Mr. Lewis S. Palmer was sitting at his table in the sitting-room of the
quiet, modest little suite he had taken at the Carlton Hotel, and was
studying with some minuteness a large ordnance map of Worcestershire.
He had some dozen of the sheets arranged in front of him, and the
Molesworth estate, which he had been down to see only the day before,
occupied a considerable portion of the central one of them. By him was
seated Bilton, who answered, usually monosyllabically, the questions
which Mr. Palmer asked him from time to time. 'Yes' or 'No' was
generally sufficient; occasionally he thought a moment and then said,
'I don't remember.' Of the answers he received, Lewis Palmer sometimes
made a short note.
Finally, he studied the map for a considerable time in silence,
and then folded up each sheet separately, and replaced them in the
bookstand that stood on the table. Then he read his notes through twice
and tore them up.
'Complete the purchase of the Wyfold estate as soon as possible,
literally as soon as possible,' he said. 'If you can do it by half-past
four this afternoon, let it be done by then, not by five.'
'It's a huge price,' remarked Bilton, 'for half a dozen unproductive
farms.'
'It is a necessity,' said the other, 'and a necessity is cheap at any
price. But the fact that they ask so much leads me to think they have
some kind of inkling as to what I am going to do. That's why I want you
to do it at once.'
He rose, and sipped the glass of milk that stood on the side-table.
'There is one more thing,' he said. 'I want someone who will give a
general supervision to my affairs here, which are growing important to
me. I offer you the place because I like your way of doing business.'
'How much time do you want me to give to it?' he asked.
'Roughly, two days a week, anything of emergency to be dealt with
separately.'
Bilton smiled.
'You chiefly deal in emergencies,' he said.
Mr. Palmer tapped the table rather impatiently.
'What do you make a year?' he asked.
'Round about two hundred thousand dollars.'
'I guarantee you a hundred thousand,' he said, 'on the two days a week
basis. If it takes you longer than that, let me know. Only my affairs
come first.'
Bilton considered this a moment without the slightest trace of
exultation or pleasure.
'That's right, then,' he said. 'I guess I'll go off over the Wyfold
business.'
'Yes, do. I'm going to look at Seaton House. I shall be in by two. Will
you lunch with me?'
'Can't say,' said Bilton. 'I'm rather busy to-day.'
Lewis Palmer continued sipping his milk in a regular, methodical manner
till he had finished it, and then put on some rather shabby dogskin
gloves, an extremely shiny and obviously perfectly new tall hat, and
rang his hand-bell. Almost before it sounded his bedroom door opened
noiselessly, and his valet stood there.
'Lunch at two,' he said. 'If Lord Keynes gets here before me, ask him
to wait.'
'Lunch for how many, sir?' asked his servant.
'I don't know.'
Mr. Palmer's progress out of the Carlton was made easy for him. Doors
flew open as he neared them, and by the time he had reached the
pavement his motor had drawn up exactly opposite the entrance, and the
door was being held open for him.
Mrs. Palmer had had her eye--or part of an eye--on Seaton House for
some time. Quite a year ago her husband had given her to understand
that London might very possibly be the headquarters of his business
for a considerable time, and when she spent her season there last
summer she had considered London as a residence. On general principles,
it was highly attractive--Americans, as she knew from experience,
could command all that was worth having there, with, on the whole,
a less expenditure than was necessary to keep up the same position
in New York. Prince Fritz, for instance, in the autumn, had been a
very heavy item, and though Prince Fritz had yielded high social
dividends in America, yet it was easily possible to 'run' a royalty of
the same class in England at a far lower figure. On the other hand,
Prince Fritz in London would not be worth exploiting at all--that she
recognised--but her conclusions had been that social success of a
first-rate order in London could be done on less than the same article
in New York. In both towns it was necessary to stand up among the ruck
of ordinary hostesses like a mountain-peak; you had in any case to
spend much more than most other people. Since, therefore, most other
people spent less in London than in New York, the mountain-peak need
not be so high. She saw also, with her very clear-sighted eye, that
England, the professedly aristocratic, was far more democratic than the
professedly democratic America. Lady A----, Duchess B----, Countess
C----, she saw, as regards their titles alone, were quite valueless
socially in England except among suburban and provincial people. That
was natural--the prophet has no honour in his own country. Again,
England, or rather that small section of English society which, in
her mind, was equivalent to England, was rapidly conforming to the
American ideal. It no longer cared for birth or breeding; it wanted to
be greatly and continuously amused; a hostess was worth her power of
entertainment. Nobody cared here in the least whether her grandfather
was a butcher or a boot-black; all they cared was whether they were
sufficiently lavishly entertained.
