Then he, too, went out of the room.
CHAPTER XII
SHALL A MAN ESCAPE HIS FATE?
On the way to the Danish Legation, Colonel Harris asked Luke what his plans were for the evening.
"I shall," replied Luke, "call at Grosvenor Square. I may find Uncle Rad, or Philip, or both at home. I mean to have a good tussle about this wintering abroad. It"s really most important."
"I call it criminal," retorted Colonel Harris, "keeping a man in London who has been used to go south in the winter for the past twenty years at least."
"Uncle Rad is still fairly well now, though I do think he looks more feeble than usual. He ought to go at once."
"But," suggested Louisa, "he oughtn"t to go alone."
"No. He certainly ought not."
"Would Mr. de Mountford go with him?"
"I don"t think so."
"This new man of his, then?"
"That," said Luke hotly, "would be madness. The man is really a drunkard."
"But somebody ought to go."
"Edie would be only too willing--if she is allowed."
"Edie?" exclaimed Louisa.
And she added with a smile:
"What will Reggie Duggan have to say to that?"
"Nothing," he replied quietly. "Reggie Duggan has cried off."
"You don"t mean that."
"He has given up Edie who has little or nothing a year, and become engaged to Marian Montagu who has eight thousand pounds a year of her own."
"Poor Edie!" murmured Louisa, whilst Colonel Harris"s exclamation was equally to the point and far more forcible, and more particularly concerned the Honourable Reginald Duggan.
"Yes," rejoined Luke, "it has. .h.i.t her hard, coming on the top of other things. There"s no gainsaying the fact, is there, Colonel Harris, that we four brothers and sister owe something to Uncle Arthur"s son?"
"The handle of a riding whip," came from out the depths of Colonel Harris"s fur coat. "Stupid way parsons have of saying that to wish a man dead is tantamount to murder. I am committing murder now for a matter of that, for I wish that blackguard were buried in one of his native earthquakes."
"Would to G.o.d," added Luke, "that wishing alone would do it."
There was so much wrath, such hatred and contempt in those words that Louisa instinctively whispered:
"Hush, Luke! don"t talk like that."
And Colonel Harris somewhat ostentatiously cleared his throat and said:
"Don"t let us think of that confounded Philip."
Luke took leave of Colonel Harris and of Louisa at the door of the Danish Legation. He waited on the carpeted curb beneath the awning until he saw her white evening cloak disappear in the door-way.
The fog had become very dense. Just here where a number of carriage lamps threw light around, one could distinguish faces and forms immediately close to one, but as Luke turned away from the brilliant lights, he realized how thick was the pall which enveloped London to-night. He looked at his watch; it was close upon eight. The next few minutes brought him to the door of Lord Radclyffe"s house.
He rang but obtained no answer. He rang again and again and finally came to the conclusion that his uncle and cousin were as usual dining out and that the elderly couple who did perfunctory service in the house were either asleep or out of ear-shot or had taken the opportunity of seeking amus.e.m.e.nt in a neighbouring public house.
But Luke was worried about Lord Radclyffe; moreover he had made up his mind that he would speak to him and to Philip to-night, with regard to the imperative wintering abroad for the old man.
The Veterans" Club was unknown to Luke, but Shaftesbury Avenue was not. He turned into Oxford Street and as taxicabs were now a forbidden luxury he hailed a pa.s.sing omnibus and jumped into it, and thus was rapidly conveyed into the very heart of the fog which had found its haven around Piccadilly Circus.
CHAPTER XIII
THEY HAVE NO HEART
As to what occurred in the heart of the fog on that night in November four years ago, most of you no doubt will remember. Those who do not I must refer to the morning papers of the following day.
A perfect harvest for journalists. Gossip and detail sufficient to fill column upon column of newspaper: gossip that grew as the hours sped on, and the second day of fog pursued its monotonous course.
A man had been found murdered in a taxicab, his throat stabbed through from ear to ear, the jugular pierced, life absolutely extinct; the murderer vanished.
Drama in the midst of reality.
Such things are, you know. No amount of so-called realistic literature, no amount of sneers at what is dubbed melodrama, will prevent this fact occurring--and occurring very frequently in the streets of a mighty city.
Just a man murdered and the murderer disappeared. A very real thing that, and London has had to face such facts often enough, more often than has an audience at Drury Lane or the Adelphi. The superior-minded critic who spells British Drama with a capital B and D, and p.r.o.nounces it Pritish Trama sat in the stalls of a London theatre on this very same foggy evening in November, four years ago. The play was one that did not appeal to the superior-minded critic: it was just a simple tale of jealousy which led to the breaking of that great commandment: "Thou shalt do no murder!"
And the superior-minded critic yawned behind a well gloved hand and dubbed the play melodramatic, unreal, and stagey, quite foreign to the life of to-day. But just at that hour--between nine and ten o"clock--a man was murdered in a taxicab, and his murderer vanished in the fog.
London doesn"t dub such events melodrama; she does not sneer at them or call them unreal. She knows that they are real: there is nothing stagey or artificial about them: they have even become commonplace.
They occur so often! And most often whilst society dines or dances and the elect applaud with languid grace the newest play by Mr. Bernard Shaw.
Only in this case, the event gained additional interest. The murdered man was a personality. Some one whom everybody that was anybody had talked about, gossiped, and discussed for the past six months. Some one whom few had seen but many had heard about--Philip de Mountford--the son of the late Arthur de Mountford--Radclyffe"s newly found heir, you know.