"And his remarks offended you?"
"My opinion on this point is of no consequence, I imagine."
"You then left the door step of the Veterans' Club, and a moment later the deceased joined you in the street."
"I finally left the club soon after nine, but I did not again see Mr. Philip de Mountford alive."
"The deceased suggested that you should come with him then and there to see Lord Radclyffe at Grosvenor Square; he hailed a taxicab and you entered it with him," insisted the coroner with sudden, slow emphasis.
"I last saw Mr. Philip de Mountford alive in the lobby of the Veterans' Club," reiterated Luke calmly, "soon after nine o'clock."
"He overtook you in the street outside the club?"
"It is not true."
"And hailed a cab?"
"He may have done so, but not in my company."
"You entered the cab with him, and he told the driver to follow along Piccadilly."
"He may have done so," once more reiterated Luke in the same calm and even voice, "but not in my company."
"You parted from him in the lobby of the club?"
"I have told you so."
"And you never saw him again after that?"
"Never."
"You were not with him when he came out of the club?"
"No."
"When he hailed a taxicab?"
"No."
"You were not with him when he entered the cab and put his head out of the window, telling the driver to go along Piccadilly until he was stopped?"
"No."
The answers had come clear, sharp, and distinct, quick ripostes of the foils against the violent attack. Now the adversary drew breath. The pause was dramatic in its effect, far-reaching in its significance. The coroner with eyes steadily fixed on the witness made a quick movement with his hand. He drew away the long narrow strip of green baize in front of him, revealing a snake-wood stick, with ferrule stained and tarnished.
"Is this your stick?" he asked curtly.
"It is my stick," replied Luke.
He had not flinched, yet there were many scores of pairs of eyes fixed upon him, when that green baize covering was removed. But not one of those who gazed so steadily upon him could boast that he or she had seen the slightest tremor of the lids or the merest quiver of the mouth. The voice sounded perfectly clear, the cheeks, though pale, had assumed no grayish hue.
"Very well. That will do," said the coroner quietly.
What more was there to say? The dagger-stick, stained and rusty, told the most graphic tale there was to tell. Yet Luke de Mountford stepped quietly away from the table looking neither self-conscious nor dazed. He went back to his seat, beside Mr. Dobson, and leaning toward him answered some whispered questions which the solicitor was putting to him. He folded his arms before him and after awhile allowed his head to fall forward a little, closing his eyes as he did so. He seemed a little tired, but otherwise unperturbed, even though the hall porter now was recalled and was busy identifying the stick which lay across the coroner's table with the one which he himself had handed to Mr. de Mountford's visitor at nine o'clock the night before last.
And the police too added its share to this work that was going on of enmeshing a criminal. There was the constable who had found the stick inside the railings of Green Park and had taken it straight away to his chiefs at Scotland Yard before the stains on it had been further disturbed; and there was finally Doctor Blair, the district medical officer, also recalled, who examined the dagger which fitted into that snake-wood stick.
He had been shown it yesterday it seems and found how accurately it fitted the wound in the murdered man's throat. To this he swore now in open court, for the coup de théâtre, the production of the dagger-stick, had been kept back until now, in order that it should work its fullest and most dramatic effect.
Colonel Harris, sitting near his daughter, would have given worlds to know what she thought. He himself did not know what to think. His simple, unsophisticated mind was in a maze. The question of Luke's possible guilt had suddenly loomed up before him, dissipating the former blind impulse of partisanship and loyalty. Mr. Dobson too looked puzzled, the old family solicitor who had seen Luke and his brothers and sister grow up, who a few hours, nay minutes, ago would have sworn to his client's innocence before the entire world, he too now was face to face with a hideous feeling of doubt.
Not one other person in the room either, believe me, who was not convinced of Luke's guilt. Louisa knew that well enough as her aching eyes wandered over the sea of faces, meeting hollow compassion, morbid curiosity, at best a certain sympathetic horror, in the glances round. She knew that every one here, the officials, the jury, the police, the public, believed that Luke struck his cousin in the dark; she knew that Mr. Dobson had begun to doubt; and that her father had begun to fear.
And she, with all the fervour of unconquered Love, prayed in her heart that she might understand. She prayed to Love to open the eyes of her mind, for it was her reason which did not understand, which yearned to understand.
Her heart cared nothing, cared for nothing except for the man she loved and the bitter, bitter sorrow which he endured alone, shut away from all, even from her.
There was general stir in the court room, the coroner had risen, also the jury. The journalists were holding agitated parlance with the boy messengers. Louisa—like one who had received a sharp blow on the head—wondered what all this stir meant.
Was it all over? Had Luke irretrievably lost himself in that secret orchard of his, into which he was obviously determined that even she should not enter?
Then she found out that the stir only meant the luncheon hour. All these people were going to eat and to chatter. Heavens above! how they would chatter!
Her father said something about getting a cab, and trying to find a decent hotel in which to have luncheon. But she scarcely heard. She had just seen Luke disappearing through the crowd in company with Mr. Dobson, and he had not even glanced back to look at her.
Every one whispered round her. Lady Ducies' nodding feathers worried her almost to distraction. She allowed her father to lead her away, and to make way for her through the crowd.
Presently she found herself sitting near him in a cab. He was silent and would not look at her. He had begun to think that Luke had killed his cousin; once she heard him repeating the word, "damnable!" twice under his breath. Thus she knew that his loyalty was on the point of giving way.
It seems that they had luncheon somewhere together. She did not take the trouble to inquire where she was: an old-fashioned hotel somewhere in Kensington, with table-cloths that looked as if they had been used for several previous luncheons, and foreign waiters who wore weird-looking shoes and trousers frayed at the edges.
To please her father she ate a little, though she thought that eating must choke her. But it was wearisome to argue, and he—poor dear—looked so miserable.
Time was precious and luncheon interminably slow: it was past two o'clock when Louisa saw Luke again in the court room.
It seems that coroner and jury had not spent quite so much time over luncheon as the more or less interested spectators. When the crowd began to file back again into the seats, the coroner had already examined and dismissed one witness and was questioning another.
The past and present servants of the Grosvenor Square household would all have to pass before the coroner during the course of this long afternoon. It was only two o'clock and already the gas had to be lighted—two incandescent burners just above the coroner's table—hard, uncompromising lights, that threw a sickly green tinge on every face and cast deep black shadows under every eye.
