Jacob glanced back at the letter and frowned.
“I don’t think Miss Bultiwell would stoop to anything in the nature of a conspiracy, but those two men, Hartwell and Mason, are out and out wrong ’uns, and it is several months since any one tried to rob me.”
“You’ll go, all the same,” Dauncey observed, with a smile.
Jacob leaned over to the telephone.
“Museum 1324,” he demanded.
At half-past four that afternoon, Jacob rang the bell at a large and apparently empty house in Russell Square. The door was opened after a brief delay by a woman who appeared to be a caretaker and who invited him to ascend to the next floor. Jacob did so, and, pushing open a door which was standing ajar, found himself in a large apartment with a polished oak floor, two or three lounges by the wall, a gramophone, and a young lady whom he recognised as Sybil’s companion at the Milan.
“Mr. Pratt,” she greeted him sweetly. “I am so glad to know you.”
Jacob shook hands and murmured something appropriate.
“Sybil will be here in a few minutes,” the young lady continued. “You are going to have a lesson, aren’t you?”