The blazing door was locked. Richard called, shouted shouted again. There was no answer, but in the extraordinary outer silence he could still hear the industrious shovelling of silver.

‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘they’re bound to find out pretty soon that the show’s on fire.’

He threw himself against the door angrily, and, to his surprise, it yielded, and he fell over the river of flame into the interior of the shed. The noise at last startled Raphael and Teresa out of the preoccupation of their task.

‘Haven’t you perceived that the place is being burned down?’ he exclaimed drily.

At the same instant he sprang towards Teresa. The stream of burning petrol had found its way into the central runnel of the stone floor, and so had suddenly reached the hem of Teresa’s dress, which already showed a small blaze. Fortunately, it was a serge travelling frock; had it been of light summer material, Teresa would probably have been burnt to death. Richard dragged her fiercely from the region of the runnel, and extinguished the smouldering serge between his hands, which showed the scars of that timely action for a fortnight afterwards. He glanced round quickly, saw a pile of empty sacks in a corner—had they been used as money-bags? he wondered—and, seizing several of them, laid them fiat on the burning petrol and against the door. His unhesitating celerity no doubt prevented a magnificent conflagration. The petrol, it is true, had nearly burnt itself out, but the woodwork of the door was, in fireman’s phrase, ‘well alight,’ and, being aged and rotten, it formed a quick fuel.

When the flames had been conquered, the three occupants of the shed looked at each other without a word. Strange to say, under the steady gaze of Raphael Craig, Richard’s eyes blinked, and he glanced in another direction—up at the little window in the opposite wall where he had seen the face of Micky, but where the face of Micky was no longer on view. Then he looked again at Raphael Craig, whose dark orbs seemed to ask accusingly: ‘What are you doing here?’ And, despite the fact that he had in all probability been the means of saving Teresa’s life, he could not avoid the absurd sensation of having been caught in a misdeed. He felt as if he must explain his presence to Raphael Craig. At that juncture, we are obliged to confess, his imperturbability deserted him for a space.

‘I—I happened to be passing the end of the road,’ he said lamely, ‘and I saw what I took to be a flame, so I ran along—and found—this, I’m glad it’s no worse.’

‘So am I,’ said Raphael Craig, with cold gravity.

Teresa was silent.

‘I’m glad I was in time,’ said Richard, as awkwardly as a boy.

‘I’m glad you were,’ Mr. Craig agreed.

‘It is possible that my daughter owes her life to you. I cannot imagine how I could have been so careless with that petrol. It was inexcusable. We thank you, Mr. Redgrave, for your services so admirably rendered.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Richard; ‘that’s nothing at all.’

The whole interview was becoming too utterly ridiculous. But what could be said or done? It was the heaps of silver coins lying about that rendered the situation so extremely difficult. Useless for Raphael Craig to pretend that he and Teresa had been engaged in some perfectly usual and common-place task. Useless for Richard, notwithstanding his lame explanation, to pretend that he had not been spying. The heaps of silver made all parties excessively self-conscious, and when you are self-conscious you can never say the right thing in the right manner.

It was Raphael Craig who first, so to speak, came to himself.

‘As you are here, Mr. Redgrave,’ he said, ‘as you have already laid us under one obligation, perhaps you will consent to lay us under another. Perhaps you will help us to finish off these few coins. Afterwards I will beg the honour of a few words with you in private.’

It was magnificent, thought Richard, this audacious manouvre of the old man’s. It took the bull by the horns in a very determined fashion. It disarmed Richard instantly. What course, save that of complying with so calm and courteous a request, could he pursue? He divined that Raphael Craig was not a man moulded to the ordinary pattern of bank managers, ‘With pleasure,’ he replied, and thereupon the heaps of silver seemed less bizarre, less confusing, less productive of a general awkwardness. By a fiction unanimously agreed to, all three began to behave as if shovelling thousands of new silver coins at dead of night in a disused stable was a daily affair with them.

Still without uttering a word, Teresa handed her galvanized iron bucket to Richard. He noticed a little uncertainty in the motion of her hand as she did so. The next moment there was a thud on the floor of the stable. Teresa had fainted. She lay extended on the stone floor. Richard ran to pick up that fair frame. He had lifted the girl’s head when the old man interposed.