It was this light no doubt that made Luke's face seem positively ghastly to Louisa: it looked almost like a death-mask, so deep and cavernous did the eyes appear, and so hollow the cheeks. He was sitting in his usual attitude, with arms folded, between Mr. Dobson and one of the women in seedy black whose presence here had puzzled every one.
Old Parker, ex-butler to Lord Radclyffe, was giving evidence. He had a tale to tell, how Mr. de Mountford "went on awful" when he—the innocent, well-drilled servant—had thought it his duty to introduce Mr. Philip into his lordship's presence.
"Just think of it, your honour," he exclaimed, "his lordship's rightful heir."
Then he added with calm effrontery:
"Mr. Luke 'e give me the sack then and there! He was that wild!"
Just a paltry, silly, meaningless revenge. The death-mask on Luke's face relaxed for a moment when he looked on the fat creature standing before the jury, vainly trying to look pompous and self-righteous, and only succeeding in being a liar.
The evidence would have been of little worth, but for the corroboration from other servants of the Grosvenor Square household. The present two—man and wife—wastrels and drunkards, counted for nothing: they had only entered Lord Radclyffe's service recently when all visitors had ceased from calling at the inhospitable house, and they had seen little or nothing of Luke; but the others—those whom Philip's arbitrary temper had driven out of the house—they had many a tale to tell of the dead man's arrogance, his contemptuous treatment of his younger kinsman, and the bitter words that often flew between the cousins, when doors closed and eavesdroppers were behind the key-holes.
These witnesses—an ex-housekeeper, a footman, a maid—were trying their best, poor things, to "do the right thing by Mr. Luke," little guessing how ill they succeeded. They had been dragged into this much against their will. As a class they hated the police and its doings, even though the cook might occasionally show a preference for the local guardian of peace and order. As for the detective in plain clothes, the man who wore a peaked cap instead of the familiar helmet, him they hated and feared, especially since he seemed to mean mischief for Mr. Luke.
They gave their evidence unwillingly; every admission had to be dragged out of them, once they realized that the revelations of past quarrels between "the gentlemen" would not be to the detriment of the dead, only perhaps to the undoing of the living.
The hours wore on wearily. The atmosphere now surcharged with the heat from the gas brackets had become intolerably oppressive. Opoponax and white heliotrope waxed faint to the nostrils. Through the badly fitting window frame something of the outward fog had penetrated into the room. It hung about in the air, round the gas that burned yellow and dim through it, and obscured the far corners of the place, throwing a veil over the twelve mutes in uniform overcoats with threadbare velvet collars, over the eager and perspiring journalists whose fountain pens had scraped the paper incessantly for so long.
Hot, tired, and oppressed humanity made its warm breath felt in the close, ill-ventilated room. Smelling-salts would not dispel the unpleasantly mingling odours of damp clothes and muddy boots which rose from the plebeian crowd in the rear.
But nobody stirred; no one would have thought of leaving before the last act of this interesting play. The chief actor was not on the stage for the moment, but his presence was felt. It was magnetic in its appeal to excitement. Every question put by the coroner, every reply given by the witnesses, had, as it were, Luke de Mountford for its aim: every word tended toward him, his undoing, the enmeshing of his denials in the close web of circumstantial evidence.
The man in the shabby clothes, who looked like a beetle, and who had marshalled his companions into the court room early in the day, was called upon by the usher to come forward. His strange, poorly-clad figure detached itself from the groups immediately round him, his long, loose limbs seeming to swing themselves forward.
His four companions—the three women and the other man—were seized apparently with great agitation and whispered eagerly among themselves. No one in the crowd could guess why these people had been called. They seemed so completely out of the picture which had its invisible frame in Grosvenor Square.
"Go on, Jim!" whispered one of the young women, "they can't do nothing to ye."
And the beetle-like creature shambled forward, with arms gangling beside him, a humble, apologetic look on his care-worn face. He might have been any age from thirty to sixty; time and a perpetual struggle for existence had wiped way all traces of actual age. The cheeks were hollow, and eyes, mouth, and moustache had a droop which added to the settled melancholy of the face.
He was obviously very nervous and looked across at his own friends, who strove to encourage him by signs and whispers.
He nearly dropped the Bible when it was handed to him, and no one could really hear the oath which he repeated mechanically at the usher's bidding.
At last he mustered up a sufficient amount of courage to state his name and address.
"James Baker," he said in answer to the coroner's question. "Bricklayer by trade."
"And where do you live?"
"At 147 Clapham Junction Road, sir," replied the man, scarcely above a whisper.
"Speak up, please," admonished the coroner, "the jury can't hear you. You came here, I understand, prepared to make a statement?"
"Yes, sir."
"Of what nature?"
The man shifted his position from one leg to the other. Heavy beads of perspiration stood out on his pallid forehead.
"Go on, Jim; don't be afeeard," came from the body of the court.
"Silence there!" commanded the usher.
"I wished to say, sir," resumed the man, trying to steady his voice, "that the deceased whom I saw lying in the coffin yonder is my own son, Paul Baker, sir."
"Your son!"
"My son, sir," asserted the man somewhat more steadily, "my son, and 'is mother's, as is sitting over there. My son, Paul Baker, as left 'ome two year ago come next Christmas. We all come 'ere, sir, to-day, me and 'is mother and sister an' Smith an' Jane—we all come 'ere to swear to 'im."
"Your son!"
The exclamation once more came from the coroner, but had any one else dared, that exclamation would have been echoed and reëchoed by every mouth in the court room, coupled with emphatic ejaculations of incredulity.
It was as if in a new castle of some grim, sleeping monster a magic wand had touched every somnolent spirit. Smelling salts and scented handkerchiefs were forgotten: the jurymen leaned forward half across the table, oblivious of their own dignity, in their endeavour to obtain a fuller view of this wielder of the magic wand: the beetle-like creature with the sad eyes and pale, hollow cheeks. Even the reporters—accustomed to sensational events—gave up scribbling in order to stare open-mouthed at the shabby figure standing by the table.
At first, of course, the predominant sensation was one of sweeping incredulity. Coroner and jury had met here to-day in this stuffy room in order to conduct an inquiry on the death of Philip de Mountford, heir presumptive to the earldom of Radclyffe. The crowd of fashionable and idle gapers had pushed and jostled in order to hear the ugly story of how wealth and position are fought for and intrigued for even at the cost of crime.
