"My dear Elizabeth! My dear Crease! You are both too precipitate! I tell you that I protest--I protest most strongly. Mr. Pritchard, I am sure, with a little persuasion, will listen to reason. I will not be a party to any such proceeding as--as this. You understand, Crease? We have gone quite far enough as it is. I will not have it."

Elizabeth laughed softly.

"My dear father," she said, "you will really have to take something for your nerves. Nothing need happen to Mr. Pritchard at all unless he asks for it. He has his chance--. no one should expect more."

"You are right, my dear Elizabeth," declared Crease, speaking very slowly and with his usual drawl. "This question of his health for the future--at any rate, for the immediate future--is entirely in Pritchard's own hands. There is no one who has received so many warnings as he. Bramley was cautioned twice; Mallison was warned three times and burned to death; Forsith had word from us only once, and he was shot in a drunken brawl. This man Pritchard has been warned a dozen times, he has escaped death twice. The time has come to show him that we are in earnest. Threats are useless; the time has come for deeds. I say that if Pritchard refuses this trifling request of ours, let us see that he leaves this house in such a state that he will not be able to do us any harm for some time at least."

"But he will give his word!" the professor cried excitedly. "I am quite sure that if you allow me to talk to him reasonably, he will pledge his word to go back to the States and interfere no longer with your affairs."

Pritchard turned his head slightly. He was a little pale, and the blood was dropping slowly on to the floor from a wound in his temple, but his tone was contemptuous.

"I will give you my word, Professor, and you, Elizabeth Gardner, and you, Jim Post, and you, Walter Crease, that crippled, or straight, in evil or good health, from the very jaws of death I will hang on to life until you have paid your just debts. You understand that, all of you?

I don't know what sort of a show this is. You may be in earnest, or you may be trying a rag. In any case, let me a.s.sure you of this. You won't get me to beg for mercy. If you force me to drink that stuff you are talking about, I'll find the antidote, and as sure as there's a prison in America, so surely I'll make you suffer for it! If you take my advice," he went on slowly, "and I know what I'm talking about, you'll cut these ropes and set open your front door. You 'll live longer, all of you."

"An idiot," Elizabeth remarked pleasantly, "can do but little harm in the world. The word of a person of weak intellect is not to be relied upon. For my part, I am very tired of our friend, Mr. Pritchard. If you others had been disposed to go to much greater lengths, if you had said 'Hang him from the ceiling,' I should have been well pleased."

Pritchard made a slight movement in his chair--it was certainly not a movement of fear.

"Madam," he said, "I admire your candor. Let me return it. I don't believe there's one of you here has the pluck to attempt to do me any serious injury. If there is, get on with it. You hear, Mr. Walter Crease? Bring out that bottle of yours."

Crease removed his cigar from his lips and rose slowly to his feet. From his waistcoat pocket he produced a small phial, from which he drew the cork.

"Seems to me it's up to us to do the trick," he remarked languidly.

"Catch hold of his forehead, Jimmy."

The man known as Major Post threw away his cigarette, and coming round behind Pritchard's chair, suddenly bent the man's head backward.

Crease advanced, phial in hand. Then all h.e.l.l seemed to be let loose in Tavernake. He stepped back in his place and marked the extent of that wooden part.i.tion. Then, setting his teeth, he sprang at it, throwing the great weight of his ma.s.sive shoulder against the framework door.

Scratched and bleeding, but still upon his feet, he burst into the room, with the noise of bricks falling behind,--an apparition so unexpected that the little company gathered there seemed turned into some waxwork group from the Chamber of Horrors--motionless, without even the power of movement.

Tavernake, in those few moments, was like a giant among a company of degenerates. He was strong, his muscles were like whipcord, and his condition was perfect. Walter Crease went over like a log before his fist; Major Post felt the revolver at which he had s.n.a.t.c.hed struck from his hand, and he himself remembered nothing more till he came to his senses some time afterwards. A slash and a cut and Pritchard was free.

The professor stood wringing his hands. Elizabeth had risen to her feet.

She was pale, but she was still more nearly composed than any other person in the room. Tavernake and Pritchard were masters of the situation. Pritchard leaned toward the mirror and straightened his tie.

"I am afraid," he said looking down at Walter Crease's groaning figure, "that our hosts are scarcely in fit condition to take leave of us. Never mind, Mrs. Gardner, we excuse ourselves to you. I cannot pretend to be sorry that my friend's somewhat impetuous entrance has disturbed your plans for the evening, but I do hope that you will realize now the fatuousness of such methods in these days. Good-night! It is time we finished our stroll together, Tavernake."

They moved towards the door--there was no one to stop them. Only the professor tried to say a few words.

"My dear Mr. Pritchard--my dear Pritchard, if you will allow me to call you so," he exclaimed, "let me beg of you, before you leave us, not to take this trifling adventure too seriously! I can a.s.sure you that it was simply an attempt to coerce you, not in the least an affair to be taken seriously!"

Pritchard smiled.

"Professor," he said, "and you, Walter Crease, and you, Jimmy Post, if you're able to listen, listen to me. You have played the part of children to-night. So surely as men and women exist who live as you do, so surely must the law wait upon their heels. You cannot cheat justice.

