Jacob's Ladder

The third paper contained a list of the contributors. Mr. Montague headed the list with twenty-five thousand pounds. The Marquis was down for five thousand. The other names, ranging from three thousand to five hundred, were all people of title, many of them relatives of the Marquis.

“Sounds like a Court guide,” Jacob remarked, passing it back.

“I have been privileged,” the Marquis observed, stroking his grey moustache, “as Mr. Montague has already told you, to place his proposition before various members of my family. I have found them, one and all, anxious to share in the profits of Mr. Montague’s—er—enterprise.”

“When the purchase of the Empress Music Hall is concluded, what do you propose to do with it?” Jacob enquired.

“Sell it to a company for a hundred and fifty thousand,” Mr. Montague answered, “and divide the profits of the sale amongst the contributors according to their holding. The Marquis holds an agreement signed by me to that effect.”

“That is so,” his lordship acquiesced.

Jacob was frankly puzzled.

“I don’t understand, Mr. Montague, how you got that undertaking,” he confessed. “I saw an interview with Mr. Peter in the papers the other day, in which he denied having sold the ‘Empress’ or even proposing to do so.”

“That’s the commonest bluff going,” the other pointed out. “Always done. And see here, Pratt, this is the truth of the matter. The profit or the loss on the sale of the ‘Empress’ wouldn’t go into Peter’s pocket at all. It would go into the pockets of people with whom he is at present on very bad terms. This sale does them in the eye. That’s the long and short of it.”

“I see no reason,” Jacob decided, after a few moments’ consideration, “why I should not join in this enterprise. If you will allow me, I will telephone for my cheque book.”

“Certainly,” the Marquis agreed, “and in the meantime we can make our peace with the ladies.”

CHAPTER XVIII

“Not she,” was the cheerful reply. “Look here, mother’s gone into the housekeeper’s room for a moment. Dad and Mr. Montague are adding up how much they have made out of you. You slip out on to the terrace there, before she turns around, and I’ll bring her out directly.”

Jacob did as he was directed, and, with the echoes of Sybil’s song still in his ears, stepped out on to a wide balcony and stood looking over the tops of the lime trees towards Buckingham Palace. Presently there was a rustle of skirts, the sound of voices, and the two girls appeared. Sybil stopped short when she saw Jacob, but Lady Mary stood in the way of her retreat.

“You know Mr. Pratt, don’t you?” she asked carelessly. “I thought so. Miss Bultiwell’s a perfect dear,” she continued, turning to Jacob. “She comes across the Square and sings to me sometimes after dinner and even condescends to play my accompaniments. You’ve no idea what a tax that is upon any one’s good nature.”

“I understood that you were to be alone this evening,” Sybil remarked.

“But we are alone—practically,” Lady Mary declared. “I am sure you wouldn’t count Mr. Montague, and Mr. Pratt is an old friend.—One moment, there’s my mother calling. Don’t move, either of you, or we shall have to sit in that stuffy drawing-room all the evening.”

They were alone, and Jacob found it exceedingly difficult to think of anything to say.

“I had no idea that you were persona grata in this household,” Sybil remarked coldly.

“I’m not—if it means what it sounds as if it did,” Jacob replied. “I am asked here because I am very rich and because the Marquis is interested in money-making schemes. Do you like being a nursery governess?”

“I hate it!”

“Worse than giving dancing lessons?”

“You needn’t rub it in. That was just an unfortunate episode.”

“Unfortunate, you call it?”

“Unfortunate,” she repeated, “for if those two men had been half as clever as I thought they were, they wouldn’t have bungled the matter, and I should have been able to make a real start in life.”

“With my money?”

“Yes, but not given by you. Taken from you!”

“Miss Bultiwell,” Jacob asked wistfully, “are you never going to get rid of this ridiculous prejudice against me?”

“Never!”

“You know—that I admire you more than any one else in the world?”

“I am glad to hear it, if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It makes me unhappy.”

“Then I’m glad you find me attractive,” she declared. “I only wish I had really beautiful clothes and were far better looking. Then you might suffer more.”

“Some day,” he said, drawing nearer to her, “you will try me too high.”

She laughed scornfully.

“Are you trying to threaten me?”

He came nearer still. His hand rested against the wall, within a few inches of her. Her lips were a little parted, but her eyes flashed.

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “How dare you come so near to me!”

His eyes met hers steadily.

“I am going to propose,” he told her. “I can’t from the other side of the balcony.”

“Propose!” she repeated contemptuously.

“Will you marry me please, Sybil?” he asked.

“Will I—”

“I think you will some day,” he went on. “It would make things simpler if you’d say ‘yes’ now.”

She was speechless. For the first time Jacob felt that he had scored. Perhaps it was not altogether to his disadvantage that at that moment a footman stepped out on to the balcony with a small package for him. Sybil slipped away and Jacob followed her into the room. Lady Mary looked up from the piano.

“One more song, Miss Bultiwell?” she suggested.

“If you will excuse me,” Sybil replied, “I must go home now.”

“Must you?” Lady Mary murmured, “Mr. Pratt will see you across the Square.”

“Quite unnecessary, thank you,” was the curt rejoinder.

“Besides, we rather want Mr. Pratt,” the Marquis, who had just made his appearance, intervened. “James can step across with Miss Bultiwell.”

Sybil moved quickly towards the door.

“Please don’t let any one stir,” she begged. “It is barely a hundred yards and I much prefer going alone.”

Lady Mary got up from the piano and detained Jacob as he turned to follow the other two men.

“Mr. Pratt,” she asked, “how did you contrive to offend Miss Bultiwell?”

“I refused to put some money into her father’s business,” he explained. “Her father was hopelessly bankrupt and tried to palm off a false balance sheet on me. He afterwards shot himself. It was unfortunate, but I cannot see that I was to blame.”

