‘Don’t see how it’s to be done,’ growled Shield, again finding a difficulty somewhere.
‘We must find that out, sir,’ said Philip with quiet resolution.
‘Got to find your way out of this mess first. The works won’t bring half enough to clear off your debts. You’ve been cheated all round—paying the highest price for rubbish’——
‘Impossible!’ interrupted Philip. ‘Wrentham may have made mistakes; but he is too much a man of business to have done that.’
‘Fact it was done, all the same. Then there’s no time to turn round. That bill you drew on me falls due in a week or so.’
Philip had been about to say, ‘Wrentham must account to us, if the materials have not been according to sample and order;’ but Wrentham was driven from his mind by the last sentence, which Shield jerked out before any interruption was possible.
‘Bill!—What bill?’
‘The one for six thousand—your brother Coutts discounted it, and’.... Here Shield made a long pause, looking steadily at Philip ... ‘but it was not signed by Austin Shield.’
The huge fist came down on the table with a thump that made the glasses rattle and the lamp shake. Philip stared for an instant, thunder-stricken by this new revelation. He recovered quickly, and gave a prompt answer.
‘If there is such a bill—I did not sign it either.’