"But you, Luke?"
He did not know if he ought to tell her of his plans. The ostrich farm out in Africa—the partnership offered to him by a cousin of his mother's who was doing remarkably well, but who was getting old and wanted the companionship of one of his kind. It was a living anyway—but a giving up of everything that had constituted life in the past—and the giving up of his exquisite Lou. How could he ask her to share that life with him?—the primitive conditions, the total absence of luxuries, the rough, every-day existence?
And Lou, so perfectly dressed, so absolutely modern and dainty, waited on hand and foot——
But she insisted, seeing that he was hesitating and was trying to keep something from her.
"What about you, Luke?"
He had not time to reply, for from the hall below a shrill voice called to them both by name.
"Mr. de Mountford, Miss Harris, the young people want to dance. You'll join in, won't you?"
Already he was on his feet, every trace of emotion swept away from his face, together with every crease from his immaculate dress clothes, and every stray wisp of hair from his well-groomed head. Not a man, torn with passion, fighting the battle of life against overwhelming odds, casting away from him the hand which he would have given his last drop of blood to possess—only the man of the world, smiling while his very soul was being wrung—only the puppet dancing to the conventional world's tune.
"Dancing?" he said lightly: "Rather—Lady Ducies may I have this first waltz? No?—Oh! I say that's too bad. The first Lancers then? Good! Lou, may I have this dance?"
And the world went on just the same.
The first November fog.
The world had wagged on its matter-of-fact way for more than six months now, since that day in April when Philip de Mountford—under cover of lies told by Parker—had made his way into Lord Radclyffe's presence: more than five months since the favoured nephew had been so unceremoniously thrust out of his home.
Spring had yielded to summer, summer given way to autumn, and already winter was treading hard on autumn's heels. The autumn session had filled London with noise and bustle, with political dinner parties and monster receptions, with new plays at all the best theatres, and volumes of ephemeral literature.
And all that was—to-night—wrapped in a dense fog, the first of the season, quite a stranger, too, in London, for scientists had asserted positively that the era of the traditional "pea-souper" was over; the metropolis would know it no more.
Colonel Harris was in town with his sister, Lady Ryder, and Louisa, and swearing at London weather in true country fashion. He declared that fogs paralyzed his intellect that he became positively imbecile, not knowing how to fight his way in the folds of such a black pall. Taxicab drivers he mistrusted; in fact, he had all an old sportsman's hatred of mechanically propelled vehicles, whilst he flatly refused to bring valuable horses up to town, to catch their death of cold whilst waiting about in the fog.
So Luke had promised to pilot the party as far as the Danish Legation, where they were to dine to-night. This was the only condition under which Colonel Harris would consent to enter one of those confounded motors.
Colonel Harris had remained loyal to the core to Luke and to his fortunes. It is a way old sportsmen have, and he had never interfered by word or innuendo in Louisa's actions with regard to her engagement. His daughter was old enough, he said, to know her own mind. She liked Luke, and it would be shabby to leave him in the lurch, now that the last of the society rats were scurrying to leave the sinking ship. They were doing it, too, in a mighty hurry. The invitations which the penniless younger son received toward the end of the London season were considerably fewer than those which were showered on him at its beginning before the world had realized that Philip de Mountford had come to stay, and would one day be Earl of Radclyffe with a rent roll of eighty thousand pounds a year, and the sore need of a wife.
It had all begun with the bridge parties. Luke would no longer play, since he could no longer afford to lose a quarter's income at one sitting. Uncle Rad used to shrug indifferent shoulders at such losses, and place blank checks at the dear boy's disposal. Imagine then how welcome Luke was at bridge parties, and how very undesirable now.
Then he could no longer make return for hospitable entertainments. He had no home to which to ask smart friends. Lord Radclyffe though a monster of ill-humour, gave splendid dinner parties at which Luke was quasi host. Now it was all give and no take; and the givers retired one by one, quite unregretted by Luke, who thus was spared the initiative of turning his back on his friends. They did the turning, quite politely but very effectually. Luke scarcely noticed how he was dropping out of his former circle. He was over-absorbed and really did not care. Moreover his dress clothes were getting shabby.
To-night at the Langham, when he arrived at about seven o'clock so as to have an undisturbed half hour with Lou, Colonel Harris greeted him with outstretched hand and a cordial welcome.
"Hello, Luke, my boy! how goes it with you?"
Louisa said nothing, but her eyes welcomed him, and she drew him near her, on to the sofa in front of the fire, and allowed her hand to rest in his, for she knew how he loved the touch of it. People were beginning to say that Louisa Harris was getting old: she never had been good-looking, poor thing, but always smart, very smart—now she was losing her smartness, and what remained?
She had come up to town this autumn in last autumn's frocks! and the twins were after all being chaperoned by their aunt. Would that absurd engagement never be broken off? Fancy Louisa Harris married to a poor man! Why, she did not know how to do her hair, and dresses were still worn fastened at the back, and would be for years to come! Louisa Harris and no French maid! Cheap corsets and cleaned gloves! It was unthinkable.
Perhaps the engagement was virtually broken off—anyhow the wedding could never take place.
Unless Philip de Mountford happened to die.
But it did not look as if the engagement was broken off. Not at any rate on this raw November evening, when there was a dense fog outside, but a bright, cheery fire and plenty of light in the little sitting room at the Langham, and Luke sat on the sofa beside Louisa, and plain Louisa—in last autumn's gown—looking at him with her candid, luminous eyes.
"How is Lord Radclyffe?" asked Colonel Harris.
"Badly," replied Luke, "I am afraid. He looks very feeble, and his asthma I know must bother him. He was always worse in foggy weather."
"He ought to go to Algeciras. He always used to."
"I know," assented Luke dejectedly.
"Can't something be done? Surely, Luke, you haven't lost all your influence with him."
"Every bit, sir. Why, I hardly ever see him."
"Hardly ever see him?" ejaculated Colonel Harris, and I am afraid that he swore.
