They passed northwards through the night of London in the DÉcauville car, Richard and Teresa side by side on the front seats, old Mrs. Bridget in her black alpaca behind, up Regent Street, along Oxford Street, up the interminable Edgware Road, through Kilburn, and so on to Edgware and the open road and country.
‘Bridget knows all my secrets, Mr. Redgrave,’ said Teresa. ‘Moreover, she has no ears unless I wish it.’
‘Sure, miss,’ said Bridget, ‘more gets into my head than goes out. ’Tis for all the world like a Jew’s pocket.’
This fragment of conversation was caused by Richard’s sudden stoppage in the middle or a remark about Micky, who, Teresa told him, had disappeared concurrently with her father.
‘What were you going to say about Micky?’
Teresa asked.
‘I was going to say,’ Richard answered, ‘that things are not what they seem.’
‘You mean that Micky, too, was a——’
She hesitated.
‘Yes, like me, only rather more professional.’
‘Bridget told me this morning that she had heard poor father and Micky at high words in the middle of last night. After that she says there was a silence for a long time, and then father called her up and gave her the message for you.’
The sentences were spoken without hesitation, and yet in a strangely unnatural voice.
‘You’re forgetting one little thing, miss.’
‘Hush, Bridget!’ Teresa exclaimed.
‘If I am to help you I must be in possession of the facts.’
‘Tell him, miss; tell the gintleman, do. The gintleman is a gintleman.’
Teresa sat up straight in the speeding car. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you must know. There was a revolver-shot. Bridget says she heard the sound of a revolver-shot. Oh, Mr. Redgrave! what does it mean? I dared not tell you of that before. If my father——’
She ceased.
‘Micky has left no trace behind?’
‘None.’
‘Where did the sound of the shot come from?’
‘Sure, from the drawing-room, where the master always kept his pistol-thing in the clock-case. Master and the scoundrel Micky were talking in there.’
‘Suppose,’ suggested Richard, ‘that it was Micky who had a revolver.’
‘Then he missed his aim,’ said Bridget, ‘for the master came to me afterwards on the upper landing as sound as a bell.’
‘Did he seem agitated?’ Richard asked.
‘Not he! Why should a gintleman seem agitated because he has shot a scoundrel?’
Bridget appeared to glory in the idea that Raphael Craig might indeed have shot the Scotland Yard detective.
‘And since then you have seen nothing of either your father or Micky?’
‘Nothing whatever,’ said Teresa.
‘And you have no notion where they are?’
‘None; at least—no—none.’
‘I observed this morning,’ said Richard quietly, ‘that the new electric car was not in the shed.’
‘Sure, and the master must have ridden off on it with the corpse——’
‘Bridget, silence!’ said Teresa imperatively.
Richard had an uncanny vision of Raphael Craig flying from justice on the electric car, with the corpse of a murdered detective hidden somewhere behind. The vision struck him, though, as amusing. He could not believe in the possibility of such a deed on the part of Raphael Craig. Yet he could see that Bridget’s doubtless fanciful and highly-coloured report of what had passed in the night had so worked on Teresa’s brain, already disturbed by sinister events. He could understand now why she had so incontinently flown to London, in the wild hope of stopping all further inquiries into her father’s proceedings.
The car climbed over the hill on which stands the town of St. Albans, and then slipped easily down towards Redbourne and the twelve miles of lonely and straight Watling Street that separates St. Albans from Dunstable. On this interminable and monotonous stretch of road there are only two villages; mile succeeds mile with a sort of dogged persistency, and the nocturnal traveller becomes, as it were, hypnotized by the ribbon-like highway that stretches eternally in front of him and behind him. It was fortunate that the car ran well. Dunstable was reached in forty minutes after leaving St. Albans, and then as they passed into the mysterious cutting—resembling a Welsh mountain pass—to the north of the ancient borough, the thoughts of all flew forward to the empty farmhouse which Teresa and her attendant had left in the morning. As soon as you emerge from the cutting you can, in daylight, see Queen’s Farm quite plainly on the opposite slope of the valley, two miles away. But at night, of course, you can see nothing of the house of Mr. Raphael Craig unless it is lighted up.
