Jacob's Ladder

CHAPTER XII

Dauncey accepted his chief’s invitation, one morning about a week later, when things were slack, to sit in his room and have a chat.

“How goes the dancing?” he enquired, stretching out his hand for a cigarette.

“Interesting developments may shortly be expected,” Jacob replied reflectively. “Up to the present, only two of the party have declared themselves. Mr. Mason has made propositions to me with regard to finding the money for starting a night club, and Mr. Hartwell has offered me a share in some oil springs in Trinidad.”

“A certain lack of imagination about Hartwell’s offer,” Dauncey commented.

“On the contrary, I thought it rather subtle,” Jacob observed. “You see, I am supposed to know all about oil, although I really know no more about it than the man in the moon. And there certainly is oil in Trinidad.”

“What about the others?”

“Lady Powers,” Jacob confessed, “has shown a flattering desire for my escort to dinner; in fact, I am afraid I am committed to next Sunday night. It appears that she is in some slight financial trouble and requires the advice of a man of the world.”

“Hm!” Dauncey ejaculated. “What does Miss Bultiwell say to that?”

“I don’t think she knows,” Jacob admitted, “but I am afraid she wouldn’t care if she did. Grace Powers pretends to want to be very secretive about it, but I fancy that’s only to spare my feelings.”

“Any other members of the gang?” Dauncey enquired.

“There’s that young sprig of fashion, Lord Felixstowe,” Jacob replied. “I haven’t heard from him yet. He is rather a nice boy. And there is Miss Bultiwell herself.”

“Have you had any conversation with her?”

“She is lunching with me to-day. I expect I shall get into trouble about it, but I am going to speak to her plainly about her friends.”

“How did she get mixed up with such a crew?”

“She was at school with Grace Powers,” Jacob answered, “but I don’t know how they came together again. She will either tell me this morning – or she won’t.”

“And Lord Felixstowe?”

There was a knock at the door. The office boy brought in a card. Jacob glanced at it and smiled.

“His turn appears to have arrived,” he said. “You can show Lord Felixstowe in.”

Dauncey departed, and the visitor entered and proceeded to make himself at home. Notwithstanding a slightly receding chin and a somewhat weedy frame, he was a personable being, and Jacob stifled a sigh of envy as he realised that he would never be able to wear a Guards’ tie with his lounge suit. The young man accepted a cigarette. His attitude was distinctly friendly.

“Thought I’d look you up, old thing,” he said. “Not much chance of a powwow at Russell Square. As soon as you and I get a word together, that chap Hartwell comes butting in, or else Phil Mason has a bundle of prospectuses to show you. What-ho the giddy night club! What-ho the Trinidad Oil Wells!”

Jacob coughed.

“There is one thing about Russell Square which puzzles me,” he confided, “and that is, except for the people you have mentioned, I seem to be the only pupil.”

Lord Felixstowe smiled knowingly.

“They’ve got a few old crooks come later in the day,” he said. “The reason you don’t meet any one else there is because they like to keep you to themselves.”

“I can’t see what they gain by that,” Jacob confessed, a little mystified.

The young lordling assumed the patient air of one having to deal with a person of inferior intelligence.

“Come, come,” he remonstrated, “you must know that they’re trying to milk you for a bit. Hasn’t Mason suggested your financing his night club?”

“Some sort of a proposition was made,” Jacob acknowledged. “I declined.”

“And Hartwell? Has he mentioned some oil wells in Trinidad?”

“He has,” Jacob admitted. “I happen to be doing rather well in oils in another direction.”

“You haven’t turned up early one day and found Grace in tears with a dressmaker’s bill on her knee, have you?”

“That, I presume, is to arrive. Lady Powers is dining with me next Sunday.”

“Mind your P’s and Q’s, then,” the young philosopher advised. “She’s a fly little hussy. You see, Pratt, I know the world a bit. Seems to me I might be rather useful to you – in fact that’s why I came here this morning.”

“It is very kind of you,” Jacob said. “In what way, may I ask?”

“You see,” Lord Felixstowe proceeded, hitching up his trousers and drawing his chair a little nearer, “I know the ropes, Pratt, and you don’t. You’re a very decent fellow who’s made a pot of money, and naturally, just at first, you don’t know where you are. You want to get on, eh, to know the right sort of people, go to the right sort of places, be seen about with the right sort? Between ourselves, old thing, Hartwell and Mason aren’t the right sort. Suits me to pick their brains a bit, now and then, when the oof’s coming along slowly, but then I can do what I like – you can’t.”