And now to think that the man who lay dead was just a bricklayer's son! It was absolutely incredible. Not till a few moments later did the spectators realize that, if the seedy man at the table spoke truly, then they were witnessing a drama even more poignant than that of the original murder; a drama of deception and of fraud, and a mystery far deeper than that which had originally confronted the sensation mongers.
Strangely enough, incredulity died down, and died down very quickly. A subtle wave filled the murky atmosphere compelling every mind to belief, long before the man's assertions were proved to be correct. The most indifferent became conscious of an overwhelming conviction that the witness was speaking the truth.
This conviction was absolutely paramount in the minds of the chief actors in the play. To them all, to Colonel Harris and to Louisa, to Mr. Dobson and the solicitors, the truth of the statement was never in question. An unerring instinct forced them to believe: and such beliefs are as unconquerable as they are overwhelming. Truth that is an absolute, unquestionable truth finds its way to the mind, when the latter is attuned to subtle or psychic impressions.
And as the truth was borne in upon these people, so did they realize the fulness of its meaning, the deep significance of its portent.
To some of them it seemed as if in a brilliantly illuminated world, all the lights had suddenly been extinguished: to others, as if in a dark and intricate cavern, full of black, impenetrable shadows, dazzling lights had been suddenly switched on.
Louisa, looking across at Luke, saw that to him it meant the latter, and that some of the new, dazzling light had illumined the darkness of his soul.
Something of the tense rigidity of his attitude had gone from him: not the sorrow perhaps, but the blank hopelessness of a misery that flounders in a sea of the unknown.
As for the man who had made the extraordinary assertion, he seemed quite unconscious of the effect which it had produced: as if the fact that the supposed heir to an earldom, being actually the son of a Clapham bricklayer, was one that found its natural place in every-day life.
He had his cap in his hand—a shabby, gray tweed cap—and he was twirling it between his fingers round and round with an irritatingly nervous gesture. His eyes now and again were furtively raised at the coroner, as if he were wondering anxiously what punishment would be meted out to him for having created so much commotion, and then with equal furtiveness he dropped them again. His shoulders were bowed and his knees parted company from each other, thus giving him more than ever the appearance of a beetle.
Of course the coroner had to recover his official manner as quickly as possible. But even to him the statement had come as a surprise. He had only known very vaguely that a witness had come forward at the eleventh hour, having only just had time to communicate with the police before the opening of the inquest.
In view of the importance of the evidence, the witness was called as soon as possible; what he had to say would materially affect the whole trend of the inquiry; he had, it seems, brought others with him—members of his own family among them—in order that they might corroborate the truth of what he said.
Quite a minute or so had elapsed in the meanwhile; then at last was the coroner able to resume with at least a semblance of official indifference:
"Now," he said, "let the jury understand a little more clearly what you said just now."
"What I said?" rejoined the man vaguely.
"Yes, what you said. Let us understand it clearly. You went to the mortuary this morning, and saw the body of the deceased?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you state here on oath that in the deceased you recognized your own son?"
"I'll swear to 'im!" replied the witness simply. "Ask 'is mother there!"
And with a long, thin finger, generously edged with grime, he pointed to the woman in seedy black hat and shabby tweed jacket who sat quite close to Luke de Mountford.
"Never mind about his mother just now," admonished the coroner. "We want your statement first. You realize that you are on oath?"
"Yes, sir. I've sworn my Bible oath."
"And you understand the importance of an oath?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you swear that the body of the murdered man whom you saw in the mortuary chamber this morning is that of your son?"
"I swear to that, sir."
I believe that had coroner and jury and practically every man there present, dared to put their thoughts into words at that moment, the ejaculation: "Well! I am blowed!" or "I'm d——d!" as the case might be—would have been generally heard throughout the room. The women, on the other hand, were far too excited even to think.
"Now," resumed the coroner, "tell the jury please when you first identified the deceased as your son?"
"This morning, sir."
"In the mortuary chamber?"
"Yes, sir."
"You had not seen the body before?"
"No, sir."
"Did you know that other witnesses have sworn that the body is that of a gentleman called Philip de Mountford?"
"Yes, sir. I knew that."
"Then do you mean to assert that those other witnesses have sworn false oaths?"
"Oh, no, sir," rejoined James Baker with an apologetic smile of self-deprecation, "I wouldn't say such a thing, sir."
"Well, then?"
"They was mistaken, sir, that's all. Paul was that clever, sir; ask 'is mother there."
And once more the lean and grimy finger pointed to the seedy-looking matron who nodded a melancholy head, half in pride, half in regret.
"Clever, did you say?" asked the coroner, more briskly now. At last he held a thread in this extraordinary tangled skein. "Then do you mean to assert that your son—Paul Baker—went about the world calling himself Philip de Mountford?"
"That must 'ave been it, sir, I think."
"Deceiving people?"
"Aye! 'e was ever a bit o' no good."
"You think he imposed upon his lordship, the Earl of Radclyffe?"
"'E must 'ave done, sir, mustn't 'e now? seein' as 'ow 'is lordship must 'ave been took in."
"You helped him in the deception, I suppose?"
"Me, sir? Lor' bless ye no! Me an' 'is mother ain't clever enough for such things! We knew nothin' of Paul's doin's, and 'e allus went 'is own way, sir."
"But at least you knew that this fraud was going on?"
"Not exactly, sir."
"How do you mean 'not exactly?'" retorted the coroner sharply. "You seem to be unconscious of the fact that this story which you are telling the jury is a very serious matter indeed. If it is true, you are not only making a grave accusation against your dead son, but with this accusation you may be involving yourself or some other member of your family in an exceedingly serious charge of fraud, the penalty for which if proved would be very severe indeed. On the other hand if the story you tell is nothing but a cock-and-bull tale, which further evidence would presently demolish, then you lay yourself open to a charge of perjury and of conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. I have thought best to give you this word of warning—the last which you will get from me—because really you do not seem to be fully conscious of the extreme gravity of your position."
The bricklayer from Clapham had listened to this admonition, delivered with solemn emphasis and no small measure of severity, with a kind of stolid indifference. He retained his humble, apologetic attitude, but clearly the coroner's threats did not affect his simple equanimity.
"I thank you, sir, kindly," he said when the coroner had ceased speaking, "but I can't 'elp it. Paul would go on 'is own way. Ask 'is mother there. 'E never would be spoken to, wouldn't Paul. And me and 'is mother allus said 'e'd come to mischief some day."
