Part 48

“Beg pardon, I don't get you.”

Old Heythorp's voice swelled with sudden force:

“Your letters are Greek to me.”

“Oh! indeed, I think we can soon make them into plain English!”

“Sooner the better.”

Mr. Ventnor passed through a moment of indecision. Should he lay his cards on the table? It was not his habit, and the proceeding was sometimes attended with risk. The knowledge, however, that he could always take them up again, seeing there was no third person here to testify that he had laid them down, decided him, and he said:

“Well, Mr. Heythorp, the long and short of the matter is this: Our friend Mr. Pillin paid you a commission of ten per cent. on the sale of his ships. Oh! yes. He settled the money, not on you, but on your relative Mrs. Larne and her children. This, as you know, is a breach of trust on your part.”

The old man's voice: “Where did you get hold of that cock-and-bull story?” brought him to his feet before the fire.

“It won't do, Mr. Heythorp. My witnesses are Mr. Pillin, Mrs. Larne, and Mr. Scriven.”

“What have you come here for, then--blackmail?”

Mr. Ventnor straightened his waistcoat; a rush of conscious virtue had dyed his face.

“Oh! you take that tone,” he said, “do you? You think you can ride roughshod over everything? Well, you're very much mistaken. I advise you to keep a civil tongue and consider your position, or I'll make a beggar of you. I'm not sure this isn't a case for a prosecution!”

“Gammon!”

The choler in Charles Ventnor kept him silent for a moment; then he burst out:

“Neither gammon nor spinach. You owe me three hundred pounds, you've owed it me for years, and you have the impudence to take this attitude with me, have you? Now, I never bluster; I say what I mean. You just listen to me. Either you pay me what you owe me at once, or I call this meeting and make what I know public. You'll very soon find out where you are. And a good thing, too, for a more unscrupulous--unscrupulous---” he paused for breath.

Occupied with his own emotion, he had not observed the change in old Heythorp's face. The imperial on that lower lip was bristling, the crimson of those cheeks had spread to the roots of his white hair. He grasped the arms of his chair, trying to rise; his swollen hands trembled; a little saliva escaped one corner of his lips. And the words came out as if shaken by his teeth:

“So-so-you-you bully me!”

Conscious that the interview had suddenly passed from the phase of negotiation, Mr. Ventnor looked hard at his opponent. He saw nothing but a decrepit, passionate, crimson-faced old man at bay, and all the instincts of one with everything on his side boiled up in him. The miserable old turkey-cock--the apoplectic image! And he said:

“And you'll do no good for yourself by getting into a passion. At your age, and in your condition, I recommend a little prudence. Now just take my terms quietly, or you know what'll happen. I'm not to be intimidated by any of your airs.” And seeing that the old man's rage was such that he simply could not speak, he took the opportunity of going on: “I don't care two straws which you do--I'm out to show you who's master. If you think in your dotage you can domineer any longer--well, you'll find two can play at that game. Come, now, which are you going to do?”

The old man had sunk back in his chair, and only his little deep-blue eyes seemed living. Then he moved one hand, and Mr. Ventnor saw that he was fumbling to reach the button of an electric bell at the end of a cord. 'I'll show him,' he thought, and stepping forward, he put it out of reach.

Thus frustrated, the old man remained-motionless, staring up. The word “blackmail” resumed its buzzing in Mr. Ventnor's ears. The impudence the consummate impudence of it from this fraudulent old ruffian with one foot in bankruptcy and one foot in the grave, if not in the dock.

“Yes,” he said, “it's never too late to learn; and for once you've come up against someone a leetle bit too much for you. Haven't you now? You'd better cry 'Peccavi.'.

Then, in the deathly silence of the room, the moral force of his position, and the collapse as it seemed of his opponent, awakening a faint compunction, he took a turn over the Turkey carpet to readjust his mind.

“You're an old man, and I don't want to be too hard on you. I'm only showing you that you can't play fast and loose as if you were God Almighty any longer. You've had your own way too many years. And now you can't have it, see!” Then, as the old man again moved forward in his chair, he added: “Now, don't get into a passion again; calm yourself, because I warn you--this is your last chance. I'm a man of my word; and what I say, I do.”

By a violent and unsuspected effort the old man jerked himself up and reached the bell. Mr. Ventnor heard it ring, and said sharply:

“Mind you, it's nothing to me which you do. I came for your own good. Please yourself. Well?”

He was answered by the click of the door and the old man's husky voice:

“Show this hound out! And then come back!”