On the Monday morning Richard presented himself at Queen’s Farm. The day was jocund, the landscape smiled; in the forty-acre field below the house a steam-plough, actuated by two enormous engines and a steel hawser, was working at the bidding of a farmer who farmed on principles of his own, and liked to do his ploughing at midsummer. The steam-plough rattled and jarred and jolted like a humorous and high-spirited leviathan; the birds sang merrily above it; the Chiltem Hills stretched away in the far distance, bathed in limitless glad sunshine; and Watling Street ran white, dazzling, and serene, down the near slope and up the hill towards Dunstable, curtained in the dust of rural traffic.
In the midst of all these things joyous and content, behold Richard, melancholy and full of discontent, ringing at the front-door bell of Queen’s Farm. He rang and rang again, but there was no answer. It was after eight o’clock, yet not a blind had been drawn up; and the people of the house had told him that they took breakfast at seven o’clock! Richard had passed a wretched week-end in the village of Hockliffe, his one solace having been another chat with Mr. Puddephatt, wine-merchant and horse-dealer to the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. He was at a loss what to do. What, indeed, could he do? The last words of Nolan, the detective, had given him pause, hinting, as they did, at strange mysteries still unsolved. Supposing that he, Richard, continued his investigations and discovered some sinister secret—some crime? The point was that Teresa was almost certainly involved in her father’s schemes. Here was the difficulty which troubled him. His fancy pictured a court of justice, and Raphael Craig and Teresa in the dock, and Richard Redgrave giving evidence against them, explaining how he had spied upon them, dogged their footsteps, and ultimately arrived at the heart of the mystery. Could he do that? Could he look Teresa in the face? And yet, what, after all, was Teresa to him—Teresa, whom he had known only three days?
That was the question—what was Teresa to him?
He rang again, and the jangle of the bell reverberated as though through a deserted dwelling. Then he walked round the house by the garden, in the hope of encountering Micky, otherwise Mr. Nolan of Scotland Yard. But not a sign of Mr. Nolan could he see anywhere. The stable-door was unlocked; the mares were contentedly at work on a morning repast of crushed oats, followed by clover-hay, but there was no Micky. He began to think that perhaps Nolan knew a great deal more than he had chosen to tell during that night walk along Watling Street. Perhaps Nolan had returned to Scotland Yard armed with all the evidence necessary to conduct a magnificent cause cÉlÈbre to a successful conclusion. He could see the posters of the evening papers: ‘Extraordinary Affair in Bedfordshire: A Bank Manager and his Daughter charged with——’
Charged with what?
Pooh! When he recalled the dignified and absolutely sincere air of Raphael Craig at their interview in the drawing-room in the early hours of Sunday morning, when he recalled the words of the white-haired man, uttered with an appealing glance from under those massive brows: ‘I ask you, Mr. Redgrave, to pity the infirmity, the harmless infirmity, of an old man’—when he recalled these words, and the manner of the speaker, he could not but think that Nolan must be on an absolutely false scent; he could not but believe that the Craigs were honest and innocent.
He at last got round to the kitchen-door of the house and knocked. The door was immediately opened—or, rather, half opened—by Mrs. Bridget, who put her head in the small aperture thus made after the manner of certain women. She merely looked at him severely, without uttering a word.
‘I wish to see Mr. Craig,’ he said calmly.
‘I was to tell ye the motor-car is in the shed, and ye are kindly to deliver it at Williamson’s.’
This was her reply.
‘Mr. Craig is not up, then? Miss Craig——’
‘I was to tell ye the motor-car is in the shed, and ye are kindly to deliver it at Williamson’s.’
‘Thank you. I perfectly understand,’ said Richard. ‘Miss Craig, I hope, is fully recovered?’
‘I was to tell ye the motor-car——’
Thinking that this extraordinary Irishwoman was scarcely in full possession of her wits that morning, Richard turned away, and proceeded to the shed where the motor-cars were kept. The Panhard, he found, was ready for action, its petrol-tank duly filled, its bearings oiled, its brasswork polished. He sprang aboard and set off down the boreen. As he passed the house, gazing at it, one of the drawn blinds on the first-floor seemed to twitch aside and then fall straight again. Or was it his imagination?