Lady Mary sighed.

“Of course,” she said, “I feel I am being rather generous in trying to help you, because I am beginning to rather like you myself.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything against your encouraging the feeling,” Jacob replied, with a rather sad twinkle in his eyes. “I don’t think Sybil will ever have me.”

She made a little grimace.

“I don’t like being a second choice,” she confessed. “Couldn’t you get to like me best?”

“What about the other fellow?”

“He’s coming in with Jack in a few minutes,” she said. “I must ask him about it. I think I shall tell him that my affections are wavering.”

“As soon as the coast is clear,” Jacob began,—

“Humbug!” she interrupted. “Go down and be fleeced.”

The scene was laid when Jacob reached the library. He slipped into the vacant chair and accepted the pen which the Marquis handed to him.

“Leave the cheque open, please,” Mr. Dane Montague begged. “We have to hand the money over in cash to-morrow morning.”

“Certainly,” Jacob assented. “By the bye, will you let me have one more glance at the undertaking to sell?”

“You can read it through as many times as you like,” the other replied, producing it. “It’s as tight a contract as can be drawn. The lawyer’s letter proves that.”

Jacob nodded, and, spreading the document out, tapped it with the end of his penholder.

“There is just one thing omitted which I think should be in,” he said.

“What’s that?” Mr. Montague demanded.

“Well, I think you ought to add ‘Leicester Square’ after the Empress Music Hall,” Jacob pointed out. “Curiously enough, there happens to be another Empress Music Hall in Shoreditch, the proprietor of which spells his name P-e-t-e-r. I looked it up in the telephone directory just now.”

There was a cold and ominous silence. Mr. Montague breathed heavily. The Marquis sighed.

“Most unfortunate!” he murmured.

“Most what?” Jacob asked, turning towards him.

“Most unfortunate,” the Marquis repeated. “You are the first person, Mr. Pratt, to whom this—er—enterprise has been suggested, who has seen through our little financial effort.”

Jacob was somewhat staggered. He looked across at Montague.

“You’re on top again, Pratt,” that gentleman conceded gloomily. “The music hall in question is the Shoreditch ‘Empress.’”

“And do you mean to say,” Jacob demanded incredulously, “that you have induced the people whose names are on that list to part with their money, believing they are going to acquire an interest in the Empress Music Hall in Leicester Square?”

“That’s all right,” Montague assented. “It was dead easy. You see, they were mostly the Marquis’s friends, toffs, without any head for business, and we swore them to absolute secrecy—told them if they breathed a word of it, the whole thing would be spoilt.”

“But you aren’t giving fifty thousand pounds for the Shoreditch Empress?”

The financier laughed scornfully.

“Not likely! That’s where the Marquis and I make a bit. We have another agreement with Peter, who’s a pal and a white man, to buy the place for fifteen thousand. Then we’ve an arrangement—”

“You needn’t go on,” Jacob interrupted. “I can quite see that there are plenty of ways of working the swindle.”

“Swindle?” his host repeated, with a pained expression. “My dear Mr. Pratt!”

“Why, what else can you call it?” Jacob protested.

The Marquis coughed.

“It is only lately,” he said, “that, with the assistance of Mr. Dane Montague, I have endeavoured to supplement my income in this fashion. I do not understand the harshness of your term, Mr. Pratt, as applied to this transaction. I have little experience of city life, but I have always understood that money was made there, in financial and Stock Exchange circles, by buying from a man something which you knew was worth more money, selling it to another and—er—pocketing the difference. Surely this involves a certain amount of what a purist would call deceit?”

“On the contrary,” Jacob pointed out, “that is a fair bargain, because the two men have different ideas of the value of a thing, and each backs his own opinion.”

“But there are surely many cases,” the Marquis argued, “in which the seller knows and the buyer does not know? Is it incumbent on the seller to impart to the buyer his superior knowledge? I think not. Without a doubt, business in the city is conducted on the general lines of the man knowing the most making the most. I look upon our little transaction as being exactly on parallel lines. We knew that the Shoreditch Music Hall was meant. The people who advanced the money thought that the Leicester Square Music Hall was meant. Therefore, we make the money.”

Jacob rose to his feet. He was feeling a little dazed.

“Your ideas of commercial ethics, Marquis,” he acknowledged, “are excellent in their way, but do you imagine that they will be shared by the members of your family who have parted with their money?”

“I trust, sir,” the Marquis replied stiffly, “that they will behave like sportsmen and see the humour of the transaction.”

“I hope they will!” Jacob murmured fervently, as he took his leave.

“In any case,” the Marquis concluded complacently, “their cheques have been cashed.”

CHAPTER XIX

“He’ll get his some day from this guy,” Joe Hartwell added earnestly. “I’m kind of hanging round for the chance.”

Mr. Montague ordered expensive cigars and the three men’s heads drew a little closer together.

“We ought to be able to put it across him,” the host continued. “We’ve brains enough, and between us we know the ropes. The only thing is that it’s pretty difficult to hurt him financially. I believe it’s a fact that he’s well on towards his second million.”

“There are other ways,” Hartwell remarked, draining his glass with slow, unwholesome deliberation. “If I’d got him in New York I should know what to do. I guess there are back doors in this little village.”

“Here’s one of the clan!” Montague exclaimed, looking up. “Sit down and have a drink with us, Felixstowe.”

Lord Felixstowe, who had paused at the table on his way through the restaurant, surveyed the little party without undue enthusiasm.

“Off it to-day, my children,” he announced. “I’m playing polo at Ranelagh this afternoon. Any one want to back the Crimson Sashes?”

Mr. Montague stretched out his hand and drew the young man a little nearer.

“Look here, Felixstowe,” he confided, “we’re talking about Pratt—Jacob Pratt. You know the little devil.”

“What about him?” his lordship enquired, helping himself to a cigar from the box on the table.

