"What is it?"

"Couldn't you see Uncle Ryder?"

"At Scotland Yard, you mean?"

"He is at the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, isn't
he?"

"I've always understood so."

"Would he see you, do you think, at his office?"

"Tom not see me?" exclaimed Colonel Harris. "Of course he would. What
do you want me to see him about?"

"He could tell you exactly how matters stood with regard to--to Luke,
couldn't he?"

"He could. But would he?"

"You can but try."

"It's a great pity your aunt is out of town; you might have heard a
good deal from her."

"Oh, Sir Thomas never tells aunt anything that's professional," said
Louisa with a smile. "She'd be forever making muddles."

"I am sure she would," he assented with deep conviction.

"Do you think I might go with you?"

"What? To Tom's? I don't think he would like that, Lou: and it
wouldn't quite do you know."

"Perhaps not," she agreed with hardly even a sigh of disappointment.
She was so accustomed, you see, to being thwarted by convention,
whenever impulse carried her out of the bounds which the world had
prescribed. Moreover, she expected to see Luke soon. He would be sure
to come directly after an early visit to Grosvenor Square.

She helped her father on with his coat. She was almost satisfied that
he should go alone. She would have an hour with Luke, if he came
early, and it was necessary that she should have him to herself,
before too many people had shouted evil and good news,
congratulations, opprobrium, and suspicions at him.

Colonel Harris, she knew, would get quite as much if not more
information out of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Ryder, than he could
do if she--a mere woman--happened to be present at the interview. Sir
Thomas would trust Colonel Harris with professional matters which he
never would confide to a woman, and Louisa trusted her father
implicitly.

She knew that, despite the grumblings and crustiness peculiar to every
Englishman, when he is troubled with domestic matters whilst sitting
at his own breakfast table, her father had Luke's welfare just as much
at heart as she had herself.

CHAPTER XIX

NOT ALL ABOUT IT

Colonel Harris sent in his card to Sir Thomas Ryder. He had driven
over from the Langham in a hansom--holding taxicabs in even more
whole-hearted abhorrence than before. He inquired at once if Sir
Thomas was in his private sanctum, and if so whether he might see him.

Curiously enough the c