CHAPTER XXII
THEN THE MIRACLE WAS WROUGHT

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?

CHAPTER XXIII
WHY ALL THIS MYSTERY?

And so they went together for a walk in the park, for she had wished it, and he would have followed her anywhere where she had bidden him to go.

He walked beside her absolutely unconscious of whisperings and gossip which accompanied them at every step.

"I call it bad form," was a very usual phrase enunciated by many a rouged lip curled up in disdain.

This was hurled at Louisa Harris. The woman, in such cases, always contrives to get the lion's share of contempt.

"Showing herself about with that man now! I call it vulgar."

"They say he'll be arrested directly after the inquest to-morrow. I have it on unimpeachable authority."

"Oh! I understand that he has been arrested already," asserted a lady whose information was always a delightful mixture of irresponsible vagueness and firm conviction.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you see he is only out on—what do they call it?—I mean he has had to give his word that he won't run away—or something. I heard Herbert say something about that at lunch—oh! what lovely tulips! I dote on that rich coppery red, don't you?"

"Then does he go about in Black Maria escorted by a policeman?"

"Probably."

This somewhat more vaguely, for the surmise was doubtful.

"I can't understand Louisa Harris, can you?"

"Oh, she thinks it's unconventional to go about with a murderer. She only does it for notoriety."

But the Countess of Flintshire, who wrote novels and plays under the elegant nom de plume of Maria Annunziata, was deeply interested in Luke and Louisa, and stopped to talk to them for quite a considerable time. She said she wanted "to draw Luke de Mountford out." So interesting to get the impressions of an actual murderer, you know.

The men felt uncomfortable. Englishmen always do when the unconventional hovers about in their neatly ordered atmosphere. Common-sense—in their case—whispered loudly, inking that this man in the Sackville Street clothes, member of their own clubs, by Jove! could not just be a murderer! Hang it all! Harris would not allow his daughter to go about with a murderer!

So they raised their hats as they passed by Louisa Harris and said, "Hello! How de do?" to Luke quite with a genial smile.

But Luke and Louisa allowed all this world to wag on its own irresponsible way. They were not fools, they knew their milieu. They guessed all that was being said around them and all that remained unspoken. They had come here purposely in order to see and to be seen, to be gossiped about, to play their rôle of puppet before their world as long as life lasted, and whilst Chance and Circumstance still chose to hold up the edifice of their own position of their consideration, mayhap of their honour.

The question of the crime had not been mooted between them again: after the understanding, the look from her to him, and his humble gratitude on his knees, they had left the mystery severely alone. He had nothing to say, and she would never question, content that she would know in good time; that one day she would understand what was so un-understandable just now.

Colonel Harris alone was prostrated with trouble. Not that he doubted Luke, but like all sober-sensed Englishmen he loathed a moral puzzle. Whilst he liked and trusted Luke, he hated the mystery which now met him at every turn, just as much as he hated the so-called problem plays which alien critics try to foist on an unwilling Anglo-Saxon public.

He would have loved to hear Luke's voice saying quite frankly:

"Of course I did not kill my cousin. I give you my word, colonel, that I am incapable of such a thing."

That was the only grievance which the older man of the world had against the younger one. The want of frankness worried him. Luke was innocent of course; but, d—n it, why didn't he say so?

And how came that accursed stick behind the railings of the park?

CHAPTER XXIV
A HERD OF CACKLING GEESE

She saw a dull, drabby paper on the wall, and dull, drabby hangings to the single window, which was set very high, close to the ceiling; the latter once whitewashed was now covered with uneven coatings of grime.

In the centre of the room, a long table littered at one end with papers tied up in bundles of varying bulk, with pieces of pink tape, also a blotting pad, pen, ink, and paper—more paper—the one white note in the uniform harmony of drabby brown: and in among this litter that encumbered the table a long piece of green baize covering a narrow formless something, which Louisa supposed would be revealed in due course.

On each side of the table were half a dozen chairs of early Victorian design upholstered in leather that had once been green. To these chairs a dozen men were even now making their way, each taking his seat in solemn silence: men in overcoats and with velvet collars somewhat worn at the back of the neck—it seemed to Louisa as if they were dressed in some kind of uniform so alike did their clothes appear. She looked at their faces as they filed in—haggard faces, rubicund, jolly faces, faces which mirrored suspicion, faces which revealed obstinacy, the whole of middle class England personified in these typical twelve men all wearing overcoats with shabby velvet collars, who were to decide to-day how and when Philip de Mountford, heir presumptive to the Earl of Radclyffe, had been done to death.

