" 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
assassination 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 amusement 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