"Did you know anything at all of this fraud?"
"No, sir. We knew nothin' of it really. You see Paul left 'ome nearly two year ago come Christmas. 'E didn't tell us nothing."
"Then you last saw your son alive two years ago?"
"Yes, sir. That's the last me and 'is mother seed of 'im. Christmas Day, sir, 'twas two year ago nearly. Paul 'e said then 'e'd 'ad enough of knockin' about in London. 'E was goin' abroad, 'e was, that's what 'e said. And 'e left 'ome, sir, the next day. Bank 'oliday 'twere, and that's the last me and 'is mother seed of 'im."
He had told this with all the simple fatalism peculiar to his class. The son went "abroad," and "abroad" to a Clapham labourer is a very vague term indeed. It means so many things: geographically it means any place beyond a twelve-mile radius from home; the Antipodes are "abroad," but so is Yorkshire. Domestically it means that the traveller passes out of the existence of those that are left behind as surely as if he had stepped into the grave. Financially, it means a mouth less to feed, seeing that the intending traveller is nearly always a wastrel at home. In any event the proposed journey "abroad" is taken with quiet philosophy by family and friends. The traveller starts for "abroad" as easily, as simply, as he would for the nearest public house. He has no impedimenta, nothing to burden him or to cause him regret. Strangely enough, no one ever has any idea where the money comes from that pays for the journey "abroad." The traveller being a wastrel never has any himself, and the family is invariably too poor to provide it. But the wastrel goes, nevertheless.
And life within the narrowed precincts of the family circle goes on just as it had done before. Sometimes news comes from the traveller—a picture post-card from "abroad," usually a request for pecuniary assistance. Seldom does good news arrive; still more seldom does the traveller come back home.
But it is all very simple. Nothing to make a fuss about.
"Then," said the coroner, "he didn't tell you where he meant to go?"
"No, sir," replied Jim Baker, "he just was going abroad."
"Do you know where he went?"
"No, sir."
"Did you ever try to find out?"
"No, sir. Where 'ad been the use?"
Where indeed? The world is so large! and the Baker family so insignificant!
"He didn't write to you?"
"No, sir."
"Nor communicate with you in any way?"
"No, sir."
"You had no idea what had become of him?"
"Not until last summer, sir."
"What happened then?"
"His sister, sir, our Emily, she was out walkin' with Harry Smith—young Smith from next door to us, sir—and she was down in the West End o' London with 'im one day, and 'oo should they meet, sir, but Paul."
"Did they speak to him?"
"Yes, sir. They says, ''Ello, Paul, we didn't know as 'ow you was 'ome,' and 'e seemed upset like at first, and pretended 'e didn't know 'em, and that they'd made a mistake. But they chaffed 'im and went on talkin', so I suppose Paul 'e thought it best to make a clean breast of it all."
"Do you mean to say that he told his sister and his friend that he was carrying on a criminal fraud against the Earl of Radclyffe?"
"Oh, no, sir; not all that. 'E only told 'em that 'e was in for a good thing. A gentleman's gentleman 'e told 'em 'e was and doin' well for hisself. 'E said 'e would come and see the fam'ly—'e meant me and 'is mother, sir—some day soon. But 'e never come."
"Did he say where he was living?"
"Yes, sir. 'E gave 'is address to Emily. Up 'Ampstead way it were. A long way, sir. Me and 'is mother never seemed to 'ave the time to go and look 'im up; but Emily she went with young Smith one Sunday, but they never found the street, not where Paul said 'e was livin'. There weren't no such street in 'Ampstead, sir."
"And you never thought of making further inquiries?"
"No, sir." This again with that quiet philosophy, the stolid fatalism, peculiar to those who live from day to day, from hand to mouth, who have neither leisure nor desire to peer outside the very circumscribed limits of their own hearths.
"You never made any effort to know more about what your son was doing or how he was living?" suggested the coroner, who, though accustomed to this same quiet philosophy in men and women of that class, was nevertheless strangely moved in this instance by the expression of a fatalism that carried in its train such extraordinary consequences.
But Jim Baker, mildly astonished at the coroner's insistence over so obvious a matter, explained meekly:
"We knew that Paul was doin' well, you see, sir. 'E was that splendidly dressed when Emily and young Smith seed 'im they was quite respectful like to 'im. So we knew 'e was all right."
"And you never troubled any further about your son?"
"We didn't want to interfere with 'im, sir. Gentlemen don't allus like their servants to be 'aving visitors, or to 'obnob with poor people like us."
More calm philosophy not unmixed with a delicate sense of pride this time, and a sublime if unconscious vein of selflessness.
"Well," rejoined the coroner, not unkindly this time—the man who looked so like a beetle, who was so humble and apologetic, compelled quite a certain amount of regard—"we'll leave that matter for the moment, Mr. Baker. Now will you tell the jury what made you come to this court to-day? What led you to think that the man who had been murdered in a cab the night before last, and of whom all the newspapers spoke as Mr. Philip de Mountford—what made you think that he was your son?"
Jim Baker by way of a reply plunged one of his thin hands in the pocket of his shabby coat and drew out a portion of very grimy newspaper carefully folded up quite small. He undid the folds until his eyes lighted on that which they sought. Then he held the paper out toward the coroner and pointed to a picture sandwiched in among the letter-press.
"I saw this," he said, "in the Daily Graphic yesterday. It's the picture of Paul, I says to myself."
The coroner took the paper from the witness and laid it down on the table, glancing at it casually. There had been innumerable portraits of the murdered man published both in the morning and the evening papers of yesterday.
"It's Paul to the life," insisted Jim Baker. "I was at my work, you understand, when I seed the paper in one o' the other chaps' 'ands. I couldn't give up my work then. I 'ad to wait till evenin' to speak to my missus. Then we talked it all over, and young Smith 'e took a day off and me too, and Mrs. Baker and Emily and Jane Smith, they all come along."
"And you looked on the face of the dead man, and you swear that it is your son?"
"I take my oath, sir. Ask 'is mother there. She knows 'er own son. She'll tell you just what vaccination marks 'e 'ad on 'is arm, and about the scar on 'is leg and all. The ladies, sir, they are that sharp——"
Jim Baker—feeling no doubt that his ordeal was nearly over—was losing his nervousness, or perhaps it took a new form, that of jocularity. The coroner thought it best to check his efforts at humour in the bud.