‘Sure, the master’s returned!’ old Mrs. Bridget exclaimed.
A light faintly twinkled from the direction of Queen’s Farm.
This simple phenomenon produced its effect on both Teresa and Richard. The old man had come back, and one mystery, therefore, would at length be solved—provided that the old man chose to open his mouth! The idea of thus approaching a revelation somehow impressed Raphael Craig’s daughter and her companion with a sense of awe, a sense almost of fear. They were secretly afraid lest they might encounter something which it would have been better not to encounter. Each in fancy pictured Raphael Craig alone in the house engaged in a strange business. Each silently asked the question, ‘Where is Micky?’ and answered it with a vague and terrible surmise. The feeling that Raphael Craig was responsible for the disappearance of Micky grew on Richard especially. At first he had scouted it, but he gradually persuaded himself that a man like Raphael Craig was capable of most things, even to disposing of a detective. If Raphael Craig had indeed any criminal secret to hide, and he found out that Micky, a Scotland Yard detective, was prying into the secret, Richard guessed that the fate of Micky might hazardously tremble in the balance.
And another aspect of the affair troubled Richard.
‘If your father has returned,’ he said to Teresa, ‘how shall I explain my presence, or, rather, how will you explain it? It seems to me that I scarcely know myself why I am here with you on this car. I came on the assumption that your father was gone. His presence would make me a rather unnecessary item, wouldn’t it?’
‘Who can tell?’ Teresa murmured absently; and Richard was rather chagrined at this peculiar reply.
The car was now down in the lowest part of the valley, and the house for the moment out of sight. When, as the car breasted the hill, the summit of the slope reappeared to the view, there was no light in Queen’s Farm; the twinkling illumination was extinguished. Only the plain outline of the house stood faintly visible under the waning moon.
‘Perhaps father has gone to bed,’ said Teresa, with a desperate affectation of lightness. ‘I wonder what he would think when he found the house empty.’
Bridget emitted a weird sound which was between a moan and a groan.
‘Happen ’twas a fairy light we saw,’ she said, the deep instincts of Celtic superstition always rising thus at the slightest invitation.
The car at length turned into the boreen, and so reached the house. The gate was opened, and Richard dexterously twisted the car into the drive. The house—gaunt, bare, sinister—showed no sign whatever of life.
The three occupants of the car descended, and stood for a second within the porch.
‘The latch-key, Bridget,’ said Teresa curtly. Bridget produced the latch-key, but on putting it into the keyhole Teresa discovered that the door was already unfastened. A push, and it swung backwards, revealing the gloom of the hall.
‘Shall I go first?’ said Richard.
‘If you please,’ Teresa replied eagerly, and Richard stepped within. The women followed.
He struck a match, which revealed a low bookcase to the left, and on this a candle. He lighted the candle.
‘Stay here,’ he said, ‘and I will search the house.’
‘Sure,’ said Bridget, ‘we’ll stand or fall together. Where you go, me and the mistress go too.’
Richard could not avoid a smile. Together, then, they searched the house from roof to cellar, and found—nothing at all. Apparently not a single thing had been displaced or touched. What could have been the origin of the light which they had seen? Had Mr. Craig returned only to depart again? They stood in the hall asking these questions, which they were unable to answer. Bridget, however, assured that there was nothing of an unusual nature within the house, recovered her wits, and set to work to light lamps in the hall, drawing-room, and kitchen. Richard and Teresa were alone together in the hall. Richard, glancing idly round, stooped down and picked from the floor a gold-handled riding-whip which lay almost under the bookcase. It was a lady’s whip.
‘A pretty whip,’ he remarked. ‘Yours, I suppose?’
Teresa went very white.
