CHAPTER XVIII
IT WOULD NOT DO, YOU KNOW
Since Lord Radclyffe was too ill to attend to anything, or to see any one, it devolved upon Luke to make what arrangements he thought fitting for the lying in state and the subsequent obsequies of the murdered man. For the present, Philip de Mountford lay in the gloomy mortuary chamber of the Victoria police court. Luke had sent over massive silver candelabra, flowers and palms and all the paraphernalia pertaining to luxurious death.
The dead man lay—not neglected—only unwatched and alone, surrounded by all the evidences of that wealth which he had come a very long way to seek, but which Fate and a murderer's hand had snatched with appalling suddenness from him.
And in the private sitting room at the Langham, Louisa Harris sat opposite her father at breakfast, a pile of morning papers beside her plate, she herself silent and absorbed.
"That's a queer tale," Colonel Harris was saying, "the papers tell about that murder in Brussels a year ago—though I must say that to my mind 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, are exactly the same as those which relate to this infernal business of last night."
"Are they really?"
No one could have said—and Louisa herself least of all—why she was unwilling to speak on that subject. She had never told her father, or any one for a matter of that, except——that she had been so near to the actual scene of that mysterious crime in Brussels, and that she had known its every detail.
"And I must say," reiterated Colonel Harris emphatically, "that I agree with the leading article in the Times. One crime begets another. If that hooligan—or whatever he was—in Brussels had not invented this new and dastardly way of murdering a man in a cab and then making himself scarce and sending the cab spinning on its way, no doubt Philip de Mountford would be alive now. Not that that would be a matter for great rejoicings. Still a crime is a crime, and if we were going to allow blackguards to be murdered all over the place by other blackguards, where would law and order be?"
He was talking more loudly and volubly than was his wont, and he took almost ostentatiously quantities of food on his plate, which it was quite obvious he never meant to eat. He also steadily avoided meeting his daughter's eyes. But at this juncture she put both elbows on the table, rested her chin in her hands, and looked straight across at her father.
"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 hearty breakfast, when your thoughts are just as much absorbed as mine are."
"Hm!" he grunted evasively, but was glad enough to push aside the plateful of eggs and bacon which, indeed, he had no desire to eat.
"You have," she continued gently, "read all the papers, just as I have, and you know as well as I do what to read between the lines when they 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 an inkling by now of what is going on."
"Of course he has. And if he has a grain of sense he'll treat it with the contempt it deserves."
"It's all very well, father. But just think for a moment. Place yourself in Luke's position. The very idea that you might be suspected must in itself be terrible."
"Not when you are innocent," he rejoined with the absolute certitude of a man who has never been called upon to face any really serious problem in life. "I shouldn't care what the rabble said about me, if I had 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 in that ridiculous way."
But Louisa did not reply to that suggestion. She knew well enough that it was neither Lord Radclyffe's unkindness, nor the arrogance of the 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. When Luke said to her: "I would give all I have in the world to lie on the ground before you and to kiss the soles of your feet," she knew that Love had wrought its usual exquisite miracle, the absorption of self by another, the utter sinking of the ego before the high altar of the loved one. She knew all that, but dear old Colonel Harris had forgotten—perhaps he had never known.
That knowledge comes to so few nowadays. Life, psychology, and sexual problems have taken the place of the divine lesson which has glorified the 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 a very little while ago that a noble-hearted gentleman preferred death to such dishonour."
"You've got your head," he retorted, "full of nonsense, Lou. Try and be a sensible woman now, and think of it all quietly. Is there anything 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't he?"
"Would he see you, do you think, at his office?"
"Tom not see me?" exclaimed Colonel Harris. "Of course he would. What do 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 a good deal from her."
"Oh, Sir Thomas never tells aunt anything that's professional," said Louisa 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 it wouldn'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 had prescribed. Moreover, she expected to see Luke soon. He would be sure to come directly after an early visit to Grosvenor Square.
She helped her father on with his coat. She was almost satisfied that he should go alone. She would have an hour with Luke, if he came early, 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 more information out of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Ryder, than he could do if she—a mere woman—happened to be present at the interview. Sir Thomas would trust Colonel Harris with professional matters which he never would confide to a woman, and Louisa trusted her father implicitly.
She knew that, despite the grumblings and crustiness peculiar to every Englishman, when he is troubled with domestic matters whilst sitting at his own breakfast table, her father had Luke's welfare just as much at heart as she had herself.