"Behind the railings—in Green Park—close to Hyde Park corner."
"Was it a stiletto? Or a dagger? Or what?"
"It was a stick with a dagger fitting into it. A snake-wood stick. It was covered with mud and—other stains."
There was silence in the room now for the space of a few brief seconds. A silence solemn and full of meaning. All through this rapid succession of questions and answers between Colonel Harris and Luke, Louisa had kept her eyes fixed upon the younger man's face, had seen light indifference at possible danger alternating with impatience at the singular obstinacy of his accusers. Throughout this time the face she knew so well, mirrored that perfect calm which she understood and admired, since it was the reflex of a calm, untroubled soul.
But now there came a change in the face: or rather not in the face but in the soul behind it. The change came at Colonel Harris's last words; a change so subtle, so undetermined, that she was quite sure her father had not perceived it. But movement there was none; one mere, almost imperceptible, quiver of the eyelids—nothing more. The mouth beneath the slight fair moustache had not trembled, the brow remained smooth, the breath came and went as evenly as before.
But the change was there, nevertheless! The gray tint just round the eyes, the stony look in the pupils themselves a tiny speck of moisture round the wing of each nostril. Colonel Harris had not looked at Luke whilst he spoke of the stick. He was staring straight in front of him, hardly conscious of the silence which had cast a strange and mystic spell on these three people standing here in the banal atmosphere of a London hotel.
It was Luke who broke the silence. He said quite quietly asking the question as if it related to a most trivial, most indifferent matter:
"Did Sir Thomas show you the stick?"
The colonel nodded in acquiescence.
"It was my stick, I suppose?"