"That will do!" he said curtly.
And the Clapham bricklayer at once retired within his shell of humble self-deprecation. He answered a few more questions that the coroner put to him, but clearly his own circle of vision was so circumscribed that, willing as he undoubtedly was, he could throw no light whatever on the unknown events which led up to the extraordinary fraud practised on the Earl of Radclyffe and which culminated in the mysterious murder in the taxicab.
The father of the strangely enigmatic personality, who indeed had taken many a secret with him to the grave, was far too indifferent, too fatalistic, to put forth any theory as to his son's motives, or the inducements and temptations which had first given birth to the astoundingly clever deception.
Wearied and impatient at last the coroner gave up his questionings. He turned to the jury with the accustomed formula:
"Would any of you gentlemen like to ask this witness any questions?"
The foreman of the jury wanted to know if the witness's son had any birthmarks on him, or other palpable means of identification.
"Yes, sir," replied Jim Baker, "but 'is mother'll tell you better'n me—she knows best—about the vaccination marks and all."
The foreman then asked the coroner whether the jury would be allowed to identify the marks. On being assured by the coroner that after adjournment this very day every means would be taken to corroborate Jim Baker's statement, the jury seemed satisfied.
And the corner called the next witness.
Though the hour was getting late, no one among the crowd thought of leaving the court. Even the desire for tea, so peculiarly insistent at a certain hour of the day in the whole of the British race, was smothered beneath the wave of intense excitement which swept right over every one.
Although the next witnesses—who each in their turn came forward to the foot of the table—swore to tell the truth and faced the coroner with more or less assurance, they could but repeat the assertions of the head of the family; nevertheless the public seemed ready to listen with untiring patience to the story which went to prove that the man whom everybody believed to be the heir of one of the oldest titles and richest rent-rolls in England was the son of a Clapham bricklayer, a master of audacity and of fraud.
The mother—a worthy and simple soul—was the first to explain that Paul, her only son, had always been something of a gentleman. He had done very well at school, and never done a stroke of work like 'is father. When he was fifteen he was quite stage-struck. "Always play-acting," as the mother put it, "and could recite poetry beautiful!"
Mrs. Baker seemed distinctly proud of her son's deeply rooted horror of work. She thought that all the instincts of a gentleman were really in him. When he was a grown lad, he went as footman in a gentleman's family somewhere in the Midlands. The mother loftily supposed that it was there that Paul learned his good manners.
"He was a perfect gentleman, sir," she reiterated complacently.
It appeared too that the wastrel had had a period in his career when the call of the stage proved quite irresistible, for he seemed to have left the gentleman's family in the Midlands somewhat abruptly and walked on as super for a time in the various melodramas produced at the Grand Theatre, Nottingham, whenever a crowd was required on the stage. There seems also to have existed a legend in the heart of the fond mother and of the doting sister that Paul had once really played a big part in a serious play. But this statement was distinctly wanting in corroboration.
What was obviously an established fact was that the man had a certain spirit of adventure in him, and that he had been a regular rolling stone, a regular idle, good-for-nothing wastrel, possessing a certain charm of manner which delighted his family and which was readily mistaken by the simple folk for that of a gentleman.
They were all called in turn; the sister, and young Smith "from next door," and the latter's sister. Not one of them swerved for a moment from the original story told by Jim Baker. Emily and young Smith told of the meeting which occurred on a fine summer's afternoon between themselves and Paul. By the strange caprice of wanton coincidence the meeting occurred inside Green Park. Paul seemed a little worried, thinking that the passers-by would see him talking to "poor people like us," as Emily Baker had it, "although," she added proudly, "I 'ad me new 'at on, with the pink roses." Otherwise he was quite pleasant and not at all "off-'and."
The account of this interview was fully corroborated by young Smith "from next door." Jane Smith, who at one time had considered herself engaged to Paul Baker, had a few tender reminiscences to recount. She had seen the prodigal once on the boards of the Queen's Theatre, Lewisham, and she declared that he looked "a perfect gentleman."
The day wore on, or rather the commencement of evening. The evil-smelling fog from outside had made its home inside the dismal room. People there only saw one another through a misty veil; the corners of the room were wrapped in gloom. Exciting as was the story which had been unfolded this afternoon, one or two among the audience had given way to sleep. Lady Ducies' feathers nodded ominously, and the old dame who had munched sandwiches was inclined to give forth an occasional snore.
Louisa's eyes were aching. Constant watching had tired them; they even ceased to see clearly. Her brain too had become somnolent. She was tired of hearing these people talk. From the moment that Jim Baker had stated that the murdered man was his own son, Louisa had known that he had spoken the truth. Instinct was guiding her toward the truth, showing her the truth, wherever possible. She listened at first—deeply interested—to the scrappy evidence which told of Paul Baker's early life, but the family from Clapham Junction Road had marvellously little to relate. They no more understood their adventurous-spirited son than they would have been capable of aiding and abetting the fraud which he concocted.
They themselves were far too simple and too stupid to be dangerously criminal. And so the evidence quickly lost its interest for Louisa. She herself, with the fragmentary statements which she heard, could more easily surmise the life history of Paul Baker than could the doting mother, who retailed complacently every mark on the skin and on the body of her son, and knew nothing whatever—less than nothing—of his thoughts, his schemes, of the evil that was in him, and the ambition which led to his end.
And now the last of the Baker contingent was dismissed. Jane Smith, the sweetheart of the murdered man, was the last to leave the coroner's table. She did so in a flood of tears, in which the others promptly and incontinently joined.
The coroner, somewhat impatient with them all, for their vague notions on the most important bearings of the case had severely tried him, adjourned the inquiry until the morrow.
He ordered the jury to be present at a quarter before ten, and gave the signal for general withdrawal.
After which every one went home.
For the first time in the whole course of her life Louisa Harris felt that convention must be flouted and social duties could not be fulfilled.
When the coroner, rising from his seat, gave the signal for general exodus, she had felt her father's firm hand grasping her arm, and leading her out of the fog-ridden, stuffy room into the cold, gray passages outside.
The herd of cackling geese were crowding round her. Heavens above, how they cackled and gossiped! It seemed as if the very floodgates of a noisy, bubbling stream had been torn asunder, and a whirlpool of chattering women been let loose upon the earth.