“Philip here, and Hartwell, have got it up against him hard. So have I. We think it’s about time he was taught a lesson. There might be something for you out of it.”

“What’s the scheme?” Felixstowe demanded. “It’ll have to be a devilish clever one to land him.”

“It need not necessarily be financial,” Montague pointed out, twirling his black moustache. “There are other ways of teaching a man a lesson, and these two boys have something of their own to get back, something that money won’t pay for. Men with a six-figure balance at their banker’s have had to face ruin before now.”

“Count me on the other side of the hedge,” Felixstowe declared promptly. “I wouldn’t hurt a hair of Jacob Pratt’s head. One of the best-natured little bounders I ever knew.”

Mason nodded.

“Fade away, Felix,” he enjoined. “You’re not in this show.”

Felixstowe left the restaurant and, crossing the courtyard, seated himself in a disreputable little two-seated car jammed between two dignified limousines, in which, after a fierce and angry toot, he sped out into the Strand. With very scant regard to the amenities of the traffic laws, and stonily deaf to the warning cries of a policeman, he threaded his way in and out of the stream of vehicles, shot across into Duncannon Street, and, with the blasphemous cries of a motor-omnibus driver still in his ears, pulled up before Jacob Pratt’s offices at the lower end of Regent Street. Jacob, who had just returned from luncheon, welcomed him with a nod and indicated the easy-chair, into which the young man sank with the air of one who has earned repose.

“Old top,” he announced, “they’re getting ready to put it across you.”

“Who are?” Jacob asked.

“The great Dane Montague, fresh from his city triumphs, Joe Hartwell, the American shark, and Philip Mason.”

Jacob smiled a little contemptuously.

“I dare say they’d like to do me a bad turn if they could!”

The young man extended his hand for Jacob’s case, took out a cigarette and tapped it upon the desk, lit it, and subsided still farther into the depths of his chair.

“Listen,” he continued, “this is no idle gossip I bring you. Five minutes ago I left the trio at the Milan, discussing over several empty bottles of Pommery and a badly hurt bottle of ’68 brandy no less a subject than your undoing.”

“Any specific method?” Jacob enquired.

“When I declined to join the enterprise, they dried up. All the same they mean mischief,” Felixstowe declared emphatically.

“But why should you think that they can hurt me?”

“Because you are on the straight and they are on the cross,” was the well-considered reply. “If three men of their brains mean mischief, well, they’re worth watching. They know the dirty ways and you don’t. The old game, you know—a feint in the front and a stab in the back. Keep your weather eye open, Jacob. Beware of them, whether they bring gifts or thunderbolts.”

“Anyway, it’s very friendly of you to come and warn me,” Jacob said gratefully.

“Not at all, old bean. I say, when are you going to get me a job?”

“What sort of a job do you want?”

“Your private secretary, couple of thou a year, and one of these cadaverous, ink-smudged chaps to do the work. What-ho!”

“You’re modest!”

“That’s what the governor says. He was on to me about you yesterday. Coming the man-of-the-world stunt, you know. Hand on my shoulder with a fatherly grip. ‘Jack,’ he said solemnly, ‘there’s one golden rule which people in our position must never forget. Make use of your friends.’”

“And relations,” Jacob murmured.

The young man grinned.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “the old man overshot the bolt a bit there. Done ’em all in the eye for several thou of the best. I fancy he’s going to seek the seclusion of a distant clime for a month or two.... But as I was saying, he’s always on to me about you. ‘My boy,’ he said, in his best Lord Chesterfield manner, ‘you have contracted a valuable acquaintance with that very personable and shrewd young financier whom you introduced to us at Ascot. It rests with you to see that that acquaintance is made of profit to the family.’”

“I am afraid,” Jacob observed, “that in that way I have been rather a disappointment.”

“The governor isn’t easily discouraged,” Felixstowe replied, “and the mater’s got something up her sleeve for you. But placing their own interests in the background, as my revered sire pointed out, it is certainly, in his opinion, up to you to find me a job.”

“You can go into the office and file letters, at three pounds a week, whenever you like,” Jacob suggested.

The young man picked himself up in hurt fashion.

“See whether we win our heat this afternoon against the Crimson Sashes,” he said. “I’ve a couple of ponies on, which ought to keep me going till Thursday, if we win. Shall I tool you down to Ranelagh, old chap?”

“What, in the bassinet I saw you in yesterday? There were three policemen running down St. James’s Street after you.”

“I can make her rip,” the young man promised. “Come on.”

“Not I!” Jacob replied, with a shudder. “Besides, you’d expect me to pay the fines.”

“So long, then,” Felixstowe concluded, as he picked up his hat and turned to go. “Keep your weather eye open. If I lose the match, I’ll probably drop in for that post.”

The young man, after a violent series of explosions from his reluctantly started engine, shot into Pall Mall and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Jacob watched him from the window with a smile upon his lips. When he resumed his seat, however, the smile had vanished. He sat with his head resting upon his left hand, idly sketching upon a corner of the blotting pad. Presently he rang the bell for Dauncey.

“Dick,” he said, “Lord Felixstowe has just brought me a warning.”

“A warning,” Dauncey repeated.

“It appears,” Jacob went on, “that in the course of various insignificant adventures which have occurred to me during the last few months, I have made enemies. Mr. Dane Montague, Philip Mason, and Joe Hartwell are out on the warpath against me.”

“Financially?” Dauncey asked, with an incredulous smile.

Jacob shook his head.

“I think they’ve had enough of that. According to Felixstowe, they’re plotting something a little lower down. Keep an eye on me, Dick, if beautiful woman inveigles, or a ragged messenger from a starving father tries to lure me into the slums.”

Dauncey declined to take the matter lightly.

“You haven’t a thing to do for four days,” he remarked. “Why don’t you go down to Marlingden and see how the new ‘Mrs. Fitzpatricks’ are blooming?”

