Part 21 (1/2)
”Good night, my boy. How will you get back?”
”Oh, a taxi is the quickest. Edie might have heard something, and be anxious. I must hurry home now.”
Louisa was standing in the hall at the top of the steps. Luke raised his hat to her and having shaken hands with Colonel Harris quietly turned to go, and was soon lost in the gloom beyond.
No one who had been standing in the lobby of the hotel would have guessed that these three people who had talked and bowed and shaken hands so quietly were facing one of life's most appalling, most overwhelming tragedies.
The world's puppets had been strung up again, because indifferent eyes were there to watch and gape, and in the presence of these modern Bulls of Bashan the puppets danced to the prevalent tune.
CHAPTER XVII
AND WHAT OF THE SECRET?
When Luke arrived at his uncle's house early the next morning, he was met in the hall by Doctor Newington, who was descending the stairs and who gravely beckoned to the young man to follow him into the library.
”They called me in last night,” he said in reply to Luke's quick and anxious query. ”The butler--or whatever he may be--told me that he was busy fastening up the front door preparatory to going to bed when he heard a heavy thud proceeding from the library. He found his master lying full length on the floor: the head had come in violent contact, as he fell, with the corner of this table; blood was trickling from a scalp wound, and Lord Radclyffe himself was apparently in a swoon. The man is a regular coward and a fool besides. He left his master lying just as he had fallen, but fortunately he knew me and knew where to find me, and within ten minutes I was on the spot, and had got Lord Radclyffe into bed.”
”Is it,” asked Luke, ”anything serious?”
”Lord Radclyffe has not been over strong lately. He has had a great deal to put up with, and at his age the system is not sufficiently elastic or--how shall I put it?--sufficiently recuperative to stand either constant nerve strain or nagging worries.”
”I don't know,” interposed Luke stiffly, ”that my uncle has had either nerve strain or worry to put up with.”
”Oh,” rejoined the doctor, whose gruff familiarity seemed to Luke's sensitive ear to be tainted with the least possible note of impertinence, ”I am an old friend of your uncle, you know, and of all your family; there isn't much that has escaped my observation during the past year.”
”You have not yet told me, doctor,” said Luke, a shade more stiffly than before, ”what is the matter with Lord Radclyffe.”
There was distinct emphasis on the last two words.
Doctor Newington shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly.
”Your uncle has had something in the nature of a stroke,” he said bluntly, and he fixed keen light-coloured eyes on those of Luke, watching the effect which the news--baldly and crudely put--would have on the young man's nerves. He was a man with what is known as a fas.h.i.+onable practice. He lived in Hertford Street and his rounds were encircled by the same boundaries as those of the rest of Mayfair. He had had plenty of opportunity of studying those men and women who compose the upper grades of English society. They and their perfect _sang-froid_, their well-drilled calm under the most dire calamities, or most unexpected blows had often caused him astonishment when he was a younger man, fresh from hospital work, and from the haunts of humbler folk, who had no cause or desire to hide the depth of their feelings. Now he was used to his fas.h.i.+onable patients and had ceased to wonder, and Luke's impa.s.siveness on hearing of his uncle's sudden illness did not necessarily strike him as indifference.
”Is it serious?” asked Luke.
”Serious. Of course,” a.s.sented the doctor.
”Do you mean that Lord Radclyffe's life is in danger?”
”At sixty years of age, life is always in danger.”
”I don't mean that,” rejoined Luke with a slight show of impatience.
”Is Lord Radclyffe in immediate danger?”
”No. With great care and constant nursing, he may soon rally, though I doubt if he will ever be as strong and hearty as he was this time last year.”
”Then what about a nurse?”