' We are instructed by our client the Earl Keynes to apply to you for the prompt payment of the sum of fifteen thousand pounds. Should your cheque for this not reach us by the evening of Tuesday, September 3, his lordship will place the matter in other hands. He desires me to admit no discussion either from you or your representatives.
' We are, dear sir,
- ' Faithfully yours,
- ' Hobarts & Howard.'
Bilton did not ask for this; he plucked it out of the young man's hand.
' Anything more?' he asked.
' No, sir; that is all.'
' Very good. I shall leave by the two o'clock train for Molesworth. I shall spend the night there, and get back to-morrow. If by the evening's post to-day or by tomorrow morning's post there is anything further from Messrs. Hobarts and Howard, telegraph it to me.'
Bilton did not at once move from the breakfast-table after his secretary had left him, but remained seated there, his elbow on the table, his lips caressing an unlit cigar. Adept as he was at seeing combinations, and supplying from his imagination factors which alone would account for certain combinations presented to him as problems, he could not at once see his way through this. More than that, he could not determine with any internal satisfaction on his next move. That move might, of course, be merely a negative move—mere inaction on his part; but, turn the matter over in what way he might, he could not see how to say ' check ' in answer to this ' check.' He was threatened—threatened, too, by a firm of eminently reputable solicitors who presumably would not undertake business of any but the securest nature. Fifteen thousand pounds, it is true,
