No amount of so-called realistic
literature, no amount of sneers at what is dubbed melodrama, will
prevent this fact occurring--and occurring very frequently in the
streets of a mighty city.

Just a man murdered and the murderer disappeared. A very real thing
that, and London has had to face such facts often enough, more often
than has an audience at Drury Lane or the Adelphi. The superior-minded
critic who spells British Drama with a capital B and D, and pronounces
it Pritish Trama sat in the stalls of a London theatre on this very
same foggy evening in November, four years ago. The play was one that
did not appeal to the superior-minded critic: it was just a simple
tale of jealousy which led to the breaking of that great commandment:
"Thou shalt do no murder!"

And the superior-minded critic yawned behind a well gloved hand and
dubbed the play melodramatic, unreal, and stagey, quite foreign to the
life of to-day. But just at that hour--between nine and ten o'clock--a
man was murdered in a taxicab, and his murderer vanished in the fog.

London doesn't dub such events melodrama; she does not sneer at them
or call them unreal. She knows that they are real: there is nothing
stagey or artificial about them: they have even become commonplace.

They occur so often! And most often whilst society dines or dances and
the elect applaud with languid grace the newest play by Mr. Bernard
Shaw.

Only in this case, the event gained additional interest. The murdered
man was a personality. Some one whom everybody that was anybody had
talked about, gossiped, and discussed for the past six months. Some
one whom few had seen but many had heard about--Philip de
Mountford--the son of the late Arthur de Mountford--Radclyffe's newly
found heir, you know.

The news spread as only such news can spread, and when Society poured
out from theatres, from houses in Grosvenor Square, or from the
dining-room of the Carlton, every one had heard the news.

It was as if the sprite of gossip had been busy whispering in
over-willing ears.

"Philip de Mountford has been murdered."

"He was found in a taxicab; his throat was cut from ear to ear."

"No! no! not cut, I understand. Pierced through with a sharp
instrument--a stiletto, I presume."

"How horrible!"

"Poor Lord Radclyffe--such a tragedy----"

"He'll never live through it."

"He has looked very feeble lately."

"The scandal round the late Arthur's name broke him up, I think."

"