“What are you talking about?” Jacob demanded. “Doctor Bardolf is here.”
“Oh, no, he isn’t!” the young man retorted pleasantly. “Or, as I should say in the vernacular of this amazing country, I guess not! This gentleman gives a very creditable rendering of the part, but he is no more Doctor Bardolf than the Johnny upstairs is Mr. Samuel Pratt. The fact is, Jacob, the whole thing is a layout, and you’ve been very nearly pinched.”
Doctor Bardolf picked up his hat with dignity.
“I do not understand your young countryman’s phraseology,” he said, turning towards the door.
“He isn’t sober yet!” Morse gasped, with a frightened look in his eyes.
Felixstowe’s slim young form seemed to expand.
“You stay where you are,” he ordered the pseudo-physician sternly. “This is about the hang of the thing, Jacob. Your brother went to the Adirondacks, all right, leaving his house here in the charge of Morse, whom, like a fool, he seems to have trusted. Morse planned the rest of it. Not so difficult, either. He couldn’t get at any of your brother Samuel’s oof, so he cabled to you, dismissed the servants whom he couldn’t bring into the job, and got this chap Worstead, who is a ruined stockbroker, to play the part of the physician. Damned good scheme, too!—Hullo!”
The door had opened a little abruptly, and a small man, bearing an unmistakable resemblance to Jacob, had entered. His cheeks were sunburnt, and he had the unkempt appearance of one who has been living in the backwoods.
“Jacob!” the newcomer exclaimed enthusiastically, holding out both his hands. “Welcome to New York!”