He turned into Watling Street, and then, on the slope, set the car to its best pace. He reached the valley in a whirl of dust at a speed of forty miles an hour. The great road stretched invitingly ahead. His spirits rose. He seemed to recover somewhat from the influence of the mysteries of Queen’s Farm.
‘I’ll chuck it,’ he shouted to himself above the noise of the flying car—‘that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go and tell Lord Dolmer this very morning that I can’t do anything, and prefer to waste no more time on the affair.’
After that he laughed, also to himself, and swerved the car neatly to avoid half a brick which lay in the middle of the road. It was at that moment that he perceived, some distance in front, his friend Mr. Puddephatt. Mr. Puddephatt was apparently walking to Dunstable. Richard overtook him and drew up.
‘Let me give you a lift,’ said Richard.
0126
Mr. Puddephatt surveyed the Panhard askance.
‘Let you give me a lift?’ Mr. Puddephatt repeated. It was his habit to repeat the exact words of an interlocutor before giving a reply. ‘No, thanks,’ said he. ‘I’m walking to Dunstable Station for exercise.’
‘What are you going to Dunstable Station for?’ asked Richard.
‘I’m for Lunnon—horse sale at the Elephant and Castle. Perhaps you know the Elephant and Castle, sir?’
‘I’ll give you a lift to London, if you like,’ said Richard, seizing the chance of companionship, of which he was badly in need. ‘We shall get there quite as soon as your train.’
Mr. Puddephatt eyed the car suspiciously. He had no sympathy with motor-cars.
‘Are you afraid?’ asked Richard.
‘Am I afraid?’ he repeated. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I ain’t afraid. But I’d sooner be behind a three-year-old than behind one of them things. But I’ll try it and see how I like it. And thank ye, sir.’
So Mr. Puddephatt journeyed with Richard to London.
Perhaps it was fate that induced Mr. Puddephatt, when they had discussed the weather, horses, motor-cars, steam-ploughs, wine, parish councils, London, and daily papers, to turn the conversation on to the subject of the Craigs. Mr. Puddephatt had had many and various dealings with the Craigs, and he recounted to Richard the whole of them, one after another, in detail. It seemed, from his narrative, that he had again and again, from sheer good-nature, saved the Craigs from the rapacity and unscrupulousness of the village community.
‘Nice young lady, that Miss Teresa,’ observed Mr. Puddephatt.
‘Yes,’ said Richard.
By this time they had passed through St. Albans and were well on the way to Edgware.
‘They do say,’ said Mr. Puddephatt, leaning back luxuriously against the cushions—‘they do say as she isn’t his daughter—not rightly.’
‘They say what?’ asked Richard quietly, all alert, but not choosing to seem so.
Mr. Puddephatt reaffirmed his statement.
‘Who says that?’ asked Richard.
‘Oh!’ said Mr. Puddephatt, ‘I dare say it isn’t true. But it’s gotten about the village. Ye never know how them tales begin. I dare say it isn’t true. Bless ye, there’s lots o’ tales.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ Richard remarked sagaciously.
‘Ay!’ said Mr. Puddephatt, filling his pipe, ‘lots o’ tales. That night as she ran away from the farm, and Mrs. Bridget had to fetch her back from the White Horse—— Everybody said as how the old man ill-treated her, daughter or no daughter.’
‘When was that?
‘A few weeks back,’ said Mr. Puddephatt laconically.
This was all he would say.
‘It’s a queer world, Mr. Puddephatt,’ said Richard aloud. To himself he said: ‘Then perhaps she isn’t involved with her father—if he is her father.’
At length they reached the suburbs of London and had to moderate their speed. As they wound in and out through the traffic of Kilburn, Richard’s eye chanced to catch the sign of the British and Scottish Bank. He drew up opposite the mahogany doors of the bank and, leaving Mr. Puddephatt in charge of the car, entered. It was turned ten o’clock. He felt fairly certain that Raphael Craig had not left Queen’s Farm, but he wanted to convince himself that the bank manager was not always so impeccably prompt at business as some people said.
‘I wish to see Mr. Craig,’ he said, just as he had said two hours before to Mrs. Bridget.
‘Mr. Craig,’ said the clerk, ‘is at present taking his annual holiday. He will return to business in a fortnight’s time.’