It is as inexorable as Time itself. When you try these little tricks, you simply give another turn to the wheel, add another danger to life.

You had better learn to look upon me as necessary, all of you, for I am certainly inevitable."

They pa.s.sed backwards through the door, then they went down the silent hall and out into the street. Even as they did so, the clock struck a quarter to two.

"My friend Tavernake," Pritchard declared, lighting a cigarette with steady fingers, "you are a man. Come into the club with me while I bathe my forehead. After all, we'll have that drink together before we say goodnight."

CHAPTER XX. A PLEASANT REUNION

Tavernake awoke some hours later with a puzzled sense of having lost his own ident.i.ty, of having taken up another man's life, stepped into another man's shoes. From the day of his first arrival in London, a raw country youth, till the night when he had spoken to Beatrice on the roof of Blenheim House, nothing that could properly be called an adventure had ever happened to him. He had never for a moment felt the want of it; he had not even indulged in the reading of books of romance. The thing which had happened last night, as in the cold morning sunlight he sat up in his bed, seemed to him a thing grotesque, inconceivable. It was not really possible that those people--those well-bred, well-looking people--had seriously contemplated an enormity which seemed to belong to the back pages of history, or that he, Tavernake, had burst through a wall with no weapons in his hand, and had dominated the situation! He sat there steadily thinking. It was incredible, but it was true! There existed still in his mind some faint doubt as to whether they would really have proceeded to extremities. Pritchard himself had made light of the whole affair, afterwards had treated it, indeed, as a huge practical joke. Tavernake, remembering that little group as he had first seen it, remained doubtful.

By degrees, his own personal characteristics began to a.s.sert themselves.

He began to wonder how his action would affect his commercial interests.

He had probably made an enemy of this wonderful sister of Beatrice's, the woman who had so completely filled his thoughts during the last few days, the woman, too, who was to have found the money by means of which he was to set his feet upon the first rung of the ladder. This was a thing, he decided, which must be settled at once. He must see her and know exactly what terms they were on, whether or not she meant to be off with her bargain. The thought of action of any sort was stimulating. He rose and dressed, had his breakfast, and set out on his pilgrimage.

Soon after eleven o'clock, he presented himself at the Milan Court and asked for Mrs. Wenham Gardner. For several minutes he waited about in nervous antic.i.p.ation, then he was told that she was not at home. More than a little disappointed, he pressed for news of her. The hall porter thought that she had gone down into the country, and if so it was doubtful when she would be back. Tavernake was now seriously disconcerted.

"I want particularly to wire to her," he insisted. "Please find out from her maid how I shall direct a telegram."

The hall porter, who was a most superior person, regarded him blandly.

"We do not give addresses, sir," he explained, "unless at the expressed wish of our clients. If you leave a telegram here, I will send it up to Mrs. Gardner's rooms to be forwarded."

Tavernake scribbled one out, begging for news of her return, added his address and left the place. Then he wandered aimlessly about the streets. There seemed something flat about the morning, some aftermath of the excitement of the previous night was still stirring in his blood.

Nevertheless, he pulled himself together with an effort, called for a young surveyor whom he had engaged to a.s.sist him, and spent the rest of the day out upon the hill. Religiously he kept his thoughts turned upon his work until the twilight came. Then he hurried home to meet the disappointment which he had more than half antic.i.p.ated. There was no telegram for him! He ate his dinner and sat with folded arms, looking out into the street. Still no telegram! The restlessness came back once more. Soon after ten o'clock it became unbearable. He found himself longing for company, the loneliness of his little room since the departure of Beatrice had never seemed so real a thing. He stood it as long as he could and then, catching up his hat and stick, he set his face eastwards, walking vigorously, and with frequent glances at the clocks he pa.s.sed.

A few minutes past eleven o'clock, he found himself once more in that dark thoroughfare at the back of the theatre. The lamp over the stage-door was flickering in the same uncertain manner, the same motor-cars were there, the same crowd of young men, except that each night they seemed to grow larger. This time he had a few minutes only to wait. Beatrice came out among the earliest. At the sight of her he was suddenly conscious that he had, after all, no excuse for coming, that she would probably cross-examine him about Elizabeth, would probably guess the secret of his torments. He shrank back, but he was a moment too late for she had seen him. With a few words of excuse to the others with whom she was talking, she picked up her skirts and came swiftly across the muddy street. Tavernake had no time to escape. He remained there until she came, but his cheeks were hot, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that his presence, that their meeting like this, was an embarra.s.sment to both of them.

"My dear Leonard," she exclaimed, "why do you hide over there?"

"I don't know," he answered simply.

She laughed.

"It looks as though you didn't want to see me," she remarked. "If you didn't, why are you here?"

"I suppose I did want to see you," he replied. "Anyhow, I was lonely. I wanted to talk to some one. I walked all the way up here from Chelsea."

"You have something to tell me?" she suggested.

"There was something," he admitted. "I thought perhaps you ought to know. I had supper with your father last night. We talked about you."

She started as though he had struck her; her face was suddenly pale and anxious.

"Are you serious, Leonard?" she asked. "My father?"

He nodded.

"I am sorry," he said. "I ought not to have blundered it out like that.

I forgot that you--you were not seeing anything of him."

"How did you meet him?"