“It’s an idea, Dick,” Jacob declared. “I’m sick of town, anyway. Telephone Mrs. Harris and say I’m coming, and order the car around in half an hour. You can stay here till closing time and come across and see me after supper.”

The telephone tinkled at Jacob’s elbow. He picked up the receiver and listened for a moment. His own share of the conversation was insignificant.

“Of course you can,” he said. “Certainly, I shall be here.... In five minutes?... Yes!”

He replaced the receiver.

“Lady Mary Felixstowe is calling here, Dauncey,” he announced. “She can be shown in at once.”

Lady Mary, very smart in white muslin and a black hat, followed hard upon her telephone message. She was full of curiosity and without the least embarrassment.

“Don’t tell me that all your money is made in a little office like this!” she exclaimed, as she sank into the easy-chair.

“It isn’t,” he assured her. “It’s all made in America. I simply sit here and try to keep it.”

“Am I being at all unusual in visiting you like this?” she asked.

“I’ve had visits from lady clients before,” he replied. “Let us assume that you have come to consult me about an eight-roomed villa at Cropstone.”

“Cropstone?” she repeated. “That is the sort of garden city place, isn’t it, where one has a doll’s house with fifty feet of garden, a lecture hall with free cookery lectures twice a week, and a strap-hang in a motor-car to the station every morning.”

“One might accept that as a pessimistic impression of the place,” Jacob conceded.

Lady Mary sighed.

“That is where I shall have to live,” she said, “if I marry Maurice.”

Jacob was suddenly thoughtful. He was thinking of a small rose garden at Cropstone and a watering can.

“If you care enough,” he ventured gravely, “the conditions of life don’t seem to matter so much, do they?”

She made a little grimace.

“How is Miss Bultiwell?” she asked, with apparent irrelevance.

“I was going to ask you,” Jacob replied. “I have not seen her since the night I dined at your house.”

“She is still with my aunt, I believe,” Lady Mary continued. “The children adore her.”

“Have you seen her lately?” Jacob asked.

“Last week. Promise you won’t be broken-hearted if I tell you something?”

“I’ll try.”

“I met her in the Park—with whom do you think?”

“No idea.”

“With Maurice. Of course, I didn’t ask any questions, and they might have met accidentally, but I never saw Maurice look such an idiot. I think a man ought to be able to conceal his feelings, don’t you, Mr. Pratt? Should you look an idiot, now, if your fiancée were to discover you with another girl?”

“Such a thing would probably never happen,” Jacob answered. “I am of an extraordinarily faithful disposition.”

She laughed at him across the desk.

“Isn’t that queer! So am I! What a lot we have in common, Mr. Pratt!”

“I am beginning to realise it,” Jacob assented.

“If only I could make you forget Sybil!”

“If only Sybil would allow me to forget her!” Jacob groaned.

“What you need,” she said earnestly, “is to see more of other nice-looking, attractive young women of somewhat similar type.”

“There may be something in that,” he conceded.

“Apropos of which, let me explain my visit. I was told to telephone to you, but I hate a conversation down a tube, don’t you?”

“I certainly prefer your visit.”

“We’ve such a rag on,” Lady Mary continued. “We’re going to have a picnic fortnight up at our place in Scotland. We want to know whether you’ll come. Dad told me to say that there was plenty of fishing and a grouse moor for later on. Sailing, of course.”

“It sounds delightful,” Jacob replied enthusiastically. “Right up in Scotland you say? To tell you the truth, I was just wondering whether I couldn’t drop out of things quietly for a week or so.”

“It will be absolutely the end of us,” she declared, smiling out of her very blue eyes. “Maurice has been a perfect brute to me lately, apart from his flirtation with Miss Bultiwell, and I have almost left off loving him. I know we shall both fall. I’m so affectionate,” she sighed.

Jacob felt suddenly soothed. Lady Mary was looking very attractive and her eyes were full of challenge.

“But tell me,” he asked, “isn’t it very early for you to leave town?”

She nodded.

“To tell you the truth,” she confided, “dad seems to have got into terrible disgrace with all his relatives lately. Something to do with a money scheme, I think, in which they were all interested, and in which he seems to have done better than they did.”

“I quite understand,” Jacob murmured. “I think this temporary isolation is an excellent idea of your father’s. Sort of place, I suppose, where you get a post once a week and no telegrams.”

“You won’t mind?”

“Not I!”

“And you’ll come?”

“Rather! When do you start?”

“Some servants are going up to-day,” she replied, “and I think we shall go with them by the midnight train. Poor dad is being so worried. We’d like you to come to-morrow, or as soon as you can. And there’s just one thing more. Except for your own people here, dad would like you not to mention where you are going. He wants a little peace, poor man.”

“I won’t tell a soul except my secretary,” Jacob promised.

“Not even Jack,” Lady Mary persisted.

“Very well. Not even Lord Felixstowe.”

She rose, and he escorted her to the door.

“It’s going to be such an adventure,” she whispered, with a parting look.

Jacob called Dauncey into the office.

“Stroke of luck, Dick,” the former announced. “I shall be able to do better than Marlingden—drop out of it altogether, in fact. Felixstowe’s people have asked me to go up and stay with them in Scotland for a fortnight.”

“Capital!” Dauncey exclaimed. “You’ll be well out of the way there.”

“I shall leave my address with you and with no one else, Dick. For a fortnight you can consider me wiped off the face of the earth. Watch the investment accounts closely and act on your own initiative if necessary; but, above all things, see that Harris tries the new blight cure on ‘Mrs. Fitzpatrick.’”

