CHAPTER XVIII
IT WOULD NOT DO, YOU KNOW
Since Lord Radclyffe was too ill to attend to anything, or to see anyone, it devolved upon Luke to make what arrangements he thoughtfitting for the lying in state and the subsequent obsequies of themurdered man. For the present, Philip de Mountford lay in the gloomymortuary chamber of the Victoria police court. Luke had sent overmassive silver candelabra, flowers and palms and all the paraphernaliapertaining to luxurious death.
The dead man lay--not neglected--only unwatched and alone, surroundedby all the evidences of that wealth which he had come a very long wayto seek, but which Fate and a murderer's hand had snatched withappalling suddenness from him.
And in the private sitting room at the Langham, Louisa Harris satopposite her father at breakfast, a pile of morning papers beside herplate, she herself silent and absorbed.
"That's a queer tale," Colonel Harris was saying, "the papers tellabout that murder in Brussels a year ago--though I must say that to mymind there appears some truth in what they say. What do you think,Louisa?"
"I hardly know," she replied absently, "what to think."
"The details of that crime, which was committed about a year ago, areexactly the same as those which relate to this infernal business oflast night."
"Are they really?"
No one could have said--and Louisa herself least of all--why she wasunwilling to speak on that subject. She had never told her father, orany one for a matter of that, except----that she had been so near tothe actual scene of that mysterious crime in Brussels, and that shehad known its every detail.
"And I must say," reiterated Colonel Harris emphatically, "that Iagree with the leading article in the _Times_. One crime begetsanother. If that hooligan--or whatever he was--in Brussels had notinvented this new and dastardly way of murdering a man in a cab andthen making himself scarce and sending the cab spinning on its way, nodoubt Philip de Mountford would be alive now. Not that that would be amatter for great rejoicings. Still a crime is a crime, and if we weregoing to allow blackguards to be murdered all over the place by otherblackguards, where would law and order be?"
He was talking more loudly and volubly than was his wont, and he tookalmost ostentatiously quantities of food on his plate, which it wasquite obvious he never meant to eat. He also steadily avoided meetinghis daughter's eyes. But at this juncture she put both elbows on thetable, rested her chin in her hands, and looked straight across at herfather.
"It's no use, dear," she said simply.
"No use what?" he queried with ungrammatical directness.
"No use your pretending to talk at random and to be eating a heartybreakfast, when your thoughts are just as much absorbed as mine are."
"Hm!" he grunted evasively, but was glad enough to push aside theplateful of eggs and bacon which, indeed, he had no desire to eat.
"You have," she continued gently, "read all the papers, just as Ihave, and you know as well as I do what to read between the lines whenthey talk of 'clues' and of 'certain sensational developments.'"
"Of course I do," he retorted gruffly, "but it's all nonsense."
"Of course it is. But worrying nevertheless."
"I don't see how such rubbish can worry you."
"Not," she said, "for myself. But for Luke. He must have got aninkling by now of what is going on."
"Of course he has. And if he has a grain of sense he'll treat it withthe contempt it deserves."
"It's all very well, father. But just think for a moment. Placeyourself in Luke's position. The very idea that you might be suspectedmust in itself be terrible."
"Not when you are innocent," he rejoined with the absolute certitudeof a man who has never been called upon to face any really seriousproblem in life. "I shouldn't care what the rabble said about me, if Ihad a clear conscience."
Louisa was silent for a moment or two, then she said:
"Luke is different somehow. He has been different lately."
"He has a lot to put up with, with old Radclyffe going off his head inthat ridiculous way."
But Louisa did not reply to that suggestion. She knew well enoughthat it was neither Lord Radclyffe's unkindness, nor the arrogance ofthe new cousin that had changed and softened Luke's entire nature.
The day that he had sat beside her on the stain at Lady Ducies' ball,the completeness of the change had been fully borne in on her. WhenLuke said to her: "I would give all I have in the world to lie on theground before you and to kiss the soles of your feet," she knew thatLove had wrought its usual exquisite miracle, the absorption of selfby another, the utter sinking of the ego before the high altar of theloved one. She knew all that, but dear old Colonel Harris hadforgotten--perhaps he had never known.
That knowledge comes to so few nowadays. Life, psychology, and sexualproblems have taken the place of the divine lesson which has glorifiedthe world since the birth of Lilith.
All that Louisa now remarked to her kind and sensible father was----
"You know, dear, suspicion has killed a man before now. It was but avery little while ago that a noble-hearted gentleman preferred deathto such dishonour."
"You've got your head," he retorted, "full of nonsense, Lou. Try andbe a sensible woman now, and think of it all quietly. Is thereanything you would like me to do, for instance?"
"Yes, if you will."
"What is it?"
"Couldn't you see Uncle Ryder?"
"At Scotland Yard, you mean?"
"He is at the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, isn'the?"
"I've always understood so."
"Would he see you, do you think, at his office?"
"Tom not see me?" exclaimed Colonel Harris. "Of course he would. Whatdo you want me to see him about?"
"He could tell you exactly how matters stood with regard to--to Luke,couldn't he?"
"He could. But would he?"
"You can but try."
"It's a great pity your aunt is out of town; you might have heard agood deal from her."
"Oh, Sir Thomas never tells aunt anything that's professional," saidLouisa with a smile. "She'd be forever making muddles."
"I am sure she would," he assented with deep conviction.
"Do you think I might go with you?"
"What? To Tom's? I don't think he would like that, Lou: and itwouldn't quite do you know."
"Perhaps not," she agreed with hardly even a sigh of disappointment.She was so accustomed, you see, to being thwarted by convention,whenever impulse carried her out of the bounds which the world hadprescribed. Moreover, she expected to see Luke soon. He would be sureto come directly after an early visit to Grosvenor Square.
She helped her father on with his coat. She was almost satisfied thathe should go alone. She would have an hour with Luke, if he cameearly, and it was necessary that she should have him to herself,before too many people had shouted evil and good news,congratulations, opprobrium, and suspicions at him.
Colonel Harris, she knew, would get quite as much if not moreinformation out of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Ryder, than he coulddo if she--a mere woman--happened to be present at the interview. SirThomas would trust Colonel Harris with professional matters which henever would confide to a woman, and Louisa trusted her fatherimplicitly.
She knew that, despite the grumblings and crustiness peculiar to everyEnglishman, when he is troubled with domestic matters whilst sittingat his own breakfast table, her father had Luke's welfare just as muchat heart as she had herself.
The Heart of a Woman Page 18