“Let me have your concrete proposition, Lord Felixstowe,” Jacob suggested, with a faint smile at the corner of his lips.

“Righto! Tell you what I’m prepared to do. I’ll pal you up, take you to lunch and dinner at the smart places, take you to the Opera right nights, and the mater shall ask you to dine once in Belgrave Square and send you cards for her big shows. Then the governor shall ask you to lunch at his club one day, and if there’s anything doing, you tumble, there are a couple of his clubs I think he could put you up for. You’ll be seen about with me. People will ask who you are. I shall lay it on thick, of course, about the millions, and before you know where you are, old bean, you’ll be hobnobbing with all the dukes and duchesses of the land.”

“I see,” Jacob murmured. “And what are your terms?”

“A thousand down, and two hundred and fifty a month,” the young man replied. “You pay all the expenses, of course.”

“Does that include the luncheon with your father and the dinner with your mother?” Jacob asked.

“It includes everything. Of course, if the governor has a word or two to say on his own, that’s neither here nor there. I want to see you a bit more ambitious, Pratt,” the young man declared, throwing one leg over the other and lighting a fresh cigarette. “It’s the millions that count, nowadays. Why, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t marry one of our set, if you play your cards properly and drop that other rabble. And look here, old dear, I’ll give you a straight tip. You chuck 100, Russell Square. They’re too fly, those chaps. I’m looking around for anything there may be to pick up myself, but they’re too hot for me.”

Jacob glanced at his watch.

“Well,” he said, “I’m very much obliged to you, Lord Felixstowe, for your visit, and I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I shall certainly remember your warning, and as for your offer – well, I’ll think about it.”

The visitor rose reluctantly to his feet.

“It’s an offer I wouldn’t make to every one, Pratt,” he concluded. “Just happens I’m rather at a loose end – had a nasty week at Newmarket. I might even get you a few days down at our place in Norfolk, if you know how to handle a gun.”

“I’ll consider it,” Jacob promised once more. “You’ll have to excuse me just now. I’m lunching with a young lady – Miss Bultiwell, in fact.”

Lord Felixstowe picked up his hat.

“See you later, then,” he concluded. “Old friend of yours, Miss Bultiwell, eh?”

“An acquaintance of some years’ standing,” Jacob admitted.

“Give her the straight tip,” Lord Felixstowe advised earnestly. “Don’t know what she’s doing with that crew, anyhow. She seems a different sort of person altogether. Tell her to cut it out. By-by!”

Jacob found his luncheon companion cold but amiable. He waited until they were halfway through the meal, and then took his courage in both hands.

“Miss Bultiwell,” he began, “I don’t like your friends.”

“Really?” she said. “I thought you were a great success with them.”

“My popularity,” he assured her drily, “is waning. I have annoyed Mr. Mason by refusing to find the money for him to start a night club, Mr. Hartwell by not buying some oil wells in Trinidad, and, in a lesser degree, Lord Felixstowe by not jumping at the chance of engaging him as my social mentor at a somewhat exorbitant salary.”

“And Grace?”

“Lady Powers is dining with me on Sunday night,” Jacob announced. “Her schemes seem to need a little further formulation.”

Sybil bit her lip.

“You are very rude about my friends.”

“I am not rude at all, and they are not your friends.”

“Surely I know best about that?” she demanded haughtily.

“You do,” he admitted, “and you know perfectly well that in your heart you agree with me and they are not your friends. Every one of them is more or less an adventurer, and how you found your way into such company I can’t imagine.”

“When did Grace ask you to take her out to dinner?” she enquired irrelevantly.

“Lady Powers has been kind enough to suggest it several times,” he replied. “She thinks that it would give me confidence to dance in public.”

“You have quite enough confidence,” Sybil declared, with some asperity, “and as a matter of fact you dance too well to need any more lessons.”

“Are you giving up teaching?” he asked.

“That depends.”

“You really mean to continue your association with these people? Mind, I am speaking advisedly concerning them. Mason and Hartwell are both well-known about town. They are adventurers pure and simple and absolutely improper associates for you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Sybil assured him indifferently.

“But you ought not to be seen with such a crowd,” he objected.

“Why not? I haven’t the slightest objection to being called an adventuress. I want to make money, and so far as money is concerned, I have no conscience. I am a hopelessly incompetent clerk or secretary, and I am keeping the chorus for a last resource.”

“Why should you be an incompetent secretary?” he demanded.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I suppose I haven’t the temperament for service. I was dismissed from my first two situations for what they called impertinence, and I had to leave the third because all three partners tried to kiss me. I didn’t mind one,” she went on reflectively, “but with all three it grew monotonous.”

