“This,” said the Squire, handing across the letter he had been reading. “Why, it’s too comical. I never heard of such preposterous impudence in my life.” And he began to pace up and down the hall.

Wagram took the letter, and the first glance down it was enough to make him thoroughly agree with his father, except that he felt moved to even greater anger. For the heading showed that it emanated from the office of Pownall and Skreet, Solicitors, Bassingham, and its burden was to claim the sum of one thousand pounds damages “on behalf of our client, Miss Delia Calmour, by reason of certain severe bodily injuries received by her from a certain ferocious and dangerous animal, your property, suffered to be at large at such and such a time and place, the latter a public highway.” And so on.

“Is it a joke, Wagram?” repeated the old Squire.

“If so, it’s an uncommonly bad one,” was the answer; “in fact, rotten. No, I wouldn’t have believed it of the girl – really, I wouldn’t.”

His father smiled slightly, but refrained from retorting: “What did I tell you?”

“And yet the other day,” he pursued, “she came in among us all, and we treated her as one of ourselves. Yet all the time she was scheming a plan of vulgar and most outrageous blackmail.”

“That’s the worst part of it,” said Wagram with some bitterness. “See what comes of thinking oneself too knowing. I could have sworn the girl was a good girl and honest; she had honest eyes.”

“Honest! You can’t mention the word in connection with that low-down, scheming, blackmailing brood.”

“Well, there you have me, father, I admit,” answered Wagram. “You advised me against them, and I took my own line. I sing small.”

“Oh, that’s no matter. The question is: What are we going to do? Take no notice?”

“I should send her the money.”

“What! Why, Wagram, it’s preposterous. Why, on your own showing the girl wasn’t hurt at all. A thousand pounds?”

“Still, I should send it. We shouldn’t feel it. I expect these people are in desperate straits, and I’ve known that enviable condition myself.”

“Send it? Great heavens, Wagram! A thousand pounds for that old sot to soak on?”

“No, no. Send it so that nobody has the handling of it but the girl herself. She behaved very pluckily, remember. I’m almost sure she saved my life.”

“Yes; but if you hadn’t come to her rescue it wouldn’t have been in danger, as I said before,” replied the Squire somewhat testily.

“Well, perhaps not; but the situation was inevitable. I couldn’t slink away and leave her to be hacked to death by the brute.”

“All right. I’ll leave it to you, Wagram. Do as you think fit.”

“Very well,” was the answer as he busied himself again with his letters. Then he repressed a quick whistle of astonishment.

“Pownall and Skreet again. Another thousand pounds!” he mentally ejaculated. And, in fact, it was just that; and this time the claim was made on himself on behalf of “our client, Mr Robert Calmour, by reason of injuries sustained in the unprovoked savage and brutal assault committed by you upon him, on the public highway,” at such and such a time and place.

“Pownall and Skreet are having a merry innings,” he thought to himself; and then he laughed, for a recollection of the said Mr Robert Calmour’s frantic rebound from the gate when that worthy first came in contact with the ground-ash rushed overwhelmingly upon him. But astonishment underlay. So that was the identity of the fellow he had thrashed! Could it be Delia’s brother? Why, it must be; and then he remembered the running epitome as to their family and its habits which Clytie had given him on the occasion of his call at Siege House. Well, the Calmours were on the war-path this time, and no mistake.

“What’s the joke, Wagram?” said the old Squire, who was looking out of the window and had his back turned.

“Something reminded me of the cad I whacked the other day, and it was funny.” He decided not to let his father into a knowledge of this other impudent demand. It he would know how to deal with himself. “Who are Pownall and Skreet?”

“Two rascally solicitors in Bassingham.”

“All right. You’ve left it to me now, father. Don’t you worry any more about the affair; it’s out of your hands.”

“Oh, I shan’t bother about it.”

Soon after Wagram took up the rabbit rifle and strolled forth to try a long-distance shot or two; but his mind was full of the demand they had just received – that on behalf of Delia: to Bob’s affair he did not give a further thought. He had felt interested in the girl; had thought to discern a great deal of good in her; had even been wondering what he could do to help her. He owned himself astonished – astonished and disgusted. Had it been the other the result would not have surprised him. Looking back, too, he thought to discern a potential slyness beneath Clytie’s open ingenuousness; but as to this one he was disappointed.