Richard returned to the car curiously annoyed, with a sense of being baffled. His thoughts ran back to Teresa. Thirty miles of Watling Street now separated them, yet her image was more strenuously before him than it had been at any time since she fainted in the silver-heaped stable on Saturday night.
‘Yes,’ he said to himself positively, ‘I’ll call on Lord Dolmer at once, and tell him I won’t have anything further to do with the affair.’
He dropped Mr. Puddephatt, whose society, he felt, was perhaps growing rather tedious to him, at Oxford Circus, and directed him to an omnibus for the Elephant and Castle.
‘My address is 4, Adelphi Terrace, in case you need a friend in London at any time,’ said Richard.
‘Good-day to ye, sir,’ said Mr. Puddephatt, ‘and thank ye kindly. Shall we be seeing you again at Hockliffe soon?’
‘No,’ said Richard shortly. ‘I am not likely ever to come to Hockliffe. My business there is absolutely concluded.’
They shook hands, full of goodwill. As Mr. Puddephatt’s burly and rustic form faded away into the crowd Richard watched it, and thought how strange, and, indeed, pathetic, it was that two human beings should casually meet, become in a measure intimate, and then part for evermore, lost to each other in the mazy wilderness of an immense civilization.
He drove the car to Holborn Viaduct, deposited it on the Williamson Company’s premises, and then took a bus for Piccadilly. As he did so it began to rain, at first gently, then with a more determined steadiness: a spell of fine weather which had lasted for several weeks was at last broken.
In less than half an hour he was at Lord Dolmer’s door in Half-Moon Street.
This nobleman, as has been stated, was comparatively a poor man. Emphasis must now be laid on that word ‘comparatively.’ The baron had a thousand a year of his own in stocks, and a small property in Yorkshire which brought in a trifle less than nothing a year, after all the outgoings were paid. His appointments in the City yielded him fifteen hundred a year. So that his net income was a trifle less than two thousand five hundred pounds per annum. He was thus removed from the fear of absolute starvation. The peerage was not an ancient one—Lord Dolmer was only the second baron—but the blood was aristocratic; it had run in the veins of generations of men who knew how to live and how to enjoy themselves. Lord Dolmer had discreetly remained a bachelor, and, in the common phrase, ‘he did himself uncommonly well.’ He had a suite of finely-furnished rooms in Half-Moon Street, and his domestic staff there consisted of a valet, who was also butler and confidential factotum; a boy, who fulfilled the functions of a ‘tiger,’ and employed his leisure hours in not cleaning knives and boots; a housekeeper, who wore black silk and guarded the secret of her age; and two women servants. It was the valet who answered to Richard’s masterful ring; the valet’s name was Simpkin.
‘Lord Dolmer at home?’ asked Richard.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Simpkin amicably; ‘his lord-ship is at breakfast.’
It was just upon eleven o’clock.
‘I’ll tell him you’re here, sir,’ said Simpkin.
In another moment Richard was greeting the second Baron Dolmer in the dining-room, a stylish little apartment trimmed with oak. Lord Dolmer breakfasted in the Continental fashion, taking coffee at eight, and dÉjeuner about eleven. He had the habit of smoking during a meal, and the border of his plate, which held the remains of a kidney, showed a couple of cigarette-ends. He gave Richard a cigarette from his gold case, and Simpkin supplemented this hospitality with a glass of adorable and unique sherry.
‘We will deprive ourselves of your presence, Simpkin,’ said Lord Dolmer, who, a very simple and good-natured man at heart, had nevertheless these little affectations.
‘Certainly, sir,’ said the privileged Simpkin, who liked to hear his master use these extraordinary phrases.
‘And now, Redgrave, what is it? You pride yourself, I know, on your inscrutable features, but I perceive that there is something up.’
‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘it’s about that Craig affair. I thought I’d just call and tell you privately that I can’t do anything. I should like, if you and Mr. Lock don’t object, to retire from it.’
‘Singular!’ exclaimed Lord Dolmer mildly—, ‘highly singular! Tell me the details, my friend.’
Richard, rather to his own surprise, began to tell the story, omitting, however, all reference to Micky, the detective.
‘And do you believe Mr. Raphael Craig’s tale?’ asked Lord Dolmer. ‘It seems to me scarcely to fit in with some of the facts which you have related.’
