Jacob smiled confidently.
“What I have is yours for the asking,” he declared. “It will be theirs only if they can take it.”
She suffered him to follow her into the house.
CHAPTER XIII
It must have been, Jacob decided, about half an hour later when his senses readjusted themselves to his existing environment. He was in what had apparently been the kitchen, situated in the basement of the house, seated in a fairly comfortable chair to which he was tied by cords. Hartwell and Mason were watching him with the air of uneasy conspirators. Sybil, perfectly composed, was lounging in a wicker chair a little way off, smoking a cigarette. The black man who he had been told was the leader of the newest Jazz band, come to give the young lady some hints as to music, had disappeared. From the distant sound of the gramophone, he gathered that Grace Powers was engaged upstairs with a pupil.
“Feeling all right again, eh?” Mason asked anxiously.
“Perfectly, thank you,” Jacob answered. “By the bye, what happened?”
“You—er—had a sort of faint,” Mason began—