eh?"
Lord Dreever, a limp bundle against the banisters, smiled weakly.
"Eh?" yelled Sir Thomas.
His lordship started convulsively.
"Er, yes," he said, "yes, yes! That was it, don't you know!"
Sir Thomas eyed his nephew with a baleful stare. Molly looked from
one to the other in bewilderment.
There was a pause, during which Sir Thomas seemed partially to
recover command of himself. Doubts as to the propriety of a family
row in mid-stairs appeared to occur to him. He moved forward.
"Come with me," he said, with awful curtness.
His lordship followed, bonelessly. Molly watched them go, and
wondered more than ever. There was something behind this. It was not
merely the breaking-off of the engagement that had roused Sir
Thomas. He was not a just man, but he was just enough to be able to
see that the blame was not Lord Dreever's. There had been something
more. She was puzzled.
In the hall, Saunders was standing, weapon in hand, about to beat
the gong.
"Not yet," snapped Sir Thomas. "Wait!"
Dinner had been ordered especially early that night because of the
theatricals. The necessity for strict punctuality had been straitly
enjoined upon Saunders. At some inconvenience, he had ensured strict
punctuality. And now--But we all have our cross to bear in this
world. Saunders bowed with dignified resignation.
Sir Thomas led the way into his study.
"Be so good as to close the door," he said.
His lordship was so good.
Sir Thomas backed to the mantelpiece, and stood there in the
attitude which for generations has been sacred to the elderly
Briton, feet well apart, hands clasped beneath his coat-tails. His
stare raked Lord Dreever like a searchlight.
"Now, sir!" he said.
His lordship wilted before the gaze.
"The fact is, uncle--"
"Never mind the facts. I know them! What I require is an
explanation."
He spread his feet further apart. The years had rolled back, and he
was plain Thomas Blunt again, of Blunt's Stores, dealing with an
erring employee.
"You know what I mean," he went on. "I am not referring to the
breaking-off of the engagement. What I insist upon learning is your
reason for failing to inform me earlier of the contents of that
letter."
His lordship said that somehow, don't you know, there didn't seem to
be a chance, you know. He had several times been on the point--but--
well, some-how--well, that's how it was.
"No chance?" cried Sir Thomas. "Indeed! Why did you require that
money I gave you?"
"Oh, er--I wanted it for something."
"Very possibly. For what?"
"I--the fact is, I owed it to a fellow."
"Ha! How did you come to owe it?"
His lordship shuffled.
"You have been gambling," boomed Sit Thomas "Am I right?"
"No, no. I say, no, no. It wasn't gambling. It was a game of skill.
We were playing picquet."
"Kindly refrain from quibbling. You lost this money at cards, then,
as I supposed. Just so."
He widened the space between his feet. He intensified his glare. He
might have been posing to an illustrator of "Pilgrim's Progress" for
a picture of "Apollyon straddling right across the way."
"So," he said, "you deliberately concealed from me the contents of
that letter in order that you might extract money from me under
false pretenses? Don't speak!" His lordship had gurgled, "You did!
Your behavior was that of a--of a--"
There was a very fair selection of evil-doers in all branches of
business from which to choose. He gave the preference to the race-
track.
"--of a common welsher," he concluded. "But I won't put up with it.
No, not for an instant! I insist upon your returning that money to
me here and now. If you have not got it with you, go and fetch it."
His lordship's face betrayed the deepest consternation. He had been
prepared for much, but not for this. That he would have to undergo
what in his school-days he would have called "a jaw" was
inevitable, and he had been ready to go through with it. It might hurt
his feelings, possibly, but it would leave his purse intact. A
ghastly development of this kind he had not foreseen.
"But, I say, uncle!" he bleated.
Sir Thomas silenced him with a grand gesture.
Ruefully, his lordship produced his little all. Sir Thomas took it
with a snort, and went to the door.
Saunders was still brooding statuesquely over the gong.
"Sound it!" said Sir Thomas.
Saunders obeyed him, with the air of an unleashed hound.
"And now," said Sir Thomas, "go to my dressing-room, and place these
notes in the small drawer of the table."
The butler's calm, expressionless, yet withal observant eye took in
at a glance the signs of trouble. Neither the inflated air of Sir
Thomas nor the punctured-balloon bearing of Lord Dreever escaped
him.
"Something h'up," he said to his immortal soul, as he moved
upstairs. "Been a fair old, rare old row, seems to me!"
He reserved his more polished periods for use in public. In
conversation with his immortal soul, he was wont to unbend somewhat.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE TREASURE SEEKER
Gloom wrapped his lordship about, during dinner, as with a garment.
He owed twenty pounds. His assets amounted to seven shillings and
four-pence. He thought, and thought again. Quite an intellectual
pallor began to appear on his normally pink cheeks. Saunders,
silently sympathetic--he hated Sir Thomas as an interloper, and
entertained for his lordship, under whose father also he had served,
a sort of paternal fondness--was ever at his elbow with the magic
bottle; and to Spennie, emptying and re-emptying his glass almost
mechanically, wine, the healer, brought an idea. To obtain twenty
pounds from any one person of his acquaintance was impossible. To
divide the twenty by four, and persuade a generous quartette to
contribute five pounds apiece was more feasible.
Hope began to stir within him again.
Immediately after dinner, he began to flit about the castle like a
family specter of active habits. The first person he met was
Charteris.
"Hullo, Spennie," said Charteris, "I wanted to see you. It is
currently reported that you are in love. At dinner, you looked as if
you had influenza. What's your trouble? For goodness' sake, bear up
till the show's over. Don't go swooning on the stage, or anything.
Do you know your lines?"
"The fact is," said his lordship eagerly, "it's this way. I happen
to want--Can you lend me a fiver?"
"All I have in the world at this moment," said Charteris, "is eleven
shillings and a postage-stamp. If the stamp would be of any use to
you as a start--? No? You know, it's from small beginnings like that
that great fortunes are amassed. However--"
Two minutes later, Lord Dreever had resumed his hunt.
The path of the borrower is a thorny one, especially if, like
Spennie, his reputation as a payer-back is not of the best.
Spennie, in his time, had extracted small loans from most of his
male acquaintances, rarely repaying the same. He had a tendency to
forget that he had borrowed half-a-crown here to pay a cab and ten
shillings there to settle up for a dinner; and his memory was not
much more retentive of larger sums. This made his friends somewhat
wary. The consequence was that the great treasure-hunt was a failure
from start to finish. He got friendly smiles. He got honeyed
apologies. He got earnest assurances of good-will. But he got no
money, except from Jimmy Pitt.
He had approached Jimmy in the early stages of the hunt; and Jimmy,