The Heart of a Woman Part 34

Receiving no reply, he added:

"Next witness, please!"

CHAPTER XXVII

AND PEOPLE WENT OUT TO LUNCHEON

And now it was Luke de Mountford's turn at last. A wave of excitement swept over the crowd, every neck was craned forward, every eye fixed on this next witness, as he rose from his seat and with courteous words of apology to those whom he disturbed in pa.s.sing made his way to the centre table.

An absolute embodiment of modern London society, Luke stood there, facing the crowd, the coroner and jury, as he would have faced friends and acquaintances in the grand stand at Ascot or in the stalls of a West End theatre. There are hundreds and thousands of young Englishmen who look exactly as Luke de Mountford looked that morning: dress is almost a uniform, in cut, style, and degree of tone; hair and even features are essentially typical. Luke de Mountford, well-born, well-bred, behaved just as Eton and Oxford had taught him to behave, concealing every emotion, raising neither voice nor gesture. An Englishman of that type has alternately been dubbed hypocritical, and unemotional. He is neither; he is only conventional. Luke himself, facing the most abnormal condition of life that could a.s.sail any man of his cla.s.s, was so absolutely drilled into this semblance of placidity that it cost him no effort to restrain himself, and none to face the forest of inquisitive eyes levelled at him from every side.

And since there was no effort, the outward calm appeared perfectly natural: an actor who has played one part two hundred times and more does so night after night until the role itself becomes reality, and he in ordinary every-day life seems even to himself strange and unnatural.

Now Luke was given the Bible to kiss and told to take the oath. From where he stood he could see Louisa and a number of faces turned toward him in undisguised curiosity. Mocking eyes and contemptuous eyes, eyes of indifference and of horror, met his own as with quick glance they swept right over the crowd.

I don't think that he really saw any one except Louisa; no living person existed for him at this moment except Louisa. Hypocritical or unemotional nature--which? None could say, none would take the trouble to probe. All that the crowd saw was a man to all intents and purposes accused of a horrible murder, confronted at every turn with undeniable proofs of his guilt, and yet standing there just as if he were witnessing the first act of some rather dull play.

Hypocrisy or effrontery were the two alternatives which the idle and the curious weighed, whilst antic.i.p.ating the joy of seeing the mask torn from this wooden image before them.

The coroner was asking the witness his name, and Luke de Mountford's voice was quite steady as he gave reply.

"You were," continued the coroner, "until quite recently and are again now heir-presumptive to the Earl of Radclyffe?"

"It was supposed at one time," replied Luke, "that besides myself there was no other heir to my uncle's t.i.tle."

"Deceased, I understand, arrived in England about six months ago?"

"So I understand."

"He made claim to be the only son of Lord Radclyffe's brother?"

"That is so."

"And to all appearances was able to substantiate this claim in the eyes of Lord Radclyffe?"

"Apparently."

"So much so that Lord Radclyffe immediately accorded him that position in his household which you had previously occupied?"

"Lord Radclyffe accorded to the deceased the position which he thought fitting that he should occupy."

"You know that the servants in Lord Radclyffe's household have informed the police that in consequence of Mr. Philip de Mountford's advent in the house, you and your brother and sister had to leave it?"

"My brother, sister, and I now live at Fairfax Mansions, Exhibition Road," said Luke evasively.

"And the relations between yourself and the deceased have remained of a very strained nature, I understand?"

"Of an indifferent nature," corrected Luke.

There was a pause. So far these two--the coroner and the witness--had seemed almost like two antagonists going through the first pa.s.ses of a duel with foils. Steel had struck against steel, curt answers had followed brief questions. Now the combatants paused to draw breath.

One of them was fighting the preliminary skirmish for his life against odds that were bound to overwhelm him in the end: the other was just a paid official, indifferent to the victim, interested only in the issue. The man standing at the foot of the table was certainly interesting: the coroner had made up his mind that he was the guilty party--a gentleman and yet a cowardly a.s.sa.s.sin; he amused himself during this brief pause with a quick a.n.a.lysis of the high-bred, impa.s.sive face--quite Saxon in character, fair and somewhat heavy of lid--in no way remarkable save for the present total lack of expression. There was neither indifference nor bravado, neither fear, remorse, nor defiance--only a mask made of wood, hiding every line of the mouth, and not allowing even the eyes to show any signs of vitality.

Beyond that the whole appearance was essentially English: the fair hair neatly groomed, with just a suspicion of curl here and there, and a glint of gold in the high lights, the stiff neck encased in its immaculate collar, the perfectly tailored clothes, the hands, large but well-formed and carefully tended, which lightly interlaced, hung in marble-like stillness before him.

When a man happens to be out in mid-winter with a stout stick in his hand, and he comes across a layer of ice on the top of a pool or a trough of water, he always--or nearly always--is at once a prey to the silly desire to break that layer of ice. The desire is irresistible, and the point of the stick at once goes to work on the smooth surface, chipping it if not actually succeeding in breaking it.

The same desire exists in a far stronger degree when the ice is a moral one--one that covers the real nature of another man: the cold impa.s.siveness that hides the secret orchard to which no one but the owner has access. Then there is an irresistible longing to break that cold barrier, to look within, and to probe that hidden soul, if not within its innermost depths, at any rate below the ice-bound surface; to chip it, to mark it and break its invincible crust.

Some such feeling undoubtedly stirred at the back of the coroner's mind. The hide-bound, red-tape-ridden official was more moved than he would have cared to admit, by a sense of irritation at the placidity of this witness, who was even now almost on his trial. Therefore he had paused in his questionings, afraid lest that sense of irritation should carry him beyond the proper limits of his own powers.

And now he resumed more quietly, with his voice less trenchant and his own manner outwardly more indifferent.

"When," he asked, "did you last see the deceased?"

"In the lobby of the Veterans' Club," replied Luke, "the night before last."

"You had called there to see him?"

"Yes."

"For what purpose?"

"To discuss certain family matters."

"You preferred to discuss these family matters at a club rather than in your cousin's own home?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"For private reasons of my own."

"It would help this inquiry if you would state these private reasons."

"They have no bearing upon the present issue."

"You refuse to state them?" insisted the coroner.

"I do."

The coroner was silent for a moment: it almost seemed as if he meant to press the point at first, then thought differently, for after that brief while, he merely said:

"Very well."

Then he resumed: