not."
"The porter said that when you left the club you had 'murder in your
eye.'"
"Possibly."
"You had overheard Philip's last remark to the porter?"
"Yes--something about pestering beggars. I was ready to make him
swallow his words, but I loathe a scene, before people like those who
frequent the Veterans' Club."
"I wish to goodness you had gone for him then and there."
"Why?"
"This accursed business would not have occurred."
"Oh, yes it would--sooner or later."
"What makes you say that?"
"Philip must have had an enemy."
"Who murdered him last night, you think?"
"An enemy," assented Luke, "who evidently laid in wait for him, and
murdered him last night. It is bound to come out at the inquest."
"About this enemy?" queried Colonel Harris vaguely.
"Why, yes," rejoined Luke a little impatiently, "surely the police
have made other investigations. They are not just fastening on me and
on no one else."
"Could you," asked Louisa, "help the police in that, Luke?"
"No;" he replied, "I know absolutely nothing about Philip or about his
past life."
"Did Lord Radclyffe?"
"I don't know."
"He has been questioned, has he not?"
"He is too ill to see any one. Doctor Newington declares that he must
not attempt to see any one. His condition is critical. Moreover, he is
only partly conscious."
"But----"
"There's Philip's lawyer, Davies," said Luke; "the police ought to be
in communication with him. It is positively ridiculous the way they
seem to do nothing in the way of proper investigation, but only make
up their minds that I have killed my cousin. Why! they don't even seem
to trouble about the weapon with which the murder was committed."
"The weapon----?"
The ejaculation, spoken hardly above a whisper, had come from Colonel
Harris. Once more the old man felt--as he had done in his
brother-in-law's office--that every drop of blood in him had receded
back to his heart, and that he would choke if he attempted to utter
another word.
"They say," continued Luke quietly, "that Philip was killed by the
thrust of a sharp dagger or stiletto, right through the neck. Well,
where is that dagger? Have they found it? Or traced it to its owner?"
Then as Colonel Harris was still silent he reiterated once more:
"Did Sir Thomas tell you if they had found the weapon?"
And Colonel Harris nodded and murmured:
"Yes."
"Actually found the weapon?" insisted Luke.
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Behind the railings--in Green Park--close to Hyde Park corner."
"Was it a stiletto? Or a dagger? Or what?"
"It was a stick with a dagger fitting into it. A snake-wood stick. It
was covered with mud and--other stains."
There was silence in the room now for the space of a few brief
seconds. A silence solemn and full of meaning. All through this rapid
succession of questions and answers between Colonel Harris and Luke,
Louisa had kept her eyes fixed upon the younger man's face, had seen
light indifference at possible danger alternating with impatience at
the singular obstinacy of his accusers. Throughout this time the face
she knew so well, mirrored that perfect calm which she understood and
admired, since it was the reflex of a calm, untroubled soul.
But now there came a change in the face: or rather not in the face but
in the soul behind it. The change came at Colonel Harris's last words;
a change so subtle, so undetermined, that she was quite sure her
father had not perceived it. But movement there was none; one mere,
almost imperceptible, quiver of the eyelids--nothing more. The mouth
beneath the slight fair moustache had not trembled, the brow remained
smooth, the breath came and went as evenly as before.
But the change was there, nevertheless! The gray tint just round the
eyes, the stony look in the pupils themselves a tiny speck of moisture
round the wing of each nostril. Colonel Harris had not looked at Luke
whilst he spoke of the stick. He was staring straight in front of him,
hardly conscious of the silence which had cast a strange and mystic
spell on these three people standing here in the banal atmosphere of a
London hotel.
It was Luke who broke the silence. He said quite quietly asking the
question as if it related to a most trivial, most indifferent matter:
"Did Sir Thomas show you the stick?"
The colonel nodded in acquiescence.
"It was my stick, I suppose?"
The query was so sudden, so unexpected that Colonel Harris
instinctively uttered an exclamation of amazement.
"Luke! By God, man! Are you mad?"
Louisa said nothing. She was trying to understand the
un-understandable. Luke almost smiled at the other man's bewilderment.
"No, sir," he said, "not mad I think. I only want to know how I
stand."
"How you stand, man?" ejaculated Colonel Harris with uncontrolled
vehemence. "Great Heavens, don't you realize that here is some damned
conspiracy as mysterious as it is damnable, and that you will have to
look this seriously in the face, if you don't wish to find yourself in
the dock before the next four and twenty hours?"
"I am," replied Luke simply, "looking the matter squarely in the face,
sir, but I don't quite see how I can avoid standing in the dock as you
say, before the next four and twenty hours. You see I had quarrelled
with Philip, and my stick--which contained a dagger--was found in the
park, covered with mud, as you say, and other stains."
"But, hang it all, man! you did not murder your cousin!"
This was not a query but an assertion. Colonel Harris's loyalty had
not wavered, but he could not contrive to keep the note of anxiety out
of his voice: nor did he reiterate the assertion when Luke made no
answer to it.
Once more the latter passed his hand over the back of his head. You
know that gesture. It is so English! and always denotes a certain
measure of perturbation. Then he said with seeming irrelevance:
"I suppose I had better go now."
His eyes sought Louisa's, trying to read what she thought and felt.
Imagine the awful moment! For he loved her, as you know, with that
intensity of passion of which a nature like his--almost cramped by
perpetual self-containment--is alone capable. Then to have to stand
before her wondering what the next second would reveal, hardly daring
to exchange fear for certitude, because of what that certitude might
be.
He sought her eyes and had no difficulty in finding them. They had
never wandered away from his face. To him--the ardent
worshipper--those eyes of hers had never seemed so exquisitely
luminous. He read her soul then and there as he would a book. A soul
full of trust and brimming over with compassion and with love.
Colonel Harris was loyal to the core; he clung to his loyalty, to his
belief in Luke as he would to a rock, fearful lest he should flounder
in a maze of wonderment, of surmises, of suspicions. God help him! But
in Louisa even loyalty was submerged in a sea of love. She cared
nothing about suspicions, about facts, about surmises. She had no room
in her heart for staunchness: it was all submerged in love.
There was no question, no wonderment, no puzzle in the eyes which met
those of Luke. You see she was just a very ordinary kind of woman.
All she knew was that she loved Luke: and all that she conveyed to him
by that look, was just love.
Only love.
And love--omnipotent, strange, and capricious love--wrought a curious
miracle then! For Colonel Harris was present in the room, mind you, a
third--if not an altogether indifferent--party, there where at this
moment these two should have been alone.
It was Colonel Harris's presence in the room that transformed the next
instant into a wonderful miracle: for Luke was down on his knees
before his simple-souled Lou. She had yielded her hand to him and he
had pressed an aching forehead against the delicately perfumed palm.
In face of that love which she had given him, he could only worship:
and would have been equally ready to worship before the whole world.
And therein lay the miracle. Do you not agree, you who know Englishmen
of that class and stamp? Can you conceive one of them falling on his
knees save at the bidding of omnipotent Love, and by the miracle which
makes a man forget the whole world, defy the whole world, give up the
whole world, driven to defiance, to forgetfulness, to self-sacrifice,
for the sake of the torturing, exquisite moments of transcendental
happiness?