The Heart of a Woman

This was not a query but an assertion. Colonel Harris's loyalty had not wavered, but he could not contrive to keep the note of anxiety out of his voice: nor did he reiterate the assertion when Luke made no answer to it.

Once more the latter passed his hand over the back of his head. You know that gesture. It is so English! and always denotes a certain measure of perturbation. Then he said with seeming irrelevance:

"I suppose I had better go now."

His eyes sought Louisa's, trying to read what she thought and felt. Imagine the awful moment! For he loved her, as you know, with that intensity of passion of which a nature like his – almost cramped by perpetual self-containment – is alone capable. Then to have to stand before her wondering what the next second would reveal, hardly daring to exchange fear for certitude, because of what that certitude might be.

He sought her eyes and had no difficulty in finding them. They had never wandered away from his face. To him – the ardent worshipper – those eyes of hers had never seemed so exquisitely luminous. He read her soul then and there as he would a book. A soul full of trust and brimming over with compassion and with love. Colonel Harris was loyal to the core; he clung to his loyalty, to his belief in Luke as he would to a rock, fearful lest he should flounder in a maze of wonderment, of surmises, of suspicions. God help him! But in Louisa even loyalty was submerged in a sea of love. She cared nothing about suspicions, about facts, about surmises. She had no room in her heart for staunchness: it was all submerged in love.

There was no question, no wonderment, no puzzle in the eyes which met those of Luke. You see she was just a very ordinary kind of woman.

All she knew was that she loved Luke: and all that she conveyed to him by that look, was just love.

Only love.

And love – omnipotent, strange, and capricious love – wrought a curious miracle then! For Colonel Harris was present in the room, mind you, a third – if not an altogether indifferent – party, there where at this moment these two should have been alone.

It was Colonel Harris's presence in the room that transformed the next instant into a wonderful miracle: for Luke was down on his knees before his simple-souled Lou. She had yielded her hand to him and he had pressed an aching forehead against the delicately perfumed palm.

In face of that love which she had given him, he could only worship: and would have been equally ready to worship before the whole world. And therein lay the miracle. Do you not agree, you who know Englishmen of that class and stamp? Can you conceive one of them falling on his knees save at the bidding of omnipotent Love, and by the miracle which makes a man forget the whole world, defy the whole world, give up the whole world, driven to defiance, to forgetfulness, to self-sacrifice, for the sake of the torturing, exquisite moments of transcendental happiness?

CHAPTER XXIII

WHY ALL THIS MYSTERY?

I have often smiled myself at the recollection of Luke de Mountford walking that selfsame afternoon with Louisa Harris up and down the long avenue of the Ladies' Mile: the selfsame Luke de Mountford who had knelt at his Lou's feet in humble gratitude for the love she gave him: the selfsame Luke de Mountford who stood under suspicion of having committed a dastardly and premeditated murder.

The puppets were once more dangling on the string of Convention. They had readjusted their masks and sunk individuality as well as sentiment in the whirlpool of their world's opinion.

Louisa had desired that Luke should come with her to the park, since convention forbade their looking at chrysanthemums in the Temple Gardens, on the day that Philip de Mountford lay dead in the mortuary chamber of a London police court: but everybody belonging to their own world would be in the park on this fine afternoon. And yet, the open air, the fragrance of spring flowers in the formal beds, would give freedom to the breath: there would not reign the oppressive atmosphere of tea-table gossip; the early tulips bowing their stately heads would suggest aloofness and peace.

And so they went together for a walk in the park, for she had wished it, and he would have followed her anywhere where she had bidden him to go.

He walked beside her absolutely unconscious of whisperings and gossip which accompanied them at every step.

"I call it bad form," was a very usual phrase enunciated by many a rouged lip curled up in disdain.

This was hurled at Louisa Harris. The woman, in such cases, always contrives to get the lion's share of contempt.

"Showing herself about with that man now! I call it vulgar."

"They say he'll be arrested directly after the inquest to-morrow. I have it on unimpeachable authority."

"Oh! I understand that he has been arrested already," asserted a lady whose information was always a delightful mixture of irresponsible vagueness and firm conviction.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you see he is only out on – what do they call it? – I mean he has had to give his word that he won't run away – or something. I heard Herbert say something about that at lunch – oh! what lovely tulips! I dote on that rich coppery red, don't you?"

"Then does he go about in Black Maria escorted by a policeman?"

"Probably."

This somewhat more vaguely, for the surmise was doubtful.

"I can't understand Louisa Harris, can you?"

"Oh, she thinks it's unconventional to go about with a murderer. She only does it for notoriety."

But the Countess of Flintshire, who wrote novels and plays under the elegant nom de plume of Maria Annunziata, was deeply interested in Luke and Louisa, and stopped to talk to them for quite a considerable time. She said she wanted "to draw Luke de Mountford out." So interesting to get the impressions of an actual murderer, you know.

The men felt uncomfortable. Englishmen always do when the unconventional hovers about in their neatly ordered atmosphere. Common-sense – in their case – whispered loudly, inking that this man in the Sackville Street clothes, member of their own clubs, by Jove! could not just be a murderer! Hang it all! Harris would not allow his daughter to go about with a murderer!