Then he remembered that he had, in a way, taken her up, and through him Haldane. She was no fit companion for Yvonne, and at this thought his disgust deepened. Well, it would be easy to let Haldane judge for himself, and at sight of the lawyer’s letter he knew what Haldane’s judgment would be. Then, too, he recalled her demeanour on the occasion of last week’s solemnity: how she had affected an interest in it, and so on. All acting, of course; possibly due to the acquiring of a cheap honour and glory among her own set as having been seen among the party at Hilversea Court. Innately very much of a misogynist, Wagram’s bitterness in a matter of this kind needed no spur, no stimulant. He felt very bitter towards this girl with the straightforward eyes and appealing ways who had so effectually bamboozled him. It was no question of the amount – that, as he had said, they would not feel – it was the way in which the thing had been done. And, having arrived at this conclusion, he looked up, and there, skimming towards him on her bicycle, was the object of his cogitations. The method of that brief interview we know.

Thereafter Wagram resumed his way. It was only natural, he argued, that she should affect ignorance, utter innocence, as to what had transpired. Another bit of acting. He hoped he had not been manifestly discourteous, but he could not have trusted himself to prolong the meeting. Now he would dismiss the matter from his mind. He had made a grievous error of judgment, and when the affair became known he would become something of a laughing-stock. For that, however, he cared nothing.

Delia, for her part, felt as if she had just received a blow on the head as she wheeled homeward in a semi-dazed condition. The sight of Bob in the doorway – Bob, perky, expansive, more raffish than usual – did not tend to soothe her either.

“Hullo! What’s the row?” he cried as she pushed past him. “You’re looking like a boiled owl. Too much of Haldane’s champagne, eh?” For he delighted to tease Delia, did this amiable youth; she was putting on too much side of late, and wanted taking down a peg, he declared. With Clytie he had to mind his P’s and Q’s, as we have seen. Now the latter appeared to the rescue.

“Clear out, Bob,” she said. “What a young cur you are! A jolly good licking would do you all the good in the world, and I wonder every day that someone or other doesn’t give you one; only I suppose you keep your currishness for us.”

“Oh, do you?” snarled Bob, in whom the words awoke a perfectly agonising recollection. “Who the deuce cares what you think or don’t think?” he added, the sting of the allusion rendering him oblivious of the five shillings he had been intending to “borrow” from the – for the present – earning one of the family. Besides, he would be flush enough directly, then he would be in a position to round upon Clytie for the domineering way in which she had been treating him of late. When he got his thousand pounds, or even half of it, he had a good mind to chuck his berth with Pownall and Skreet and clear off to South Africa, or somewhere, and make his fortune. When he got it!

Paying no further attention to him, both girls made straight for their room.

“I’ve got a ghastly headache,” said Delia, throwing herself upon the bed. “I believe I got a touch of the sun.”

“Yes; it’s been infernally hot – is still. Well, did you have a good time of it otherwise?”

“Perfect; yes, perfect,” she answered, with a bitterness begotten of a strong instinct that it was the last she would have of any good times of that sort. “Do you know, Clytie, the contrast is too awful. It’s brought home to one so, and it hurts. I think I shall try and get some work again that’ll take me away, and keep me at it from morning till night – that’ll be the only thing.”

Clytie knew better than to question her further at that time.

“You turn in and get to sleep,” she said, “and I’ll bring you something that’ll send you off like a humming-top. Don’t go down again; and if that rascal Bob does anything to disturb you I’ll – I’ll – well, he’d seriously better not.”

She had her good points, you see, this handsome, slang-affecting, cold-blooded schemer.

Throughout the whole of the next day Delia was very miserable and depressed; only now did she realise what an obsession this secret cultus had become. What had she done to offend its object? Had any of her belongings done so, her father, perhaps, or Bob? She questioned Clytie as to this, but on that head could get no satisfaction.

“Let me think it out,” said the latter. “I’ll keep my ears open too. It’s a thousand pities my scheme should fall through. But, Delia, you must buck up. It’s of no use going about looking, as Bob said, like a boiled owl. Buck up.”