So far she had seen clearly and correctly enough; dimly, she had seen
a little farther, and knew that for a reason she could not grasp
there were in England some few families who had a _cachet_ altogether
independent of wealth. She could have named some half-dozen who floated
on the very tip-top of everything, to whose houses Kings and Queens
drove up, so to speak, in hansoms, and played about in the garden.
They might be poor, they might apparently have no particular power or
accomplishment which could account for it, but it was into that circle
that Mrs. Palmer now desired to get. To one of these families Bertie
Keynes belonged. Anyhow, she had secured him as a son-in-law, she
had cut a step on the steep ice-wall. Furthermore, it could not be a
disadvantage to have one of the few really fine houses in London for
one's own. That was why Mr. Palmer had bought Seaton House.
He drove there now in his noiseless motor-brougham, looking out with
his piercing gray eyes on to the grimy splendour of Pall Mall. It
was a brilliant winter day, and primrose-coloured sunshine flooded
the town, giving an almost Southern gaiety to the streets. As usual,
a large extent of the pavement was up for repairs, and it vexed his
sense of speed and efficiency to see the leisurely manner in which the
work was done. Frankly, England seemed to him in a very bad way; her
railways, her trade, her shipping, all the apparatus of her commerce,
was haphazard, unconcentrated, uneconomical, just like her mode of
making repairs to her streets. Personally, except that at this moment
his motor was stopped, he did not at all object to it, since it gave
him the opportunity which he had been preparing for of stepping in in
the matter of her railways, and introducing American methods. He had,
now three months ago, got through his Bill for a direct railway between
Liverpool and Southampton, and the work of construction was going on
with a speed that fairly took away the breath of contractors who were
accustomed to think that slowness was essential to solidity. That boast
of solidity, so characteristic of the English, had long amused Lewis
Palmer.
'What they call solid,' he had once said to Bilton, 'I call stodgy.
They make a brick wall three feet thick, that would bear the weight of
the world, when all they want is a two-inch steel girder riveted to an
upright. And when they have spent a couple of months in building it,
they think they have done better than the man who puts up the steel
girder. It is false economy to put up what is not necessary, just as it
is false economy not to put up what is. And they think that to paper
their railroad cars with looking-glasses in gold frames will console
the shareholders for an absence of dividends. No, before we financed
the Liverpool and Southampton we made certain of getting the line built
the proper way.'
But this line was by no means all the control he meant to get in
English railways. Its success, his financial knowledge told him, was
certain; it was as sure that the traffic between the ports would come
by a directer and faster route than that which already existed as that
the sun would rise to-morrow; it was equally sure that facility of
communication would lead to increased traffic. What followed?
Cardiff would be forced to get direct communication with his line
instead of letting her trade 'walk about in country lanes,' as he
expressed it. To do that, a new line from there must join the Liverpool
and Southampton at the nearest possible point. That point lay,
allowing ample margin, somewhere within the borders of the Molesworth
estate, which he had purchased in the autumn, and the Wyfold estate,
which he had given orders to Bilton to purchase that day. There was
another thing as well. Geologically, it seemed most probable that
there was coal on the Molesworth estate. It had been suspected half
a dozen years ago, but Gallio, out of a mixture of reasons, partly
indifference, partly want of cash, partly repugnance to turn the park
into a colliery, had never made so much as a boring for it. But Lewis
Palmer was neither indifferent nor bankrupt. He also had no particular
feeling about parks. And his gray eyes brightened, and the momentary
stoppage of his motor, owing to the slovenly and dilatory way in which
the street was being repaired, irritated him no longer. One could not
say he was lost in reverie. He was rather picking his way through his
reverie with very firm and decisive steps, directing his course to a
well-defined goal.
