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?"

"Eight o'clock dinner."

"But he was not dining at the Danish Legation?"

"No. He came and fetched us again soon after eleven."

"That's right, but between whiles?"

"Between whiles?"

"Yes. Between eight and soon after eleven?"

"Well--I suppose--I don't know--yes, of course, I do! What a stupid a.s.s I am. Luke told me himself that he was going to see his uncle at the Something Club in Shaftesbury Avenue."

"The Veterans'?"

"Yes, that's it--the Veterans'. Luke wanted to persuade old Radclyffe to go abroad for the benefit of his health--Algeciras--that was it."

"Quite so," rejoined Sir Thomas dryly, "and Luke de Mountford went to the Veterans' Club in Shaftesbury Avenue, and he asked to see Lord Radclyffe, who was a more or less regular habitue at that hour. On being told that Lord Radclyffe was not there that evening, but that Mr. de Mountford was in the smoking room, Luke elected to go in and presumably to have a talk with his cousin."

"I didn't know that," said Colonel Harris.

"No, but we did. Let me tell you what followed. The hall porter of the club showed Luke into the smoking room, and less than five minutes later he heard loud and angry words proceeding from that room. That a quarrel was going on between the two cousins was of course obvious.

One or two members of the club remarked on the noise, and one gentleman actually opened the smoking room door to see what was going on. He seems to have heard the words 'blackguard' and 'beggar'

pleasingly intermingled and flying from one young man to the other.

This witness knew Philip de Mountford very well by sight, but he had never seen Luke. But remember that Luke denies neither the interview nor the quarrel. The former lasted close on an hour, and Lord Radclyffe's journey to Algeciras was the original topic of discussion.

At about nine o'clock Luke emerged from the smoking room. The hall porter saw him. He was then very pale and almost tottered as he walked. Men do get at times intoxicated with rage, you know, Will."

"I know that, and I can well imagine what happened at that interview.

Radclyffe had become such a confounded fool that he would not move or do anything without this Philip's permission: and Luke was determined to get him down to Algeciras at once. As Philip was at the club, he thought that he would tackle him then and there."

"Quite so. He did tackle him. And equally of course the two men quarrelled."

"But hang it all, one's not going to murder every man with whom one quarrels."

"Stop a moment, Will. As you say, one does not murder every man with whom one quarrels. But you must admit that this is altogether an exceptional case. There was more than a mere quarrel between these two men. There was deadly enmity--justified enmity, I'll own, on Luke's side. We have already come across--it was not very difficult--two or three of the servants who were in Lord Radclyffe's house before Luke and his brother and sister were finally turned out of it. They all have tales to tell of the terrible rows which used to go on in the house between the cousins. You, Will, must know how Luke hated this Philip de Mountford?"

Again Colonel Harris was silent. What was the use of denying such an obvious truth?

"You wanted," continued the other man quietly, "to hear the truth, Will, and you've got it. For Louisa's sake, for all our sakes, in fact, I made up my mind to tell you all--or most--that is officially known to me at this moment. You must get Louisa out of town at once--take her abroad if you can, and keep English newspapers away from her."

"She won't come," said Colonel Harris firmly.

"Oh, yes, she will, if you put it the right way."

Which saying on the part of the acute chief of our Criminal Investigation Department was but a further proof--if indeed such proofs were still needed nowadays--of how little clever men know of commonplace women.