While she was dressing the following morning there came a whole-hearted bang at Delia’s door, coupled with the somewhat raucous voice of Bob.

“Here, I say, Delia; here’s a registered letter for you. Oof, of course. Well, I claim my commission for bringing it.”

“‘Costs’ shouldn’t it be?” she answered. “Well, push it under the door.”

“There’s the receipt too. You must sign it, and shove it back again. Postman’s waiting.”

This was done, and Delia looked at the registered envelope, wondering. Nobody owed her money, nor was there anyone in the wide world who would be in the least likely to give her any. There was a certain amount of excitement about the conjecture – something like the solving of an interesting conundrum. Then she cut open the envelope.

It contained a letter written on stiff, blue-grey, lawyer-like paper. Over this was the turned down end of a cheque. She looked at the cheque before the letter, and then – Great heavens! what did it mean? For the characters on the oblong slip danced before her amazed eyes.

“Pay Miss Delia Calmour one thousand pounds.

“Grantley Wagram.”

One thousand pounds? Grantley Wagram? What did it mean? In Heaven’s name, what did it mean? With trembling hands she spread out the letter. But it was not to herself. It was, in fact, the letter of demand which we have already seen the old Squire receive.

What did it mean? Delia was simply dumfoundered. She had never instructed anybody to claim damages in her life, either from the Wagrams or anyone else. Pownall and Skreet! Ah-h! They were Bob’s employers. Now she saw light. Her father and Bob had put up this between them. She remembered her suspicions with regard to them, or at any rate her father, two mornings ago. All now stood explained.

With eager hands she looked once more into the envelope, but it contained no further communication, no line or word addressed to herself, no explanation. There was the letter of demand, and the tangible evidence of compliance therewith in full. The sender had clearly deemed further explanation unnecessary.

How she completed her dressing Delia hardly knew, so consumed was she with a burning longing to get at those who had placed her in this shameful position. No wonder Wagram’s demeanour had been what it had when the girl to whom he had shown kindness had revealed herself as a mere blackmailing adventuress – a gainer of money under false pretences. Heavens! it would not bear thinking upon. Well, first to give the schemers a piece of her mind, then to rectify in so far as it lay within her power the shameful wrong they had done her.

Chapter Twelve.
Concerning Two Claimants

“Well, Delia, how much was it?” was Bob’s first greeting.

“A thousand pounds.”

The effect of this announcement was electrical and diverse. Old Calmour dropped his knife and fork – they were at table – and stared. Even Clytie could not repress a gasp; while as for Bob, he hoorayed aloud.

“Then Wagram has stumped up! Did he send it straight to you?”

“Look! There’s the cheque,” holding it up.

“Phew!” whistled Bob. “It ought to have come to you through our people, though.”

“Good thing it didn’t,” said Clytie significantly.

“Rather!” assented Bob briskly. “All the more for us. Now we need only pay for the letter of demand. Well done, Delia. I say, dad, we ought to have a jolly good dinner to-night on the strength of it, and some fizz to drink Delia’s health.”

“So we will, so we will,” snuffled the old man. “It’s like a blessed gift of Providence coming as it does just now, for the devil only knows how we should have managed to get on much longer.”

“Buck up, old girl,” cried Bob, boisterously affectionate on the strength of this sudden accession to wealth. “Buck up. You’re looking sort of white about the gills, and pulling a face as long as a fiddle, instead of hooraying like mad. Why, you’ve got your thousand – a cool thou – and no costs charged, and no delay, and you don’t seem a bit happy.”

Then Delia spoke.

“Happy! I feel as if I could never look anybody in the face again. A mean, extortionate, blackmailing swindle has been perpetrated in my name, and I shall not lose a moment in putting it right, and explaining that I had no part in it. I am going to return this cheque.”

“Wh-at?” bellowed Bob.

“Going to re – ” gasped old Calmour, who had fallen back in his chair, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

“Is she mad?” snorted Bob, who had gone as white as the girl herself. “Gets a cool thou, sent her – a cool thou, by the Lord Harry! – and then says ‘No, thanks; I’d rather not. Take it back again.’ It oughtn’t to be allowed.”