"I haven't been to Grosvenor Square for over six weeks. I am only allowed to see him when Philip is out, or by special permission from Philip. I won't go under such conditions."
"How that house must have altered!"
"You wouldn't know it, sir: All the old servants have gone, one after the other; they had rows with Philip and left at a month's notice. I suppose he has no idea how to set about getting new ones—I know I shouldn't! There's only a man and his wife, a sort of charwoman who cleans and cooks, and the man is supposed to look after Uncle Rad; but he doesn't do it, for he is half seas over most of the time."
"Good God!" murmured Colonel Harris.
"They have shut up all the rooms, except the library where Uncle Rad and Philip have their meals when they are at home. But they lunch and dine at their club mostly."
"What club do they go to? I called in at the Atheneum last night, thinking to find Radclyffe there, but the hall porter told me that he never went there now."
"No. He and Philip have joined some new club in Shaftesbury Avenue—The Veterans' I think it is called."
"Some low, mixed-up kind of place! Old Radclyffe must be out of his senses!"
"He likes it, so he tells me, because people don't come and bother him there."
"I should think not indeed. I wouldn't set foot in such a place."
"He goes there most evenings, and so does Philip—and it's so bad for Uncle Rad to be out late these foggy nights."
"You ought to make an effort and stop it, Luke."
"I have made many efforts, sir. But, as a matter of fact, I had made up my mind to make a final one to-night. Uncle Rad ought to go abroad, and I thought I would try to impress this on Philip. He can't be a bad man."
"Oh! can't he?" was Colonel Harris's muttered comment.
"At any rate, if I have no influence, he has, and he must exert it and get Uncle Rad down to Algeciras or anywhere he likes so long as it is well south."
Luke paused awhile, his face flushed with this expression of determination which must have caused his pride many a bitter pang. Then he resumed more quietly:
"It's rather humiliating, isn't it, to go to that man as a suppliant?"
"Don't go as a suppliant, my boy. You must insist on your uncle being properly looked after."
Colonel Harris thought all that sort of thing so easy. One always does before one has had a genuine tussle with the unpleasant realities of life; to the good country squire with an assured position, an assured income, assured influence, it seemed very easy indeed to insist. He himself never had to insist; things occurred round him and at his word, as it were, of themselves.
But Louisa, knowing how matters stood, made no suggestion. She knew that Luke would do his best, but that that best was of little avail now; as Philip de Mountford arranged so it would all come about.
Friends and well-wishers could but pray that the intruder was not a bad man, and that he had his uncle's health at heart.
She gave the signal to go, saying simply,
"We mustn't be late for dinner, father, must we?"
And she rose to go, held back by the hand, by Luke's fervent insistence.
He could not accustom himself to part from her, as he often had to do. It seemed absurd, but undeniable. He was supremely happy in her company, and snatched as much of it as ever he could; but the wrench was always awful and Louisa—subtly comprehensive—was conscious of the terrible pain which she gave him at every parting. She felt the repercussion of it in all her nerves, although her sound common-sense condemned the sensation as unreal.
To-night the feeling was even stronger than it had ever been before. At her first suggestion that it was time to go, an elusive current passed from him to her. He had been holding her hand, and his had been cool and only slightly on the quiver from time to time when her own fingers pressed more markedly against his. But now, all at once it seemed as if a sudden current of lava had penetrated his veins; his hand almost scorched her own, and though visibly it did not move, yet she felt the pulses throbbing and trembling beneath the flesh. The look of misery in his face made her own heart ache though she tried to smile with easy gaiety.
"To-morrow we go to the Temple Show together; don't forget, Luke."
Her words seemed to recall him from another world, and he quickly enough pulled himself together and helped her on with her cloak. Colonel Harris with the gentle tactfulness peculiar to kind hearts had loudly announced that he would be waiting in the hall.
"Anything the matter, Luke?" she asked as soon as her father had gone from the room.
He contrived to smile and to look unconcerned.
"Not particularly," he replied.
"You seem different to-night, somehow."
"How different?"
"I can't explain. But you are not yourself."
"Myself more than ever. My adoration for you is more uncontrolled—that is all."
She wrapped herself up in her furs, for it was silence that gave the best response. And then he said quite calmly:
"Will you go first. I'll switch off the light."
"Father will be waiting down stairs," she rejoined.
Then she went past him and out through the door, and he had to go back to the mantel-piece where one of the electric light switches was. He turned off the light; the room remained in darkness save where the dying embers of the fire threw a red glow on the sofa where she had sat with him, and the footstool on which her evening shoe had rested.
And the conventional man of the world, schooled from childhood onward to discipline and self-control, fell on both knees against that mute footstool, and leaning forward he pressed his burning lips against the silk cushions of the sofa, which still bore the impress and the fragrance of her exquisite shoulders.
Then he, too, went out of the room.
On the way to the Danish Legation, Colonel Harris asked Luke what his plans were for the evening.
"I shall," replied Luke, "call at Grosvenor Square. I may find Uncle Rad, or Philip, or both at home. I mean to have a good tussle about this wintering abroad. It's really most important."
"I call it criminal," retorted Colonel Harris, "keeping a man in London who has been used to go south in the winter for the past twenty years at least."
"Uncle Rad is still fairly well now, though I do think he looks more feeble than usual. He ought to go at once."
"But," suggested Louisa, "he oughtn't to go alone."
"No. He certainly ought not."
"Would Mr. de Mountford go with him?"
"I don't think so."
"This new man of his, then?"
"That," said Luke hotly, "would be madness. The man is really a drunkard."
"But somebody ought to go."
"Edie would be only too willing—if she is allowed."
"Edie?" exclaimed Louisa.
And she added with a smile:
"What will Reggie Duggan have to say to that?"
"Nothing," he replied quietly. "Reggie Duggan has cried off."
"You don't mean that."
"He has given up Edie who has little or nothing a year, and become engaged to Marian Montagu who has eight thousand pounds a year of her own."
"Poor Edie!" murmured Louisa, whilst Colonel Harris's exclamation was equally to the point and far more forcible, and more particularly concerned the Honourable Reginald Duggan.