“Brutes!” Jacob exclaimed fiercely.

“Oh, no, they were quite nice about it,” she declared. “It isn’t that I mind being kissed particularly, but I hate it to come into the two pounds a week arrangement. Besides, there is another fatal objection to my being able to keep any post as a typist.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“I simply cannot wear the clothes,” she confessed.

He looked puzzled.

“I don’t quite understand. You don’t have to wear a uniform or anything.”

She looked at him pityingly.

“Look at me,” she directed. “Now what would you say if I walked into your office and asked for a post as typist at two or three pounds a week?”

“Take you on like a shot,” he assured her enthusiastically.

“Don’t be silly. I don’t mean personally. I am looking upon you as a type. Well, supposing you did take me on, your wife would call down at the office in a few days, look at me and call you to one side. I can hear her whispering in your ear – ‘You must get rid of that girl.’”

“And just why?” he asked.

“I suppose you think that I am very plainly dressed?”

“You look very nice,” he declared, glancing at her neat black and white check tailormade suit, the smart hat, and remembering his glimpse of her silk stockings and shapely black patent shoes as she had come down the stairs; “very nice indeed, but you are dressed quite plainly.”

“The ignorance of men!” she sighed. “This costume I have on cost forty guineas and came from one of the best places in London. My hat cost twelve, and everything else I have on is in proportion. These are the last remnants of my glory. Well, when I went down to the city, I had to wear a blue serge costume I had bought ready-made, sort of hybrid stockings which I hated, a hat of the neat variety, which means no shape and no style, fabric gloves, and shoes from a ready-made shop. I felt, day by day, just as though I were trying to play a hopeless part in some private theatricals. I couldn’t breathe. You see, I am not in the least a heroine. I want the things I’ve been used to, somehow or other.”

“There is another alternative,” Jacob ventured.

“You refer, I suppose, to marriage or its equivalent? As it happens, however, I have peculiar views about sacrificing my liberty. I would sooner give everything I have to a person I cared for than sell myself to a person whom I disliked. Isn’t that your bill?”

Jacob’s fingers trembled a little as he drew out a note and laid it upon the plate.

“I wonder why you dislike me so much,” he speculated, as they waited for his change.

She contemplated him indifferently.

“Does one discuss those things? Are you coming to Russell Square for your lesson this afternoon?”

“It scarcely seems worth while,” he sighed.

“I think you had better,” she said, frowning. “They are expecting you.”

“They?” he repeated.

A little spot of colour burned in her cheeks. She looked away hastily.

“The lady with whom you are going to dine on Sunday night, for one,” she reminded him.

There was a moment’s silence. Jacob was perplexed.

“Are you going to be there?” he enquired.

“Yes!”

He glanced at his watch.

“We may as well go together, then,” he suggested.

They walked up the stairs to the street, and he handed her into his car, which was waiting. On their way to Russell Square she was unusually silent. At the top of Shaftesbury Avenue she turned to him abruptly.

“Perhaps you had better not come, after all,” she said. “I will make your excuses to Grace.”

“I can take care of myself,” Jacob replied.

Her eyes mocked him.

“You are quite sure?”

“Perfectly.”

She shrugged her shoulders and made no other remark until they drew up in front of the house in Russell Square. When he would have assisted her to alight, she hesitated once more.

“Listen,” she said, speaking with a curious jerkiness. “You were quite right about Hartwell and Mason. They are adventurers – and they are both waiting for you inside. They want your money very badly. We all want it. Now don’t you think you had better postpone your lesson?”

Jacob smiled confidently.

“What I have is yours for the asking,” he declared. “It will be theirs only if they can take it.”

She suffered him to follow her into the house.

CHAPTER XIII

It must have been, Jacob decided, about half an hour later when his senses readjusted themselves to his existing environment. He was in what had apparently been the kitchen, situated in the basement of the house, seated in a fairly comfortable chair to which he was tied by cords. Hartwell and Mason were watching him with the air of uneasy conspirators. Sybil, perfectly composed, was lounging in a wicker chair a little way off, smoking a cigarette. The black man who he had been told was the leader of the newest Jazz band, come to give the young lady some hints as to music, had disappeared. From the distant sound of the gramophone, he gathered that Grace Powers was engaged upstairs with a pupil.

“Feeling all right again, eh?” Mason asked anxiously.

“Perfectly, thank you,” Jacob answered. “By the bye, what happened?”

