CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE HAND OF DEATH WAS ON HIM TOO
A respectable looking butler opened the door in answer to DoctorNewington's pull at the bell.
Luke had had time--on the day preceding the inquest--to put somesemblance of order in his uncle's household. The doctor had sent inthe nurses, and he had seen to a nice capable housekeeper beinginstalled in the house. She took the further management at once in herown hands. She dismissed the drunken couple summarily and engaged acouple of decent servants--a butler and a cook.
The house, though no less gloomy, looked certainly less lonely andneglected.
Mr. Warren, who had been Lord Radclyffe's secretary for years, but whohad been speedily given his conge when the imposter took up hispermanent abode in the house, was installed once more in the library,replying to the innumerable letters and telegrams of inquiry whichpoured in with every post.
Louisa and Sir Thomas were shown into the room where the young man wassitting. He rose at once, offering chairs and pushing his own workaside. In the meanwhile the doctor had gone up stairs.
Several minutes elapsed. No one spoke. Mr. Warren, who had alwaysbeen deeply attached to Luke de Mountford, was longing to askquestions, which, however, he was too shy to formulate. At last therewas a knock at the door and one of the nurses came in to say that LordRadclyffe would be pleased to see Sir Thomas Ryder up stairs.
Louisa rose at the same time as her uncle, but the latter detained herwith a gesture full of kind sympathy.
"Not just yet, my dear," he said. "I'll call you as soon as possible."
"But," she asked anxiously, "I shall be allowed to see him, shan't I?"
"I think so," he replied evasively. "But even if you do not see him,you can trust to me. Oh, yes! you can," he added insistently, seeingthe deeply troubled look that had crept into her face at his words. "Iam going to do to-night what I often have to do in the course of mywork. I am going to borrow your soul and your mind and allow them tospeak through my lips. When I go up stairs, I shall only outwardly bethe police officer searching for proofs of a crime: inwardly I shallbe a noble-hearted woman trying to discover proofs of her fiancee'sinnocence. That will be right, dear, won't it?"
She nodded acquiescence, trying to appear content. Then she pleadedonce again, dry-eyed and broken-voiced: "You will try and getpermission for me to see Lord Radclyffe, won't you?"
"I give you my word," he said solemnly.
Then he went up stairs.
Mr. Warren, quiet and sympathetic, persuaded Louisa to sit down againby the hearth. He took her muff and fur stole from her, and threw alog on the fire. The flames spurted off, giving a cheerful crackle.But Louisa saw no pictures in this fire, her mind was up stairs inLord Radclyffe's room, wondering what was happening.
Mr. Warren spoke of the murdered man. He had not been present at theinquest, and the news that the tyrant who had ruled over LordRadclyffe for so long was nothing but an impostor came as a fearfulshock to him.
There was the pitifulness of the whole thing! The utterpurposelessness of a hideous crime. So many lives wrecked, such awfulcalamity, such appalling humiliation, such ignominy, and all just fornothing! A very little trouble, almost superficial inquiry, would haverevealed the imposture, and saved all that sorrow, all the direhumiliation, and prevented the crime for which the law of men decreesthat there shall be no pardon.
The man who lay ill up stairs--and he who was lying in the publicmortuary, surrounded by all the pomp and luxury which he had filchedby his lies--alone could tell the secret of the extraordinary successof the imposture. Lord Radclyffe had accepted the bricklayer's sonalmost as his own, with that same obstinate reserve with which he hadat first flouted the very thought of the man's pretensions. Who couldtell what persuasion was used? what arguments? what threats?
And the man was an impostor after all! And he had been murdered, whenone word perhaps would have effaced him from the world as completelyand less majestically than had been done by death.
Mr. Warren talked of it all, and Louisa listened with half an ear evenwhilst every sense of hearing in her was concentrated on the floorabove, in a vain endeavour to get a faint inkling of what went on inLord Radclyffe's room. She had heard her uncle's step on the landing,the few hurried sentences exchanged with the doctor before enteringthe sick chamber, the opening and shutting of a door. Then again thelighter footsteps of the nurses, who had evidently been sent out ofthe room, when Sir Thomas went in. Louisa heard the faint hum of theirvoices as they descended the stairs, even a suppressed giggle now andthen: they were happy no doubt at the few moments of respite fromconstant watching, which had apparently been accorded them.
They ran quickly down the last flight of stairs, and across the halltoward the servants' quarters. Their chattering was heard faintlyechoing through the baize doors. Then nothing more.
Less than a quarter of an hour went by, and again she heard theopening and shutting of a door, and men's footsteps on the landing.
Louisa could not believe either her eyes which were gazing on theclock, or her ears, which heard now quite distinctly the voice of SirThomas descending the stairs, and Doctor Newington's more pompoustones in reply.