"Yes," rejoined Luke, "it has hit her hard, coming on the top of other things. There's no gainsaying the fact, is there, Colonel Harris, that we four brothers and sister owe something to Uncle Arthur's son?"
"The handle of a riding whip," came from out the depths of Colonel Harris's fur coat. "Stupid way parsons have of saying that to wish a man dead is tantamount to murder. I am committing murder now for a matter of that, for I wish that blackguard were buried in one of his native earthquakes."
"Would to God," added Luke, "that wishing alone would do it."
There was so much wrath, such hatred and contempt in those words that Louisa instinctively whispered:
"Hush, Luke! don't talk like that."
And Colonel Harris somewhat ostentatiously cleared his throat and said:
"Don't let us think of that confounded Philip."
Luke took leave of Colonel Harris and of Louisa at the door of the Danish Legation. He waited on the carpeted curb beneath the awning until he saw her white evening cloak disappear in the door-way.
The fog had become very dense. Just here where a number of carriage lamps threw light around, one could distinguish faces and forms immediately close to one, but as Luke turned away from the brilliant lights, he realized how thick was the pall which enveloped London to-night. He looked at his watch; it was close upon eight. The next few minutes brought him to the door of Lord Radclyffe's house.
He rang but obtained no answer. He rang again and again and finally came to the conclusion that his uncle and cousin were as usual dining out and that the elderly couple who did perfunctory service in the house were either asleep or out of ear-shot or had taken the opportunity of seeking amusement in a neighbouring public house.
But Luke was worried about Lord Radclyffe; moreover he had made up his mind that he would speak to him and to Philip to-night, with regard to the imperative wintering abroad for the old man.
The Veterans' Club was unknown to Luke, but Shaftesbury Avenue was not. He turned into Oxford Street and as taxicabs were now a forbidden luxury he hailed a passing omnibus and jumped into it, and thus was rapidly conveyed into the very heart of the fog which had found its haven around Piccadilly Circus.
As to what occurred in the heart of the fog on that night in November four years ago, most of you no doubt will remember. Those who do not I must refer to the morning papers of the following day.
A perfect harvest for journalists. Gossip and detail sufficient to fill column upon column of newspaper: gossip that grew as the hours sped on, and the second day of fog pursued its monotonous course.
A man had been found murdered in a taxicab, his throat stabbed through from ear to ear, the jugular pierced, life absolutely extinct; the murderer vanished.
Drama in the midst of reality.
Such things are, you know. No amount of so-called realistic literature, no amount of sneers at what is dubbed melodrama, will prevent this fact occurring—and occurring very frequently in the streets of a mighty city.
Just a man murdered and the murderer disappeared. A very real thing that, and London has had to face such facts often enough, more often than has an audience at Drury Lane or the Adelphi. The superior-minded critic who spells British Drama with a capital B and D, and pronounces it Pritish Trama sat in the stalls of a London theatre on this very same foggy evening in November, four years ago. The play was one that did not appeal to the superior-minded critic: it was just a simple tale of jealousy which led to the breaking of that great commandment: "Thou shalt do no murder!"
And the superior-minded critic yawned behind a well gloved hand and dubbed the play melodramatic, unreal, and stagey, quite foreign to the life of to-day. But just at that hour—between nine and ten o'clock—a man was murdered in a taxicab, and his murderer vanished in the fog.
London doesn't dub such events melodrama; she does not sneer at them or call them unreal. She knows that they are real: there is nothing stagey or artificial about them: they have even become commonplace.
They occur so often! And most often whilst society dines or dances and the elect applaud with languid grace the newest play by Mr. Bernard Shaw.
Only in this case, the event gained additional interest. The murdered man was a personality. Some one whom everybody that was anybody had talked about, gossiped, and discussed for the past six months. Some one whom few had seen but many had heard about—Philip de Mountford—the son of the late Arthur de Mountford—Radclyffe's newly found heir, you know.
The news spread as only such news can spread, and when Society poured out from theatres, from houses in Grosvenor Square, or from the dining-room of the Carlton, every one had heard the news.
It was as if the sprite of gossip had been busy whispering in over-willing ears.
"Philip de Mountford has been murdered."
"He was found in a taxicab; his throat was cut from ear to ear."
"No! no! not cut, I understand. Pierced through with a sharp instrument—a stiletto, I presume."
"How horrible!"
"Poor Lord Radclyffe—such a tragedy——"
"He'll never live through it."
"He has looked very feeble lately."
"The scandal round the late Arthur's name broke him up, I think."
"It seems Arthur de Mountford had married a negress."
"No! no! Philip did not look like a half-caste. I saw him once or twice. He was dark but nice looking."
"Still, there was some scandal about the marriage!"
"Nothing to what this scandal will be!"
"What scandal?"
"Seek whom the crime benefits, you know."
"Then you think?—You really think Luke de Mountford did it?"
"I thought so the moment I heard the story."
"I've always thought that Luke de Mountford a queer sort of fellow."
"And he took his cousin's advent very badly."
"Well one can't wonder at that exactly—to lose a future peerage all of a sudden—and he has no private fortune either——"
"Poor beggar."
"I heard there were awful rows between the cousins until Lord Radclyffe himself turned Luke and the others out of the house."
"And now Philip de Mountford has been murdered."
"And the police will seek him whom the crime benefits."
"It certainly looks very suspicious."
"A real cause célèbre! Won't it be exciting."
"Something to read about in one's morning papers."
"I shall try and get reserved seats for the trial. I hate a crush, don't you?"
"Will they hang him, do you think?"
"If he is found guilty—English justice is no respecter of persons."
"How awful."
And tittle-tattle, senseless talk, inane remarks, were wafted on the grimy wings of the fog. They penetrated everywhere, in the lobbies of the theatres, the boudoir of madame and the smoking room of my lord. They penetrated to the magnificent reception rooms of the Danish Legation, and Louisa heard the remarks even before she knew the full details of the story. Louisa had a well-trained contralto voice, and had been asked to sing, in the course of the evening. Just as she stood in an outer room selecting her music, she heard a group of idlers—men and women—talking over the mysterious murder in the taxicab.