CHAPTER XX

Almost directly they turned off the main road into what was little better than a cart track, across a great open moor, dotted everywhere with huge granite stones, marvellous clumps of heather and streaks of gorse. The sky was perfectly blue, and the wind came booming up from where the moorland seemed to drop into the sea. There were no rubber tyres on the wheels, and apparently no springs to speak of on the cart. They swayed from side to side in perilous fashion, went down into ruts, over small boulders of stone, through a stretch of swamp, across a patch of stones, always at the same half gallop. Lady Mary looked down and smiled at the enjoyment in her companion’s face.

“You’ve passed the first test,” she declared, “but then I knew you would. I brought Mr. Montague along here yesterday morning, and he cried like a child.”

“Mr. Who?” Jacob gasped.

“Mr. Montague and a friend of his. They came down with father last night. Perfectly abominable men. I hope you won’t leave me to their tender mercies for a single moment, Mr. Pratt.”

To Jacob, the warmth seemed to have gone from the sunlight, and the tearing wind was no longer bringing him joy. Up above him, the long white front of Kelsoton Castle had come into view. His wonderful holiday, then, had come to this—that he must walk, minute by minute, in fear of his liberty, perhaps his life. He was to spend the days he had looked forward to so much in this lonely spot with the men who were his sworn enemies. He looked behind him for a moment. The train by which he had come had disappeared long ago across a dark stretch of barren moor. Escape, even if he had thought of it, was cut off.

“I gather that you don’t care much for Mr. Montague, either,” she remarked, flicking one of the pony’s ears.

Jacob roused himself.

“Not exactly my choice of a holiday companion,” he admitted.

She leaned towards him.

“You are only going to have one companion,” she told him. “I have demanded your head upon a charger—or rather your body in tennis flannels—for the rest of the day. The others are all going for a picnic.”

“Is that fellow Maurice somebody coming down?” Jacob asked anxiously.

“He hasn’t even been asked,” she assured him, with a flash of her blue eyes. “Here we are at the first lodge. Now for a gallop up the avenue.”

The Marquis in kilts, the very prototype of the somewhat worn Scottish chieftain of ancient lineage, welcomed his visitor on the threshold, from which the great oak doors had been thrown back.

“So sorry we haven’t the bagpipes,” he apologised, as he shook Jacob’s hand. “We shall get into form in a day or two. Now you’ll have a bath and some breakfast, won’t you? Your things will be up in a few moments. You’ll find some old friends here,” he added, as he piloted Jacob across the huge, bare hall, “but my daughter tells me that she claims you for tennis—to-day, at any rate.”

Everything seemed cheerful and reassuring. His room looked straight out on to a magnificent, rock-strewn sea. The bathroom which opened from it was a model of comfort and even luxury. The Marchioness welcomed him cordially, later on, and Mr. Dane Montague and Mr. Hartwell seemed very harmless in their ill-chosen country clothes, and ingratiating almost to the point of fulsomeness. Lady Mary glanced approvingly at Jacob’s tennis flannels.

“I’m sure you’ll be far too good for me,” she sighed, as she gave him his coffee. “My racquet’s simply horrible, too. It’s three years old and wants restringing badly.”

“I hope you won’t think it a liberty,” Jacob said simply, “but I had to call at Tate’s to get one of mine which I’d had restrung, and I saw such a delightfully balanced lady’s racquet that I ventured to bring it down. I thought you might play with it, at any rate, if you didn’t feel like doing me the honour of accepting it.”

“You dear person!” she exclaimed joyfully. “If father and mother weren’t here, and my mouth weren’t full of scone, I believe I should kiss you. There isn’t anything in the world I wanted so much as a Tate racquet.”

“Very thoughtful and kind of Mr. Pratt, I am sure,” the Marchioness echoed graciously.

Jacob was never quite sure as to the meaning of that day, on which he and Lady Mary were left almost entirely alone, and the others, starting for an excursion soon after breakfast, did not return until an hour before dinner. They played tennis, bathed, played tennis again, lounged in a wonderful corner of a many-hundred-year-old garden, and afterwards sailed for a couple of hours in a little skiff which Lady Mary managed with the utmost skill. Sunburnt, tired, but completely happy, Jacob watched the returning carriages with scarcely an atom of apprehension.

“I think,” he declared, “that this has been one of the happiest days of my life.”

“That is a great deal to say, Mr. Pratt,” said Lady Mary.

She seemed suddenly to have lost her high spirits. He looked at her almost in surprise. A queer little impulse of jealousy crept into his brain.

“You are tired,” he said,—“or is it that you are thinking of some one else?”

She shook her head.

“I felt a little shiver,” she confided. “I don’t know why. I loathe those two men father has here, and I have an idea, somehow, that they don’t like you.”

“I have more than an idea about that,” he answered half lightly. “I believe they’d murder me if they could. You’ll protect me, won’t you, Lady Mary?”

“I will,” she answered quite gravely.

Nevertheless, the rest of the day passed without any untoward event. No one could have been more polite or harmless than Mr. Dane Montague at dinner; no one, except that he drank a little more wine than was good for him, more genial than Joe Hartwell. They played snooker pool, a game at which Jacob excelled, after dinner, and not one of the party made the least objection when Jacob excused himself early and retired to his room. He locked his door, and, sitting down by the open window, lit a last cigarette before turning in. Before him was the bay with its rock-strewn shore, and the quaint little tower, said to be six hundred years old, situated on a little island about fifty yards from the shore. On either side two heather-covered slopes, strewn with rocks, tumbled almost to the sea; and beyond, the ocean. The view was wonderful, the air soft and delicious. It was an hour or more later before Jacob turned reluctantly away. He was about to take off his dinner coat when he heard a soft yet firm knocking at his door. The old fears rushed back. It was well past midnight. The great house seemed strangely silent. The servants’ wing was far out of hearing. Jacob felt a curious sensation of friendlessness. The knocking was repeated. He hesitated for a moment and then crossed the room.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

“I, your host,” was the low reply,—“Delchester. Let me in for a moment, Pratt.”