An assemblage of upholsterers, paperers, carpenters, plumbers,
furniture dealers, and painters, were awaiting his arrival, for he had
promised his wife to get the house into habitable shape before Easter,
and, to save time to himself, he took them all round in his inspection
and gave orders to each as they went along.
'I shall want a large brocade screen to stand straight in front of the
door of the inner hall,' he said. 'Let it be at least seven feet high.
Send me the patterns first. Don't put much furniture into the hall; a
big plain mahogany table there for cards and small things. A long line
of hat-racks there with an umbrella rack below it. Don't think you can
make a hat-rack pretty, so make it plain. Half a dozen Chippendale
chairs, and an old English steel fender with dogs. I will choose the
rugs and stair carpet myself, but polish the whole of the staircase.
Put a big _vitrine_ for china in that corner. Cut a circular _louvre_
window above the front--door, and copy the mouldings round it from the
north door of the Erechtheum. You will find the drawings in Schultz's
book. Big candelabra will stand at the bottom of the stairs. I will
send them here. Fit them with electric light, but do not pierce them.
There will be six lamps in each of eight candle-power.'
It was extremely characteristic of Mr. Palmer that he went thus into
everything himself. Nothing escaped him; he grasped at once the
difficulty of bringing the dining-room into directer communication with
the kitchen, a problem that had puzzled his architect, and solved it in
five minutes by a lift and shutter arrangement so simple that it seemed
mere idiocy not to have thought of it. He went into every servant's
bedroom, every bathroom, into the sculleries, the coal-hole, the
wine-cellar, and knew immediately what was wanted. And the more he saw
of the house the better it pleased him; the big oak staircase to the
reception-rooms was admirable, and more than admirable was the circular
dining-room, with its walls panelled in excellent Italian _boiseries_,
and its cupola-shaped roof, with carved converging wreaths of fruit and
flowers. With his amazing knowledge of furniture and decoration, he had
in an hour's time chosen the scheme for every room in the house, and
provided the dealers, the paperers, the painters, with a week's work
in looking out and bringing for his inspection the kind of thing he
wanted. But it was not his way to allow a week for a week's work, and
these gentleman were appointed to meet him there again in three days'
time to submit for his approval carpets, papers, rugs, tables, chairs,
kitchen ranges, refrigerators, wardrobes, and specimens of carving.
Then, at exactly three minutes to two, he again stepped into his motor
to go back to the Carlton, where Bertie Keynes was to lunch with him.
There were other people there as well, he found, waiting for him when
he got back, and it was not possible for him to talk privately, as he
intended to do, to his future son-in-law. He had observed him once
or twice during lunch, not eating much, and apparently rather silent
and abstracted, and wondered vaguely if anything was the matter. He
guessed indeed that some money difficulty or accumulation of debts
might be bothering him, but as his talk with him was to be partly
on that subject, he considered that if that was the cause, Bertie's
evident pre-occupation would not last very long. He had seen a good
deal of him in America, and was very well-disposed towards him,
partly because Bertie was such an eminently likeable young man, but
mainly because Amelie was so fond of him. For Lewis Palmer--a thing
which most people would have been inclined to doubt--had a heart. His
business, which occupied him, it is true, more than anything else in
the world, was to him a thing quite apart from his human life and human
affections. In it he was as relentless and as hard as it is possible
for a man to be; as far as an affair was business, he was without pity
or compassion, for business is as inhuman a science as algebra, and as
unemotional, if properly conducted, as quadratic equations. A heart in
such spheres would be anomalous--almost an impropriety. Had Bertie--a
thing which he had no thought of doing--crossed Lewis Palmer's path
in such a connection, he would have had not the slightest compunction
in obliterating him, if he was of the nature of an obstacle, however
minute. But as the affianced of Amelie, he was something of an object
even of tenderness.
He had a few words with him after lunch.
'Arrived last night, Bertie?' he asked. 'Glad to see you. How are they
all?'
Bertie pulled himself together, and smiled.
'All sorts of messages to you,' he said. 'They miss you awfully.'
'I guess I'm not missed most,' remarked Mr. Palmer. 'Can you wait here
half an hour or so? I want to talk to you, but I've got other things
that won't wait.'