They had at first been unconscious of her presence. She had her back toward them, turning over the leaves of of her song. Suddenly there was a hush in the conversation; one of the chatterboxes must have pointed her out to the others.
Whereupon Louisa, serene and smiling, a roll of music in her hand, joined the merry group.
"Please," she said, "don't stop. I have heard nothing yet. And of course I want to know."
One of the men laughed inanely and the ladies murmured silly nothings.
"Oh!" said some one, "it mayn't be true. Such lots of wild rumours get about."
"What," asked Louisa placidly, "mayn't be true? Some one said just now that Philip de Mountford has been murdered."
"Well," murmured one of the ladies, "they say it was Mr. de Mountford; but they can't be sure, can they?"
The group was dissolving: almost, it seemed, as if it had vanished into thin air. When Louisa first heard them talking there were about a dozen men and women, a brilliant throng of gaily plumaged birds; now the ladies remembered that they wanted to hear the latest infant prodigy who had been engaged to entertain the guests at the post-dinner reception to-night, and the men too, feeling uncomfortable and awkward, made good their escape.
People—the pleasure-loving people of to-day—have no use for latent tragedy. Excitement, yes! and drama; but only from the secure distance of a private seat at an Old Bailey trial. The murder of Philip de Mountford could be discussed with quite an amount of enjoyment between a dinner party and a ball supper, but not in Louisa Harris's presence! By Gad! too much of a good thing you know!
Within a very few minutes Louisa found herself almost alone, just the one or two near her to whom she had directly spoken and—fortunately—Colonel Harris in the door-way, come to look for his daughter.
"The infant with the violin," he said as soon as he caught sight of Louisa, "is just finishing his piece, poor little rat! You promised you would sing next, Lou. What songs have you got?"
"I was just making a selection when you came, father. What would you like me to sing?"
With an unexpressed sigh of relief the last two of the original group of gossips dwindled away into the reception room beyond, congratulating themselves on having successfully engineered their exit.
"Dooced awkward, don't you know, Miss Harris asking questions."
"I suppose she doesn't realize——"
"She will soon enough——"
"She ought to have broken off her engagement long ago."
"Isn't it awful?—Poor thing."
Louisa, left alone with her father, could allow her nerves to ease their fearful tension. She had no need to hide from him the painful quiver of her lips, or the anxious frown across her brow.
"Do you know," she asked, "anything about this awful business, father?"
"There's a lot of gossip," he replied: his voice was not only gruff but hoarse, which showed that he was strangely moved.
"But," she insisted, "some truth in the gossip?"
"They say Philip de Mountford has been murdered."
"Who says so?"
"Some people have come on from the theatres, and men from the clubs. The streets are full of it—and evening papers have brought out midnight editions which are selling like hot cakes."
"And do they say that Luke has killed Philip de Mountford?"
"No"—with some hesitation—"they don't say that."
"But they hint at it."
"Newspaper tittle-tattle."
"How much is actual fact?"
"I understand," he explained, "that at nine o'clock or thereabouts two men in evening dress hailed a passing taxicab just outside the Lyric Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue and told the chauffeur to drive to Hyde Park corner, just by the railings of the Green Park. The driver drew up there and one of the two men got out. As he reclosed the door of the cab he leaned toward the interior and said cheerfully, "S'long old man. See you to-morrow." Then he told the chauffeur to drive on to 1 Cromwell Road opposite the museum, and turning on his heel disappeared in the fog. When the chauffeur drew up for the second time no one alighted from the cab. So he got down from his box and opened the door."
"The other man," murmured Louisa vaguely, "was in the cab—dead!"
"That's about it."
"With his throat pierced from ear to ear by a sharp instrument which might have been a skewer."
"You have heard it all then?"
"No, no!" she said hurriedly.
The room was swaying round her: the furniture started hopping and dancing. Louisa, who had never fainted in her life, felt as if the floor was giving way under her feet. Memory was unloading one of her storehouses, looking over the contents of a hidden cell, wherein she had put away a strange winter scene in Brussels, a taxicab, the ill-lighted boulevard, the chauffeur getting down from his box and finding a man crouched in the farther corner of the cab—dead—with his throat pierced from ear to ear by an instrument which might have been a skewer. And memory was raking out that cell, clearing it in every corner, trying to find the recollection of a certain morning in Battersea Park a year ago, when Louisa recounted her impressions of that weird scene and told the tale of this crime which she had almost witnessed. Memory found a distinct impression that she had told the tale at full length and with all the details which she knew. She remembered talking it all over, and, that when she did so, the ground in Battersea Park was crisp with the frost under her feet, and an inquisitive robin perched himself on the railings and then flew away accompanying her and another all the way along as far as the gates.
Two pictures, vivid and distinct: that evening in Brussels, and the morning in Battersea Park, her first meeting with Luke after his letter to her—the letter which had come to her in the Palace Hotel and which had made her the happiest woman in all the world. Memory—satisfied—had at last emptied the storehouse of that one cell and left Louisa Harris standing here, staring at her father, her ears buzzing with the idle and irresponsible chatter of society jackdaws, her mind seeing all that had happened outside 1 Cromwell Road: the cab stopping, the chauffeur terrified, the crowd collecting, the police taking notes. Her mind saw it as if her bodily eyes had been there, and all that her father told her seemed but the recapitulation of what she knew already.
"Where," she said after awhile, "is the dead man now?"
"I don't know," he replied. "I should imagine they would keep the body at the police station until the morning. I don't suppose they'd be such mugs as to disturb Lord Radclyffe at this time of night; the shock might kill the old man."
"I suppose they are quite sure that it is Philip de Mountford who was killed?"
"Why, yes; he had his pocket-book, his cards, his letters on him, and money too—robbery was not the object of the crime."
"It was Philip de Mountford then?"