Convention, grim and untractable, tried to pull the string to make all puppets dance. But for once Louisa Harris rebelled. She closed her ears to insinuating calls from her friends, responding with a mere curt nod to the most gushing "Oh, Miss Harris! how are you?" which greeted her from every side.
She turned her back resolutely on convention. The slave for once rebelled against the taskmaster: the puppet refused to dance to the ever-wearying monotonous tune.
She had lost sight of Luke the moment the court rose. She supposed that his solicitor, Mr. Dobson, knowing the ropes, had got him away from the reach of cackling geese by leading him through some other more private way. But she was far too dazed, too numb, either to wonder or to be disappointed at this. She felt as if she had pitched head foremost down a long flight of stairs, and had only just had sufficient strength to pick herself up, and not to let other people see quite how severely she had been bruised.
Mentally, morally, even physically, she felt bruised from head to foot.
Colonel Harris contrived to steer her through the crowd: at the gate outside even the smoke-laden atmosphere seemed pure and invigorating in comparison with that stuffy pen, wherein the herd of cackling geese had found its happy hunting ground. Louisa drew in a long breath, filling her lungs with fog, but feeling a little freer, less choked in spite of the grime which she inhaled.
"I think," said Colonel Harris now, "that you'd better go straight back to the Langham, and get some tea. You'll feel better when you've had your tea."
"I feel all right, dear," she said, trying to smile.
"So much the better," he retorted with an equal effort at cheerfulness. "I'll come along as soon as I can."
"Where are you off to, dear?" she asked.
"I'll just go and have a talk to Tom," he replied.
"I'll come with you. I can wait in the cab. I don't suppose that you'll be long."
He tried to protest, but obviously she had made up her mind. Perhaps she did not like the idea of going back to the hotel alone. So he hailed a passing cab and told the man to drive to Scotland Yard.
He had deliberately—and despite former prejudices—selected a taxicab. He wanted to see Tom as soon as was possible.
Louisa leaned back in the corner of the vehicle silent and motionless. Father and daughter did not exchange a single word whilst the cab rattled through the crowded streets of London. Hansoms, omnibuses, innumerable other taxis, rattled along the selfsame way, just as they had always done before this, just as they would go on doing to the end of time. People walked along, busy and indifferent. Many went past the shrieking news vendors without even stopping to buy a paper.
Luke stood accused, almost self-convicted, of a horrible crime, and there were thousands, nay millions, of people who didn't even care!
The taxicab flew past the railings of the Green Park, there where another taxicab had drawn up a couple of evenings ago, and where a snake-wood stick marked with tell-tale stains had been found clumsily buried in the mud. Louisa peered out of the window of the cab. People walked past that spot, indifferent and busy. Two girls were standing close to the railings chatting and giggling.
And Luke to-morrow, or perhaps to-night, would be under arrest—charged with murder—horrible, cruel, brutal murder—a vulgar, cowardly crime! The snake-wood stick had told a tale which he had not attempted to refute.
Presently the cab drew up and Colonel Harris jumped down.
"I won't be longer than I can help," he said. "Will you be all right?"
"Yes, father dear," she replied, "I'll be all right. Don't hurry."
She saw her father disappearing through the wide open door, above which a globe of light shone yellow through the fog. She remained huddled up in her furs, for she felt very cold. Her feet were like ice, and the fog seemed to have penetrated to her very marrow. Few people were to be seen in the narrow roadway, and only an occasional cab rattled past.
From the embankment close by came the cry of news vendors rushing along with late editions of the evening papers.
A church clock not far away slowly struck six, but she held no count of time. A kind of drowsiness was upon her, and the foggy atmosphere, coupled with intense, damp cold, acted as a kind of soporific.
She may have waited years, or only a few minutes; she did not know, but presently her father came back. His presence there under the lintel of the door seemed to have roused her from her torpor, as if with a swift, telepathic current. As he stood for a moment beneath the electric light, adjusting the collar of his coat, she saw his face quite distinctly: its expression told her everything. Luke's arrest was imminent. It was but a question of a few hours, moments perhaps.
"I am going to Exhibition Road at once," he said, speaking quickly, like a man deeply troubled.
And without waiting for her assent, which was a foregone conclusion, he gave the chauffeur the address: "Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road"; and added, "drive as fast as you can!"
Then he jumped in beside Louisa. The taxicab moaned and groaned whilst it manœuvred for turning; then it rattled off once more at prohibited speed.
"It is," she said simply, "only a question of time, I suppose?"
"The warrant is out," he replied curtly. "Any moment now the police may be at his door."
"Uncle Ryder is convinced of Luke's guilt?"
"Absolutely."
"Beyond that what does he say?"
"That unless Luke chooses to make a bolt of it, he had better plead guilty and intense provocation. But he thinks Luke would be wise to catch the night boat for Calais."
"They'd get him back on extradition."
"Tom says they won't try very hard. And if Luke keeps his wits about him, and has a sufficiency of money he'll be able to get right through to Spain and from thence to Tangiers. With money and influence much can be done, and Tom says that if Luke will only get away to-night he himself is prepared to take all the blame and all the responsibility of having allowed a criminal to escape. It's very decent of Tom," added the colonel thoughtfully, "for he risks his entire future."
But the sorely troubled father did not tell his daughter all that Sir Thomas had told him in the course of the brief interview.
In effect the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department had given a brief alternative by way of advice.
"A ticket to anywhere via Calais at once—or a revolver."
And he had added dryly:
"I see nothing else for it. The man has practically confessed."
But this Colonel Harris would not admit, and so the two men parted. Louisa's father, thinking a great deal of his friend but still more of his daughter, wanted above all things to have a final talk with Luke.
Louisa in the meanwhile sat silent in the corner of the cab.
She was trying to visualize this new picture: Luke—a fugitive from justice!
The taxicab was making a slight detour as Whitehall and the Mall were closed for road repairs. The chauffeur was driving round by St. Martin's Lane. At one of the theatres there, a popular play was filling the house night after night with enthusiastic crowds. It was only half past six now, and in a long queue extending over two hundred yards away from the pit and gallery doors of the lucky playhouse, patient crowds waited for the evening's pleasure.
People were going to theatres, they laughed at farces, and wept at tragedies. Was there ever such a tragedy enacted inside a theatre, as now took place in the life of a commonplace man and woman?
Luke—a fugitive from justice! Money and influence could do much! They could enable a wealthy criminal to escape the consequences of his own crime! They could enable him to catch express trains unmolested, to fly across land and sea under cover of the night, to become, Cain-like, a wanderer on the face of the earth without rest and without peace.
