“But at present, as matters stand, we can do nothing, and you as a business man must recognize our helplessness in the matter.”
Digby was beside himself with fury as he saw the money being put back in the tin box.
“Very well,” he said. His face was pallid and his suppressed rage shook him as with an ague. But he never lost sight of all the possible developments of the lawyer’s action. If he had taken so grave a step in respect to the property, he would take action in other directions, and no time must be lost if he was to anticipate Salter’s next move.
Without another word he turned on his heel and stalked down the stairs into the street. His car was waiting.
“To the Third National Bank,” he said, as he flung himself into its luxurious interior.
He knew that at the Third National Bank was a sum nearly approaching a hundred thousand pounds which his parsimonious mother had accumulated during the period she had been in receipt of the revenues of the Danton estate. Viewing the matter as calmly as he could, he was forced to agree that Salter was not the man who would play tricks or employ the machinery of the law, unless he had behind him a very substantial backing of facts. Dorothy Danton! Where had she sprung from? Who was she? Digby cursed her long and heartily. At any rate, he thought, as his car stopped before the bank premises, he would be on the safe side and get his hands on all the money which was lying loose.
He wished now that when he had sent Villa to Deauville he had taken his mother’s money for the purchase of the gambler’s yacht. Instead of that he had drawn upon the enormous funds of the Thirteen.
He was shown into the manager’s office, and he thought that that gentleman greeted him a little coldly.
“Good morning, Mr. Stevens, I have come to draw out the greater part of my mother’s balance, and I thought I would see you first.”
“I’m glad you did, Mr. Groat,” was the reply. “Will you sit down?” The manager was obviously ill at ease. “The fact is,” he confessed, “I am not in a position to honour any cheques you draw upon this bank.”
“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Digby.
“I am sorry,” said the manager, shrugging his shoulders, “but this morning I have been served with a notice that a caveat has been entered at the Probate Office, preventing the operation of the Danton will in your mother’s favour. I have already informed our head office and they are taking legal opinion, but as Mr. Salter threatens to obtain immediately an injunction unless we agree to comply, it would be madness on my part to let you touch a penny of your mother’s account. Your own account, of course, you can draw upon.”
Digby’s own account contained a respectable sum, he remembered.
“Very well,” he said after consideration. “Will you discover my balance and I will close the account.”
He was cool now. This was not the moment to hammer his head against a brick wall. He needed to meet this cold-blooded old lawyer with cunning and foresight. Salter was diabolically wise in the law and had its processes at his fingertips, and he must go warily against the trained fighter or he would come to everlasting smash.
Fortunately, the account of the Thirteen was at another bank, and if the worst came to the worst—well, he could leave eleven of the Thirteen to make the best of things they could.
The manager returned presently and passed a slip across the table, and a few minutes afterwards Digby came back to his car, his pockets bulging with banknotes.
A tall bearded man stood on the sidewalk as he came out and Digby gave him a cursory glance. Detective, he thought, and went cold. Were the police already stirring against him, or was this some private watcher of Salter’s? He decided rightly that it was the latter.
When he got back to the house he found a telegram waiting. It was from Villa. It was short and satisfactory.
“Bought Pealigo hundred and twelve thousand pounds. Ship on its way to Avonmouth. Am bringing captain back by air. Calling Grosvenor nine o’clock.”
The frown cleared away from his face as he read the telegram for the second time, and as he thought, a smile lit up his yellow face. He was thinking of Eunice. The position was not without its compensations.
XXXII
Eunice was sitting in the shuttered room trying to read when Digby Groat came in. All the colour left her face as she rose to meet him.
“Good evening, Miss Weldon,” he said in his usual manner. “I hope you haven’t been very bored.”
“Will you please explain why I am kept here a prisoner?” she asked a little breathlessly. “You realize that you are committing a very serious crime—”
He laughed in her face.
“Well,” he said almost jovially, “at any rate, Eunice, we can drop the mask. That is one blessed satisfaction! These polite little speeches are irksome to me as they are to you.”
He took her hand in his.
“How cold you are, my dear,” he said, “yet the room is warm!”
“When may I leave this house?” she asked in a low voice.
“Leave this house—leave me?” He threw the gloves he had stripped on to a chair and caught her by the shoulders. “When are we going? That is a better way of putting it. How lovely you are, Eunice!”
There was no disguise now. The mask was off, as he had said, and the ugliness of his black nature was written in his eyes.
Still she did not resist, standing stiffly erect like a figure of marble. Not even when he took her face in both his hands and pressed his lips to hers, did she move. She seemed incapable. Something inside her had frozen and she could only stare at him.
“I want you, Eunice! I have wanted
