Jacob's Ladder

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER IV

  Mr. Edward Bultiwell, of the House of Bultiwell and Sons, sat alone inhis private office, one morning a week or so later, and communed withghosts. It was a large apartment, furnished in mid-Victorian fashion,and, with the exception of the telephone and electric light, destituteof any of the modern aids to commercial enterprise. Oil paintings ofMr. Bultiwell's father and grandfather hung upon the walls. A row ofstiff, horsehair chairs with massive frames stood around the room,one side of which was glass-fronted, giving a view of the extensivewarehouse beyond. It was here that Mr. Bultiwell's ghosts weregathered together,--ghosts of buyers from every town in the UnitedKingdom, casting occasional longing glances towards where theenthroned magnate sat, hoping that he might presently issue forth andvouchsafe them a word or two of greeting; ghosts of sellers, too,sellers of hides and skins from India and South America, Mexico andChina, all anxious to do business with the world-famed House ofBultiwell. Every now and then the great man would condescend toexchange amenities with one of these emissaries from distant parts.Everywhere was stir and bustle. Every few minutes a salesman wouldpresent himself, with a record of his achievements. All the time thehum of voices, the clattering of chains, the dust and turmoil ofmoving merchandise, the coming and going of human beings, all helpingto drive the wheel of prosperity for the House of Bultiwell!...

  The ghosts faded away. Two old men were outside, dusting stacks ofleather. There was no one else, no sound of movement or life.Bultiwell glanced at his watch, as he sat there and waited. Presentlyhe struck the bell in front of him, and a grey-haired bookkeepershuffled in.

  "What time did Pedlar say Mr. Pratt would be round?" he asked harshly.

  "Between eleven and twelve, sir."

  Mr. Bultiwell glanced at his watch and grunted.

  "Where's Mr. Haskall?"

  "Gone round to the sale, sir."

  "He got my message?" Mr. Bultiwell asked anxiously.

  "I told him that he was on no account to buy, sir," the cashierassented. "He was somewhat disappointed. There is a probability of arise in hides, and most of the pits down at the tannery are empty."

  Mr. Bultiwell groaned under his breath. His eyes met the eyes of hisold employe.

  "You know why we can't buy--at the sales, Jenkins," he muttered.

  The man sighed as he turned away.

  "I know, sir."

  Then there was a little stir in the place. The two men left offdusting; the clerks in the counting-house raised their headshopefully. Jacob Pratt arrived and was ushered into the presence ofthe head of the firm. It was a trying moment for Mr. Bultiwell, buthe did his best. He wished to be patronising, kindly and gracious.He succeeded in being cringing.

  "Glad to see you, Pratt. Glad to see you," he said. "Try thateasy-chair. A cigar, eh? No? Quite right! Don't smoke much myselftill after lunch. Seen Pedlar this morning?"

  "I've just come from his office," Jacob replied.

  Mr. Bultiwell thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and leanedback in his chair.

  "Clever fellow, Pedlar, but not so clever as he thinks himself. Idon't mind telling you, Pratt, between ourselves, that it was entirelymy idea that you should be approached with a view to your coming inhere."

  "Is that so?" Jacob observed quietly.

  "I knew perfectly well that you wouldn't be content to do nothing, ayoung man like you, and if you're going to keep in the leather tradeat all, why not become associated with a firm you know all about, eh?I don't want to flatter myself," Mr. Bultiwell proceeded, with a touchof his old arrogance, "but Bultiwell's, although we haven't been soenergetic lately, is still pretty well at the top of the tree, eh?"

  "Not quite where it was, I am afraid, Mr. Bultiwell," Jacob objected."I've been looking through the figures, you know. Profits seem to havebeen going down a good deal."

  "Pooh! That's nothing! Hides were ridiculously high all last year, butthey're on the drop now. Besides, these accountants always have tomake out balance sheets from a pessimistic point of view."

  "The present capital of the firm," Jacob commented, "seems to meastonishingly small."

