The Heart of a Woman

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

"Yes," said Colonel Harris, "I know that. I was not thinking of mistaken identity."

"You," rejoined the other, "were thinking of Luke, and so am I. I have thought little of any one else since first the crime was reported to me last night. And long before Travers gleaned the outlines of the story which Power has just amplified for us, I vaguely guessed at the broad lines of it. Now that I know it in all its details, I can see the whole scene in the lobby of the Veterans' Club before me. You may believe me or not as you like, but as a matter of fact I know quite a good deal about Luke de Mountford. I have often met him, of course, and though we have never been very intimate—for I am a busy man and have but little time for intimacy with my fellow-men—I have had many opportunities of studying him. He has a very curious power of self-control—almost an abnormal one I call it, and a morbid hatred of public scenes or scandal. This of course he shares with a great many men of his class, and his self-control is all the more remarkable as he is not by any means the impassive young man about town which he pretends to be. Well, that same power, I suppose, stood him in good stead in the lobby of the Veterans' Club. In Power's picturesque parlance 'there was murder in his eye.' Of course he had been provoked beyond the bounds of endurance, and if he had rushed at Philip de Mountford and strangled him then and there, no one would have been astonished. I should," continued Sir Thomas with emphasis, "because it would not have been like the Luke whom I had studied. The picture of two gentlemen at fisticuffs like a pair of navvies would not have been an edifying one, and Luke—as I know him—would above all wish not to make a spectacle of himself before the hall porter or before a crowd in the ante-room of a second-rate club. He naturally—for that sort of thing becomes second nature—pulled himself together and walked out into the street."

You must not think for a moment that Sir Thomas Ryder was habitually a talkative man. Englishmen of his class and type are rarely talkative, and Sir Thomas's position and occupation had rendered him less communicative than most. But Colonel Harris and he had been brother officers, friends long before family ties were closely knit by marriage, and he considered the present crisis a very serious one.

He had had enough to do with crime in the past few years since he had obtained the interesting post which he now occupied, but never with a crime which affected him personally as this one did. Luke de Mountford was of course nothing to him, except in connection with Louisa Harris. But this was a strong tie. Louisa was his own wife's niece; she was the daughter of a friend, of a brother officer. No one who is not in some manner or other in touch with military men can have the slightest idea of how much those two magic words mean: "brother officer": what magnetism lies in them: what appeal they make to all that is most loyal, most willing, most helpful in a man.

Sir Thomas felt that the mud of irretrievable disgrace which was bound to smirch Luke de Mountford would in no small measure redound on Louisa too. Instinctively too all his sensibilities recoiled against the idea of a gentleman, one of his own caste, being dragged in this peculiarly loathsome mire. It seemed impossible that that type of man should commit a murder—a murder—just an ordinary, brutal, commonplace murder, such as the rough and tumble herd of humanity commit when under the stress of vulgar passions: greed, avarice, jealousy. It was this juxtaposition of the mean and sordid against his own class that revolted Sir Thomas Ryder. He was loyal to his brother officer in his endeavour to induce him to keep out of all that mud which would be scattered all round presently, when the papers came out with their sensational headlines; but he was also—perhaps more so—loyal to his caste: his was the esprit de corps, not only of militarism but of birth and breeding. He would not, if he could, have a gentleman held up to opprobrium, and if this could be avoided by the unfortunate criminal's flight from justice—well, Sir Thomas was ready and willing to take upon his shoulders the burden of contempt and ridicule, which the press and the general public would presently be hurling at him and at his department for their hopeless incompetence in allowing a murderer to escape.

Therefore he was putting the case against Luke more clearly and with a greater wealth of detail before his brother-in-law than the conscientious discharge of duty should have allowed. In fact we see Sir Thomas Ryder—a hard disciplinarian, a hide and tape bound official—freely transgressing the most elementary rules which duty prescribes. He was sitting in his private office with his brother-in-law, giving away secrets that belonged not to him but to his department, conniving through the words which he spoke at the fleeing from justice of a criminal who belonged not to him but to the State.

He was making the case against Luke de Mountford to appear as black as it was in effect, so that Colonel Harris and Louisa might take fright and induce the unfortunate man to realize his danger in time and to shrink from facing the consequences of his own terrible deed.

But Colonel Harris—with the obstinacy of those who throughout life have never led but have always been ruled—would not see the case through his brother-in-law's spectacles. He clung to his own repudiation of the possibility of Luke de Mountford's guilt. He behaved quite unconsciously, just as Louisa would have wished him to behave, had she been present here to prompt him.

To Sir Thomas's most convincing exposé of the situation he lent an attentive ear, but the shrug of his shoulders when the other man paused to take breath was in itself a testimony of loyalty to Luke's cause.

"Hang it all, man," he said, "you are not going to sit there and tell me that Luke de Mountford—the man whom I myself would have chosen as a son-in-law had Lou not forestalled me—that Luke would commit a deliberate murder? In the name of common-sense, Tom, why it's unthinkable! Do you mean to say that you actually believe that Luke, after he left that God-forsaken club, joined his cousin again as if nothing had happened; that he got into a taxicab with him, and poked him through the neck whilst the man was looking another way."