Louisa and her father were able at last to reach the fore-front of the crowd, where chairs had been reserved for them immediately facing the table, at the farther end of which the coroner already sat. Louisa recognized Mr. Humphreys, one of Mr. Dobson's clerks, who did his best to make her and Colonel Harris comfortable. Farther on sat Mr. Davies, who had been Philip de Mountford's solicitor when he had first desired an interview with Lord Radclyffe. Louisa knew him by sight—Luke had on one occasion pointed him out to her.

Luke and Mr. Dobson were even now making their way to the same group of seats. They had—like the jury and the coroner—been in the mortuary to have a last look at the murdered man. Louisa thought that Luke looked years older than he had done yesterday. She saw him standing for a moment right against the dull, drabby background of the court room wall; and it seemed as if something of that drabbiness had descended upon his soul. Youth seemed to have gone out of him. He appeared to be looking out onto a dreary world through windows obscured by grime.

There was a look not so much of dejection as of absolute hopelessness in the face. No fear, or anxiety—only a renunciation. But this was only for one moment; the next he had caught sight of her, and the look of blank dejection in his eyes suddenly gave place to one of acute and intolerable pain. The face which usually was so calm and placid in its impassive mask of high-bred indifference was almost distorted by an expression of agony which obviously had been quite beyond control.

The whole thing was of course a mere flash, less than a quarter of a second perhaps in duration, and already Luke was just as he had always been: a correct, well-born English gentleman, perfect in manner, perfect in attitude and bearing, under whatever circumstances Fate might choose to place him.

Mr. Dobson spoke to him, and he at once followed his friend and solicitor across the body of the court room to the row of reserved chairs in front of the crowd.

A whisper went round the room, and Louisa with cool indifference turned to greet those among the crowd whom she had recognized as acquaintances and friends. Some were sitting, others standing back against the walls in the rear. Lady Ducies was there, excited and over-dressed, with a large hat that obstructed the view of a masculine-looking woman who sat immediately behind her, and who seemed quite prepared to do battle against the obstruction.

Farther on sat the Countess of Flintshire, novelist and playwright, eager and serious, note-book in hand and a frown between her brows, denoting thought and concentration of purpose. She bowed gravely to Louisa, and contrived to attract Luke's attention, so that he turned toward her, and she was able to note carefully in indelible pencil in a tiny note-book that a murderer about to meet his just fate may bestow an infinity of care on the niceties of his own toilet.

(N. B. The next play written by the Countess of Flintshire, better known to the playgoing public as Maria Annunziata, had an assassin for its principal hero. But the play found no favour with actor-managers, and though it subsequently enjoyed some popularity in the provinces, it was never performed on the London stage.)

Louisa looked on all these people with eyes that dwelt with strange persistency on trivial details: the Countess of Flintshire's note-book, Lady Ducies' hat, the masculine attire of the militant suffragette in the rear—all these minor details impressed themselves upon her memory. In after years she could always recall the vision of the court room, with its drabby background to a sea of ridiculous faces.

For they all seemed ridiculous to her—all these people—in their obvious eager agitation: they had pushed one another and jostled and fought their way into this small, stuffy room, the elegant ladies with their scent bottles, the men about town with their silk hats and silver-topped canes: they were all ready to endure acute physical discomfort for the sake of witnessing the harrowing sight of one of their own kind being pilloried before the mob: it was just a pinch of spice added to the savourless condiment of every-day life. Then there were the others: those who had come just out of idle curiosity to hear a few unpleasant details, or to read a few unwholesome pages in the book of life of people who lived in a different world to their own.

Ridiculous they seemed, all of them! Louisa felt a sudden desire to laugh aloud, as she realized how very like a theatre the place was, with its boxes, its stalls, and its galleries. But in this case those who usually sat in stalls or boxes, displaying starched shirt-fronts, bare shoulders, and bad manners, they were the actors now made to move or dance or sing, to squirm or to suffer for the delectation of pit and gallery.

On the left a group of young men with keen young faces, all turned toward Luke and toward Louisa and her father. Note-books protruded out of great-coat pockets, fountain pens and indelible pencils snuggled close to hand. Lucky the lightning artist who could sketch for the benefit of his journalistic patrons a rough outline of the gentleman with more than one foot in the dock. Close by, a couple of boys in blue uniform, with wallet at the side and smart pill-box cap on the head, stood ready to take messages, fractions of news, hurried reports to less-favoured mortals whose duty or desire kept them away from this scene of poignant interest.

Louisa saw them all, as in a vivid dream. Never afterward could she believe that it had all been reality: the coroner, the jury, the group of journalists, the idle, whispering, pushing crowd, the loud murmurs which now and again reached her ear:

"Oh! you may take it from me that to-morrow he'll stand in the dock."

"Such brazen indifference I've never seen."

"And they've actually found the dagger with which he murdered the wretched man."

"Brrr! it makes me feel quite creepy."

"Yes, he was at your At Home, dear, wasn't he? a week ago."

"Oh! one had to ask him for form's sake, you know."

"Poor Lord Radclyffe, what a terrible blow for him."

"They say he'll never recover his speech or the use of his limbs."

"Silence there!"

The cackling herd of geese stopped its whisperings, astonished at being thus reproved. Louisa again felt that irrepressible desire to laugh, they were so funny, she thought, so irresponsible! these people who had come to gape at Luke.

Now they were silent and orderly at the bidding of authority. An old woman, with black bonnet and rusty jacket, was munching sandwiches in a corner seat: a young man at the farther end of the room was sharpening a lead-pencil.

By the door through which a brief while ago coroner and jury, also Luke and Mr. Dobson had filed out—the door which apparently gave in the direction of the mortuary—a small group in shabby clothes had just entered the court room, escorted by one of the ushers. The latter made his way to the coroner's table and whispered to that gentleman somewhat animatedly. Louisa could not catch what he said, but she saw that the coroner suddenly lost his morose air of habitual ennui, and appeared keen and greatly interested in what he heard.

He gave certain instructions to the usher, who beckoned to the group in the shabby clothes. They advanced with timid, anxious gait, a world of unspoken apologies in their eyes as they surveyed the brilliant company through which they had to pass. The feathers on Lady Ducies' hat attracted the attention of one of them—a young girl with round black eyes and highly decorated headgear: she nudged her companion and pointed to the gargantuan hat and both the girls giggled almost hysterically.

The man in front led the way. He was pale and cadaverous looking with scanty hair and drooping moustache: in shape he was very like a beetle, with limbs markedly bowed and held away from his stooping body. There were five of them altogether, three women and two men. Louisa was interested in them, vaguely wondering who they were.

That they were personages of importance in this case was apparent from the fact that the usher was bringing some chairs for the women and placing them close to those on which sat the solicitors, and Luke and Louisa herself. The men were made to stand close by and remained just where they had been told to stay, tweed cap in hand, miserably conscious of the many pairs of eyes that were fixed upon them.

"Who are these people, do you know?"

Lady Ducies was leaning forward and had contrived to catch Luke's ear.

He turned round very politely.

"How do you do, Mr. de Mountford," she continued in her shrill treble, which she took no trouble to subdue, "you hadn't seen me, had you?"

"No, Lady Ducies," he replied, "I had not."

"I don't wonder," she commented placidly, "you must feel so anxious. Who are these common people over there, do you know?"

"No, I do not."

"Some of your late cousin's former associates perhaps?" suggested Lady Flintshire, "Maria Annunziata," who sat close by.

"My dear, how can you suggest such a thing," retorted the other, "they are so common."

"Silence there!"

And once more the cackling geese were still.

CHAPTER XXV
THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE

He explained at some length the intricacies of the human throat at the points where the murderer's weapon had entered the neck of his victim. Louisa listened attentively. Every moment she expected to see the coroner's hand wandering to the piece of green baize in front of him, and then drawing it away disclosing a snake-wood stick with silver ferrule stained, and showing the rise of the dagger, sheathed within the body of the stick. Every moment she expected to hear the query:

"Is this the instrument which dealt the blow?"