"Good God, yes! Of whom were you thinking?"
"I was thinking of Luke," she replied simply.
The old man said nothing more. Had he spoken at all then it would have been to tell her that he, too, was thinking of Luke and that there was perhaps not a single person in the magnificent house at that moment who was not—in some way or another—thinking of Luke.
The hostess came in, elegant and worldly, with banal words to request the pleasure of hearing Miss Harris sing.
"It is so kind of you," she said, "to offer. I have never heard you, you know, and people say you have such a splendid voice. But perhaps you would rather not sing to-night?"
She spoke English perfectly, but with a slight Scandinavian intonation, which seemed to soften the banality of her words. Being foreign, she thought less of concealing her sympathy, and was much less fearful of venturing on delicate ground.
She held out a small, exquisitely gloved hand and laid it almost affectionately on the younger woman's arm.
"I am sure you would rather not sing to-night," she said kindly.
"Indeed, Countess, why should you think that?" retorted Louisa lightly. "I shall be delighted to sing. I wonder which of these new songs you would like best. There is an exquisite one by Guy d'Hardelot. Shall I sing that?"
And Her Excellency, who so charmingly represented Denmark in English society, followed her guest into the reception room: she admired the elegant carriage of the English girl, the slender figure, the soft abundant hair.
And Her Excellency sighed and murmured to herself:
"They are stiff, these English! and oh! they have no feeling, no sentiment!"
And a few moments later when Louisa Harris's really fine voice, firm and clear, echoed in the wide reception room, Her Excellency reiterated her impressions:
"These English have no heart! She sings and her lover is suspected of murder! Bah! they have no heart!"
And whilst the morning papers were unfolded by millions of English men and women, and the details of the mysterious crime discussed over eggs and bacon and buttered toast, Philip de Mountford, the newly found heir presumptive to the Earldom of Radclyffe, was lying in the gloomy mortuary chamber of a London police court, whither he had been conveyed in the same cab whose four narrow walls jealously guarded the secret of the tragedy which had been enacted within their precincts.
Lord Radclyffe had been aroused at ten o'clock the previous night by representatives of the police, who came to break the news to him. It was not late, and the old man was not yet in bed. He had opened the front door of his house himself, his servants—he explained curtly—were spending their evening more agreeably elsewhere.
The house—even to the police officers—appeared lonely and gloomy in the extreme, and the figure of the old man, who should have been surrounded by every luxury that rank and wealth can give, looked singularly pathetic as he stood in his own door-way, evidently unprotected and uncared for, and suspiciously demanding what his late visitors' business might be.
Very reluctantly on hearing the latter's status he consented to admit them. He did not at first appear to suspect that anything wrong might have happened, or that anything untoward could occasion this nocturnal visit: in fact, he seemed unconscious of the lateness of the hour.
He walked straight into the library, where he had obviously been sitting, for an arm-chair was drawn to the fire, a reading lamp was lighted on the table, and papers and magazines lay scattered about.
The police officer in plain clothes, who stood with his subordinate, somewhat undecided, hardly knew how to begin. It was a hard task to break such awful news to this lonely old man.
At last it was done; the word "accident" and "your nephew" were blurted out by the man in command. But hardly were these out of his lips than Lord Radclyffe—livid and trembling—had jumped to his feet.
"Luke!" he contrived to exclaim, and his voice was almost choked, his lips and hands trembled, beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. "Something has happened to Luke."
"No, no, my lord! that's not the name—Philip was on the card and on the letters—Philip de Mountford—that was, I think, the poor gentleman's name."
"And an accident has happened to Mr. Philip de Mountford?"
The voice was quite different now. No longer choked with anxiety, calm and as if mildly interested in passing events. It was obvious even to the strangers present that one nephew was of far greater moment than the other.
"I am afraid, my lord, that it's worse than an accident——"
The officer paused a moment, satisfied that he was doing all that was necessary and possible to mitigate the suddenness of the blow.
"It's foul play," he said at last; "that's what it was."
"Foul play? What do you mean by that?"
"Mr. Philip de Mountford has been murdered, my lord—his body now lies at the police station—would you wish him conveyed home at once, my lord—or wait until after the inquest?"
There was silence in the room for a moment or two, while the old-fashioned clock ticked stolidly on. At the awful announcement, which indeed might have felled a younger and more vigorous man, Lord Radclyffe had not moved. He was still standing, his hand resting on the table beside the piled up newspapers. The light of the lamp veiled by a red shade illumined the transparent delicacy of the high-bred hand, the smooth black surface of the coat, and the glimmering whiteness of the shirt front with its single pearl stud. The face itself was in shadow, and thus the police officer saw little or nothing of that inward struggle for self-mastery which was being put so severely to the test.
Lord Radclyffe, face to face with the awful event, strove by every power at his command to remain dignified and impassive. The lessons taught by generations of ancestors had to bear fruit now, when a representative of the ancient name stood confronting the greatest crisis that one of his kind has ever had to face—the brutal, vulgar fact of a common murder. The realities of a sordid life brought within the four walls of a solemn, aristocratic old house.
For a moment before he spoke again the old man looked round about him, the tall mahogany bookcases filled with silent friends, the busts of Dryden and of Milton, the globes in their mahogany casings: all heirlooms from the generations of de Mountfords who had gone before.
It seemed as if the present bearer of the historic name called all these mute things to witness this present degradation. A crime had smirched the family escutcheon, for to some minds—those who dwell on empyrean heights to which the matter-of-fact sordidness of every-day life never reaches—to those minds the victim is almost as horrible as the assassin.
Lord Radclyffe however fought his own battle silently. Not with one tremor or one gasp would he let the two men see what he felt. Conventionality wielded her iron rod in this shabby old library, just as she had done in the ball room of the Danish Legation, and whilst not two hundred yards away Louisa Harris sang Guy d'Hardelot's songs and smilingly received praise and thanks for her perfect performance, so here the old man never flinched.
He gave to his nerves the word of command, and as soon as he had forced them to obey, he looked straight at the police officer and said quite calmly:
"Please tell me all that I ought to know."