‘Never raise the head of a person who has lost consciousness,’ he said coldly; ‘it is dangerous. Teresa will recover in a few minutes. This swoon is due only to the shock and strain of the last few minutes. In the meantime, will you open the door?’

Richard, having complied, stood inactive, anxious to do something, yet finding nothing to do.

‘Shall I fetch some water from the house?’ he asked. ‘Swoons are sometimes very serious if they last too long.’

‘Are they, my friend?’ said Raphael, with the trace of a smile. ‘This one is already over—see?’

Teresa opened her eyes.

‘What are you two staring at?’ she inquired curiously, and then sighed as one fatigued.

Her father raised her head in his arm and held it so for a few moments.

‘Now, my chuck,’ he said, ‘try if you can stand. Mr. Redgrave, will you assist me?’

Mr. Redgrave assisted with joy. The girl at length stood up, supported on one side by Raphael Craig and on the other by the emissary of Simon Lock. With a glance at Richard, she said she could walk. Outside stood the motor-car.

‘Shall we take her round to the front-door on this?’ Richard suggested.

‘Are you mad?’ exclaimed Raphael Craig, with sudden disapproval. ‘Teresa will walk.’

He locked the charred door of the stable with a padlock which he took from his pocket, and they proceeded to the house.

Bridget stood at the front-door, seeming to expect them.

‘You’re not well, mavourneen,’ she said, glancing at Teresa’s face, and led the girl away.

During the whole of the time spent by him at Queen’s Farm nothing impressed Richard more than the impassive yet affectionate demeanour of Mrs. Bridget, that mysterious old servant, on this occasion.

The two men were left together in the hall. Mrs. Bridget and Teresa had gone upstairs.

‘Mike!’ Raphael Craig called.

‘Yes, sorr,’ answered Mike, appearing from a small butler’s pantry under the staircase.

‘Bring whisky into the drawing-room.’

‘That I will, sorr.’

Richard admired Micky’s sangfroid, which was certainly tremendous, and he determined to have an interview with the man before many hours were past, in order to see whether he could not break that sangfroid down.

‘Come into the drawing-room, will you?’, said Raphael Craig.

‘Thanks,’ said Richard.

The drawing-room proved to be the room into which Mr. Craig had vanished on the previous night. It presented, to his surprise, no unusual feature whatever. It had the customary quantities of chairs, occasional tables, photographs, knicknacks, and cosy corners. It was lighted by a single lamp suspended from the middle of the ceiling. The only article of furniture that by any stretch of fancy could be termed extraordinary in a drawing-room was a rather slim grandfather’s clock in an inlaid case of the Sheraton period. This clock struck one as they went into the room.

Micky arrived with the whisky.

‘You will join me?’ asked Raphael, lifting the decanter.

‘Thanks,’ said Richard.

‘That will do, Mike.’

Mike departed. The two men ignited cigars and drank. Each was seated in a large easy-chair.

‘Now for it,’ said Richard to himself.

Mr. Raphael Craig coughed.

‘I dare say, Mr. Redgrave,’ the bank manager began, ‘that certain things which you have seen this evening will have struck you as being somewhat strange.’

‘I am happy to have been of any help,’ said Richard.

Raphael bowed.

‘I will not disguise from you,’ he continued, that when you arrived here in such a peculiar manner last night I had my suspicious of your good faith. I even thought for a moment—it was very foolish of me—that you were from Scotland Yard. I don’t know why I should have thought that, but I did think it.’

‘Really,’ said Richard, ‘I have not the least connection with Scotland Yard. I told you my business.’

‘I believe you,’ said Raphael. ‘I merely mention the course of my thoughts concerning you. I am fully convinced now that, despite certain unusual items connected with your visit, you are exactly what you said you were, and for my doubts I now offer apology. To tell you the truth, I inquired from the Williamson Company this morning as to you, and was quite reassured by what they said. But,’ Mr. Craig went on, with a very pronounced ‘but,’ interrupting Richard, who had embarked on some protest—‘but I have at the same time been forced to the conclusion, Mr. Redgrave, that my household, such as it is, and my ways, such as they are, have roused in you a curiosity which is scarcely worthy of yourself. I am a fairly good judge of character, and I know by infallible signs that you have a nature far above idle curiosity.’