But this apparently was not to be just yet. The opaque veil of green baize was not to be lifted; that certain long Something was not to be revealed, the Something that would condemn Luke irrevocably, absolutely, to disgrace and to death.

Only one of the members of the jury—Louisa understood that he was the foreman—asked a simple question:

"Would," he said, "the witness explain whether in his opinion the—the unknown murderer—the—I mean——"

He floundered a little in the phrase, having realized that in his official capacity he must keep an open mind—and in that open mind of an English juryman there could for the present dwell no certainty that a murderer—an unknown murderer—did exist.

They were all here—he and the others and the coroner—in order to find out if there had been a murder committed or not.

The coroner, one elbow on the table, one large hand holding firmly the somewhat fleshy chin, looked at the juryman somewhat contemptuously.

"You mean?" he queried with an obvious effort at patience.

"I mean," resumed the man more firmly, "in this present instance, would a certain medical or anatomical knowledge be necessary in order to strike—er—or to thrust—so precisely—just on the right spot to cause immediate death?"

With amiable condescension the coroner put the query to the witness in more concise words.

"No, no," replied the doctor quickly, now that he had understood the question, "the thrust argues no special anatomical knowledge. Most laymen would know that if you pierce the throat from ear to ear suffocation is bound to ensue. It was easily enough done."

"When the deceased's head was turned away?" asked the coroner.

"Why, yes—to look out on the fog, perhaps; or at a passer-by. It would be fairly easy if the would-be murderer was quick and determined and the victim unsuspecting."

And Doctor Blair, with long tapering fingers, pointed toward his own throat, giving illustration of how easily the deed might be done.

"Given the requisite weapon of course."

After a few more courteous questions of a technical kind, the first witness was dismissed—only momentarily, for he would be required again—when the green baize would be lifted from the hidden Something which lay there ready to hand, and the medical man be asked to pronounce finally whether indeed the dagger stick was the requisite weapon for the deed which had been so easy of accomplishment.

The chauffeur who had driven the taxicab was the next witness called. A thick-set man, in dark blue Melton coat and peaked cap, he came forward with that swinging gait which betrayed the ex-coachman.

He gave his evidence well and to the point. He had been hailed on the night in question by two gentlemen in evening dress. It was in Shaftesbury Avenue, just opposite the Lyric Theatre, and a little while after he had heard St. Martin's Church clock strike nine o'clock. "The fog was so dense," he added, "you could not see your hand before your eyes."

He had just put down at the Apollo and had crossed over to the left, going down toward Piccadilly, when the two swells hailed him from the curb. He couldn't rightly see them, because of the fog, but he noticed that both wore high hats and the collars of their overcoats ware turned up to their ears. He hardly saw their faces, but he noticed that one of them carried a walking stick.

"Or it might 'ave been a umbrella," he added after a moment's hesitation, "I couldn't rightly say."

"You must have seen the faces of your fares," argued the coroner, "if you saw that one of them carried a walking stick—or an umbrella. You must have seen something of their faces," he reiterated more emphatically.

"I didn't," retorted the man gruffly. "Was you out in that there fog, sir? If you was, you'd know 'ow you couldn't see your 'and before your eyes. I saw the point of the stick—or the umbrella, I couldn't rightly say which—only because one of them gents waved it at me when 'e was 'ailing me—that's 'ow I seed the point."

The coroner allowed the question of identification to drop: clearly nothing would be got out of the man. The gentlemen, he declared, entered the cab, and then one of them gave directions to him, putting his head out of the right hand window.

"I didn't turn to look at 'im," he said bluntly. "I could 'ear 'is voice plain enough—so why should I take a look at 'im? 'Ow did I know there was a goin' to be murder done in my cab, and me wanted to say what the murderer looked like?"

He looked round the room defiantly, as if expecting applause for this display of sound common-sense, opposed to the coroner's tiresome officialism.

"And what directions," asked the latter, "did the gentleman give you?"

"To go along Piccadilly," replied the witness, "till 'e told me to stop."

"And when did he tell you to stop?"

"By the railings of Green Park, just by 'Yde Park Corner. One of 'em puts 'is 'ead out of the window and calls to me to pull up."

"Which you did?"