He sat in his high-backed chair, curtly bidding the two men to sit down; he made no attempt to shade his face and eyes; once the battle fought and won he had nothing more to hide: his own face, rigid and still, his firm mouth, and smooth brow were mask enough to conceal the feelings within.
The officer gave the details at full length: he told Lord Radclyffe all that was known of the mysterious crime. The old man listened in silence until the man had finished speaking, then he asked a few questions:
"You have a clue of course?"
"I think so, my lord," replied the officer guardedly.
"Can I help in any way?"
"Any information, my lord, that you think might help us would of course be gladly welcomed."
"The man who hailed the cab in Shaftesbury Avenue—what was he like? I could help you if I knew."
"I'll have his description properly written out, my lord, and bring it you in the morning."
"Can't you tell me now? Every moment lost is irretrievable in cases like these."
"I am afraid, my lord, that I cannot tell you definitely now. There's a dense fog outside—and——"
"The chauffeur's descriptions are vague," interposed Lord Radclyffe with a sneer, "the eternal excuses for incompetence."
"My lord!" protested the man.
"All right! all right! No offence meant I assure you. You must pardon an old man's irritability—the news you have brought me does not make for evenness of temper. I rely on your department to clear this matter up with the least possible scandal."
"I am afraid that scandal is inevitable," retorted the officer dryly, for he still felt sore at Lord Radclyffe's ill-tempered thrust. "We shall have to rake up a great deal of what might be unpleasant to many parties."
"Why should it be unpleasant?"
"We shall have to know something of the murdered man's past, of his associates before—before he was able to establish his claim to your lordship's consideration."
"I have no doubt that the late Philip de Mountford had many undesirable associates in the past," remarked Lord Radclyffe curtly.
The silence which followed was tantamount to a dismissal. The officer rose to go. He felt nettled at the old man's obvious sneers: they had been like a cold douche over his enthusiasm, for the case had already drifted into his hands and it promised to be the most interesting and most sensational criminal case of modern times.
"You have not," he said before taking his leave, "told me, my lord, what you wish done about the body."
"Surely," replied Lord Radclyffe querulously, "it is too late now to make any arrangements. What is the time?"
"Half past ten, my lord."
"Surely to-morrow morning we can discuss all that."
"Just as you wish, of course."
"To-morrow morning—as early as you like. My servants will be at home then—the house will be ready—and I can make arrangements—or else we'll wait, as you say, until after the inquest."
The sound of a bell broke the silence that ensued.
"You must excuse me," said his lordship dryly, "my servants are out, and there's some one at the front door."
"I can hear footsteps below stairs, my lord," remarked the officer.
"Ah! I believe you're right. Those two blackguards must have come home and I didn't know it. They do pretty much as they like."
Shuffling, uncertain footsteps were heard across the hall. The officer said hurriedly:
"One more thing, my lord—you will pardon me asking but—you had not thought of—er—offering a reward?"
"What for?"
"The apprehension of the murderer, or useful information that would lead to conviction."
"Oh! Ah, yes; a reward by all means! Of course I'll give a reward to stimulate incompetence, eh?"
"What will your lordship make it?" asked the officer, determined this time to show no resentment.
"Two hundred—five hundred—have what you like—so long as you get that brute."
"Five hundred, my lord, would stimulate us all."
"Very well," said Lord Radclyffe briefly. "Good evening."
"Good evening, my lord. And to-morrow morning we'll be ready for the body to be taken away, if you wish it. But the inquest will be the day after, so perhaps it might be best to wait until then. At the coroner's court, Victoria, my lord—South Kensington, you know—everything will be all right. Good evening, my lord."
The two men took their leave, glad enough to have done with the unpleasant interview.
As they walked to the door that gave from the library on the hall it was opened from the outside, and a seedy-looking man, dressed in shabby evening clothes that bore many traces of past libations, walked unceremoniously midway into the room.
"Will you see Mr. Luke de Mountford?" he muttered addressing his master.
"Certainly not," replied his lordship. "It's much too late. Ask Mr. Luke to call again to-morrow. And you and your wife can go to bed."
By the time the police officers reached the outer hall door, Luke had received his order of dismissal. He stood on the step for a moment, undecided what to do, and saw the two men coming out of his uncle's study.
They raised their hats as they met him on the door step, and one of them said politely:
"Mr. Luke de Mountford?"
"That is my name," replied Luke.
"Mine is Travers—attached to Scotland Yard. Could I ask you a few questions?"
"Certainly, but not in my uncle's house, I think."
"Of course not; where do you suggest?"
"Here on the door step if you like."
"Hardly. Might I trouble you to step into a cab with me and to come as far as Victoria police court?"
"It's very late, isn't it? I have an engagement at eleven close by here."
He was going to fetch Colonel Harris and Louisa at the Danish Legation and pilot them home to the Langham.
"It's an important matter, Mr. de Mountford," retorted the man. "Are you lodging anywhere near here?"
"In Exhibition Road, Kensington."
"Ah, close to Cromwell Road?"
"Then where shall it be, Mr. de Mountford?"
"Why not in the cab?" remarked Luke.
"Just as you like."
The taxicab which had brought the police officers was standing some few paces farther on, its strong lights only just piercing the intensity of the fog, and its throbbings, as the taximeter marked off twopences with unerring rapidity, filled the night with their strangely familiar sound.
The three men got into the cab, the officer telling the chauffeur to remain stationary until told to move on.
"I know very little about the business, Mr.—er—Travers," remarked Luke as soon as all three of them had stowed themselves fairly comfortably in the interior of the vehicle. "I suppose it is about this ghastly affair that you wanted to speak to me."
"Yes, sir. It was about that. I thought you could give us some information about the late Mr. de Mountford's past life, or his former friends."
"I know nothing," retorted Luke dryly, "of my cousin's past or present life. He did not confide in me."
"But you were good friends?" interposed the other quickly.
"We knew each other very little."
"And to-night?"