"The interview," remarked Mr. Warren, "did not last very long."
But already she had risen from her chair, desperately anxious,wondering what the meaning could be of the shortness of the interview.She was not kept long in suspense, for a moment or two later SirThomas Ryder came in followed by Doctor Newington. One glance at heruncle's face told her the whole disappointing truth, even before hespoke.
"It was useless, my dear," he said, "and Doctor Newington was quiteright. Lord Radclyffe, I am sorry to say, is hardly conscious. He is,evidently, unable to understand what is said, and certainly quiteincapable of making any effort to reply."
"I was afraid so," added Doctor Newington in his usual conventionaltones, "the patient, you see, is hardly conscious. His mind isdormant. He just knows me and his nurses, but he did not recognize SirThomas."
Louisa said nothing: the blank, hopeless disappointment following onthe excitement of the past two hours was exceedingly difficult tobear. The ruling passion--strong even in the midst of despair--thepride that was in her, alone kept her from an utter breakdown. She wasgrateful to her uncle, who very tactfully interposed his tall figurebetween her and the indifferent eyes of the doctor. Mr. Warren lookedmore sympathetic than ever, and that was just as trying to bear as thepompousness of Doctor Newington.
As a matter of fact, Louisa had absolutely ceased to think. The wholefuture from this moment appeared as an absolute blank. She had notbegun to envisage the possibility of going back to the hotel, havingutterly failed in accomplishing that which she had set mind and heartto do: the throwing of the first feeble ray of light on theimpenetrable darkness of Luke's supposed guilt. She certainly had notenvisaged the going to bed to-night, the getting up to-morrow, thebeginning of another day with its thousand and one trivial tasks andincidents, all the while that she had failed in doing that which alonecould prevent the awful catastrophe of to-morrow!
Luke standing in the dock, like a common criminal!
"I'll just see about getting a cab, dear," said her uncle kindly.
The first of those thousand and one trivialities which would go on andon from now onward in endless monotony, whilst Luke prepared for histrial, for his condemnation, perhaps for death.
It was indeed unthinkable. No wonder that her mind rebelled at thetask, refusing all thoughts, remaining like a gray, blank slate fromwhich every impression of past and future has been wiped out.
Sir Thomas Ryder went out of the room, and Mr. Warren went with him.They left the door ajar, so she could hear them talking in the hall.Mr. Warren said:
"Don't go out, Sir Thomas. It's a horrid night. Fletcher will get youa cab."
And Sir Thomas replied: "Thank you."
"Won't you," said the younger man, "wait in the library?"
He had apparently rung a bell, for
the man servant came into the halland was duly told off to whistle for a cab.
"I'd rather go into another room, for a moment, Mr. Warren, if I may,"said Sir Thomas. "There are just one or two little questions I wouldlike to put to you."
"Certainly, Sir Thomas," replied Mr. Warren with alacrity.
The two men went together into the dining-room. Louisa by shutting hereyes could almost see them sitting there in the stately and gloomyroom, which she knew so well. She could call to mind the last occasionon which she had lunched there, with Lord Radclyffe and Luke, andEdie, and Jim. It was the day on which the impostor first forced hisway into the house. Louisa had a clear vision of him even now, just asshe had seen him standing that day in the hall, before his interviewwith Lord Radclyffe. Parker was helping him with his coat and Louisahad seen his face: the bricklayer's son who had come forward with hismarvellous array of lies, and who had been so implicitly believed,that he himself had to pay for his lies with a most horrible death.
For that death now--and because of the impenetrable mystery which theimpostor had taken with him to his humble grave--Luke stood in dangerof being punished with death that was even more horrible than thatcaused by a stab in the neck under cover of darkness and of fog.
The one chance that there had been of finding a clue to the mysteryhad been dissipated by the silence of the sick man up stairs. The handof death was upon him too. He also would take the secret of thebricklayer's son, silently with him to the grave.
Louisa's eyes, vacant and tearless, wandered aimlessly round the room.Doctor Newington was sitting at the desk, writing either a letter or aprescription which apparently required a considerable amount ofthought. He seemed deeply absorbed in what he wrote and from time totime referred to a small note-book which he took out of his pocket.
The scratching of his stylo against the paper was the only sound thatstruck Louisa's ear, the rest of the house seemed lonely and still.Only from far away came the shrill screeching of the cab-whistle.
Louisa rose and went to the door, peeping out into the hall. It wasdeserted and the dining-room door was shut. She slipped out into thehall. Doctor Newington apparently did not trouble himself about her.Very softly she closed the library door behind her.
Then she ran swiftly up stairs.
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