Jacob unlocked the door, opened it to admit his host, and closed it again. Somewhat to his surprise, the Marquis himself turned the key. He was looking grave and a little perturbed.

“Pratt,” he said, “you will forgive my intrusion, but you are a guest in my house, and I feel that I have a somewhat painful duty to perform.”

“Painful?” Jacob repeated.

“Painful because it will seem like a breach of hospitality, which it is not,” the Marquis continued. “I am here, Pratt, to beg that you will leave my house early to-morrow morning.”

“But I have only just arrived!” Jacob exclaimed. “What have I done?”

“You have done nothing,” his host assured him. “Your deportment has been in every respect exemplary, and believe me I regret very much the position I am obliged to take up. But let me add that it is entirely in your own interests. I have become aware of certain designs on the part of Mr. Dane Montague and his friend, which would make your further stay here, to say the least of it, dangerous.”

“This is very kind of you, Lord Delchester,” Jacob said, “but doesn’t it seem to you that, if this is the case, the persons who ought to leave are Mr. Dane Montague and Hartwell?”

“You are quite right,” the Marquis acknowledged. “You are absolutely right. But I will be frank with you. I am under great obligations to Mr. Dane Montague, obligations which I expect will be increased rather than diminished. I am exceedingly anxious not to quarrel with him. I cannot possibly countenance the scheme which he and his friend have on foot against you, so under the circumstances my only alternative is to beg you to leave by the first train to-morrow morning.”

Jacob sighed. Somehow or other, the dangers which had failed to materialise had become small things.

“I can only do as you desire, Marquis,” he consented. “For myself, I am not afraid. I am perfectly content to take my chance.”

The Marquis shook his head.

“There is too much cunning on the other side,” he declared. “The struggle would not be equal. You will be called at six o’clock, and I shall give myself the pleasure of breakfasting with you at half-past six downstairs. And, I have a further favour to ask you. I do not wish my wife or daughter to be aware of the circumstances which have led to my having to make you this regrettable request. I should be glad if you would write a line, say to my daughter, regretting that you are compelled to return to town on business.”

Jacob sighed once more, sat down and wrote as desired. His host thrust the note into his pocket.

“I wish you good night,” he said. “We shall meet in the morning, and, if I might ask it, would you make as little noise as possible in your movements? I do not wish those fellows to know that you are leaving until you are safe in the train. Your luggage can be sent after you.”

The Marquis made a dignified exit, and Jacob, with a shrug of the shoulders, undressed and tumbled into bed. On the whole, he was surprised to find that his chief sensation was one of disappointment. When he was called in the morning and found the sunshine filling the room, he felt half inclined to make a further appeal to his host’s hospitality. The Marquis gave him little opportunity, however. He was fully dressed and presided with dignity at a bountiful breakfast. He was looking a little tired, and he confessed that he had slept badly.

“I find myself,” he told Jacob, as the meal was concluded, “in an exceedingly painful situation. I have never before had to ask a guest to leave my house, and I resent very much the necessity.”

“I am willing to take my risk,” Jacob suggested.

The Marquis shook his head.

“You do not know what the risks are,” he answered. “I do. Come and walk outside with me, Mr. Pratt. We have half an hour before we leave. My people were more than ordinarily punctual.”

They strolled down towards the sea. Jacob asked curious questions about the little tower, and the Marquis unfastened a rope which held a flat-bottomed boat.

“I will take you across the channel,” he proposed, “and we will visit it. We have never had a visitor yet who has departed without seeing the keep. As a matter of fact, it is far older than the house, and quite a curiosity of architecture.”

They crossed the tidal channel, the Marquis paddling with slow but graceful strokes. Arrived on the other side, he secured the boat and led the way up a precipitous ledge to a nail-studded door, which he opened with a key from a bunch which he had drawn from his pocket.

“The downstairs rooms are scarcely safe,” he said, “there is so much fallen masonry, but the one I am going to show you is our great pride. You will find our visitors’ book there.”

He preceded his guest up a circular staircase, lit only by some narrow slits in the walls. At the top he opened another door and Jacob stepped into a great bare room. At the further end, through a broad aperture, was a magnificent view of the open sea. Jacob stepped forward to peer out. As he passed across the room, through another aperture, facing landwards, he saw the dogcart driven out of the stable yard, down the avenue, towards the moorland road which led to the station.

“Hullo,” he called out, “isn’t that my carriage over there?”

He turned around. He was alone in the room, and from outside came the ominous sound of the key turning in the lock. He strode towards it and shouted through the grating which was let into the top part of the door.

“Hi! Lord Delchester!”

The Marquis’s face appeared on the other side of the grating. He carefully shook the door, to be sure that it was locked.

“Mr. Pratt,” he said, “you enter now upon a new phase of your stay at Kelsoton Castle. If you look around the walls, you will find the initials of your predecessors carved in many different forms. I trust that you will make yourself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.”

“Am I a prisoner?” Jacob asked.

The Marquis coughed.

“I prefer to follow the example of my ancestors and look upon you as a hostage awaiting ransom.”

“Then all that talk of yours about getting me out of danger was bunkum?”

“Your phraseology is offensively modern, but your conclusions are correct,” the Marquis acknowledged. “We could think of no other way in which you might be induced to enter the prison tower of Kelsoton, bearing in mind your suspicions of Montague and Hartwell.”

Jacob stood on tiptoe and looked through the bars. The mien of the Marquis was as composed as his tone. A paste stone in the buckle which fastened his tartan glittered in the dim light.

“Lord Delchester,” he said, “I have only a commoner’s ideas of hospitality. Is it in accordance with your sense of honour to decoy and imprison a guest in order to subject him to ill-treatment from a couple of curs like Montague and Hartwell?”

The Marquis was unperturbed.