Bertie looked at his watch.
'I can be back in an hour,' he said, 'if that will do.'
'Yes, an hour from now. Quarter to four, then,' and he nodded to
him, shut up his heart again, and dismissed him from his thoughts as
completely as he had left the room.
Bertie, as Mr. Palmer had supposed, had arrived in London only the
evening before, and since Gallio was out of town, spending, in point of
fact, a most unremunerative fortnight at Monte Carlo, on a system which
lost infallibly, though slowly, had at his invitation taken possession
of his chambers in Jermyn Street. He had come down to breakfast in as
happy and contented a frame of mind as any young man, gifted with good
digestion and a charming girl to whom he was engaged, need hope ever to
find himself, and had seen with some satisfaction that there was only
one letter waiting for him. He had expected rather to find creditors
clamouring round him, for he had a respectable number of them waiting
for his leisure cash, and had supposed that they would very politely
have notified him of their existence as soon as he arrived. But there
was only one letter for him. He opened it; its purport was as simple as
a statement of accounts, and type-written. It began:
'DEAR SIR,
'I have the honour to remind you of a document, from which
I have extracted the following.'
Then in neat marks of quotation were appended certain sentences.
'Why did you bewitch me if it was not for this?'
'When I am with you I am tongue-tied. Even now my hand
halts as I think of you.'
'You are the only woman in the world for me. I offer you
all I am and have, and shall be and shall have.'
There was a decent space left after these and other quotations--a
silence of good manners. Then the letter continued:
'Mrs. Emsworth has reason to believe that you are about
to marry Miss Amelie Palmer. She therefore offers you the
chance of regaining possession of the letter, from which we
have given you extracts, for the sum of ten thousand pounds
(£10,000). Should you decide to accept her offer, you are
requested to draw a cheque for the above-mentioned sum to
the account of her present manager, Mr. Harold Bilton, who,
on receipt of it, will forward to you a sealed envelope
containing the complete letter from which the above are
extracts. Should this not reach you within twenty-four
hours, you are at liberty to stop the cheque. If, however,
such cheque does not reach Mr. Harold Bilton by the
evening of January 7, he will post the sealed packet in
his possession (of the contents of which he has no idea),
containing the original letter from which the above are
extracts, to Mr. Lewis S. Palmer, Carlton Hotel, London. He
has been instructed to do this on behalf of Mrs. Emsworth
without admitting any discussion or temporizing on your
part.
'We are, sir,
'Your respectful, obedient servants,
'A. B. C.'
The postmark on the envelope was London, W., and the envelope was
type-written in purple ink.
Bertie's mouth, when he read this, got suddenly dry, and with a hand
that he observed was quite steady, he poured himself out a cup of
tea and sipped it, reading the letter through again. Also he had a
horrible feeling of emptiness inside him, resembling great hunger,
but of some sickly kind, for, so far from being hungry, he could not
touch the eggs and bacon to which he had just helped himself. He could
not yet even begin to think; but again he filled his cup with tea,
again drank it, and again read the letter. Then he suddenly felt hot,
stifled, and though the morning was of a brisk chilliness, he went to
the window and leaned out. He was aware that a cold sweat had gathered
on his forehead, and he wiped it away. Then all at once his feeling of
physical faintness and thirst left him altogether, and he was back in
his room, lighted a cigarette, and sat down squarely on his sofa to
think the matter out.
His first impulse--namely, to go straight to Mr. Palmer with the
letter--did not last long. He had told him, after Amelie had accepted
him, in answer to questions which were very delicately put, that there
were no pages in his past life which he feared. Mr. Palmer, with the
tact and finesse which is inseparable from great ability, had indicated
his meaning with absolute precision and clearness. He had not hinted
that he wished Bertie to confess any liaisons he might ever have had,
he only asked him with considerable solemnity to assure him that he had
done nothing which, coming to light at a future time, could, humanly
speaking, bring unhappiness to, and possibly rupture between, him and
Amelie. He had not pressed him for an answer immediately.
'Think it all over,' he had said, 'and tell me to-morrow. Young men
will be young men as long as women are women. I don't mean that. What I
do mean is whether anyone can rake things up afterwards. If anyone can,
I should like to know about it. I needn't ask you to be straight with
me. I guess you are straight without being asked.'
