A Duel Part 40

"Like this? Do I look as if I were in a fit state of attire to open the door of even such a lady as yourself, Mrs. Lamb?"

"Are you going?"

The lady mounted two or three steps; there was something so significant in her manner that Mr. Cottrell temporised.

"I shall be only too happy to open the door as I am!--if you will allow me to pa.s.s." She allowed him, and he pa.s.sed, firing a pa.s.sing shot as he went. "You must understand that I intend to be perfectly frank with whoever's there--perfectly frank, and truthful. I have had more than sufficient of telling lies on your account, Mrs. Lamb." At this point, throwing the hall-door wide open, he addressed some unseen individuals who were without in tones which were perhaps unnecessarily loud. "If any of you people want money--and by the look of you I can see you do--it's no use your asking me, and so I may tell you at once, because I want money too, and from the same person, and that's Mrs. Lamb; and as Mrs. Lamb happens to be standing at this moment at the top of the staircase, in her dressing-gown and with her hair all over the place, perhaps you'll step in right away, and just say to her what you've got to say. Well, sir, and what might you happen to be wanting? Oh, it's Mr. Luker, is it? May I ask, sir, what you mean by pus.h.i.+ng me about as if I was a mechanical toy?"

It was indeed Mr. Isaac Luker, who had come into the hall with complete disregard of the fact that Mr. Cottrell was standing in the doorway. Being in, the visitor regarded the voluble butler with characteristic impa.s.sivity. Then, stretching out the forefinger of his right hand, he tapped at the centre of Mr.

Cottrell's crumpled s.h.i.+rt-front, and he delivered himself thus:--

"My advice to you is to put your head under the pump if there is one, and under the tap if there isn't, and let the water run for a good half-hour, for a complaint like yours it's the best medicine you can possibly have".

It seemed that Mr. Cottrell was so taken aback by the proffer of this very handsome advice that for a moment or two he was at a loss for a retort; before he found one his mistress had interposed.

"Luker, come up here!"

Mr. Luker looked at the lady at the head of the staircase, at Mr. Cottrell, at the invisible persons who still remained without. He seemed to hesitate, as if in doubt whether or not to take a hand in the game just where he was; then, arriving at a sudden resolution, he did as the lady requested: he went upstairs, followed by the retort which Mr. Cottrell had found at last.

"Perhaps if you were to try a little of that medicine you recommend on your own account it mightn't do you any harm."

The observation went unheeded. Mr. Luker was captured by the lady the moment he reached the topmost stair. She pointed to the flight in front.

"Up you go!" Up he went, with her at his heels. On the next landing she called his attention to the open bedroom door. "In you go." Perceiving what the apartment was he favoured her with what he perhaps meant for a whimsical glance, and in he went.

"Go straight through into the next room--that's my boudoir." He went straight through, and she also. Closing the door of her bedroom she stood with her back to it, putting to him a question almost as if she were aiming a pistol at his head. "Have you brought that money?"

Mr. Luker did not at once give her the answer she so imperatively demanded. Instead, holding his ancient top-hat in front of him as if it were some precious possession, he ventured on a remark of his own.

"Things seem a little at sixes and sevens; they almost suggest that domestic relations are a trifle strained. That man who calls himself a butler is not behaving as if he were a butler; and I regret to notice something about the establishment which one hardly expects to find in a lady's high-cla.s.s mansion."

"Cottrell's going--at once. All the servants are going--lot of drunken brutes! I'm only waiting for the money to pay them their wages."

"Oh, I see. And--those other persons on the doorstep, do they want money also?"

"I don't know who's there, and I don't care; but I daresay every one wants money. I do! Did you hear me ask if you've brought that money I told you to bring?"

"To what money are you alluding?"

"You know very well! None of your fooling! Have you brought that ten thousand pounds?"

"Ten thousand pounds!" He held up his hands, with his top-hat between them. "Ten thousand pounds! She speaks of that great sum as if it were a mere nothing!"

"Have you brought it?"

"I certainly have not."

"Then what have you brought?"

"I have brought--nothing."

"Look here, Luker, I'm in an ugly temper. You ought to know the signs of it as well as any man, so I advise you to take care. I told you you were to bring me ten thousand pounds. When I said it I meant it; why haven't you brought it?"

"My dear Isabel----"

"Haven't I told you not to call me that?"

"Very well; it's a matter of utter indifference to me what I call you--utter! I was merely about to remark that I have laid your proposition before my friend, and, as I antic.i.p.ated, he has decided that he doesn't care to lend money except on adequate security."

"Adequate security! Don't you call a quarter of a million adequate security?"

"Certainly, if you had it, but you haven't. And you have nothing tangible to show that you ever will have, or any part of it."

"There are those Hardwood Company shares--ten thousand of them."

"You tell me that you are in an ugly temper, and I can perceive for myself that you are not so calm as I should wish, otherwise I should ask for permission to be quite frank with you."

"You had better be frank! Never you mind about my temper; it won't be improved by your shuffling. Out with what you've got to say!"

"Remember, it will only be said at your express invitation."

"Do you hear? Out with it!"

"Then briefly and plainly it's this: If you were anybody else it's possible that money--some money--might be got on your expectation of the Hardwood Company's shares, but, as things are, it's out of the question."

"Why? What's the matter with my being me?"

"A good deal, as you're as well aware as I am. In a matter of this sort it's character which tells, and, unfortunately--I say it with deep sorrow!--your character's against you."

"What's my character got to do with a thing of this kind?"

"Everything. Suppose my friend were to advance you money upon your expectation of these shares, from your point of view you'd have him between your finger and thumb, and you'd keep him there."

"How do you make that out?"

"The process of extracting compensation from Messrs. McTavish & Brown would be, at best, both a lengthy and a tiresome one, one, moreover, in which not a step could be taken without your active a.s.sistance. You'd find that out, and you'd say, 'If you won't let me have so much more I won't move a finger, then you'll lose all that you've advanced already'. And you'd mould your conduct on those lines to the bitter end--my friend might find it a very bitter end. That would not suit him at all."

"You----! I've half a mind to kill you!"

"Keep it at half a mind; many of my friends and clients have found it wiser to stop right there."

"Then do you mean to tell me that I can't get money out of any one--anyhow?"

"Not at all; money can always be obtained upon security. You have personal property--the furniture of this house, jewels, and so on."

"What I might get out of that sort of thing would be gone before I got it."

"Then you might get money out of Messrs. McTavish & Brown."

"You've told me over and over again that it would take no end of a time to do that. I can't wait; I want money--a lot of it!--now."