CHAPTER XXIV
A HERD OF CACKLING GEESE
When at ten o'clock the next morning Louisa Harris entered the Victoria coroner's court accompanied by her father, the coroner and jury were just returning from the mortuary at the back of the building whither they had gone, in order to look upon the dead.
Already the small room was crowded to its utmost holding capacity. Louisa and Colonel Harris had some difficulty in making their way through the groups of idlers who filled every corner of the gangway.
The air was hot and heavy with the smell of the dust of ages which had gathered in the nooks and crannies of this dull and drabby room. It mingled with irritating unpleasantness with the scent of opoponax or heliotrope that emanated from lace handkerchiefs, and with the pungent odours of smelling salts ostentatiously held to delicate noses.
Louisa, matter-of-fact, commonplace Louisa looked round at these unaccustomed surroundings with the same air of semi-indifferent interest with which she would have viewed a second-rate local music hall, had she unaccountably drifted into one through curiosity or desire.
She saw a dull, drabby paper on the wall, and dull, drabby hangings to the single window, which was set very high, close to the ceiling; the latter once whitewashed was now covered with uneven coatings of grime.
In the centre of the room, a long table littered at one end with papers tied up in bundles of varying bulk, with pieces of pink tape, also a blotting pad, pen, ink, and paper—more paper—the one white note in the uniform harmony of drabby brown: and in among this litter that encumbered the table a long piece of green baize covering a narrow formless something, which Louisa supposed would be revealed in due course.
On each side of the table were half a dozen chairs of early Victorian design upholstered in leather that had once been green. To these chairs a dozen men were even now making their way, each taking his seat in solemn silence: men in overcoats and with velvet collars somewhat worn at the back of the neck—it seemed to Louisa as if they were dressed in some kind of uniform so alike did their clothes appear. She looked at their faces as they filed in—haggard faces, rubicund, jolly faces, faces which mirrored suspicion, faces which revealed obstinacy, the whole of middle class England personified in these typical twelve men all wearing overcoats with shabby velvet collars, who were to decide to-day how and when Philip de Mountford, heir presumptive to the Earl of Radclyffe, had been done to death.
Louisa and her father were able at last to reach the fore-front of the crowd, where chairs had been reserved for them immediately facing the table, at the farther end of which the coroner already sat. Louisa recognized Mr. Humphreys, one of Mr. Dobson's clerks, who did his best to make her and Colonel Harris comfortable. Farther on sat Mr. Davies, who had been Philip de Mountford's solicitor when he had first desired an interview with Lord Radclyffe. Louisa knew him by sight—Luke had on one occasion pointed him out to her.
Luke and Mr. Dobson were even now making their way to the same group of seats. They had—like the jury and the coroner—been in the mortuary to have a last look at the murdered man. Louisa thought that Luke looked years older than he had done yesterday. She saw him standing for a moment right against the dull, drabby background of the court room wall; and it seemed as if something of that drabbiness had descended upon his soul. Youth seemed to have gone out of him. He appeared to be looking out onto a dreary world through windows obscured by grime.
There was a look not so much of dejection as of absolute hopelessness in the face. No fear, or anxiety—only a renunciation. But this was only for one moment; the next he had caught sight of her, and the look of blank dejection in his eyes suddenly gave place to one of acute and intolerable pain. The face which usually was so calm and placid in its impassive mask of high-bred indifference was almost distorted by an expression of agony which obviously had been quite beyond control.
The whole thing was of course a mere flash, less than a quarter of a second perhaps in duration, and already Luke was just as he had always been: a correct, well-born English gentleman, perfect in manner, perfect in attitude and bearing, under whatever circumstances Fate might choose to place him.
Mr. Dobson spoke to him, and he at once followed his friend and solicitor across the body of the court room to the row of reserved chairs in front of the crowd.
A whisper went round the room, and Louisa with cool indifference turned to greet those among the crowd whom she had recognized as acquaintances and friends. Some were sitting, others standing back against the walls in the rear. Lady Ducies was there, excited and over-dressed, with a large hat that obstructed the view of a masculine-looking woman who sat immediately behind her, and who seemed quite prepared to do battle against the obstruction.
Farther on sat the Countess of Flintshire, novelist and playwright, eager and serious, note-book in hand and a frown between her brows, denoting thought and concentration of purpose. She bowed gravely to Louisa, and contrived to attract Luke's attention, so that he turned toward her, and she was able to note carefully in indelible pencil in a tiny note-book that a murderer about to meet his just fate may bestow an infinity of care on the niceties of his own toilet.
(N. B. The next play written by the Countess of Flintshire, better known to the playgoing public as Maria Annunziata, had an assassin for its principal hero. But the play found no favour with actor-managers, and though it subsequently enjoyed some popularity in the provinces, it was never performed on the London stage.)