  "What's it figure out at?" Mr. Bultiwell enquired, with a fine show ofcarelessness. "Forty thousand pounds? Well, that is small--smallerthan it's been at any time during the last ten years. Perhaps I haveembarked in a few too many outside investments. They are all good'uns, though. No use having money lying idle, Mr. Pratt, these days.Now my idea was," he went on, striving to hide a slight quaver in hisvoice, "that you put in, say, eighty thousand pounds, and take anequal partnership--a partnership, Pratt, remember, in Bultiwell's....Eh? What's that?"

  Mr. Bultiwell looked up with a well-assumed frown of annoyance. A veryfashionably dressed young lady, attractive notwithstanding a certainsullenness of expression, had entered the room carrying a great bunchof roses.

  "So sorry, dad," she said, strolling up to the table. "I understoodthat you were alone. Here are the roses," she added, laying them uponthe table without enthusiasm. "Are you coming up west for luncheonto-day?"

  "My dear," Mr. Bultiwell replied, "I am engaged just now. By the bye,you know Mr. Pratt, don't you? Pratt, you remember my daughter?"

  Jacob, whose memories of that young lady, with her masses of yellowhair and most alluring smile, had kept him in fairyland for threemonths, and a little lower than hell for the last two years, tookfierce command of himself as he rose to his feet and received a verycordial but somewhat forced greeting from this unexpected visitor.

  "Of course I know Mr. Pratt," she answered, "and I hope he hasn'taltogether forgotten me. The last time I saw you, you bicycled overone evening, didn't you, to see my father's roses, and we made youplay tennis. I remember how cross dad was because you played withoutshoes."

  "Mr. Pratt is doubtless better provided in these days," Bultiwellobserved with an elephantine smile. "What about running over to see usto-night or to-morrow night in that new car of yours, Pratt, eh?"

  "Do come," the young lady begged, with a very colourable imitation ofenthusiasm. "I am longing for some tennis."

  "You are very kind," Jacob replied. "May I leave it open just for ashort time?"

  "Certainly, certainly!" Mr. Bultiwell agreed. "Sybil, run along andsit in the waiting-room for a few minutes. I'll take you up to theCarlton, if I can spare the time. May take Mr. Pratt, perhaps."

  Sybil passed out, flashing a very brilliant if not wholly naturalsmile into Jacob's face, as he held open the door. Mr. Bultiwellwatched the latter anxiously as he returned slowly to his place. Hewas not altogether satisfied with the result of his subtle littleplot.

  "Where were we?" he continued, struggling hard to persevere in thatcheerfulness which sat upon him in these days like an ill-fittinggarment. "Ah! I know--eighty thousand pounds and an equal partnership.How does that appeal to you, Mr. Pratt?"

  "There were one or two points in the balance sheet which struck me,"Jacob confessed, gazing down at his well-creased trousers. "The marginbetween assets and liabilities, though small, might be consideredsufficient, but the liability on bills under discount seemed to meextraordinarily large."

  Mr. Bultiwell's pencil, which had been straying idly over the blottingpad by his side, stopped. He looked at his visitor with a frown.

  "Credits must always be large in our trade," he said sharply. "Youknow that, Mr. Pratt."

  "Your credits, however," Jacob pointed out, "are abnormal. I venturedto take out a list of six names, on each one of whom you haveacceptances running to the tune of twenty or thirty thousand pounds."

  "The majority of my customers," Mr. Bultiwell declared, with a littlecatch in his breath, "are as safe as the Bank of England."

  Jacob produced a very elegant morocco pocketbook, with gold edges, andstudied a slip of paper which he held towards his companion.

  "Here is a list of the firms," he continued. "I have interviewed mostof them and made it worth their while to tell me the truth. Thereisn't one of them that isn't hopelessly insolvent. They are being kepton their
legs by you and your bankers, simply and solely to bolster upthe credit of the House of Bultiwell."

  "Sir!" Mr. Bultiwell thundered.

  "I should drop that tone, if I were you," Jacob advised coldly. "Youhave been a bully all your life, and a cruel one at that. Lately youhave become dishonest. When the firm of Bultiwell is compelled to fileits petition in bankruptcy, which I imagine will be a matter of onlya few weeks, I do not envy you your examination before the officialreceiver."

  Mr. Bultiwell collapsed like a pricked bladder. He shrivelled in hisclothes. There was a whine in his tone as he substituted appeal forargument.

