When the coroner, rising from his seat, gave the signal for general exodus, she had felt her father"s firm hand grasping her arm, and leading her out of the fog-ridden, stuffy room into the cold, gray pa.s.sages outside.
The herd of cackling geese were crowding round her. Heavens above, how they cackled and gossiped! It seemed as if the very floodgates of a noisy, bubbling stream had been torn asunder, and a whirlpool of chattering women been let loose upon the earth.
Convention, grim and untractable, tried to pull the string to make all puppets dance. But for once Louisa Harris rebelled. She closed her ears to insinuating calls from her friends, responding with a mere curt nod to the most gushing "Oh, Miss Harris! how are you?" which greeted her from every side.
She turned her back resolutely on convention. The slave for once rebelled against the taskmaster: the puppet refused to dance to the ever-wearying monotonous tune.
She had lost sight of Luke the moment the court rose. She supposed that his solicitor, Mr. Dobson, knowing the ropes, had got him away from the reach of cackling geese by leading him through some other more private way. But she was far too dazed, too numb, either to wonder or to be disappointed at this. She felt as if she had pitched head foremost down a long flight of stairs, and had only just had sufficient strength to pick herself up, and not to let other people see quite how severely she had been bruised.
Mentally, morally, even physically, she felt bruised from head to foot.
Colonel Harris contrived to steer her through the crowd: at the gate outside even the smoke-laden atmosphere seemed pure and invigorating in comparison with that stuffy pen, wherein the herd of cackling geese had found its happy hunting ground. Louisa drew in a long breath, filling her lungs with fog, but feeling a little freer, less choked in spite of the grime which she inhaled.
"I think," said Colonel Harris now, "that you"d better go straight back to the Langham, and get some tea. You"ll feel better when you"ve had your tea."
"I feel all right, dear," she said, trying to smile.
"So much the better," he retorted with an equal effort at cheerfulness. "I"ll come along as soon as I can."
"Where are you off to, dear?" she asked.
"I"ll just go and have a talk to Tom," he replied.
"I"ll come with you. I can wait in the cab. I don"t suppose that you"ll be long."
He tried to protest, but obviously she had made up her mind. Perhaps she did not like the idea of going back to the hotel alone. So he hailed a pa.s.sing cab and told the man to drive to Scotland Yard.
He had deliberately--and despite former prejudices--selected a taxicab. He wanted to see Tom as soon as was possible.
Louisa leaned back in the corner of the vehicle silent and motionless.
Father and daughter did not exchange a single word whilst the cab rattled through the crowded streets of London. Hansoms, omnibuses, innumerable other taxis, rattled along the selfsame way, just as they had always done before this, just as they would go on doing to the end of time. People walked along, busy and indifferent. Many went past the shrieking news vendors without even stopping to buy a paper.
Luke stood accused, almost self-convicted, of a horrible crime, and there were thousands, nay millions, of people who didn"t even care!
The taxicab flew past the railings of the Green Park, there where another taxicab had drawn up a couple of evenings ago, and where a snake-wood stick marked with tell-tale stains had been found clumsily buried in the mud. Louisa peered out of the window of the cab. People walked past that spot, indifferent and busy. Two girls were standing close to the railings chatting and giggling.
And Luke to-morrow, or perhaps to-night, would be under arrest--charged with murder--horrible, cruel, brutal murder--a vulgar, cowardly crime! The snake-wood stick had told a tale which he had not attempted to refute.
Presently the cab drew up and Colonel Harris jumped down.
"I won"t be longer than I can help," he said. "Will you be all right?"
"Yes, father dear," she replied, "I"ll be all right. Don"t hurry."
She saw her father disappearing through the wide open door, above which a globe of light shone yellow through the fog. She remained huddled up in her furs, for she felt very cold. Her feet were like ice, and the fog seemed to have penetrated to her very marrow. Few people were to be seen in the narrow roadway, and only an occasional cab rattled past.
From the embankment close by came the cry of news vendors rushing along with late editions of the evening papers.
A church clock not far away slowly struck six, but she held no count of time. A kind of drowsiness was upon her, and the foggy atmosphere, coupled with intense, damp cold, acted as a kind of soporific.
She may have waited years, or only a few minutes; she did not know, but presently her father came back. His presence there under the lintel of the door seemed to have roused her from her torpor, as if with a swift, telepathic current. As he stood for a moment beneath the electric light, adjusting the collar of his coat, she saw his face quite distinctly: its expression told her everything. Luke"s arrest was imminent. It was but a question of a few hours, moments perhaps.
"I am going to Exhibition Road at once," he said, speaking quickly, like a man deeply troubled.
And without waiting for her a.s.sent, which was a foregone conclusion, he gave the chauffeur the address: "Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road"; and added, "drive as fast as you can!"
Then he jumped in beside Louisa. The taxicab moaned and groaned whilst it manuvred for turning; then it rattled off once more at prohibited speed.
"It is," she said simply, "only a question of time, I suppose?"
"The warrant is out," he replied curtly. "Any moment now the police may be at his door."
"Uncle Ryder is convinced of Luke"s guilt?"
"Absolutely."
"Beyond that what does he say?"
"That unless Luke chooses to make a bolt of it, he had better plead guilty and intense provocation. But he thinks Luke would be wise to catch the night boat for Calais."
"They"d get him back on extradition."
"Tom says they won"t try very hard. And if Luke keeps his wits about him, and has a sufficiency of money he"ll be able to get right through to Spain and from thence to Tangiers. With money and influence much can be done, and Tom says that if Luke will only get away to-night he himself is prepared to take all the blame and all the responsibility of having allowed a criminal to escape. It"s very decent of Tom,"
added the colonel thoughtfully, "for he risks his entire future."
But the sorely troubled father did not tell his daughter all that Sir Thomas had told him in the course of the brief interview.
In effect the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department had given a brief alternative by way of advice.
"A ticket to anywhere via Calais at once--or a revolver."
And he had added dryly:
"I see nothing else for it. The man has practically confessed."
But this Colonel Harris would not admit, and so the two men parted.
Louisa"s father, thinking a great deal of his friend but still more of his daughter, wanted above all things to have a final talk with Luke.
Louisa in the meanwhile sat silent in the corner of the cab.
She was trying to visualize this new picture: Luke--a fugitive from justice!
The taxicab was making a slight detour as Whitehall and the Mall were closed for road repairs. The chauffeur was driving round by St.
Martin"s Lane. At one of the theatres there, a popular play was filling the house night after night with enthusiastic crowds. It was only half past six now, and in a long queue extending over two hundred yards away from the pit and gallery doors of the lucky playhouse, patient crowds waited for the evening"s pleasure.
People were going to theatres, they laughed at farces, and wept at tragedies. Was there ever such a tragedy enacted inside a theatre, as now took place in the life of a commonplace man and woman?
Luke--a fugitive from justice! Money and influence could do much! They could enable a wealthy criminal to escape the consequences of his own crime! They could enable him to catch express trains unmolested, to fly across land and sea under cover of the night, to become, Cain-like, a wanderer on the face of the earth without rest and without peace.