But Luke and Louisa allowed all this world to wag on its own irresponsible way. They were not fools, they knew their milieu. They guessed all that was being said around them and all that remained unspoken. They had come here purposely in order to see and to be seen, to be gossiped about, to play their rôle of puppet before their world as long as life lasted, and whilst Chance and Circumstance still chose to hold up the edifice of their own position of their consideration, mayhap of their honour.
The question of the crime had not been mooted between them again: after the understanding, the look from her to him, and his humble gratitude on his knees, they had left the mystery severely alone. He had nothing to say, and she would never question, content that she would know in good time; that one day she would understand what was so un-understandable just now.
Colonel Harris alone was prostrated with trouble. Not that he doubted Luke, but like all sober-sensed Englishmen he loathed a moral puzzle. Whilst he liked and trusted Luke, he hated the mystery which now met him at every turn, just as much as he hated the so-called problem plays which alien critics try to foist on an unwilling Anglo-Saxon public.
He would have loved to hear Luke's voice saying quite frankly:
"Of course I did not kill my cousin. I give you my word, colonel, that I am incapable of such a thing."
That was the only grievance which the older man of the world had against the younger one. The want of frankness worried him. Luke was innocent of course; but, d—n it, why didn't he say so?
And how came that accursed stick behind the railings of the park?
CHAPTER XXIV
A HERD OF CACKLING GEESE
When at ten o'clock the next morning Louisa Harris entered the Victoria coroner's court accompanied by her father, the coroner and jury were just returning from the mortuary at the back of the building whither they had gone, in order to look upon the dead.