  "There's good business to be done here still," he pleaded. "Even ifthe firm lost a little money on those names, there are two of them atleast who might weather the storm, with reasonable assistance. Pratt,they tell me you're pretty well a millionaire. I'm sorry if I was hardon you in the old days. If you won't take a partnership, will you buythe business?"

  Jacob laughed scornfully.

  "If I were ten times a millionaire," he said, rising to his feet, "Iwould never risk a penny of my money to rid you of the millstone youhave hung around your neck. It is going to be part of my activity inlife, Mr. Bultiwell, to assist nature in dispensing justice. For manyyears you have ruled the trade in which we were both brought up, andduring the whole of that time you have never accomplished a singlegracious or kindly action. You have wound up by trying to drag meinto a business which is rotten to the core. Your accountants may betechnically justified in reckoning that hundred and forty thousandpounds owed you by those six men as good, because they never failed,but you yourself know that they are hopelessly insolvent, and thatthe moment you stop renewing their bills they will topple down likeninepins.... I would not help you if you were starving. I shall readof your bankruptcy with pleasure. There is, I think, nothing more tobe said."

  Mr. Bultiwell sat in his chair, dazed, for long after Jacob had lefthim. His daughter reappeared and left at once, harshly dismissed. Hisclerks went out for lunch and returned at the appointed hour. Mr.Bultiwell was seeing ghosts....

  * * * * *

  Jacob and his friend dined together that night in a well-knowngrill-room. Dauncey, to whom, in those days, every man seemed to bea brother and every place he entered a fairy palace, showed signsof distress as he listened to his companion's story.

  "Dear friend," he remonstrated, "of what use in the world is revenge?I do not suggest that you should throw your money away trying to helpBultiwell, but you might at least have left him alone."

  Jacob shook his head. The corners of his mouth tightened. He spokewith grave seriousness.

  "Dick," he said, "you are like the man who sympathises with the evilgrowth which it is the surgeon's task to remove. In the days of hisprosperity, Bultiwell was a brute and a bully. His only moments ofcomparative geniality came when he was steeped in wine and gluttedwith food. His own laziness and self-indulgence paved the way to hisruin. He then became dishonest. He deliberately tried to cheat me; hestooped even to the paltry trick of remembering that I once admiredhis daughter, and dragged her in to complete his humiliation. Believeme, the world is a better place without its Bultiwells--a better and ahealthier place--and where I find them in life, I am going to use theknife."

  "You have used it this time perhaps even more effectually than youthought," Dauncey groaned, as he took an evening paper from his pocketand passed it across the table. "Mr. Bultiwell shot himself in hisoffice, late this afternoon. I did not tell you before, for fear itmight spoil your dinner."

  Jacob sipped his wine, unmoved.

  "It was really the only thing left for him," was his brief comment.

  Dauncey was once more the melancholy man.

  "I hope that all your interventions, or whatever you may call them,"he said, "won't end in the same way."

  Jacob's eyes looked through the walls of the restaurant. A suddenimpulse of fancy had carried him forward into that land of adventureto which he held the golden key. He felt the thrill of danger, themystery of unknown places. He passed from palace to hovel. He heardthe curse of the defeated schemer, he felt the warmth and joy ofgratitude. All these figures, save one, were imaginary, and that onewas always there, always watching, always with that look of reproachwhich he seemed already to see in her cold blue eyes. He fanciedhimself pleading with her, only to be scorned; hiding from the dangersshe invoked; fancied her the protectress of his enemies, the evilgenius of those whom he would have befriended. And all the time therelingered in the background of his mind the memory of that singleevening when, angered by her father's condescension, she had chosento be kind to him; had shown him the secret places in that wonderfulgarden, glorious with budding rhododendrons, fragrant with the rosesdrooping from the long pergola,--a little scene out of fairyland,through which he had walked under the rising moon like a manbewildered with strange happiness.

  Richard leaned forward in his place.

  "Are you seeing ghosts?" he asked curiously.

  Jacob was suddenly back from that unreal world into which his magicalprosperity had pitchforked him. He drained the glass which he raisedto his lips with firm fingers.

  "Ghosts belong to the past," he answered. "All that we have anyconcern with is the future."