“And would rather see her old father starve,” yelped old Calmour. “Here, take it from her, Bob. We’ll keep it for her till she comes to a better frame of mind.”

“You dare to lay a hand on me,” said Delia; and there was that in her livid face and blazing eyes that caused the move Bob had made to rise in his chair to subside again. “Besides, you couldn’t take it from me without tearing it to pieces, nor could you cash it without my endorsement – which you would never get. How’s that, Lawyer Bob?”

“Damnable tommy-rot. Oh, hang it, Clytie, can’t you knock some sense into her silly noddle? You haven’t said anything.”

“How can one when you’re all bellowing at once? Well, I may as well tell you both that you’ve made a thundering silly mess of the whole thing. My beautiful scheme, which was becoming simpler and simpler every day, is now irrevocably knocked on the head – ”

“Beautiful scheme! Tommy-rot!” interrupted Bob. “A cool thou, in the hand’s worth twenty ‘beautiful schemes’ in your head.”

” – But as you have knocked it out,” went on Clytie, ignoring the interruption, “I say stick to the thousand.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Bob.

“My mind is quite made up,” replied Delia. “I am going to return it. Why, we could never hold up our heads in the place again.”

“We don’t hold them extra tall as it is,” laughed Clytie, “yet we manage to rub along somehow. A cool thou, doesn’t tumble our way every day, wherefore don’t be in a hurry about the thing, Delia; give it, say, till to-morrow. Think it well over.”

“It won’t bear thinking about, much less thinking over. I am going to Hilversea as fast as my bicycle will carry me; now, immediately.”

Then her father and brother began upon her again. Ingratitude for what they had done for her, callous indifference to her father’s declining old age and increasing wants, general selfishness – these were but few of the crimes laid to her charge. But she was adamant.

“You’ll have to get your bike to carry you first,” snarled Bob, giving up the contest. Hardly had he flung himself from the room than the meaning of his words flashed upon Delia. She flew to the door. Too late. Her bicycle stood in the front hall, and Bob, with a nasty grin on his face, was in the act of replacing a pin in his waistcoat. He had punctured both wheels in two or three places, and, to make assurance doubly sure, had treated Clytie’s machine in like manner.

“You cur!” she gasped. “Never mind; I’ll hire one at Warren’s.”

“Wagram won’t pay the bill this time. Ta-ta! Bong voyadge!” And the abominable cub took himself off.

“How could you do such a thing?” she flashed out, turning on her father. “You have disgraced me for ever. A downright blackmailing fraud!”

“Fraud be damned?” snarled old Calmour. “What are you talking about, girl? That sort of talk is dangerous. A highly respectable firm like Pownall and Skreet don’t deal in frauds.”

“What sort of firm did you say, dad?” said Clytie sweetly.

The old man whirled round upon her.

“What have you got to say to it, I’d like to know? You just mind your own blanked business. Are you backing that idiot up in her lunacy? And look here, my lady Delia. You’ve grown too big for your boots of late. If we’re not good enough for you, and our ways don’t suit your ladyship, you’d better go and look out for yourself. See then how much your swagger friends will do for you.”

“Yes; I will go,” said the girl, “but not until I’ve put this matter right. Your ‘highly respectable firm’ ought to be struck off the rolls for this job. Faugh! it’s scandalous!” she flashed out, as angry as he was.

“Here, Delia, come away,” said Clytie. “We’ve all let off quite enough steam, and we don’t want to go on nagging all day.” And she dragged her sister from the room almost by main force.

The while Bob, heading for the offices of the said “highly respectable firm,” though hugely incensed at his sister’s decision, yet through it discerned a silver lining to that cloud. If Wagram père had been so quick to respond to her claim – or rather to the spurious claim that he and his father had put forth – and that to the uttermost farthing, by parity of reasoning would not Wagram fils be equally ready to meet his own, issued simultaneously with the other? Clearly these people had a horror of litigation, and already he saw himself master of a thousand pounds, all his own, or at any rate of the result of a substantial compromise. Consequently, when he entered the office – incidentally a little late – it was with a jaunty, rakish air, as though, if he chose, he could buy up the whole concern.

“Pownall wants you, Calmour,” said one of the clerks at once.

