Part 14 (2/2)

”Would to G.o.d,” added Luke, ”that wis.h.i.+ng 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.

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