“Hi! Lord Delchester!”
The Marquis’s face appeared on the other side of the grating. He carefully shook the door, to be sure that it was locked.
“Mr. Pratt,” he said, “you enter now upon a new phase of your stay at Kelsoton Castle. If you look around the walls, you will find the initials of your predecessors carved in many different forms. I trust that you will make yourself as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.”
“Am I a prisoner?” Jacob asked.
The Marquis coughed.
“I prefer to follow the example of my ancestors and look upon you as a hostage awaiting ransom.”
“Then all that talk of yours about getting me out of danger was bunkum?”
“Your phraseology is offensively modern, but your conclusions are correct,” the Marquis acknowledged. “We could think of no other way in which you might be induced to enter the prison tower of Kelsoton, bearing in mind your suspicions of Montague and Hartwell.”
Jacob stood on tiptoe and looked through the bars. The mien of the Marquis was as composed as his tone. A paste stone in the buckle which fastened his tartan glittered in the dim light.
“Lord Delchester,” he said, “I have only a commoner’s ideas of hospitality. Is it in accordance with your sense of honour to decoy and imprison a guest in order to subject him to ill-treatment from a couple of curs like Montague and Hartwell?”