So they raised their hats as they passed by Louisa Harris and said, "Hello! How de do?" to Luke quite with a genial smile.

But Luke and Louisa allowed all this world to wag on its own irresponsible way. They were not fools, they knew their milieu. They guessed all that was being said around them and all that remained unspoken. They had come here purposely in order to see and to be seen, to be gossiped about, to play their rôle of puppet before their world as long as life lasted, and whilst Chance and Circumstance still chose to hold up the edifice of their own position of their consideration, mayhap of their honour.

The question of the crime had not been mooted between them again: after the understanding, the look from her to him, and his humble gratitude on his knees, they had left the mystery severely alone. He had nothing to say, and she would never question, content that she would know in good time; that one day she would understand what was so un-understandable just now.

Colonel Harris alone was prostrated with trouble. Not that he doubted Luke, but like all sober-sensed Englishmen he loathed a moral puzzle. Whilst he liked and trusted Luke, he hated the mystery which now met him at every turn, just as much as he hated the so-called problem plays which alien critics try to foist on an unwilling Anglo-Saxon public.

He would have loved to hear Luke's voice saying quite frankly:

"Of course I did not kill my cousin. I give you my word, colonel, that I am incapable of such a thing."

That was the only grievance which the older man of the world had against the younger one. The want of frankness worried him. Luke was innocent of course; but, d – n it, why didn't he say so?

And how came that accursed stick behind the railings of the park?

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.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE

The curtain went up on the first act of the play. It was not perhaps so interesting from the outset as the audience would have wished, and the fashionable portion thereof showed its impatience by sundry coughings and whisperings, which had to be peremptorily checked now and again by a loud:

"Silence, there!" and a threat to clear the court.

The medical officer was giving his testimony at great length as to the cause of death. Technical terms were used in plenty, and puzzled the elegant ladies who had come here to be amused. The jury listened attentively, and the coroner – himself a medical man – asked several very pertinent questions:

"The thrust," he asked of Doctor Blair, who was medical officer of the district, "through the neck was effected by means of a long narrow instrument, with two sharp edges, a dagger in fact?"

"A dagger or a stiletto or a skewer," replied the doctor. "Any sharp, two-edged instrument would cause a wound like the one in the neck of the deceased."

"Was death instantaneous?"

"Almost so."

He explained at some length the intricacies of the human throat at the points where the murderer's weapon had entered the neck of his victim. Louisa listened attentively. Every moment she expected to see the coroner's hand wandering to the piece of green baize in front of him, and then drawing it away disclosing a snake-wood stick with silver ferrule stained, and showing the rise of the dagger, sheathed within the body of the stick. Every moment she expected to hear the query:

"Is this the instrument which dealt the blow?"

But this apparently was not to be just yet. The opaque veil of green baize was not to be lifted; that certain long Something was not to be revealed, the Something that would condemn Luke irrevocably, absolutely, to disgrace and to death.

Only one of the members of the jury – Louisa understood that he was the foreman – asked a simple question:

"Would," he said, "the witness explain whether in his opinion the – the unknown murderer – the – I mean – "

He floundered a little in the phrase, having realized that in his official capacity he must keep an open mind – and in that open mind of an English juryman there could for the present dwell no certainty that a murderer – an unknown murderer – did exist.

They were all here – he and the others and the coroner – in order to find out if there had been a murder committed or not.

The coroner, one elbow on the table, one large hand holding firmly the somewhat fleshy chin, looked at the juryman somewhat contemptuously.

"You mean?" he queried with an obvious effort at patience.

"I mean," resumed the man more firmly, "in this present instance, would a certain medical or anatomical knowledge be necessary in order to strike – er – or to thrust – so precisely – just on the right spot to cause immediate death?"

With amiable condescension the coroner put the query to the witness in more concise words.

"No, no," replied the doctor quickly, now that he had understood the question, "the thrust argues no special anatomical knowledge. Most laymen would know that if you pierce the throat from ear to ear suffocation is bound to ensue. It was easily enough done."

"When the deceased's head was turned away?" asked the coroner.

"Why, yes – to look out on the fog, perhaps; or at a passer-by. It would be fairly easy if the would-be murderer was quick and determined and the victim unsuspecting."

And Doctor Blair, with long tapering fingers, pointed toward his own throat, giving illustration of how easily the deed might be done.

"Given the requisite weapon of course."

After a few more courteous questions of a technical kind, the first witness was dismissed – only momentarily, for he would be required again – when the green baize would be lifted from the hidden Something which lay there ready to hand, and the medical man be asked to pronounce finally whether indeed the dagger stick was the requisite weapon for the deed which had been so easy of accomplishment.

The chauffeur who had driven the taxicab was the next witness called. A thick-set man, in dark blue Melton coat and peaked cap, he came forward with that swinging gait which betrayed the ex-coachman.

He gave his evidence well and to the point. He had been hailed on the night in question by two gentlemen in evening dress. It was in Shaftesbury Avenue, just opposite the Lyric Theatre, and a little while after he had heard St. Martin's Church clock strike nine o'clock. "The fog was so dense," he added, "you could not see your hand before your eyes."