‘It isn’t mine,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen it before. I——’
At that very moment there was the sound of hoofs on the gravel of the drive. Richard started for the door, but Teresa clutched him and held him back with an action almost mechanical. Her eyes showed apprehension, mingled with another feeling which Richard almost thought was joy. The hoofs came up the drive and stopped in front of the door, still ajar. The two within the house could just discern the legs of a horse and the skirt of a riding-habit. The rider jumped down, and then cautiously pushed against the door.
‘Juana!’ cried Teresa, and rushed into the arms of the newcomer.
Richard at once recognised the equestrian of Bosco’s circus—tall, dark, Spanish, alluring, mysterious.
The two girls exchanged a passionate kiss, and then stood apart and gazed at each other, Richard discreetly stopped outside and held the horse’s bridle. In this animal he recognised the strawberry-roan mare, also of Bosco’s circus. In a moment the two girls came out on to the porch.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ said Teresa, ‘let me introduce you to my sister. She had called here before, and, finding no one, had left. She came back for her whip. Juana, I am in great trouble. Mr. Redgrave has very kindly come to my assistance.’
Richard bowed.
‘Come into the drawing-room,’ said Teresa, ‘You can tie the mare up to this tree, Juana.
‘I expect she won’t mind the car.’
When they were all seated in the drawing-room Richard immediately perceived that the two girls meant, at any rate partially, to make a confidant of him. They talked quite openly before him.
‘Suppose father should come in?’ said the circus-girl.
‘You must hide,’ said Teresa positively, and, turning to Richard, she went on: ‘Mr. Redgrave, my father has not seen my sister for many months, and there are reasons why he should not see her now. You will understand——’
‘Perfectly,’ assented Richard.
‘On the whole,’ said Juana, ‘I am quite prepared to see my—father.’
The door of the drawing-room burst open, and Bridget’s head appeared.
‘Miss Teresa, there’s someone in the sheds,’ she cried. ‘I heard a noise like that of the Banshee of MacGillicuddy. Eh! Miss Juana, and is it yesilf I see?’
At sight of the circus-girl Bridget wept, but she did not leave the vicinity of the door.
‘Turn out every light,’ said Richard.
No sooner had he said the word than he leapt up and extinguished the lamp which hung from the middle of the ceiling.
‘Run, Mrs. Bridget,’ he commanded, ‘and put out the others.’
Bridget departed.
The other three went out into the porch, and at Richard’s suggestion Juana led her mare away behind the house. They were obliged to leave the car where it stood, since it was impossible to move it without noise.
The house was now in darkness. Bridget had joined the rest in the porch. They stood braced, tense, silent, waiting—waiting for they knew not what.
Presently was heard the ‘birr’ of the electric motor-car from the direction of the outbuildings, and then the vehicle flashed down the boreen at fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Owing partly to the darkness and partly to the height of the glazed ‘cab’ of the machine, a contrivance designed by Mr. Craig himself, the driver of the car could not be recognised, but both Richard and Teresa thought that it could be no other than Raphael Craig, and, further, that he was alone. Just as the car passed Juana’s mare whinnied, and there was an answering whinny from the orchard field where, as it afterwards appeared, Mr. Craig’s two mares had been turned out to grass. But the car showed no inclination to halt.
‘Sure, the master will be after taking it away!’ Bridget exclaimed.
‘Taking what away, Bridget?’ Juana asked.
‘Micky’s cor——’
‘Silence, Bridget, you foolish creature!’ Teresa stopped her. ‘If you can’t talk sense you must go and sit in the kitchen alone.’
This threat resulted in a very complete silence on the part of Bridget.
The car turned southwards down Watling Street.
‘He is going to the chalk-pit,’ said Richard quietly.
‘Perhaps we had better follow discreetly and see what happens,’ said Teresa.
‘I was about to suggest that,’ said Richard; ‘but we ought not all to go.’
‘And why not, Mr. Redgrave?’ Bridget demanded, in alarm at the prospect of being left.
‘Because—well, because we had better not,’ said Richard. ‘Four will make too heavy a load for this car.’
