Americans -- England -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Millionaires -- Fiction
Then he called in the commissionaire, and together they bound Jules
firmly to the bedstead, allowing him, however, to lie down. All the
while the captive never opened his mouth--merely smiled a smile of
disdain. Finally Racksole removed the ornaments, the carpet, the chairs
and the hooks, and wrenched away the switch of the electric light. Then
he and the commissionaire left the room, and Racksole locked the door on
the outside and put the key in his pocket.
‘You will keep watch here,’ he said to the commissionaire, ‘through the
night. You can sit on this chair. Don’t go to sleep. If you hear the
slightest noise in the room blow your cab-whistle; I will arrange to
answer the signal. If there is no noise do nothing whatever. I don’t
want this talked about, you understand. I shall trust you; you can trust
me.’
‘But the servants will see me here when they get up to-morrow,’ said the
commissionaire, with a faint smile, ‘and they will be pretty certain to
ask what I’m doing of up here. What shall I say to ‘em?’
‘You’ve been a soldier, haven’t you?’ asked Racksole.
‘I’ve seen three campaigns, sir,’ was the reply, and, with a gesture of
pardonable pride, the grey-haired fellow pointed to the medals on his
breast.
‘Well, supposing you were on sentry duty and some meddlesome person in
camp asked you what you were doing--what should you say?’
‘I should tell him to clear off or take the consequences, and pretty
quick too.’
‘Do that to-morrow morning, then, if necessary,’ said Racksole, and
departed.
It was then about one o’clock a.m. The millionaire retired to bed--not
his own bed, but a bed on the seventh storey. He did not, however, sleep
very long. Shortly after dawn he was wide awake, and thinking busily
about Jules.
He was, indeed, very curious to know Jules’ story, and he determined, if
the thing could be done at all, by persuasion or otherwise, to extract
it from him. With a man of Theodore Racksole’s temperament there is no
time like the present, and at six o’clock, as the bright morning sun
brought gaiety into the window, he dressed and went upstairs again to
the eighth storey. The commissionaire sat stolid, but alert on his
chair, and, at the sight of his master, rose and saluted.
‘Anything happened?’ Racksole asked.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Servants say anything?’
‘Only a dozen or so of ‘em are up yet, sir. One of ‘em asked what I was
playing at, and so I told her I was looking after a bull bitch and a
litter of pups that you was very particular about, sir.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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