Could they prevent him from seeing ever present at his elbow the grim Angel of Remorse, holding in one hand the glass wherein relentlessly flowed the sands of time, and in the other, the invisible sword of a retarded but none the less sure vengeance? Could they prevent his hearing the one word, Nemesis?
Luke—a fugitive from justice! Accused of a crime which he did not commit, self-convicted, almost self-accused, and fleeing from its consequences as he would from Remorse!
And people went to theatres, and laughed and cried. People ate and danced and sang. News vendors shrieked their wares, the latest sensational news; the gentleman criminal who had money and influence and with their help evaded the grip of justice.
Louisa knew the flat in Exhibition Road very well. She had helped Edie to furnish it, and to make it pretty and cosey, for Edie's passion was for dogs and for golf; drawing-room chairs and saucepans were not much in her line. So Louisa had chosen practically everything—the piano, as well as the coal-scuttles, and every stick of furniture in Luke's room.
To-night she went up the well-known stairs very slowly: she ached so in every limb that she could scarcely walk. She seemed to have aged twenty years in two days.
Edie was sitting alone in the pretty drawing room buried in a capacious arm-chair, her hands folded before her. The room was in darkness save for the glow of the firelight. She jumped up when Colonel Harris and Louisa were announced and the neat servant in black dress and smart cap and apron switched on the electric light.
"Oh," said poor little Edie impetuously, "I am so thankful you've come!"
She ran up to Louisa and put her arms round her, kissing her.
"Do come and sit with me," she continued, loath to relinquish Colonel Harris's hand after she had shaken it, "I feel that in this solitude I shall go dotty."
Whilst she spoke, she detached with nervous, febrile movements Louisa's fur from round her neck, and dragged the older woman nearer to herself and to the fire. Then she threw herself down on the hearth rug, squatting there in front of the fire, with nervy fingers picking at the fringe of the rug. Her cheeks were red and blotchy with traces of recent tears, her hair, towzled and damp, clung to her moist temples. Suddenly she burst into a torrent of weeping.
"Oh, Lou! what does it all mean?" she exclaimed between heavy sobs. "What does it all mean? They say Luke has murdered that odious Philip! and I have been cooped up here for two days now, not daring to go out! ashamed to face any one! and Luke—Luke—oh!"
The outburst was almost hysterical. The young girl was obviously fearfully overwrought, and had endured a severe nerve-strain by not having the means of giving vent to her feelings. Colonel Harris, with all an Englishman's horror of feminine scenes, was clearing his throat, looking supremely uncomfortable all the time.
"Sh!—sh!" admonished Louisa impatiently, "be quiet, Edie, you mustn't go on like that! Be quiet now!" she added more severely seeing that the girl made no effort to control herself. "What will your servants think?"
"Do you suppose," retorted Edie, "that I care what they think? They can't think more, can they? when they all talk of Luke as if he were a murderer."
"Do for God's sake be silent, Edie. This is too awful."
And Louisa, almost roughly, dragged herself away from the girl's hysterical embrace. She had tried so hard for two days and two nights to keep herself together, and her nerves in check. All day to-day had been one long continuous battle against the danger of "breaking down," that bugbear of the conventional woman of the world.
Now this danger, backed up by this poor child's grief, loomed greater than ever, now—now—that "breaking down" would become a positive sin, the most abject form of cowardice. But Edie's bewilderment, her loneliness, were intensely pathetic. Louisa had tried to be severe, and insisted on checking the access of hysteria, but her heart went out to the child, and to her puzzlement in face of this awful, un-understandable riddle.
"Look here, Edie," she said gently, putting her own kind arms round the quaking shoulders of the younger girl, "you are just going to show father and me how brave you can be. You are Luke's nearest and dearest one on earth; you must not add to his troubles by this exaggerated show of grief. We'll all have to be brave—all of us—but Luke will have to be the bravest of us all, and so we must all do our best to keep up our courage, and help his own."
She was not accustomed to making such long speeches, nor yet to preach and to admonish. Life, before now, had never placed her in the necessity of admonishing others: everybody round her—the people with whom she came in contact always behaved very much as they should—in the proper conventional worldly manner. People she had hitherto to do with, did not give way to hysterical tears, nor had they occasion to display fortitude in the face of an overwhelming moral shock.
Therefore Louisa was not sure if her words would carry weight, or if they would produce the effect she desired. She gazed anxiously at Edie whilst she spoke, looking with hopeful yet fearful eyes in the poor girl's face, wondering if she had succeeded in calming the hysterical outburst.
Edie hung her head, wilfully veiling her eyes beneath the drooping lids. She twirled her gossamer handkerchief into a tight wet ball and toyed with it nervously.
"It's not much good," she said at last, in very low tones so that Louisa had some difficulty in hearing what she said, "my trying to be brave—when Luke is such a coward!"
"Be quiet, Edie," retorted Louisa, all her kindness and sympathy gone, and pushing the girl roughly away from her. "You have no right to talk like that."
"Well, Colonel Harris," rejoined Edie, turning to the man in her distress, "I ask you, if it isn't just cowardice to run away now, and leave me and Jim to face the whole thing alone?"
"To run away? What do you mean?" demanded Louisa, placing her hand on the girl's shoulder, forcing her to turn round and to face her.
"Who's running away?" queried Colonel Harris with a frown.
"Luke," said Edie hotly, "is running away. He came home just now, and calmly told me that he was going off abroad to-night, and since then he has been shut up in his room, packing his things. I have been all alone here all day. Jim won't be home till late to-night. Poor old Jim! what a fearful home-coming it will be for him."
But to this renewal of Edie's lamentations, Louisa had not listened, only to the words: "Luke said that he was going abroad to-night!"
Luke—fugitive from justice! The monstrous, unbelievable picture which she had tried to visualize just now had become a mirror reflecting awful, hideous reality.
"Where's Luke?" asked the colonel. "I'd better see him."
"No, father," interposed Louisa quickly. "I'd sooner speak to Luke. Can I go to him, Edie?"
"Yes, I think so," replied the other. "I don't suppose that he has locked his door."
"Louisa," said her father gently, "I don't think you'll be doing any good, dear. A man must act as he thinks best."
"I'm not," she replied, "going to interfere with Luke's plans. I only want to speak to him. Don't bother, Edie. I know my way."