“You – er – had a sort of faint,” Mason began —

“Don’t start that junk,” Hartwell intervened. “You were doped by the nigger and carried down here. We want some money from you, Pratt.”

“Does this seem a reasonable way to get it?” Jacob enquired, looking down at the marks on his wrists.

“I guess it’ll do the trick,” was the gruff rejoinder.

“Well, get on with the programme, then,” Jacob directed.

“We’re going to let you off cheap,” Mason said. “There’s your cheque book on the table there, and a fountain pen by the side. If you are willing to sign an open cheque for five thousand pounds, payable to Miss Sybil Bultiwell, you can dine at home to-night.”

“Why to Miss Bultiwell?”

“Because we think it well to have Miss Bultiwell formally associated with the transaction,” Mason explained, with a crafty smile. “Miss Bultiwell will endorse the cheque and receive her share of the – er – proceeds.”

Jacob turned a little in his chair, so as to face Sybil. She met his gaze defiantly.

“It was scarcely necessary to resort to such means as these, Miss Bultiwell, if you were in need of five thousand pounds, or any part of it,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps not,” she retorted, “but can’t you see the difference? I wouldn’t take a penny of your money from you as a gift, but I haven’t the least compunction in taking my share of what you will have to pay for your freedom.”

“I see,” Jacob murmured. “This requires consideration.”

Mason glanced at his watch.

“It is now,” he said, “a quarter past three. The banks close at four. If you want to avoid spending the night here, you’ll sign that cheque right away.”

“What happens then?” Jacob enquired.

“Miss Bultiwell will cash it at the bank, will bring the proceeds here, and in a couple of hours’ time you will be able to leave.”

“And what do you suppose my next proceeding will be?” Jacob asked.

“In an ordinary way you would go straight to Scotland Yard, I suppose,” Mason replied. “As a matter of fact, however, we are rather gambling upon the idea that, with Miss Bultiwell’s name on the cheque, and taking into consideration the fact that she is going to cash it in person, you may prefer to treat the matter as a little duel in wits in which you have been worsted, and accept the consequences like a sportsman.”

“I see,” Jacob murmured. “But supposing, even at the risk of involving Miss Bultiwell, I go to Scotland Yard?”

“Then the only person whom Scotland Yard could possibly lay their hands on would be the young lady herself,” Mason pointed out. “Hartwell and I years ago learnt the secret of disappearing from London, and I can promise you that no Scotland Yard man will lay a hand on us.”

“Excellently thought out,” Jacob confessed.

“Say, let’s cut out this chin music,” Hartwell interposed. “Just what are you going to do about it?”

“I am going to sign the cheque,” was the unhesitating reply.

They cut the bonds which secured his right hand. Jacob wrote the cheque according to their directions, signed it carefully and handed it over. They passed it to Sybil.

“In as small notes as you can get,” Mason enjoined. “Come straight back here.”

She nodded and left the room, with an insolent little glance at Jacob. The latter leaned back in his chair.

“You see, I am quite amenable,” he said. “And now, don’t you think that as I am a very small man, and feeling exceedingly unwell from the stuff on the handkerchief which that nigger of yours thrust down my throat, and there are two of you, both big fellows, you could loosen my cords for me? This is damned uncomfortable, and I hate the melodramatic appearance of it.”

“Will you promise, upon your honour, to make no effort whatever to get away before Miss Bultiwell’s return?” Mason demanded.

“I give you my word that I will do nothing of the sort.”

They cut his cords. Jacob staggered to his feet and stretched himself. A bottle and glasses upon a table at the farther end of the room attracted his attention.

“Is that whisky?” he asked, in an interested manner.

“Guess we’ll find you a Scotch and soda,” Hartwell declared. “Don’t you feel too badly about this, Pratt,” he went on, as he handed him the tumbler. “We’d have gone for a much bigger thing with you, but for Miss Bultiwell. She wouldn’t have you bled for more, and she wouldn’t have us take you where I wanted to, down Limehouse way, where we could have kept you snugly for a week, if necessary.”

“Extraordinarily considerate of her,” Jacob observed drily, as he drained the contents of the tumbler.

“I can tell you, sir,” Hartwell went on, as he handed over his cigarette case, “out in the State where I come from, we should think nothing of a hold-up like this. Why, you haven’t a scratch, and you could afford to put that five thou in the plate at church and not notice it. Have one more small one for luck.”

“I don’t mind if I do,” Jacob acquiesced… “You fellows must see some life.”

“Not on this side,” Hartwell replied despondently. “We’re too near the edge of your little island all the time, for a job of this sort. I’m in a bit of trouble over in the States, or I shouldn’t be wasting my time here.”