“My dear Mr. Pratt,” he replied, “conduct which would perhaps not commend itself to you, with your more limited outlook, has been hallowed to the members of my family by the customs of a thousand years. The great Roderick Currie, my grandfather many times removed in the direct line, invited here once seven lairds of the neighbouring country for some marriage celebrations. You will find their initials carved somewhere near the right-hand window. Four of them escaped with the loss of half their estates. The remaining three, I regret to say, were unreasonable. Two of them were drowned and one was stabbed.”

“What are the terms of my release?” Jacob demanded.

“It is not within my province to discuss financial details,” the Marquis answered stiffly. “Mr. Montague will probably visit you during the day. I bid you good morning.”

CHAPTER XXI

In about two hours and a half the house began to show some signs of life. In about three hours, Jacob’s heart gave a little jump as he saw Lady Mary scramble down the little piece of shelving beach and examine the rope by which the boat was secured. She lifted one of the oars, which was still wet, and then without hesitation turned and hurried back to the house. In less than half an hour, he saw her mounted on a rough but useful-looking pony, cantering down the drive. Somehow or other, she seemed to him, even at that moment, like a messenger of hope. An hour later, Montague and Hartwell came strolling down, smoking huge cigars. The latter unfastened the rope and paddled clumsily across. A few minutes later, Jacob heard the turning of the keys in the lock of the outer door and their footsteps ascending the stairs. Montague peered in through the bars. A little cloud of tobacco smoke blew into the place.

“Well, Jacob, my Napoleon of finance, how goes it?” he enquired lightly.

“If you’ll step inside for two minutes, I’ll show you,” Jacob answered.

Mr. Dane Montague chuckled.

“I have never graduated in the fistic arts myself,” he confessed. “Besides, once bit, twice shy, you know. We are going to put this little thing through without any unnecessary risk.”

“What is it?” Jacob demanded. “Money?”

“Money comes in all right,” Hartwell muttered from behind, in an evil tone, “but I guess there’s something more than that coming to you before you quit, Pratt.”

“Why don’t you come in and give it me, then?” Jacob asked. “You’re a bigger man than I am, by a long way.”

“We’re going to wait a bit,” Hartwell retorted with a chuckle. “You’ve been living a little high, Jacob Pratt. We think your system wants lowering.”

“You’re not talking business yet, then?”

“Not just yet, my dear friend,” Montague interposed. “It seems a shame to have taken a dislike to so amiable a gentleman, but the fact remains that we do not like you, Joe Hartwell and I. Once or twice you have been too clever for us. We want to linger over the time when we are just a little too clever for you. So au revoir, Jacob Pratt, until after lunch.”

They came again after lunch, redolent of food and drink and tobacco.

“What about a cold chicken and a pint of Mumm, eh?” Montague suggested through the bars.

“Go to hell!” Jacob, who had forgotten his early breakfast and liked his meals regularly, retorted.

They indulged in a few other pleasantries, which Jacob cut short with an abrupt question.

“How long is this tomfoolery going on?” he demanded. “What’s the end of it all going to be?”

Montague, with his unpleasant, leering face, was pushed away from behind the grating. Hartwell took his place.

“You’re going to be paid out for that upper cut you gave me, for one thing,” he announced. “We’re going to wait until you’re tamed, and then you’re going to be thrashed within an inch of your life. After that, there’s a little estate of the Marquis’s round here you might like to buy. We’ve got the agreement all drawn out.”

“And after that,” Montague shouted, “God knows what will happen to you!”...

The afternoon wore on. Towards five o’clock, Jacob, who was sitting in a corner, holding his head, was conscious of a strange sound from seawards. He hurried over to the other window. In a little dinghy, tossed like a cork by the heavy swell, he could see Lady Mary, in an exceedingly becoming bathing dress, trying to balance herself with an oar against the side of the precipitous cliff.

“Are you in there?” she called out.

“Hullo!” Jacob answered. “I should think I was!”

She leaned down and picked up a sea-fishing rod. Jacob was terrified as he saw her swaying backwards and forwards.

“Be careful!” he shouted.

“I’m all right,” she assured him. “If I get a ducking, don’t be afraid. I’m out for a swim, anyway. If I can cast inside the opening there, can you reach it?”

“If it’s anything to eat, I will,” he promised.

“Here goes, then!”

At the fifth or sixth attempt, a package, wrapped in oilskins, landed inside the aperture. Jacob, lifting himself from the floor, reached it at once, undid the fastening, and sent the line clear.

“Don’t go away,” she cried. “There’s whisky coming.”

“Angel!” he shouted.

“May take me some time,” she called back. “I’ve had to take out a joint of the rod to carry the weight.”

At the third attempt, a couple of flasks, tied together, came clattering into the aperture. Jacob pounced upon them with joy.

“There’s some water there,” she told him. “Throw all the paper away. I’ll be round again in the morning before any one’s up, at about five o’clock. Don’t let them scare you. I’m doing things.”

“Bless you!” he called out.

“Do you like this bathing suit, or do you prefer the one I wore yesterday?”

“You look divine,” he answered. “So do these beef sandwiches.”

“What luck those apertures slope downwards,” she said, “or you couldn’t see me!”

“The luck of my life,” he agreed, with his mouth full.

“Do you know why they do slope downwards?” she asked.

“No idea.”

“So that prisoners, when they get tired of it, can roll down into the sea.”

“I shan’t be tired of this for a long time,” he assured her.

There was a pause. Jacob ceased eating for a moment to gaze with admiration at the girl in the boat, carried up and down by the swell, but balancing herself always with an amazing confidence.

“I say, I’m awfully sorry about this,” she called up.

“Seems a trifle feudal,” he replied. “What will be done with my remains?”

“You eat your sandwiches and don’t worry,” she insisted. “I told you I was doing things. If they get violent, I’ll take a hand.—I’ll have to get back unless I want to be swamped.”...