Louisa looked on all these people with eyes that dwelt with strange persistency on trivial details: the Countess of Flintshire's note-book, Lady Ducies' hat, the masculine attire of the militant suffragette in the rear—all these minor details impressed themselves upon her memory. In after years she could always recall the vision of the court room, with its drabby background to a sea of ridiculous faces.
For they all seemed ridiculous to her—all these people—in their obvious eager agitation: they had pushed one another and jostled and fought their way into this small, stuffy room, the elegant ladies with their scent bottles, the men about town with their silk hats and silver-topped canes: they were all ready to endure acute physical discomfort for the sake of witnessing the harrowing sight of one of their own kind being pilloried before the mob: it was just a pinch of spice added to the savourless condiment of every-day life. Then there were the others: those who had come just out of idle curiosity to hear a few unpleasant details, or to read a few unwholesome pages in the book of life of people who lived in a different world to their own.
Ridiculous they seemed, all of them! Louisa felt a sudden desire to laugh aloud, as she realized how very like a theatre the place was, with its boxes, its stalls, and its galleries. But in this case those who usually sat in stalls or boxes, displaying starched shirt-fronts, bare shoulders, and bad manners, they were the actors now made to move or dance or sing, to squirm or to suffer for the delectation of pit and gallery.
On the left a group of young men with keen young faces, all turned toward Luke and toward Louisa and her father. Note-books protruded out of great-coat pockets, fountain pens and indelible pencils snuggled close to hand. Lucky the lightning artist who could sketch for the benefit of his journalistic patrons a rough outline of the gentleman with more than one foot in the dock. Close by, a couple of boys in blue uniform, with wallet at the side and smart pill-box cap on the head, stood ready to take messages, fractions of news, hurried reports to less-favoured mortals whose duty or desire kept them away from this scene of poignant interest.
Louisa saw them all, as in a vivid dream. Never afterward could she believe that it had all been reality: the coroner, the jury, the group of journalists, the idle, whispering, pushing crowd, the loud murmurs which now and again reached her ear:
"Oh! you may take it from me that to-morrow he'll stand in the dock."
"Such brazen indifference I've never seen."
"And they've actually found the dagger with which he murdered the wretched man."
"Brrr! it makes me feel quite creepy."
"Yes, he was at your At Home, dear, wasn't he? a week ago."
"Oh! one had to ask him for form's sake, you know."
"Poor Lord Radclyffe, what a terrible blow for him."
"They say he'll never recover his speech or the use of his limbs."
"Silence there!"
The cackling herd of geese stopped its whisperings, astonished at being thus reproved. Louisa again felt that irrepressible desire to laugh, they were so funny, she thought, so irresponsible! these people who had come to gape at Luke.
Now they were silent and orderly at the bidding of authority. An old woman, with black bonnet and rusty jacket, was munching sandwiches in a corner seat: a young man at the farther end of the room was sharpening a lead-pencil.
By the door through which a brief while ago coroner and jury, also Luke and Mr. Dobson had filed out—the door which apparently gave in the direction of the mortuary—a small group in shabby clothes had just entered the court room, escorted by one of the ushers. The latter made his way to the coroner's table and whispered to that gentleman somewhat animatedly. Louisa could not catch what he said, but she saw that the coroner suddenly lost his morose air of habitual ennui, and appeared keen and greatly interested in what he heard.
He gave certain instructions to the usher, who beckoned to the group in the shabby clothes. They advanced with timid, anxious gait, a world of unspoken apologies in their eyes as they surveyed the brilliant company through which they had to pass. The feathers on Lady Ducies' hat attracted the attention of one of them—a young girl with round black eyes and highly decorated headgear: she nudged her companion and pointed to the gargantuan hat and both the girls giggled almost hysterically.
The man in front led the way. He was pale and cadaverous looking with scanty hair and drooping moustache: in shape he was very like a beetle, with limbs markedly bowed and held away from his stooping body. There were five of them altogether, three women and two men. Louisa was interested in them, vaguely wondering who they were.
That they were personages of importance in this case was apparent from the fact that the usher was bringing some chairs for the women and placing them close to those on which sat the solicitors, and Luke and Louisa herself. The men were made to stand close by and remained just where they had been told to stay, tweed cap in hand, miserably conscious of the many pairs of eyes that were fixed upon them.
"Who are these people, do you know?"
Lady Ducies was leaning forward and had contrived to catch Luke's ear.
He turned round very politely.
"How do you do, Mr. de Mountford," she continued in her shrill treble, which she took no trouble to subdue, "you hadn't seen me, had you?"
"No, Lady Ducies," he replied, "I had not."
"I don't wonder," she commented placidly, "you must feel so anxious. Who are these common people over there, do you know?"
"No, I do not."
"Some of your late cousin's former associates perhaps?" suggested Lady Flintshire, "Maria Annunziata," who sat close by.
"My dear, how can you suggest such a thing," retorted the other, "they are so common."
"Silence there!"
And once more the cackling geese were still.