Luke was sitting at a desk, writing, when Louisa entered his room. Only one lamp shaded with yellow silk hung above the desk, throwing golden light on paper and blotting pad and on the hand which held the pen.
When Luke turned at the sound of the opening door his face remained in deep shadow. He could not of course see her distinctly, as her figure was silhouetted against the light in the passage behind her; that was no doubt the reason why he did not rise to greet her when she entered, but remained seated at his desk.
"May I come in, Luke?" she asked.
"Certainly," he replied. "I was just writing to you."
"Then give me your unfinished letter, and tell me what else you were going to write."
"Oh! I had only got as far as your name," he said, pointing to the empty page before him.
"Was it so difficult then," she asked, "to tell me everything?"
She had come forward into the room, and stood beside his desk, one hand resting upon it, her face looking down at the letter which he had not yet begun to write. He still made no attempt to rise, for now her face was in full golden light, and he could see its every feature.
"It is so difficult," he said, "not to write drivel when one is saying good-bye."
"You are going away?" she asked.
"Yes."
"To-night?"
"In half an hour."
"You are going abroad?"
"Certainly."
"Why?"
This last question came abruptly, in harsh, trenchant tones, altogether different to those of her smooth contralto voice. He turned his eyes away from her face, and looked down at his own hands, which were clasped in front of him.
"Because," he replied without the slightest hesitation, "I cannot face what lies before me if I remain."
"Why not?"
"For many reasons. There's Uncle Rad to consider first and foremost, then Edie, and Jim, and Frank."
"What have they to do with it?"
"Everything. After the evidence at the inquest to-day a warrant will be out for my arrest within the next few hours."
"What of it?"
"The evidence against me is overwhelming. I should be tried, perhaps hanged, for murder, at best sent to penal servitude for life. I cannot chance that. I must think of Uncle Rad, of Edie, of Jim and of Frank."
"You have yourself to think of first and foremost."
"Well," he retorted simply, "I have thought of myself, and I do not see how with my own dagger-stick brought up in evidence against me, and my ill-feeling toward—toward the dead man so well-known, I can possibly escape condemnation."
He spoke in such even and perfectly natural tones, that just for a moment—it was a mere flash—Louisa wondered if he were absolutely sane. It seemed impossible that any man could preserve such calm in face of the most appalling fate that ever threatened human being. She, too, like the indifferent, hide-bound official this afternoon was seized with an irrepressible desire to break through that surface of ice. The outer covering must be very thin, she thought; her presence must have melted all the coldness that lay immediately below the surface. Without saying another word, quietly and simply she came down on her knees. Her skirts had not swished as she did so, not a sound from her revealed the movement. When he looked up again, her face was on a level with his, and her eyes—those great luminous eyes that shed no tears at moments such as this—looked straight into his own.
"For pity's sake, Lou," he said, "don't make a drivelling coward of me now."
And he rose, pushing his chair aside, leaving her there, kneeling beside the desk, humbled and helpless. And he retreated within the shadow of the room.
"Luke," she said, imploring him, "you are going to tell me all that troubles you."
"Nothing," he replied curtly, "troubles me. You are wasting your sympathy, you know. And I have a train to catch."
"You are not going, Luke?"
"Indeed I am."
"You condemn yourself for a crime which you have not committed."
"I am already as good as condemned. But I do not choose to hang for the murder of the Clapham bricklayer's son."
He laughed. It almost sounded like a natural laugh—would have done so, no doubt, to all ears except hers. Then he added dryly:
"Such a purposeless crime too. Fancy being hanged for killing Paul Baker."
"Luke," she said simply, "you don't seem to realize how you are hurting me!"
One ejaculation, "My God!" escaped him then. He stood quite still, in the shadow, and presently his hand wandered with the old familiar gesture down the smooth back of his head. She remained on her knees and after awhile he came back to her, and sat down on the chair beside the desk, his eyes on a level with hers.
"Look here, Lou," he said quietly, "I have got to go and that's all about it. I have got to, do you understand? The consequences of this crime cannot be faced—not by any one—not by me. There's Uncle Rad to think of first. He is broken and ill; he has more than one foot in the grave. The trial and the scandal couldn't be kept from him; it would be bound to leak out sooner or later. It would be too big a scandal, and it would kill him outright. Then, you see, Lou, it would never do! I should be Earl of Radclyffe and a felon—it wouldn't do, now would it? Who has ever heard of a peer undergoing a life sentence—or being hanged? It wouldn't do—you know it wouldn't do——"
He reiterated this several times, with quaint insistence, as if he were discussing with her the possibility or impossibility of attending a race meeting, or a ball in Lent, she proving obstinate.
She did not reply, leaving him to ramble on in his somewhat wild speech, hoping that if she let him talk on uninterruptedly, he would sooner or later betray something of that enigma which lay hidden behind the wooden mask which he still so persistently wore.
"Besides," he continued, still arguing, "there's Frank to think of—the next heir to the title. I believe that people in penal servitude live an unconscionable time—especially if they are wanted to die. Think of poor old Frank waiting to come into his own—into an old title held by a felon. It is all much too much of a muddle, Lou. It is simpler that I should go——"
"But," she said, really trying now to speak as simply, as calmly as he did himself, "all these arguments which you are using now, Luke, will equally apply if you make yourself a fugitive from justice."
"Oh, I shouldn't be that for very long!" he said lightly.
"You are thinking of suicide?"
"No," he replied simply, "I am not. Only of the chances of a wandering life."
"You seem to look at every chance, Luke, except one."
"Which one is that?"
"That though you might be arrested, though you might be accused and even tried for the murder of—of that man—truth might come out, and your innocence proved."
"That would be impossible, Lou," he said quietly.
"Why—in Heaven's name, Luke!" she exclaimed passionately, "why?"
"My dagger-stick was found inside the railings of the park—and the stains on it are irrefutable proofs."
"That's only circumstantial evidence," she argued, "you can demolish it, if you choose."
"I cannot," he replied. "I should plead guilty—Mr. Dobson says that if I plead guilty, counsel can plead extenuating circumstances—intense provocation and so forth—and I might get a more lenient sentence."
"Luke," she said, looking him straight in the face, compelling his eyes to meet hers, for in their clear depths she meant to read the truth, to compel the truth at last. He had never lied in his life. If he lied now she would know it, she would read it in his face. "Luke! you are shielding some one by taking the crime on your own shoulders."