Part 19 (1/2)

”Family affairs,” rejoined Luke dryly.

”And you parted from him?”

”Somewhere about nine.”

”In the club?”

”In the club.”

”The door steps?”

”No. The lobby.”

”He was alone then? I mean--besides yourself was no one with him?”

”No one. The hall porter stood there of course.”

”No one joined him afterward?”

”That I cannot say. When I parted from him he was alone.”

”You know that Mr. Philip de Mountford was murdered in a taxicab between Shaftesbury Avenue and Hyde Park Corner, soon after nine o'clock?”

”I have heard most of the details of that extraordinary crime.

”And you can throw no light on it at all?”

”None. How could I?”

”Nothing,” insisted the police officer, ”occurs to you at this moment that might help us in any way to trace the murderer?”

”Nothing whatever.”

The man was silent. It seemed as if he was meditating how best to put one or more questions. Up to now these had been curt and to the point, and as they followed one another in quick succession there was a marked difference in the att.i.tude both of the questioner and the questioned. The police officer had started by being perfectly deferential--just like a man accustomed to speak with people whose position in the world compelled a certain regard. He had originally addressed Luke as ”sir,” just as he had invariably said ”my lord” to Lord Radclyffe, but now he spoke much more curtly. There was a note of demand in every question which he put, a peremptoriness of manner which did not escape the observation of his interlocutor.

As the one man became more aggressive so did Luke also change his manner. There had been affable courtesy in his first reply to the questions put to him, a desire to be of help if help was needed, but with his senses attuned by anxiety and nerve strain to distinguish subtle difference of manner and of intention, he was quick enough to notice that he himself was as it were in a witness box, with a counsel ready enough to bully, or to trip up any contradictory statement.

Not that Luke realized the reason of this change. The thought that he could be suspected of a crime was as far removed from his ken as the desire to visit the moon. He could not understand the officer's att.i.tude; it puzzled him, and put him on his guard--but it was just the instinct of self-preservation, of caution, which comes to men who have had to fight the world, and who have met enemies where they least expected to find one.

”Do you remember,” now resumed Travers after that slight pause, which had seemed very long to Luke, but as a matter of fact had only lasted a short minute, ”whether you saw Mr. Philip de Mountford speaking with any one when you left him in the lobby of the club?”

”I told you,” said Luke impatiently, ”that he was alone, except for the hall porter.”

”Alone in the whole club house?”

”Alone,” reiterated Luke with measured emphasis, ”in the lobby of the Veterans' Club.”

”How many rooms has the club?”

”I don't know; it was the first time I had ever been there.”