CHAPTER XV
AND MANY MUST BE QUESTIONED
By the time the police officers reached the outer hall door, Luke had received his order of dismissal. He stood on the step for a moment, undecided what to do, and saw the two men coming out of his uncle's study.
They raised their hats as they met him on the door step, and one of them said politely:
"Mr. Luke de Mountford?"
"That is my name," replied Luke.
"Mine is Travers—attached to Scotland Yard. Could I ask you a few questions?"
"Certainly, but not in my uncle's house, I think."
"Of course not; where do you suggest?"
"Here on the door step if you like."
"Hardly. Might I trouble you to step into a cab with me and to come as far as Victoria police court?"
"It's very late, isn't it? I have an engagement at eleven close by here."
He was going to fetch Colonel Harris and Louisa at the Danish Legation and pilot them home to the Langham.
"It's an important matter, Mr. de Mountford," retorted the man. "Are you lodging anywhere near here?"
"In Exhibition Road, Kensington."
"Ah, close to Cromwell Road?"
"Then where shall it be, Mr. de Mountford?"
"Why not in the cab?" remarked Luke.
"Just as you like."
The taxicab which had brought the police officers was standing some few paces farther on, its strong lights only just piercing the intensity of the fog, and its throbbings, as the taximeter marked off twopences with unerring rapidity, filled the night with their strangely familiar sound.
The three men got into the cab, the officer telling the chauffeur to remain stationary until told to move on.
"I know very little about the business, Mr.—er—Travers," remarked Luke as soon as all three of them had stowed themselves fairly comfortably in the interior of the vehicle. "I suppose it is about this ghastly affair that you wanted to speak to me."
"Yes, sir. It was about that. I thought you could give us some information about the late Mr. de Mountford's past life, or his former friends."
"I know nothing," retorted Luke dryly, "of my cousin's past or present life. He did not confide in me."
"But you were good friends?" interposed the other quickly.
"We knew each other very little."
"And to-night?"
"I saw him at his club."
"Where was that?"
"The Veterans' in Shaftesbury Avenue."
"About what time?"
"Between eight and nine."
"You had some talk with him?"
"Pleasant talk?" asked the officer indifferently.
"Family affairs," rejoined Luke dryly.
"And you parted from him?"
"Somewhere about nine."
"In the club?"
"In the club."
"The door steps?"
"No. The lobby."
"He was alone then? I mean—besides yourself was no one with him?"
"No one. The hall porter stood there of course."
"No one joined him afterward?"
"That I cannot say. When I parted from him he was alone."
"You know that Mr. Philip de Mountford was murdered in a taxicab between Shaftesbury Avenue and Hyde Park Corner, soon after nine o'clock?"
"I have heard most of the details of that extraordinary crime.
"And you can throw no light on it at all?"
"None. How could I?"
"Nothing," insisted the police officer, "occurs to you at this moment that might help us in any way to trace the murderer?"
"Nothing whatever."
The man was silent. It seemed as if he was meditating how best to put one or more questions. Up to now these had been curt and to the point, and as they followed one another in quick succession there was a marked difference in the attitude both of the questioner and the questioned. The police officer had started by being perfectly deferential—just like a man accustomed to speak with people whose position in the world compelled a certain regard. He had originally addressed Luke as "sir," just as he had invariably said "my lord" to Lord Radclyffe, but now he spoke much more curtly. There was a note of demand in every question which he put, a peremptoriness of manner which did not escape the observation of his interlocutor.
As the one man became more aggressive so did Luke also change his manner. There had been affable courtesy in his first reply to the questions put to him, a desire to be of help if help was needed, but with his senses attuned by anxiety and nerve strain to distinguish subtle difference of manner and of intention, he was quick enough to notice that he himself was as it were in a witness box, with a counsel ready enough to bully, or to trip up any contradictory statement.
Not that Luke realized the reason of this change. The thought that he could be suspected of a crime was as far removed from his ken as the desire to visit the moon. He could not understand the officer's attitude; it puzzled him, and put him on his guard—but it was just the instinct of self-preservation, of caution, which comes to men who have had to fight the world, and who have met enemies where they least expected to find one.