Now, it had not occurred to Bertie to tell him about Mrs. Emsworth,
for the very simple reason that he was quite innocent. That he had
been foolish--mad, if you will--was perfectly true, but morally he was
clean. And now, at this moment, she was on tour in America--where, he
had no notion. Bilton, no doubt, knew, but Bilton had been instructed
to admit no discussion of any kind. And to-morrow would be January 7.
His second impulse was also short-lived--namely, to go straight with
the letter to Scotland Yard. But what did that mean? An action for
blackmail against Mrs. Emsworth, a dragging into the public view all
that had happened, a feast for the carrion-crows of London, and for
him--well, celibacy. For Mrs. Emsworth, clever woman as she was, knew
well what justice is done by the world to those who invoke the justice
of the law. The verdict of the world is always the same: 'There must
have been something in it;' and though every judge and jury in the
land might testify to his innocence, the world would simply shrug its
shoulders: 'There must have been something in it.' For it is not in the
least necessary to touch pitch to be defiled; it is quite sufficient if
somebody points a casual finger at you and merely says 'Pitch.'
Yes, it was on this that she, the blackmailer, counted; here lay her
security--namely, that his bringing her to justice meant that he must
lay himself open to the justice of the world. And what justice in that
case would Mr. Palmer give him? If he was to know at all, it must be
Bertie who told him. And Bertie knew he could not, after the assurance
he had given him.
For a moment his brain deserted the question of what to do, and put
in as a parenthesis that the blackmail scheme had been brilliantly
planned. It was excellently timed; it gave him quite long enough to
think the matter over, and not rush, as he might possibly have done, in
desperation to Mr. Palmer or Scotland Yard, if he had only been given
an hour or so to decide, and, at the same time, it did not give him an
opportunity of communicating with Mrs. Emsworth. The extracts, too,
were cleverly chosen, their genuineness he could not doubt, and they
gave him a very fair idea of the impression that the whole letter would
make on an unbiassed mind. Then suddenly he sprang to his feet.
'But I am not guilty!' he cried. 'My God, I am not guilty!'
His fit of passion subsided as suddenly as it had sprung up, and his
thoughts turned to Dorothy. He remembered with great distinctness his
interview with her on the morning after her debut in New York, and
the uneasiness with which what his sober self thought was mere chaff
had inspired him. But afterwards, at their various meetings in New
York and down at Long Island, he had been quite at his ease again, and
ashamed of his momentary suspicions. She was a better actress than he
knew, it appeared, for never did anything seem to him more genuine than
her kindliness towards him. She had made friends with Amelie, too;
for Amelie had told him of their meeting in the dewy gardens, of her
entrancing way with children, which had quite won her heart. Then--this.
Then a third alternative struck him. What if he did nothing, just
waited to see if anything would happen, if by to-morrow evening he had
not paid this hideous sum to his blackmailer? But again he turned back
daunted. The whole plot had been too elaborately, too neatly laid to
allow him to think that the threat would not be carried out. If in a
sudden passion Dorothy had threatened to send the letter to Mr. Palmer,
he might, so he thought, have reasoned with her, appealed to her pity,
appealed, above all, to her knowledge of his innocence. He might even
have threatened, have coolly and seriously told her that he would lay
information against her unless she gave up his letter to him. But he
was not dealing, he felt, with a woman in a passion; he was dealing
with a cold, well-planned plot, conceived perhaps in anger, but thought
out by a very calm and calculating brain. There was not, he felt, even
an outside chance that, having worked it out so carefully, she would
hold her hand at the last moment. True, he held now in his own hand
evidence against her for blackmail sufficient to secure her, if he
chose, a severe sentence. Only he could not do it; he had not nerve
enough to take that step. She had calculated on that, no doubt. She had
calculated correctly.
Then this money must be raised somehow; there was no way out. In order
to silence a false accusation against himself he had to pay £10,000. It
was this question of how to get it that he carried about with him all
the morning, and this that had sat beside him at lunch. Gallio might
possibly lend it him, but it would entail telling Gallio the whole
story, which he did not in the least wish to do. However, if no better
means offered itself he determined to telegraph to him that evening.
