Part 40 (2/2)

”I am going to Exhibition Road at once,” he said, speaking quickly, like a man deeply troubled.

And without waiting for her a.s.sent, which was a foregone conclusion, he gave the chauffeur the address: ”Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road”; and added, ”drive as fast as you can!”

Then he jumped in beside Louisa. The taxicab moaned and groaned whilst it manuvred for turning; then it rattled off once more at prohibited speed.

”It is,” she said simply, ”only a question of time, I suppose?”

”The warrant is out,” he replied curtly. ”Any moment now the police may be at his door.”

”Uncle Ryder is convinced of Luke's guilt?”

”Absolutely.”

”Beyond that what does he say?”

”That unless Luke chooses to make a bolt of it, he had better plead guilty and intense provocation. But he thinks Luke would be wise to catch the night boat for Calais.”

”They'd get him back on extradition.”

”Tom says they won't try very hard. And if Luke keeps his wits about him, and has a sufficiency of money he'll be able to get right through to Spain and from thence to Tangiers. With money and influence much can be done, and Tom says that if Luke will only get away to-night he himself is prepared to take all the blame and all the responsibility of having allowed a criminal to escape. It's very decent of Tom,”

added the colonel thoughtfully, ”for he risks his entire future.”

But the sorely troubled father did not tell his daughter all that Sir Thomas had told him in the course of the brief interview.

In effect the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department had given a brief alternative by way of advice.

”A ticket to anywhere via Calais at once--or a revolver.”

And he had added dryly:

”I see nothing else for it. The man has practically confessed.”

But this Colonel Harris would not admit, and so the two men parted.

Louisa's father, thinking a great deal of his friend but still more of his daughter, wanted above all things to have a final talk with Luke.

Louisa in the meanwhile sat silent in the corner of the cab.

She was trying to visualize this new picture: Luke--a fugitive from justice!

The taxicab was making a slight detour as Whitehall and the Mall were closed for road repairs. The chauffeur was driving round by St.

Martin's Lane. At one of the theatres there, a popular play was filling the house night after night with enthusiastic crowds. It was only half past six now, and in a long queue extending over two hundred yards away from the pit and gallery doors of the lucky playhouse, patient crowds waited for the evening's pleasure.

People were going to theatres, they laughed at farces, and wept at tragedies. Was there ever such a tragedy enacted inside a theatre, as now took place in the life of a commonplace man and woman?

Luke--a fugitive from justice! Money and influence could do much! They could enable a wealthy criminal to escape the consequences of his own crime! They could enable him to catch express trains unmolested, to fly across land and sea under cover of the night, to become, Cain-like, a wanderer on the face of the earth without rest and without peace.

<script>