"Which I did, and one of 'em gets out and standin' on the curb 'e leans back to the interior of the cab and says: S'long—see you to-morrow,' and then 'e says to me: 'No. 1 Cromwell Road,' and disappears in the fog."

"Surely you saw him then?"

"No. The fog was like pea soup there, though it looked clearer on Knightsbridge away. And 'e got out left side of course. I was up on my box right 'and side—a long way from 'im. I could see a man standin' there, but not 'is face. 'Is 'at was pulled down right over 'is eyes, and 'is coat collar up to 'is ears."

"Had he his stick—or umbrella—with him then?"

"Yes. With 'is 'ands in 'is pockets, and the tip pointing upward, like a soldier's bayonet."

"You saw that and not his face?" once more insisted the coroner, making a final effort to draw some more definite statement out of the man. It would help justice so much if only this witness were less obstinate! No one would believe that he really saw nothing of the face of the man who had twice spoken to him. He may not have seen it clearly, not the upper part of the face perhaps, but surely he saw the mouth that had actually framed the words!

But the chauffeur was obstinate. He was not going to swear away the life of a man whom he had not rightly seen, only through a fog as thick as pea soup: this was the fortress behind which after awhile he entrenched himself.

In vain did the coroner, pleased at having gained this slight advantage, try to draw him further, explaining to him with the quiet patience of a man moved by official ambition that, far from jeopardizing the life of any man, he might be saving that of an innocent one, falsely accused through circumstantial evidence. In vain did he press and argue, the man was obstinate. After a very long while only, and when the coroner had almost given up arguing and cross-examining, he admitted that he did think that the gentleman who directed him to No. 1 Cromwell Road had a moustache.

"But, mind," he added hurriedly, "I won't swear to it, for I didn't rightly see—the fog was that dense in the park. And 'e wasn't the same as the one 'oo told me to go along Piccadilly until 'e stopped me. The dead man done that."

"How do you know," came as a quick retort from the coroner, "since you declare you could not see the faces?"

"The first gent 'oo spoke to me," replied the chauffeur somewhat sullenly now, "'ad no 'air on 'is face; the second one I think 'ad—but I can't rightly say. I wouldn't swear to neither. And I won't swear," he reiterated with gruff emphasis.

A sigh went round the room, a tremor of excitement, the palpitation of many hearts, and in-drawing of many breaths. No one spoke. No one framed the thought that was uppermost in the mind of every one of the interested spectators of this strange and un-understandable drama. The dead man who lay in the mortuary chamber was clean-shaved, but Luke de Mountford wore a moustache.

Lady Ducies' feathers nodded in the direction of the literary countess who went by the name of Maria Annunziata and the latter made hasty notes in her diminutive book.

But Louisa leaned slightly forward so as to catch fuller sight of Luke, and she encountered his eyes fixed steadily upon her.

After that the driver of the cab concluded his evidence more rapidly. There was little more there than what every one had already learned from the newspapers. The second pulling up in Cromwell Road this time: the silent fare, the descent from the box, the discovery of the huddled figure in the far corner of the cab, the call for the police.

People listened with less attention; thoughts were busy with the contemplation of a picture: two men, one clean-shaved—the dead man of course—and the other wearing a moustache. The first link in the chain of evidence against the assassin had been forged and was ready to be rivetted to the next.

The crowd in the body of the court could only obtain a view of the top of Luke de Mountford's head. It was smooth and fair, of that English fairness of tint which is golden when the light catches it. And the group of elegantly dressed women who came here to-day in order to experience an altogether novel sensation shuddered with delightful excitement as they thought of Black Maria, and handcuffs, and crowds of police officers in blue. A jumble of impressions ran riot in frivolous and irresponsible minds, foremost amongst which was one that the public was not longer allowed to witness a final scene on the gallows.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE NEXT WITNESS PLEASE

Though she knew it all, she listened attentively to every word which Frederick Power uttered, lest her father had—in telling her—omitted some important detail. She heard again at full length the account of Luke's visit to the Veterans' Club, his desire to see Philip de Mountford, the interview in the smoking room behind closed doors, the angry words of obvious, violent quarrelling.

Then Luke's return to the lobby, his departure, the final taunt spoken by Philip and the look of murder in his eye, sworn to by the hall porter. She listened to it all, and heard without flinching the last question which the coroner put to the witness:

"Did Mr. de Mountford's visitor carry a stick when he left the club?"