And so at a quarter to four, his brain still going its dreary rounds
from point to point of his difficulties, he again presented himself at
the Carlton.
He was shown by the noiseless valet through the noiseless door of Mr.
Palmer's sitting-room. The latter had not heard him enter, and Bertie,
in the strangeness of the sight that met his eye, forgot for a moment
his own entanglements. For Lewis Palmer was seated in an easy-chair
by the window, doing nothing. His arms hung limply by his side, his
head was half sunk into his chest, and his whole attitude expressed a
lassitude that was indescribable. But next minute he half turned his
head languidly towards the door, and saw Bertie standing there.
'Ah, come in, come in,' he said. 'I was waiting for you. No, you are
not late.'
He rose.
'Bertie, never be a very rich man,' he said. 'It is a damnable slavery.
You can't stop; you have to go on. You can't rest; you are in the mill,
and the mill keeps on turning.'
He stood silent a moment, then pulled himself together.
'I hope nobody overheard,' he said. 'They would think I was mad. Now
and then, just now and then, I get like that, and then I would give all
I have to get somebody to press out the wrinkles in my brain, and let
it rest. I should be quite content to be poor, if I could forget all
this fever in which my life has been spent. I might even do something
as an art critic. There, it's all over. Sit down. There are the cigars
by you.
'Now you talked to me straight enough once before,' he went on, 'and
told me, I believe, the exact truth. I wanted you to start with Amelie
with a clean sheet in that direction, and I want you to have a clean
sheet in another. I want you to pay off all your debts. All, mind;
don't come to me with more afterwards. I know it's difficult to state
the whole. Please try to do so. Take time.'
Bertie sat quite still a moment, with a huge up-leap of relief in his
mind.
'I can't tell you accurately,' he said. 'But I am afraid they are
rather large.'
'Well, a million pounds,' suggested Mr. Palmer dryly. Bertie laughed;
already he could laugh.
'No, not quite,' he said. 'But between ten thousand and twenty. About
twelve I should say.'
'Confiding people, English tradesmen,' remarked Mr. Palmer. 'Been going
to the Jews?'
'No.'
'Well, don't. My house doesn't charge so high. Now, I'm not going to
give you the money. I shall deduct it from the settlement I am going to
make, the amount of which I have already determined on. Only I shall
give you that at once, and ask you to pay them at once.'
'You are most generous,' said Bertie. 'I can't thank you.'
'Don't, then. Are you sure thirteen thousand will cover them? Mind, it
doesn't matter to me; it is all deducted.'
'I am sure it will.'
Mr. Palmer did not answer, but drew a chair to the table and wrote the
cheque.
'Pay them at once, then,' he said. 'Now, you looked worried at lunch.
Anything wrong?'
'It was,' said Bertie. 'It isn't now.'
Mr. Palmer looked at him a moment with strong approval.
'I like you,' he said. 'Now go away. The mill has to commence again.'
The relief was as profound as the oppression had been, and now that
the strain was over Bertie was conscious of a luxurious relaxation;
the tension and strain on his nerves had passed, and a feeling of
happy weariness, as when a dreaded operation is well over, set in. He
could scarcely yet find it in his mind to be bitter or angry even with
Mrs. Emsworth; she had done a vile thing, but he would not any longer
be in her power, and being free from it, he scarcely resented it, so
strong was his relief. Mr. Palmer, he knew, had designed to make some
settlement of money on him; what it was to be he did not yet know, but
the fact that this had been deducted from it prevented his feeling that
he had come by the money in any crooked fashion. As it was, a certain
payment to be made to him had been partly anticipated, and he looked
forward to paying his blackmail almost with eagerness.
He made an appointment by telegraph with Bilton for the next morning,
and at the hour waited on him at his office in Pall Mall. He had always
rather liked the man; his practical shrewdness, the entire absence of
what might be called 'nonsense' about him, a certain hard, definite
clearness about him and his ways, was somehow satisfactory to the mind.
And this morning these characteristics were peculiarly developed.
He gave Bertie a blunt and genuine welcome.
'Delighted to see you,' he said. 'Just come over, haven't you? Smoke?'