"I saw him at his club."
"Where was that?"
"The Veterans' in Shaftesbury Avenue."
"About what time?"
"Between eight and nine."
"You had some talk with him?"
"Pleasant talk?" asked the officer indifferently.
"Family affairs," rejoined Luke dryly.
"And you parted from him?"
"Somewhere about nine."
"In the club?"
"In the club."
"The door steps?"
"No. The lobby."
"He was alone then? I mean—besides yourself was no one with him?"
"No one. The hall porter stood there of course."
"No one joined him afterward?"
"That I cannot say. When I parted from him he was alone."
"You know that Mr. Philip de Mountford was murdered in a taxicab between Shaftesbury Avenue and Hyde Park Corner, soon after nine o'clock?"
"I have heard most of the details of that extraordinary crime.
"And you can throw no light on it at all?"
"None. How could I?"
"Nothing," insisted the police officer, "occurs to you at this moment that might help us in any way to trace the murderer?"
"Nothing whatever."
The man was silent. It seemed as if he was meditating how best to put one or more questions. Up to now these had been curt and to the point, and as they followed one another in quick succession there was a marked difference in the attitude both of the questioner and the questioned. The police officer had started by being perfectly deferential—just like a man accustomed to speak with people whose position in the world compelled a certain regard. He had originally addressed Luke as "sir," just as he had invariably said "my lord" to Lord Radclyffe, but now he spoke much more curtly. There was a note of demand in every question which he put, a peremptoriness of manner which did not escape the observation of his interlocutor.
As the one man became more aggressive so did Luke also change his manner. There had been affable courtesy in his first reply to the questions put to him, a desire to be of help if help was needed, but with his senses attuned by anxiety and nerve strain to distinguish subtle difference of manner and of intention, he was quick enough to notice that he himself was as it were in a witness box, with a counsel ready enough to bully, or to trip up any contradictory statement.
Not that Luke realized the reason of this change. The thought that he could be suspected of a crime was as far removed from his ken as the desire to visit the moon. He could not understand the officer's attitude; it puzzled him, and put him on his guard—but it was just the instinct of self-preservation, of caution, which comes to men who have had to fight the world, and who have met enemies where they least expected to find one.
"Do you remember," now resumed Travers after that slight pause, which had seemed very long to Luke, but as a matter of fact had only lasted a short minute, "whether you saw Mr. Philip de Mountford speaking with any one when you left him in the lobby of the club?"
"I told you," said Luke impatiently, "that he was alone, except for the hall porter."
"Alone in the whole club house?"
"Alone," reiterated Luke with measured emphasis, "in the lobby of the Veterans' Club."
"How many rooms has the club?"
"I don't know; it was the first time I had ever been there."
"Did you know any of the staff?"
"No—since I had never been there before."
"You were not known to any member of the staff?"
"Not that I know of."
"You were shown into the club rooms without being known there at all?"
"The Veterans' Club is a new one, and its rules apparently are not very strict. I asked if Mr. de Mountford was in the club and was told that I should find him in the smoking room, and I did."
"How long did your interview with Mr. de Mountford last?"
"About three quarters of an hour I should say."
"And it was of a perfectly amicable nature?"
"Of a perfectly indifferent nature," corrected Luke.
"And after the interview what did you do?"
"I walked out of the club."
"But after that?"
"I walked about."
"In the fog?" This in an undisguised tone of surprise.
"In the fog."
"In what direction?"
"Really," here rejoined Luke with a sudden show of resentment, "Mr.—er—Travers, I fail to see how my movements can be of concern to you."
He was certainly not going to tell this man that he had made his way through the fog as far as the residence of the Danish Minister, and that he had walked up and down for over an hour outside that house like a love-sick fool, like a doting idiot, because he knew that if he waited patiently he would presently hear the faint echo of a well-trained contralto voice whose mellowness would come to him through the closed windows of the brilliantly illumined mansion, and would ease for a moment the wild longing of his heart.
What the man near him said in answer to his retort he really could not say. He had not heard, for in a moment his thoughts had flashed back to that lonely vigil in the fog, to the sound of her voice, which came, oh! so faintly, to his ear, and then to the first breath of gossip that came from the passers-by, the coachmen and chauffeurs who had drawn up in long rows along the curb, the idlers who always hang about outside in the cold and the damp when a society function is in progress, the pickers-up of unconsidered trifles, lost or willingly bestowed.
From these he had first heard the news: vaguely at first, for he did not—could not—realize that the amazing thing which was being commented on and discussed had anything to do with him. The talk was of murder, and soon the name of de Mountford was mentioned. The details he got were very confused, and the open allusions as to "seek whom the crime will benefit" never really reached his brain, which was almost numb with the violence of the shock.
His first thought after that was to go and see Uncle Rad: he had, for the moment, almost forgotten Louisa. Every other interest in life sank to nothingness beside the one clear duty: Uncle Rad would be alone; the awful news must be broken very gradually to Uncle Rad. He had hurried to Grosvenor Square, only to find that emissaries of the police had forestalled him in his duty.
All this he could not explain to the man Travers. It would have sounded lame and barely plausible. Nowadays men do not walk outside houses wherein their liege lady dwells, and, if they do, they do not choose a foggy night for the sentimental dalliance. He was thankful, therefore, that Travers put no further questions to him, and merely said with a return to his original politeness:
"I am greatly obliged to you, sir. I don't think I need detain you any longer. You said you had an engagement later on; won't you keep this cab?"
Luke thanked him, but refused the offer of the cab.
"It is close by," he said.
"May I call on you to-morrow morning, sir?"
"If it is necessary."
"I am afraid so. You see we don't like to trouble Lord Radclyffe and we must try and obtain knowledge of certain facts and verify others."
"Quite so. Well, to-morrow then."
"Thank you, sir. Your address is——?"
"Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road."
"Such a nice neighbourhood. No fog there to-night I think."
"I hope not. Good night."
"Good night, sir."