"'E 'ad a stick, sir, when 'e came," was the porter's reply, "and I 'anded it to 'im myself when 'e left."

Louisa had been sitting all this while at the extreme end of the row of chairs, right up against the wall. She sat with her back to the wall, her head leaning against it, her hands hidden within the folds of a monumental sable muff lying idly in her lap. She had her father on her right, and beyond him Mr. Dobson and his clerk; she saw them all in profile as they looked straight before them, at the coroner and at each succeeding witness.

Luke sat farther on, and, as he was slightly turned toward her, she could watch his face all the while that she listened to the hall porter's evidence. It was perfectly still, the features as if moulded in wax; the eyes which actually were a clear hazel appeared quite dark and almost as if they had sunk back within their circling lids. He sat with arms folded, and not a muscle in face or body moved. No stone-carved image could have been more calm, none could have been so mysterious.

Louisa tried to understand and could not. She watched him, not caring whether the empty-headed fools who sat all round saw her watching him or not.

When the coroner asked the hall porter about the stick and the man gave his reply, Luke turned and met Louisa's fixed gaze. The marble-like stillness of his face remained unchanged, only the eyes seemed as if they darkened visibly. At least to her it seemed as if a velvety shadow crept over them, an inscrutable, an un-understandable shadow, and the rims assumed a purple hue.

It was her fancy of course. But Luke's eyes were naturally bright, of varying tones of gray, blue, or green, with never a shadow beneath them. Now they appeared cavernous and dark, and again as he met her gaze, that swift flash of intense misery.

No longer had she the feeling that she was living in a dream, no longer that this was a theatre wherein she and Luke and the dead man were puppets dancing and squirming for the benefit of shallow-hearted dolts. That sense of unreality left her together with the hysterical desire to laugh which had plagued her so in the earlier part of the proceedings. On the contrary, now an overwhelming feeling of intense reality oppressed her, so that she could have screamed with the awful soul agony which the sight of Luke's misery had caused her.

All her nerves were on the rack, her every faculty concentrated on the one supreme desire to understand and to know.

Love, the omnipotent, had encountered an enemy—grim, unexplained Mystery—and he sat pondering, almost cowed by this first check to his supreme might. Louisa had sought and compelled Luke's gaze, and Love had gleamed in one great flash out of her eyes. Yesterday, at her glance, he had knelt at her feet and buried his sorrow with his aching head in the scented palm of the dearly loved hand.

To-day the look of Love brought but a surfeit of misery, an additional load of sorrow. The eyes in response remained tearless and hard and circled with the dark rings of utter hopelessness.

I'll grant you that if Louisa Harris had been an extraordinary woman, a woman endowed with a wonderfully complex, wonderfully passionate, or wonderfully emotional nature—if, in fact, she had been the true product of this century's morbid modernity—she would, whilst admitting Luke's guilt, have burned with a passion of self-sacrifice, pining to stand beside him pilloried in the dock, and looking forward to a veritable world of idealistic realism in the form of a picturesque suicide, after seeing the black flag hoisted over Newgate prison.

But Louisa, though a modern product of an ultra-modern world, was an absolutely ordinary woman—just a commonplace, sensible creature who thought and felt in a straight and essentially wholesome manner. Though she had read Tolstoi and Dostoyefsky and every Scandinavian and Russian crack-brain who has ever tried to make wrong seem right, black appear white, and animalism masquerade as love, yet she had never been led away from her own clean outlook on life.

She loved Luke and would have given—did in fact give—her whole life to him: but she loved him without analysis or thought of self. It never entered her mind at this moment to wonder if he were guilty or not guilty, if he was capable or not of committing a crime to gain his own ends. All that troubled her was his misery, which she would have given her very soul to alleviate, and the hopelessness in him which she had given the world to console.

The mystery troubled her, not the sin: the marble-like rigidity of his face, not the possibility of the crime.

For the moment, however, she was brought back quickly enough to present realities. The coroner—satisfied with Frederick Power's answers—was giving him a moment's breathing space. The grating of fountain pens against paper was heard from that corner of the room where sat the journalists: the crowd waited silent and expectant, for—unversed though most people there present were in proceedings of this kind—yet instinctively every one felt that one great crucial moment was just about to come; one great, leading question was just about to be put.