Richard took breath.
‘No, I don’t,’ he said plumply.
‘And yet you prefer to go no further?’
‘And yet I prefer to go no further.’
‘And this Teresa, who frequents circuses and chalk-pits, and faints at midnight—what sort of a girl is she?’
‘Miss Craig is a very beautiful woman,’ said Richard stiffly.
He tried hard to speak in a natural tone of voice, but failed.
‘She has bewitched you, Redgrave,’ said Lord Dolmer. ‘It is a clear case. She has bewitched you. This won’t do at all—my unimpressionable Redgrave knocked over by a country girl of nineteen or so!’
He rubbed his hands together, and then lighted another cigarette.
Richard pulled himself together, and replied, smiling:
‘Not at all.... But really, Lord Dolmer, I want to throw the thing up. So far from Miss Craig having bewitched me, I shall, in all probability, never see her again.’
‘I see—a heroic sacrifice! Well, I will tell Mr. Simon Lock... what shall I tell him?’
‘Tell him I have discovered nothing definite, and own myself beaten as regards finding out the true origin of Raphael Craig’s eccentricities. But tell him, also, that I am convinced that Raphael Craig is nothing worse than eccentric.’ Richard paused, and repeated: ‘Yes, nothing worse than eccentric.’
‘No, Redgrave, I won’t tell him that you are convinced of that.’
‘And why not?’
‘Because, forgive me, I am convinced that you are not convinced of it.’
There was an interval of silence, during which two spirals of smoke ascended gracefully to the panelled ceiling of Lord Dolmer’s diningroom.
‘Perhaps I am not,’ Richard answered calmly. ‘Tell Simon Lock what you like, then, only make it plain that I retire. I ask no fee, since I have earned none. I wash my hands of the whole business. I am within my rights in so doing.’
‘Certainly you are within your rights,’ said Lord Dolmer. ‘And d’you know, Redgrave, I am rather glad that you are retiring from the case.’
‘Why?’
‘If I tell you my reason you will regard it as strictly confidential?’
Richard assented.
‘It is this: Mr. Simon Lock has a mysterious animus against Raphael Craig; what the cause of that animus is neither I nor any of the other directors can guess, but it exists. (Remember, all this is between friends.) It is Mr. Lock who has forced on this secret inquiry. The other directors were against a proceeding which is rather underhand and contrary to the best traditions of the bank. But Mr. Simon Lock had his way.’ Here Lord Dolmer lighted another cigarette and resumed. ‘I ask you, Why should the bank interfere? A bank manager has a perfect right to live where he likes, and, outside office hours, to do what he likes, so long as he obeys the laws of the country and the laws of respectability. Mr. Lock laid stress on the fact that Raphael Craig had been fined for furious motor-car driving. But what of that? It is a misfortune which may overtake the wisest of us. You, my dear Redgrave, well know that even I have several times only narrowly escaped the same ignominious fate. The fact is—and I tell you this candidly—there is something between Mr. Simon Lock and Raphael Craig. When Mr. Lock joined the Board one of his first actions was to suggest that Craig should be asked to resign—why, no one knows. Craig is one of the most able bank managers in London. He would long since have been promoted to a superior post but for Mr. Simon Lock’s consistent opposition. For these reasons, as I say, I am glad that you have retired from the case. For anything I know Raphael Craig may be one of the biggest scoundrels at large. I don’t care. The point is that he has not been fairly treated by us—that is to say, by Simon Lock. I have the honour to be an Englishman, and fair play is my creed.’ His lordship was silent for a space, and then he said, by way of finale, ‘Of course, I rely absolutely upon your discretion, Redgrave.’
Richard nodded.
‘What you say is very interesting,’ he remarked. ‘It is conceivable, then, that Mr. Lock, not to be daunted by my defection, may insist on employing another private detective?’
‘Quite conceivable,’ Lord Dolmer admitted.
‘In that case,’ Richard began, and then stopped.
‘What?’ asked Lord Dolmer.
‘Oh, nothing!’ said Richard.
Lord Dolmer smiled, and, still smiling, said:
‘One word of advice, my friend: forget her.’
‘Why?’ Richard questioned absently, and bit his lip.
‘Forget her,’ repeated the Baron.
