"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 att.i.tude 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 s.p.a.ce between his feet. He intensified his glare. He might have been posing to an ill.u.s.trator 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 a.s.sets 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 gla.s.s 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 ama.s.sed. However--"
Two minutes later, Lord Dreever had resumed his hunt.