The coroner had fingered the papers before him for the space of a few seconds, then he looked up once more at the witness, his elbow resting on the table, his fleshy chin buried in his hand, in an attitude which obviously was habitual to him.

"This visitor," he said speaking loudly and clearly, "who called the night before last at the Veterans' Club and had an interview with the deceased, you saw him well, of course?"

"Yes, sir," was the prompt reply.

"You would know him again?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Looking round this room now, should you say that he was present?"

The man looked across the room straight at Luke and said pointing to him:

"Yes, sir; the gentleman sitting there, sir."

As every one had expected the reply, no one seemed astonished. The many pairs of eyes that turned on Luke now expressed a certain measure of horrified compassion, such as might be bestowed on some dangerous animal brought to earth by a well-aimed gun shot.

The coroner made no comment. He turned to the jury, glancing along either row of solemn faces, on both sides of the long table. Then he said:

"Would any of you gentlemen like to ask this witness a question?"

Receiving no reply, he added:

"Next witness, please!"

CHAPTER XXVII
AND PEOPLE WENT OUT TO LUNCHEON

An absolute embodiment of modern London society, Luke stood there, facing the crowd, the coroner and jury, as he would have faced friends and acquaintances in the grand stand at Ascot or in the stalls of a West End theatre. There are hundreds and thousands of young Englishmen who look exactly as Luke de Mountford looked that morning: dress is almost a uniform, in cut, style, and degree of tone; hair and even features are essentially typical. Luke de Mountford, well-born, well-bred, behaved just as Eton and Oxford had taught him to behave, concealing every emotion, raising neither voice nor gesture. An Englishman of that type has alternately been dubbed hypocritical, and unemotional. He is neither; he is only conventional. Luke himself, facing the most abnormal condition of life that could assail any man of his class, was so absolutely drilled into this semblance of placidity that it cost him no effort to restrain himself, and none to face the forest of inquisitive eyes levelled at him from every side. And since there was no effort, the outward calm appeared perfectly natural: an actor who has played one part two hundred times and more does so night after night until the role itself becomes reality, and he in ordinary every-day life seems even to himself strange and unnatural.

Now Luke was given the Bible to kiss and told to take the oath. From where he stood he could see Louisa and a number of faces turned toward him in undisguised curiosity. Mocking eyes and contemptuous eyes, eyes of indifference and of horror, met his own as with quick glance they swept right over the crowd.

I don't think that he really saw any one except Louisa; no living person existed for him at this moment except Louisa. Hypocritical or unemotional nature—which? None could say, none would take the trouble to probe. All that the crowd saw was a man to all intents and purposes accused of a horrible murder, confronted at every turn with undeniable proofs of his guilt, and yet standing there just as if he were witnessing the first act of some rather dull play.

Hypocrisy or effrontery were the two alternatives which the idle and the curious weighed, whilst anticipating the joy of seeing the mask torn from this wooden image before them.

The coroner was asking the witness his name, and Luke de Mountford's voice was quite steady as he gave reply.

"You were," continued the coroner, "until quite recently and are again now heir-presumptive to the Earl of Radclyffe?"

"It was supposed at one time," replied Luke, "that besides myself there was no other heir to my uncle's title."

"Deceased, I understand, arrived in England about six months ago?"

"So I understand."

"He made claim to be the only son of Lord Radclyffe's brother?"

"That is so."

"And to all appearances was able to substantiate this claim in the eyes of Lord Radclyffe?"

"Apparently."

"So much so that Lord Radclyffe immediately accorded him that position in his household which you had previously occupied?"

"Lord Radclyffe accorded to the deceased the position which he thought fitting that he should occupy."

"You know that the servants in Lord Radclyffe's household have informed the police that in consequence of Mr. Philip de Mountford's advent in the house, you and your brother and sister had to leave it?"

"My brother, sister, and I now live at Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road," said Luke evasively.

"And the relations between yourself and the deceased have remained of a very strained nature, I understand?"

"Of an indifferent nature," corrected Luke.

