Part 24 (1/2)
Colonel Harris did not reply immediately; for one thing, he did not know exactly how to put his own fears and anxieties into words. They were so horrible and so farfetched that to tell them plainly and baldly to his brother-in-law, to this man with whom he was soberly smoking a cigar in a sober-looking office, whilst hansoms and taxicabs were rattling past in the street below within sight and hearing, seemed little short of idiocy. He was not a man of deep penetration--was Colonel Harris--no great reader of thoughts or of character. He tried to look keenly at Sir Thomas's shrewd face, but all he was conscious of was a net-work of wrinkles round a pair of eyes which seemed to be twinkling with humour.
Humour at this moment? Great Heavens above!
”I wish,” he blurted out somewhat crossly at last, ”you'd help me out a bit, Tom. Hang it all, man, all this officialism makes me dumb.”
”Don't,” said Sir Thomas blandly, ”let it do that, Will,” and the speaker's eyes seemed to twinkle even more merrily than before.
”Well then tell me something about Luke.”
”Luke de Mountford,” mused the other as if the name recalled some distant impression.
”Yes, Luke de Mountford, who is engaged to Louisa, your niece, man, and she's breaking her heart with all the drivel these newspapers talk and I couldn't bear it any longer; so I've come to you, Tom, and you must tell me what truth there is in the drivel, and that's all I want to know.”
Sir Thomas Ryder seemed, whilst the other thus talked volubly, to have suddenly made up his mind to say more than had originally been his intention. Anyway, he now said with abrupt directness:
”If, my good Will, by 'drivel' you mean that in the matter of the a.s.sa.s.sination of Philip de Mountford, in a taxicab last night, grave suspicion rests on his cousin Luke, then there's a great deal of truth in the drivel.”
Colonel Harris received the sudden blow without much apparent emotion.
He had been sitting in an arm-chair with one hand buried in his trousers pocket, the other holding the cigar.
Now he merely glanced down at the cigar for a moment and then conveyed it to his lips.
”What,” he asked, ”does that mean exactly?”
”That unless Luke de Mountford will, within the next forty-eight hours, answer certain questions more satisfactorily than he has done hitherto, he will be arrested on a charge of murder.”
”That is impossible,” protested Colonel Harris hotly.
”Impossible? Why?”
”Because--because--hang it all, man! you know Luke de Mountford. Do you believe for a moment that he would commit such a dastardly crime?
Why, the boy wouldn't know how to plan such villainy, let alone carry it through.”
”My dear Will,” rejoined the other quietly, ”the many years which I have spent at this desk have taught me many things. Among others I have learned that every man is more or less capable of crime: it only depends what the incentive--the temptation if you like to call it so--or the provocation happens to be.”
”But here there was no provocation, no temptation, no----”
Colonel Harris paused abruptly. He felt rather than saw his brother-in-law's eyes in their framework of wrinkles resting with obvious sense of amus.e.m.e.nt upon his wrathful face. No temptation? And what of a peerage and a fortune lost, that could only be regained by the death of the intruder? No provocation? And what of the brother and sister turned out of the old home? The good, simple-minded man had sense enough to see that here, if he wished to speak up for Luke, he was on the wrong track.
”What questions,” he said abruptly, ”does Luke not answer satisfactorily?”
”How he spent certain hours of yesterday evening.”
”He was dancing attendance on Louisa and me.”
”Oh, was he? Well that's satisfactory enough. At what time did you part from him?”
”Well! he escorted us to the Danish Legation where we were dining.”
”At what time was that?”