Jacob stretched himself expansively in the easy-chair. He thrust his hands into his pockets and sighed.

“Just about reached the bank, hasn’t she?”

“They’re counting out the flimsies right now,” Hartwell exulted.

Jacob nodded.

“You fellows have brought this off all right,” he reflected. “I suppose you knew I shouldn’t give any trouble.”

“We kind of reckoned you’d be sensible,” Hartwell admitted.

“Supposing I’d dodged that drug and shown fight?” Jacob went on. “Were you armed, you fellows?”

Hartwell smiled contemptuously.

“Not for a little job like this,” he replied. “When I use shooting-irons, things happen. Do you get me, Pratt?”

Jacob nodded.

“You seem to have held me very lightly,” he grumbled. “I expect Mason has an automatic in his hip pocket.”

“I have never carried firearms in my life,” Mason declared, with a shiver. “I prefer finesse.”

Then Jacob began to laugh. He rose from his chair and walked up and down the room with his hands in his trousers pockets, shaking with mirth. The two men watched him at first in surprise, afterwards with growing uneasiness.

“What the hell’s got you?” Mason demanded.

“Can’t you let us into the joke?” Hartwell suggested.

“I really think I must,” Jacob replied, coming to a standstill near the door. “You know, it may seem strange to you, but honestly I am not quite chicken food. I knew a bit about you two, and I should never have come near this dancing class but that I wanted to keep an eye on Miss Bultiwell. Seemed to me yesterday that things were coming pretty well to a crisis. I was the only genuine pupil here – empty house, disappointed adventurers, and all the rest of it. So this morning I looked in at my bank and told them exactly what to do if any open cheque were presented with two little dots underneath my signature. You noticed them, didn’t you, Mason? I should think,” he concluded, glancing at his watch, “that in a matter of five minutes we ought to have some interesting visitors here.”

“The little hound’s done us!” Mason shouted. “Come on, Hartwell. Taxi’s outside. We shall just have time.”

But they faced a transformed and most unexpected Jacob Pratt. Hartwell, rushing for the door, was adroitly tripped up and fell heavily. Mason, after a moment’s whirlwind sparring, found himself on his back, seeing a thousand stars. Jacob took up his position in front of the door.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, “I promised not to attempt to escape and I shall keep my word. But as regards giving you a little lesson, that’s another matter. I might mention that I was knocked out in the semi-finals for the amateur lightweights by a chance blow. You can come along together, if you like, or separately.”

“Rush the little devil!” Hartwell shouted, rising.

They rushed – one another. To their amazed senses, Jacob seemed transformed into some extraordinary creation of india rubber, and the events of the next few minutes lived in their memories only as a hideous and painful nightmare… In a matter of five minutes, Jacob opened the hall door to Sybil. She stared at him in bewilderment. His hand closed upon her wrist. He held her gently, but there was a feeling of iron underneath the velvet, and a new sternness in his tone.

“The notes are in your handbag, I see. Thank you!”

He thrust the roll into his pocketbook and handed her back the empty bag before she had recovered the power of speech.

“Where are they all?” she gasped. “How on earth did you get here?”

“I brought off a small bluff,” Jacob explained gravely. “Your two friends believed a little legend of mine about the signing of my cheque and expected a visit from some Scotland Yard officers. They tried to escape. You’ll find them downstairs. I am afraid Mason may have to go to the hospital, but Hartwell should be all right in a day or two, if he lies in a dark room.”

For the moment she was cowed. She looked at him almost fearfully. Hartwell and Mason were strong men. Escape seemed to her a miracle. With her wrist still in his steel-like grasp, she suffered him to lead her out on to the pavement.

“Your association with this ridiculous escapade,” he continued, “has decided me to regard it as a practical joke, – on one condition: which is that you step into my car there, allow my man to drive you to your rooms, or wherever you are staying, and promise me to have nothing whatever more to do with this gang of adventurers.”

“You are not going to give information to the police about them?” she asked breathlessly.

“I cannot without involving you,” was the cool reply. “You were the decoy. You can insure their safety.”

She shivered.

“I accept,” she murmured.

Jacob handed her into the car. She moved her skirts instinctively to make room for him by her side. He closed the door.

“The lady will direct you,” he told his chauffeur, stepping back.

She leaned out of the window and gave an address to the man. Then she turned to Jacob. She was very pale but her eyes were ablaze.

“I just want to tell you,” she said, “that from the bottom of my heart I hate and detest you.”

The car glided away, and Jacob walked across the Square towards a taxicab stand.