There was a pause. So far these two—the coroner and the witness—had seemed almost like two antagonists going through the first passes of a duel with foils. Steel had struck against steel, curt answers had followed brief questions. Now the combatants paused to draw breath. One of them was fighting the preliminary skirmish for his life against odds that were bound to overwhelm him in the end: the other was just a paid official, indifferent to the victim, interested only in the issue. The man standing at the foot of the table was certainly interesting: the coroner had made up his mind that he was the guilty party—a gentleman and yet a cowardly assassin; he amused himself during this brief pause with a quick analysis of the high-bred, impassive face—quite Saxon in character, fair and somewhat heavy of lid—in no way remarkable save for the present total lack of expression. There was neither indifference nor bravado, neither fear, remorse, nor defiance—only a mask made of wood, hiding every line of the mouth, and not allowing even the eyes to show any signs of vitality.

Beyond that the whole appearance was essentially English: the fair hair neatly groomed, with just a suspicion of curl here and there, and a glint of gold in the high lights, the stiff neck encased in its immaculate collar, the perfectly tailored clothes, the hands, large but well-formed and carefully tended, which lightly interlaced, hung in marble-like stillness before him.

When a man happens to be out in mid-winter with a stout stick in his hand, and he comes across a layer of ice on the top of a pool or a trough of water, he always—or nearly always—is at once a prey to the silly desire to break that layer of ice. The desire is irresistible, and the point of the stick at once goes to work on the smooth surface, chipping it if not actually succeeding in breaking it.

The same desire exists in a far stronger degree when the ice is a moral one—one that covers the real nature of another man: the cold impassiveness that hides the secret orchard to which no one but the owner has access. Then there is an irresistible longing to break that cold barrier, to look within, and to probe that hidden soul, if not within its innermost depths, at any rate below the ice-bound surface; to chip it, to mark it and break its invincible crust.

Some such feeling undoubtedly stirred at the back of the coroner's mind. The hide-bound, red-tape-ridden official was more moved than he would have cared to admit, by a sense of irritation at the placidity of this witness, who was even now almost on his trial. Therefore he had paused in his questionings, afraid lest that sense of irritation should carry him beyond the proper limits of his own powers.

And now he resumed more quietly, with his voice less trenchant and his own manner outwardly more indifferent.

"When," he asked, "did you last see the deceased?"

"In the lobby of the Veterans' Club," replied Luke, "the night before last."

"You had called there to see him?"

"Yes."

"For what purpose?"

"To discuss certain family matters."

"You preferred to discuss these family matters at a club rather than in your cousin's own home?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"For private reasons of my own."

"It would help this inquiry if you would state these private reasons."

"They have no bearing upon the present issue."

"You refuse to state them?" insisted the coroner.

"I do."

The coroner was silent for a moment: it almost seemed as if he meant to press the point at first, then thought differently, for after that brief while, he merely said:

"Very well."

Then he resumed:

"Now, Mr. de Mountford, on the night in question, you say you went to see the deceased at the Veterans' Club. You were, I understand, shown into the smoking room?"

"Yes," was the simple answer.

"Your cousin was in the room?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

"And how long did your interview with him last?"

"About an hour or less, perhaps."

"Was it of an amicable character?"

This question was identical to the one already put to Luke on the actual night of the crime, by the detective charged to elucidate its mysteries. And Luke's reply was identical to his former one:

"Of an indifferent character," he replied.

"There was no quarrel between you and the deceased gentleman?"

"Our interview was of a private nature," rejoined Luke with unalterable calm.

"But other witnesses," retorted the coroner sharply, "heard angry voices issuing from the smoking room."

"That no doubt is for those other witnesses to say."

"You deny then that you quarrelled with the deceased on the night when he was murdered?"

"I deny nothing. I am not on my trial, I presume."

Again a pause. The coroner closed his eyes and stroked his heavy chin. He had not yet succeeded in chipping the smooth surface of the ice.

"At what precise hour then did you last see the deceased alive?" he asked, allowing his voice once more to appear harsh and his manner more peremptory.

"At nine o'clock or thereabouts, the night before last."

"Where was that?"

"He was in the lobby of the Veterans' Club and I just outside."

"He made certain remarks to the hall porter at that moment, which offended you very deeply, I understand."

"Mr. Philip de Mountford was not always guarded in his speech when he spoke to servants."