Jacob ate half his sandwiches, drank a good deal of whisky and water, and took a little exercise. He then had a nap, woke up and finished his sandwiches with an amazingly good appetite, had another whisky and water and thrust the flask into his pocket. He lit a cigarette, doubled up his coat, and was lounging against the wall when he heard the key once more turn in the lock of the downstairs door. There was the sound of ascending footsteps, and presently Montague’s glittering shirt front appeared through the grating. Joe Hartwell again was by his side. They peered in.

“Cheerio!” Jacob exclaimed.

Montague was a little taken aback.

“You’re bearing up pretty well,” he observed.

“What have I got to bear up about?” Jacob demanded. “I’ve just had a damned good meal.”

Montague regarded his prisoner with a gleam of admiration in his face.

“You’re a well plucked ’un, Pratt,” he observed. “What a saddle of mutton we’ve just had for dinner!”

“Nothing to the sirloin I’ve just had,” Jacob rejoined.

Hartwell pushed a flask of water and a hunk of bread through the grating.

“Here,” he said, “do you feel like giving a tenner for a whisky and soda?”

“I’m not thirsty, thanks,” Jacob replied, collecting his supper. “These will make an excellent meal for me.”

“He’s a little wonder,” Montague muttered.

“Nothing to be done with him to-night,” Hartwell growled. “Let’s leave the little blighter.”

Jacob slept amazingly well. He was awakened by the sound of a soft and insistent whistle below. He sprang up and looked through the aperture. The wind had dropped in the night. Eastwards were long bars of amber and mauve, piercing the faint mist. Below, Lady Mary scarcely rocked in her boat.

“Well, dear guest,” she called up, “how was the spare-room bed?”

“Hard,” he admitted. “Never mind, I’ve slept like a top.”

“Listen,” she continued. “It’s such a wonderful morning that I’ve brought you quite a stock. No one comes in the room, do they?”

“They daren’t,” Jacob answered tersely.

“I’m sending you up some nails and string. What you can’t eat or drink now, you can let hang down. And listen. I’m sending you something else up. Don’t use it unless they get brutal.”

“They’re waiting for me to lose strength!” Jacob chuckled. “I never felt so fit in my life. How high is it from this window?”

“Thirty feet.”

“Why shouldn’t I make a dive for it?” he suggested.

“Because there are sunken rocks everywhere around,” she replied. “I couldn’t get here myself unless I knew the way. Now, then, get ready.”

One by one, a flask of coffee, two packets of sandwiches, a small box of nails and some string reached him, and last of all a small revolver, fully charged.

“Got everything?” she asked.

“Rather!” he answered. “How is your hospitable father?”

“A little impatient,” she answered. “He is going to sell you a couple of thousand acres of moor and a tumble-down manse for thirty thousand pounds.”

“Is he?” Jacob asked. “Shall I be able to wear kilts and have a bagpipe man?”

“There are no feudal rights,” she told him. “Besides, I don’t think you’d look well in kilts.”

“Well, there isn’t going to be any thirty thousand pounds,” Jacob declared.

She took out her oars.

“I hope some day you’ll make up to me for all this,” she said. “I seem to spend the whole of my time looking after you.”

“If it weren’t for that fellow Maurice!” Jacob called after her, as she disappeared.

They left him alone that day until after luncheon, and Jacob began to find the time hang heavily upon his hands. There was very little to watch except the wheeling seagulls, now and then a distant steamer, and the waves breaking upon the crag-strewn shore. Through the landward aperture, the great house all through the long, sunny morning seemed somnolent, almost deserted, but towards luncheon time a motor-car arrived from the direction of the station, containing a single passenger. About half an hour later three men came down the shingle, stepped into the boat and paddled across towards the tower,—Montague, Hartwell, and a brawny, thickset companion dressed in a rather loud black-and-white check suit and a cap of the same material. Jacob sat facing the door with his hand behind his back. Some slices of bread and a bottle of water were pushed through the grating, as before. Then Montague’s face appeared, sleek and smiling, with a new glitter of malevolence in the beady eyes.

“What about luncheon to-day, Jacob?” he demanded. “A small chicken pie and a cold sirloin of beef, eh, with lettuce and tomato salad, and half a stilton to follow. A glass or two of port with the cheese, if you fancy it.”

Jacob shook his head.

“I’ve done better than that,” he replied. “I’ve had pâté-de-foie-gras sandwiches and a pint of champagne. I wish you fellows wouldn’t disturb my after-luncheon nap. I’d much rather you looked in about tea time.”

Hartwell dragged his companion to one side and pressed his own clean-shaven, pudgy face against the bars.

“Say, Jacob Pratt,” he began, “just put that bluff away for a moment, if you can. I want a word with you.”

“There is nothing to prevent it,” Jacob assured him. “I am an earnest listener.”

“You fancy yourself some as a boxer, don’t you?” queried Hartwell.

“You ought to know what I can do,” Jacob answered, with a reminiscent smile.

Hartwell’s face darkened.

“Curse you, you little pup!” he muttered. “Anyways,” he went on, “you won’t be quite so flip with your tongue in half an hour’s time. We’ve a gentleman here from Glasgow come down to amuse you. Like to have a look at him?”

The door was opened and closed again. The man in the black-and-white check suit entered. Seen at close quarters, he turned out to be a very fine specimen of the bull-necked, sandy-haired prize fighter. He came about a yard into the place and stood grinning at Jacob.

“Like an introduction?” Hartwell continued. “Shake hands with the Glasgow Daisy, then—Mr. Jacob Pratt.”

Jacob looked the newcomer up and down.

“To what am I indebted,” he asked, “for this unexpected pleasure?”

The Glasgow Daisy grinned again, until his face seemed all freckles and flashing white teeth.