“Ha, does he? I thought he would,” answered Bob lightly. Already he saw himself in possession. The reply had come. The only thing now to be reckoned with was that Pownall should not make an undue deduction for costs. Yet, somehow, as he knocked and entered, there was something in Pownall’s veined and scrubby-bearded face that was not propitious. And Pownall was not inclined to waste valuable time.

“Look here, Calmour,” he began, “when you brought me this claim of yours I told you I didn’t think there was the slightest chance of your getting anything. Here’s the answer.”

“Do they refuse, sir?”

“Absolutely and uncompromisingly. Here, read it yourself,” chucking an open letter across to his discomfited clerk, who took it and read:

“Hilversea Court,

“23rd June 1897.

“Sirs, – I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday’s date, demanding from me the sum of a thousand pounds as compensation to one Robert Calmour, for assaulting him. If this person is the blackguard I chastised last week on the Swanton Road for grossly insulting a young lady under my charge, I may mention incidentally that he is very ill-advised in revealing his identity, for the young lady’s father, on learning it, is not only prepared, but eager, to repeat the infliction, and that with very considerable exaggeration of the punishment he received at my hands. To come to the main point, I flatly refuse to pay one farthing; indeed, so impossible is it for me to treat this claim as a serious one that I have not even deemed it worth while to refer the matter to my solicitors. – Yours faithfully,

“Wagram Gerard Wagram.

“Messrs Pownall and Skreet.”

Bob had gone very pale during the perusal of this letter. Not only had his house of cards gone down with a flutter – for he could read no compromise here – but he was threatened with the summary vengeance of an unknown and vindictive parent. The stripes that Wagram had laid upon him, now turned to yellow and red bruises, seemed to tingle afresh.

“Is it no good pressing him further, sir?” he stammered. “This may be bluff.”

“Ours was bluff,” sneered Pownall. “I thought it just worth trying on, but only just. Now I see it isn’t. No jury in England would find for you, and we can’t afford to take up such a case.”

“But they paid my sister, sir, almost by return.”

“What?” shouted Pownall, jumping from his chair. “What? Paid in full?”

“Yes. Sent her a cheque for a thousand.”

“But this ought to have gone through us. It’s irregular, damned irregular.”

“So it is, sir. And what’s more irregular, she’s going to return it.”

“Going to return it?”

“Yes; swears she won’t accept it; calls it blackmail, and so forth.”

“Does she? Well, see here, Calmour, I’m sick of all your family grievances, and am devilish sorry I ever took them up. If it hadn’t been that your father’s a very old friend of mine I wouldn’t have touched them with the tip of the tongs. Now you’d better get back to the office.”

“One minute, sir,” stammered Bob. “Er – who is the person referred to in the letter as – er – threatening me with further violence?”

“I shrewdly conjecture it’s Haldane – and, if so, you’d better give him a wide, wide berth. He just about worships that girl of his, and he has knocked about in rough, wild parts. Hang it! couldn’t you tell the difference between a lady – a thoroughbred – and a village wench if you must get playing the fool by roadsides, you silly young rip? Now get back to your job. I haven’t taken anything by either of you,” added the lawyer disgustedly as he resumed his work.

If ever anybody found himself in an utterly abject state of mind, assuredly that individual was Bob Calmour as he slunk out of his principal’s room, and as he took his place at his own desk he felt as if he could have blown his brains out, only he lacked the courage. He cursed Pownall, he cursed Delia, he cursed everything and everybody, but more than all did he curse Wagram. Should he take his claim to some other solicitor? That would be useless, for he felt pretty sure that nobody but his principal would have touched it. Furthermore, the hint thrown out by Wagram with regard to his identity becoming known commanded his whole-hearted respect, and he grew green with scare at the thought that Haldane might be looking for him even at that moment. Heavens! what if Delia had let drop anything that might give him away when she was spending the day there? Hardly likely; and again he congratulated himself on his sound policy in keeping the thing a fast secret between himself and his principal. One comfort was that Haldane rarely came to Bassingham, his county town being Fulkston, away in the other direction; still, Bob Calmour was destined to expiate his act of Yahooism very fully, in the shape of a chronic apprehension, which rendered life a nightmare to him for some time thenceforward.