busy man--was the more impatient of the two.

"I must tell you," he said, seeing that his brother-in-law seemed
disinclined to speak, "that our man Travers, as soon as Power had
pointed Luke out to him, went and rang the bell at Radclyffe's house
and quickly enough established beyond a doubt that the man who had
just entered it was Mr. Luke de Mountford. I tell you this now, so as
to disabuse your mind once and for all in case you should imagine that
this might be a case of mistaken identity. Moreover you yourself know
and have admitted to me that Luke's intention was to seek out his
uncle and his cousin at the Veterans' Club, after he parted from you
at eight o'clock last night."

"Yes," said Colonel Harris, "I know that. I was not thinking of
mistaken identity."

"You," rejoined the other, "were thinking of Luke, and so am I. I have
thought little of any one else since first the crime was reported to
me last night. And long before Travers gleaned the outlines of the
story which Power has just amplified for us, I vaguely guessed at the
broad lines of it. Now that I know it in all its details, I can see
the whole scene in the lobby of the Veterans' Club before me. You may
believe me or not as you like, but as a matter of fact I know quite a
good deal about Luke de Mountford. I have often met him, of course,
and though we have never been very intimate--for I am a busy man and
have but little time for intimacy with my fellow-men--I have had many
opportunities of studying him. He has a very curious power of
self-control--almost an abnormal one I call it, and a morbid hatred of
public scenes or scandal. This of course he shares with a great many
men of his class, and his self-control is all the more remarkable as
he is not by any means the impassive young man about town which he
pretends to be. Well, that same power, I suppose, stood him in good
stead in the lobby of the Veterans' Club. In Power's picturesque
parlance 'there was murder in his eye.' Of course he had been provoked
beyond the bounds of endurance, and if he had rushed at Philip de
Mountford and strangled him then and there, no one would have been
astonished. I should," continued Sir Thomas with emphasis, "because it
would not have been like the Luke whom I had studied. The picture of
two gentlemen at fisticuffs like a pair of navvies would not have been
an edifying one, and Luke--as I know him--would above all wish not to
make a spectacle of himself before