Jacob's Ladder Part 16

"Useless, dear lady," Mason sighed. "We five are, alas! all in the same box. We must look outside for relief. Since I have studied your friend's physiognomy, Miss Bultiwell, I am convinced that an acquaintance with him is necessary to our future welfare. I can see philanthropy written all over his engaging countenance."

"Mr. Pratt isn't a fool," Sybil observed drily.

"Neither are we fools," Mason rejoined. "Besides," he went on, "you must remember that in any little exchange of wits which might take place between Mr. Pratt and ourselves, the conditions are scarcely equal. We have nothing to lose and he has everything. He has money--a very great deal of money--and we are paupers."

"There are other things to be lost besides money," Sybil reminded him.

"I guess not," Hartwell intervened, with real fervour,--"nothing else that counts, anyway."

They watched Jacob longingly as he left the restaurant,--personable, self-possessed, and with the crudities of his too immaculate toilet subdued by experience. His almost wistful glance towards Sybil met with an unexpected reward. She bowed, if not with cordiality, at any rate without any desire to evade him. For a single moment he hesitated, as though about to stop, and the faces of her friends seemed to sharpen, as though the prey were already thrown to them.

Perhaps it was instinct which induced him to reconsider his idea. At any rate he pa.s.sed out, and Dauncey pressed his arm as they emerged into the street.

"I have never been favourably impressed with Miss Bultiwell," the latter observed, "but I like the look of her friends still less."

"Sharks," Jacob murmured gloomily, "sharks, every one of them, and it wouldn't be the faintest use in the world my telling her so."

The opportunity, at any rate, came a few days later, when Jacob found amongst his letters one which he read and reread with varying sensations. It was in Sybil's handwriting and dated from Number 100, Russell Square.

Dear Mr. Pratt,

If you are smitten with the new craze and are thinking of having dancing lessons, will you patronise my little endeavour? Lady Powers, who was with me at the Milan the other day, and I, have a cla.s.s at this address every Thursday, and give private lessons any day by appointment.

Perhaps you would like to telephone--1324, Museum. I shall be there any morning after eleven o'clock.

Sincerely yours, Sybil Bultiwell.

P.S. I dare say you have heard that my mother has gone to make a long stay with a sister at Torquay, and I have let our Cropstone Wood house at quite a nice profit. I am staying for a few weeks with Lady Powers, who was at school with me.

Jacob summoned Dauncey and put the letter into his hand.

"Read this, my astute friend, and comment," he invited.

Dauncey read and reread it before pa.s.sing it back.

"The young lady," he observed, "is becoming amenable. She is also, I should imagine, hankering after the fleshpots. A month or two of typing has perhaps had its effect."

"Any other criticism?"

Dauncey shook his head.

"It seems to me an ordinary communication enough," he confessed.

"I suppose you are right," Jacob admitted thoughtfully. "Perhaps I am getting suspicious. It must have been seeing Miss Bultiwell with that hateful crowd."

"You think that the dancing cla.s.s is a blind?"

Jacob glanced back at the letter and frowned.

"I don't think Miss Bultiwell would stoop to anything in the nature of a conspiracy, but those two men, Hartwell and Mason, are out and out wrong 'uns, and it is several months since any one tried to rob me."

"You'll go, all the same," Dauncey observed, with a smile.

Jacob leaned over to the telephone.

"Museum 1324," he demanded.

At half-past four that afternoon, Jacob rang the bell at a large and apparently empty house in Russell Square. The door was opened after a brief delay by a woman who appeared to be a caretaker and who invited him to ascend to the next floor. Jacob did so, and, pus.h.i.+ng open a door which was standing ajar, found himself in a large apartment with a polished oak floor, two or three lounges by the wall, a gramophone, and a young lady whom he recognised as Sybil's companion at the Milan.

"Mr. Pratt," she greeted him sweetly. "I am so glad to know you."

Jacob shook hands and murmured something appropriate.

"Sybil will be here in a few minutes," the young lady continued. "You are going to have a lesson, aren't you?"

"I believe so," Jacob answered. "I hope you won't find me very stupid."

She smiled up into his face.

"You don't look as though you would be. I am Sybil's partner, Grace Powers. I saw you at the Milan the other day, didn't I? Are you in a great hurry to start, or would you like to sit and talk for a few minutes?"

Jacob accepted the chair to which she pointed, and a cigarette.

"You find it tiring giving these lessons?" he enquired politely.

"Sometimes," she admitted. "I have just had such a stupid boy. He will never learn anything, and he is such a nuisance."

"I hope you won't have to find fault with me," Jacob observed.

She smiled.

"Not in the same way, at any rate."

"A timid dancer?" Jacob queried.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"We won't discuss him," she said. "He bores me. He is one of those persistent young men who make love to you in monosyllables and expect success as a matter of course."

"In how many syllables," Jacob began----

She interrupted him with a little grimace.

"You know perfectly well you will never want to make love to me," she said. "You are in love with Sybil Bultiwell, aren't you?"

"Did she tell you so?"

The girl shook her head.