Bertie took a cigarette.
'I've called about some business connected with Mrs. Emsworth,' he
said. 'I am here to settle it.'
Bilton looked puzzled a moment.
'Mrs. Emsworth?' he said. 'Business with Mrs. Emsworth? Ah, I remember.
She sent me certain instructions some time ago. Let's see; where did I
put them?' He took down an alphabetical letter-case from a shelf, and
after a short search drew out a packet.
'That's it,' he said. 'Ah, I see there is no discussion to pass between
us. Curious love of mystery a woman has, especially when there is
nothing to make a mystery about, as I dare say is the case here.'
'You don't know what the business is?' asked Bertie.
'I only know these instructions, and one of them, if you will pardon me
reminding you, is that no discussion is to pass between us. You are to
deliver to me a cheque, which I am to place to her account, and I am
to deliver to you a sealed packet. This is it, is it not? Yes. You are
also to deliver to me a certain letter which I am to verify, and then
destroy in your presence.'
'I heard nothing of that,' said Bertie.
'It is in my instructions,' said Bilton.
'I can't give up that letter,' said Bertie. 'It----' He stopped.
Bilton got up.
'I am afraid I can do nothing, then,' he said, 'except fulfil the rest
of Mrs. Emsworth's directions, and, if this is not done by the evening
of January 7, to-day, give the packet to Mr. Palmer.'
He referred again to one of the papers he had taken out.
'Yes, give the packet to Mr. Palmer,' he repeated.
'Which you intend to do?' Bertie asked.
'Certainly. At the same time, I may tell you that I have written a very
strong letter to Mrs. Emsworth, protesting against her making use of me
in--in private matters of this kind. I am a busy man'--and he looked at
his watch--'I have no taste for other people's intrigues.'
Bertie thought intently for a moment. If he gave up the letter, he
would be powerless in the future to prove anything with regard to the
blackmail. The fact that he had drawn a cheque for £10,000 to Bilton
was in itself nothing to show that he had done so under threats,
especially if, as it suddenly occurred to him, Bilton was, if not in
league with Mrs. Emsworth, at any rate cognizant of her action. On the
other hand, if he refused, he had to risk that letter of his being sent
to Mr. Palmer. He had been unable to face that risk before, and it
was as unfaceable now. But the idea that Bilton was concerned in this
was interesting. It had been suggested by the slight over-emphasizing
of the fact that he was busy, by the looking at his watch. That was,
however vaguely, threatening; it implied time was short, or that he
himself was concerned in Bertie's acceptation of the ultimatum.
Bilton sat down again and tapped with his fingers on the table.
'Excuse me, Lord Keynes,' he said, 'but no purpose is served by our
sitting here like this. You will, of course, please yourself in this
matter. Here is the packet for you if you decide one way; there is the
letter-box if you decide the other.' The speech was well-chosen, and
left no room for doubt in Bertie's mind that the letter-box would be
used. He took the desired document from his pocket.
'Here is the cheque,' he said, 'and here is the letter. The latter, you
say, you are going to verify. I, on my side, I suppose, may verify what
you give me.'
Bilton appeared to consider this for a moment.
'There was nothing said about that,' he remarked, 'but I feel certain
that the lady would be willing to let you receive proof of her
honourable dealing with you.'
'Did you say honourable dealing?' asked Bertie in a tone which required
no answer.
Bilton opened the letter Bertie gave him, referred to a paper out of
the alphabetical case, looked at the cheque, and handed him the packet.
Bertie glanced at it, saw enough, and put it in his pocket.
'That's correct, then,' said Bilton.
Bertie rose.
'Next time you see Mrs. Emsworth, pray congratulate her for me,' he
said. 'She has missed her vocation by going on the stage.'
'I am inclined to disagree with you,' said Bilton. 'It has developed
her sense of plot. Must you be going? Good-bye. I suppose you are off
to America again in a month. You may meet her there.'
'That is not possible,' said Bertie.
Bilton's smile which sped the parting guest did not at once fade when
the guest had gone. It remained, a smile of amusement, on his face for
a considerable time.
'God, what a fool!' he permitted himself to remark as he settled down
to his work again.