"Do you remember," now resumed Travers after that slight pause, which had seemed very long to Luke, but as a matter of fact had only lasted a short minute, "whether you saw Mr. Philip de Mountford speaking with any one when you left him in the lobby of the club?"
"I told you," said Luke impatiently, "that he was alone, except for the hall porter."
"Alone in the whole club house?"
"Alone," reiterated Luke with measured emphasis, "in the lobby of the Veterans' Club."
"How many rooms has the club?"
"I don't know; it was the first time I had ever been there."
"Did you know any of the staff?"
"No—since I had never been there before."
"You were not known to any member of the staff?"
"Not that I know of."
"You were shown into the club rooms without being known there at all?"
"The Veterans' Club is a new one, and its rules apparently are not very strict. I asked if Mr. de Mountford was in the club and was told that I should find him in the smoking room, and I did."
"How long did your interview with Mr. de Mountford last?"
"About three quarters of an hour I should say."
"And it was of a perfectly amicable nature?"
"Of a perfectly indifferent nature," corrected Luke.
"And after the interview what did you do?"
"I walked out of the club."
"But after that?"
"I walked about."
"In the fog?" This in an undisguised tone of surprise.
"In the fog."
"In what direction?"
"Really," here rejoined Luke with a sudden show of resentment, "Mr.—er—Travers, I fail to see how my movements can be of concern to you."
He was certainly not going to tell this man that he had made his way through the fog as far as the residence of the Danish Minister, and that he had walked up and down for over an hour outside that house like a love-sick fool, like a doting idiot, because he knew that if he waited patiently he would presently hear the faint echo of a well-trained contralto voice whose mellowness would come to him through the closed windows of the brilliantly illumined mansion, and would ease for a moment the wild longing of his heart.
What the man near him said in answer to his retort he really could not say. He had not heard, for in a moment his thoughts had flashed back to that lonely vigil in the fog, to the sound of her voice, which came, oh! so faintly, to his ear, and then to the first breath of gossip that came from the passers-by, the coachmen and chauffeurs who had drawn up in long rows along the curb, the idlers who always hang about outside in the cold and the damp when a society function is in progress, the pickers-up of unconsidered trifles, lost or willingly bestowed.
From these he had first heard the news: vaguely at first, for he did not—could not—realize that the amazing thing which was being commented on and discussed had anything to do with him. The talk was of murder, and soon the name of de Mountford was mentioned. The details he got were very confused, and the open allusions as to "seek whom the crime will benefit" never really reached his brain, which was almost numb with the violence of the shock.
His first thought after that was to go and see Uncle Rad: he had, for the moment, almost forgotten Louisa. Every other interest in life sank to nothingness beside the one clear duty: Uncle Rad would be alone; the awful news must be broken very gradually to Uncle Rad. He had hurried to Grosvenor Square, only to find that emissaries of the police had forestalled him in his duty.
All this he could not explain to the man Travers. It would have sounded lame and barely plausible. Nowadays men do not walk outside houses wherein their liege lady dwells, and, if they do, they do not choose a foggy night for the sentimental dalliance. He was thankful, therefore, that Travers put no further questions to him, and merely said with a return to his original politeness:
"I am greatly obliged to you, sir. I don't think I need detain you any longer. You said you had an engagement later on; won't you keep this cab?"
Luke thanked him, but refused the offer of the cab.
"It is close by," he said.
"May I call on you to-morrow morning, sir?"
"If it is necessary."
"I am afraid so. You see we don't like to trouble Lord Radclyffe and we must try and obtain knowledge of certain facts and verify others."
"Quite so. Well, to-morrow then."
"Thank you, sir. Your address is——?"
"Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road."
"Such a nice neighbourhood. No fog there to-night I think."
"I hope not. Good night."
"Good night, sir."
Luke made his escape from the cab. He was afraid of missing Louisa and her father. His thoughts were somewhat in a whirl, and—being overburdened with matters of paramount importance—were inclined to dwell on trifles.
"I ought," he reflected, "to have taken that man's cab. It might be difficult to get another and Colonel Harris hates waiting in a crowded hall."