the literary countess
who went by the name of Maria Annunziata and the latter made hasty
notes in her diminutive book.

But Louisa leaned slightly forward so as to catch fuller sight of
Luke, and she encountered his eyes fixed steadily upon her.

After that the driver of the cab concluded his evidence more rapidly.
There was little more there than what every one had already learned
from the newspapers. The second pulling up in Cromwell Road this time:
the silent fare, the descent from the box, the discovery of the
huddled figure in the far corner of the cab, the call for the police.

People listened with less attention; thoughts were busy with the
contemplation of a picture: two men, one clean-shaved--the dead man of
course--and the other wearing a moustache. The first link in the chain
of evidence against the assassin had been forged and was ready to be
rivetted to the next.

The crowd in the body of the court could only obtain a view of the
top of Luke de Mountford's head. It was smooth and fair, of that
English fairness of tint which is golden when the light catches it.
And the group of elegantly dressed women who came here to-day in order
to experience an altogether novel sensation shuddered with delightful
excitement as they thought of Black Maria, and handcuffs, and crowds
of police officers in blue. A jumble of impressions ran riot in
frivolous and irresponsible minds, foremost amongst which was one that
the public was not longer allowed to witness a final scene on the
gallows.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE NEXT WITNESS PLEASE

The air grew more and more heavy as the morning dragged on. It was now
close on twelve o'clock.

Frederick Power, hall porter of the Veterans' Club had finished his
evidence. With the precision of a soldier he had replied curtly and to
the point to every question put to him, and had retold all that had
occurred on that foggy night, in the smoking room and the lobby of the
Veterans' Club in Shaftesbury Avenue.

It was but a repetition of what he had told Sir Thomas Ryder in
Colonel Harris's presence the day before. Louisa had had it all at
full length from her father; she had drawn the whole story out of him,
point by point, just as the man had told it originally. Colonel
Harris, reluctant to tell her, was gradually driven to concealing
nothing from her. Moreover, since she had made up her mind to attend
the inquest she might as well hear it all from him first, the better
to be pr