Jacob felt a little dazed.
“You haven’t been ill at all then, Samuel?”
“Ill?” the other repeated contemptuously. “I was never better in my life. What’s it all about?”
Morse threw up the sponge, and Worstead, alias Bardolf, followed suit.
“He led me into this mess,” the former declared, shaking his fist at Worstead. “Got me gambling on differences, and when I couldn’t pay he cooked up this joint. It’s the first time I haven’t run straight, Mr. Pratt, and I didn’t touch any of your money, anyway.”
“So there’s been some crooked business, eh?” Samuel Pratt remarked. “Will some one tell me exactly what’s happened?”
Felixstowe gently intervened.
“You’ll pick the whole thing up by degrees,” he said, “but this is the long and short of it. Your brother Jacob gets a cable over in England, sent by Morse here, to say that you are dangerously ill. Out we come, first steamer. Morse meets us, brings us here; you are supposed to be upstairs with a hospital nurse, too ill to be seen. A financial crisis arises and Jacob is asked to find a trifle of six hundred thousand dollars to pay some differences on your account. The dear boy was on the point of signing his cheque when I popped in and put the kybosh on it.”
“But what on earth made you suspicious?” Jacob demanded.
“First night we were out together,” Felixstowe continued, “I began to tumble to it that Morse here had a pretty considerable acquaintance amongst the crooks. Then he dropped a note from you, Mr. Pratt, saying that you were staying three or four days at the Touraine Hotel in Boston, on your way home, so I slipped out and sent that dispatch to you on the chance. Last night again he made one or two bloomers, so this morning I just hopped round to Doctor Bardolf’s address, and that, of course, busted the whole show.”