‘Thanks for your good opinion,’ said Richard; ‘but, to deal with your suspicions in their order, may I ask why you thought at first that I was an agent of Scotland Yard? Were you expecting Scotland Yard at Queen’s Farm?’

He could not avoid a faint ironic smile.

Mr. Craig threw his cigar into the fireplace.

‘I was,’ said Raphael briefly, ‘and I will tell you why. Some time ago an uncle of mine died, at a great age, and left me a huge fortune. My uncle, Mr. Redgrave, was mad. For fifty years he had put all his savings into silver coins. He had once been in a Mexican silver-mine, and the experience in some mysterious way had affected his brain. Perhaps his brain was already affected. He lived for silver, and in half a century he collected more than half a million separate silver coins—all English, all current, all unused. This fortune he bequeathed to me. I was, in fact, his sole relative.’

‘A strange old fellow he must have been,’ Richard remarked.

‘Yes,’ said Raphael. ‘But I am equally strange. I have said that my uncle had a mania. I, too, have that mania, for I tell you, Mr. Redgrave, that I cannot bring myself to part with those coins. I have the same madness for silver that my uncle had. Away from the silver, I can see myself steadily, can admit frankly to myself that on that one point my brain is, if you like the term, “touched.” In the presence of the silver I exist solely for it, and can think of nothing else.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Richard dispassionately, ‘I was told in the village to-day that you paid for everything in silver. If you are so attached to silver, how can you bring yourself to part with it? Why not pay in gold?’

‘Because,’ Raphael replied, ‘I never handle gold save in my professional capacity as bank manager. I take my salary in silver. I cannot help it. The weight frequently proves a difficulty, but I cannot help it. Silver I must have. It is in my blood, the desire for silver. True, I pay away silver—simply because I have no other coins available.’

‘I see,’ said Richard.

He scarcely knew what to think of his strange companion. The man seemed absolutely sane, absolutely in possession of every sense and faculty, yet, behold him accusing himself of madness!

‘Let me finish,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘When I came into my uncle’s fortune I was at a loss what to do with it. The small house which I then had over at Sewell, near Chalk Hill, had no accommodation for such a valuable and ponderous collection. I made a confidante of my daughter. She sympathized with me, and suggested that, at any rate for a time, I should conceal the hoard in a disused chalk-pit which lay a few hundred yards from our house. The idea, at first sight rather wild, grew upon me. I adopted it. Then I took this house, and gradually I have removed my silver from the chalk-pit to Queen’s Farm. It is hidden in various quarters of the place. We brought the last load to-night.’

‘This is very interesting,’ said Richard, who had nothing else to say.

‘I have told you this,’ the old man concluded, ‘in order to account to you for what you saw to-night in that stable. It is but just that you should know. I thank you again for your prompt services in the matter of the fire, and I ask you, Mr. Redgrave, to pity the infirmity—the harmless infirmity—of an old man.’

Raphael Craig stood up and gazed at Richard with his deep-set melancholy eyes.

‘It is an infirmity which draws suspicion upon this house as a magnet draws iron. Once already I have had the local police up here making stupid inquiries. I put them off as well as I could. Daily I am expecting that the directors of the bank will call me up to explain my conduct. Yet I cannot do otherwise.’

‘Why,’ said Richard, ‘if you are rich, do you still care to serve the bank? Pardon my impertinence, but, surely, if you left the bank one source of your apprehensions would be stopped?’

‘I cannot leave the bank,’ said Raphael Craig, with solemn pathos; ‘it would break my heart.’

With these words he sank back into a chair, and appeared to be lost in thought So the two sat for some time. Then Richard rose and went quietly towards the door.

‘You are the only person, save Teresa, who knows my secret. Remember that, Mr. Redgrave.’

The manager’s voice sounded weak and distant. Richard bowed and stole from the room. He sucked at his cigar, but it had gone out.