Luke made his escape from the cab. He was afraid of missing Louisa and her father. His thoughts were somewhat in a whirl, and—being overburdened with matters of paramount importance—were inclined to dwell on trifles.
"I ought," he reflected, "to have taken that man's cab. It might be difficult to get another and Colonel Harris hates waiting in a crowded hall."
And so he went to meet Louisa and Colonel Harris at the Danish Legation, and found them a taxicab and generally saw to their comparative comfort.
There was no restraint between the three of them. It was as natural to them all to avoid speaking of important matters on the door step of a neighbour's house, as it was to eat or drink or breathe. So Luke asked if the dinner had been enjoyable and the reception crowded, and Colonel Harris comfortably complained of both. He hated foreign cooking, and society crushes, and had endured both to-night. No doubt the terrible events of this night, as yet mere shadows—hardly admitted to be real—were weighing on the kind old man's usual hearty spirits.
But so versed were they all in the art of make believe that each one individually was able to register in the innermost depths of an anxious heart the firm conviction that the other "had not heard."
Luke was convinced that the gruesome and sordid news could not have penetrated within the gorgeous mansion where Lou in an exquisite gown had sung modern songs in her pure contralto voice. He felt sure that neither Lou nor Colonel Harris had heard that Philip de Mountford had been murdered in a taxicab and that police officers had thought fit to speak to him—Luke—in tones of contemptuous familiarity. Nay more! now that he himself sat thus opposite good-natured, prosy, sensible Colonel Harris, he began to think that he must have been dreaming, that the whole thing could not have occurred, but that he had imagined it all whilst leaning against the garden-railings trying to strain his ears so that they should hear the soft faint echo of that pure contralto voice.
Perhaps the wish had been father to the thought; whilst gazing up at those brilliantly illumined windows, he might in his heart of hearts have wished the non-existence of Philip—not his death, but the annihilation of the past few months, the non-advent of the intruder: and, thus wishing, he may have imagined the whole thing—the murder in the cab, the police officer on the door step of the old home in Grosvenor Square.
A sense of supreme well-being encompassed him now. Lou sat opposite to him. He could not distinguish her face in the gloom, only the outline of her head with the soft brown hair perfectly dressed by the hand of an accomplished maid: Lou, the personification of modernity, of ordinary commonplace life, but exquisite—just the woman whom he loved with every fibre of his heart, every tendril of his being and every sense within him. A soft perfume of sweet peas clung to her gown and was wafted to his nostrils. He closed his eyes, and drew in a long breath of supreme delight. Now and then as the cab gave a jerk his knee came in contact with hers, and down on the ground quite close to his own there rested a small neatly shod foot, the sole of which he would have given his heart's blood to kiss.
Oh, yes; he was quite, quite happy: this was reality: his exquisite Louisa, the outline of her perfect head, the touch of her knee, the scent of sweet peas which intoxicated him and whipped his senses to madness and to dreams. It was reality and the other was only the wild phantasmagoria of a wild imagination—the insane thought born of insane desire. In the darkness which enveloped him and Lou, he could, you see, give free rein to himself. The world was not gaping; conventionality held no sway within these four narrow walls; the puppet could loosen the string which had forced it to dance, it could lie placid for awhile, dead to the world, but enjoying its own existence and its own vitality.
And Lou, watching him in that same darkness which concealed him entirely, save to her eyes of watchfulness, believed that he had heard nothing as yet. She vaguely combated the desire to tell him everything then and there, so that he should hear the worst and the best from her lips rather than through indifferent channels later on.
But with that subtle perception peculiar to her—the modern, commonplace woman of the world—she divined that he was living for the moment in a world of his own, from which it was sacrilege to try and drag him away.
Just then the cab drew up outside the Langham Hotel. The every-day world had returned with its flaring electric lights, its hall porters, its noise and bustle, and chased away the illusions of the past few moments. Luke jumped out, ready to help Lou down—a happy second that, for her hand must needs rest in his.
The glare of the electric lamp above fell full on his face, which was serene, placid, the usual mask of supreme indifference: only Louisa read beyond the mask, and as her hand rested in his for just a thought longer than conventionality allowed, she realized that he knew everything: the murder, the horror, and the suspicion which had touched him already with the tip of its sable wing.
Her eyes, and the pressure of her hand bade him "good-night" and she passed on into the lighted hall of the hotel. He followed Colonel Harris into the lobby.
"You have heard?" he asked quickly and in a whisper, lest Lou should hear.
"Yes," replied the other.
"And Louisa? Does she know?"
"Gossip was all over the confounded place," was Colonel Harris's muttered comment.
"But you've heard no details?"
"No. Have you?"
"Very little. Only what the police officer chose to tell me."
"Then," queried the older man, "it's an absolute fact?"
"Absolute, unfortunately."
"Hm! As to that—have you seen your uncle?"
"No. I went round as soon as I knew, but the police had forestalled me and broken the news to him."
"But why didn't you see him?"
"He sent word that he would rather I come back in the morning. Philip's influence still prevalent, you see."
"Well, it's a confounded business," ejaculated Colonel Harris with hearty conviction, "but I'm not going to lament over it. After all's said and done it's a very simple way out of an impossible situation."
"A very horrible way."
And the good-natured old man shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of supreme indifference.
"Well," said Luke quietly, "it's late now, sir. You'll want to get to bed."
"Well," retorted the other with quite a touch of joviality "it's an ill wind—you know."
"Good night, sir."
"Good night, my boy. How will you get back?"
"Oh, a taxi is the quickest. Edie might have heard something, and be anxious. I must hurry home now."
Louisa was standing in the hall at the top of the steps. Luke raised his hat to her and having shaken hands with Colonel Harris quietly turned to go, and was soon lost in the gloom beyond.
No one who had been standing in the lobby of the hotel would have guessed that these three people who had talked and bowed and shaken hands so quietly were facing one of life's most appalling, most overwhelming tragedies.
The world's puppets had been strung up again, because indifferent eyes were there to watch and gape, and in the presence of these modern Bulls of Bashan the puppets danced to the prevalent tune.