‘Juana,’ said Teresa, ‘you will stay here with Bridget. Mr. Redgrave and myself will reconnoitre, find out what we can, and return to you with as little delay as possible.’
‘Very well,’ said Juana, while old Bridget sighed a sad resignation.
In half a minute they had started and were following the car down the road at a pace which would have been dangerous had not Watling Street been deserted at one o’clock in the morning. The moon still shone, but her light scarcely did more than disclose the sides of the road. The electric car was too far ahead to be discerned.
‘Miss Craig,’ said Richard, ‘your suspicions of what may have happened are obviously more serious than you care to admit. We do not know the nature of the adventure upon which we have embarked. Let me beg you to be frank with me. So far as your knowledge goes, has Mr. Craig committed any act, wittingly or unwittingly, which might bring him within the meshes of the law?’
‘Do you mean, do I know whether he has killed Micky, the detective?’
‘No,’ said Richard sharply; ‘I mean no such thing. Go back earlier than the last few days. Go back a few years, and consider. Mr. Craig told me last night that a relative had died and left him a hundred thousand pounds in silver.’
‘Yes,’ said Teresa; ‘that was Great-uncle Andrew, the man who went to Mexico and then turned “queer.” Father has often told me of him.’
‘You believe that you once had a Great-uncle Andrew, who left all this silver to your father?’
‘Certainly. I remember father having all the papers and things to sign, and him fetching the money in casks on his car.’
‘Fetching it from where?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I forget. Some place near London.’
‘What should you say if I told you that you never had a Great-uncle Andrew, or that if there was such a person, he never left your father any money?’
‘But we went into mourning!’ said Teresa naÏvely.
‘Possibly,’ said Richard.
‘Do you mean to say that poor father made it all up?’
‘With the greatest respect for your father, Miss Craig, I suspect that that was the case. I do not know for certain, but I suspect. Have you, too, not had suspicions? Answer that candidly.’
Teresa hesitated.
‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But I swear to you that I believed my father.’
The car went through the tiny village of Chalk Hill, and their talk was suspended.
Further up the road they could see the open; gate which led by a broad field-path to the chalk-pit, the path along which Richard had seen the elephant dragging the other motor-car two evenings ago. Richard directed the car gently through the gate and then stopped; they dismounted, and crossed the great field on foot.
‘If the matter of the silver was all fair and square,’ said Richard, ‘why did your father deal with the coin so mysteriously? How did he excuse himself to you when he asked your assistance?’
‘He didn’t excuse himself,’ said Teresa stiffly.
‘I acted as he told me. I was his daughter. It was not my place to put questions. Besides, I enjoyed the business. Remember, Mr. Redgrave, that I am not a middle-aged woman.’
As they got on to the highest part of the field they saw at the far end the dim shape of the electric car.
They crept cautiously towards it, and saw no sign of Raphael Craig. At length, avoiding the zigzag path that led down into the pit, they reached the point where the chalk had been cut precipitously away. Still moving with all possible discretion, Richard lay on his stomach and looked over. Twenty-five feet below he saw Raphael Craig standing, apparently in an attitude of triumph, over the prone form of Micky, otherwise Nolan, the detective. A lantern held by Craig showed plainly the drawn and stiffened features of the man from Scotland Yard.
0170
Before Richard could prevent her, Teresa had also looked over.
‘God!’ she cried softly. ‘Is my father a——’
She stopped. The old man glanced mildly upwards.
Richard and Teresa with one accord ran along the edge of the pit, and then down the zigzag path till they stood facing Raphael Craig, the prone body of the detective between them.
‘What is this?’ questioned the old man coldly, pushing back the gray hairs from his forehead. ‘Spying again?’
He looked intently at Richard. He seemed to ignore the silent form on the ground.
‘Father,’ cried Teresa, ‘if you have killed him, fly. Take the motor-car and get away as far as you can and as fast as you can. Mr. Redgrave and I——’
‘Killed him!’ Raphael Craig exclaimed.
‘Why should I kill him? I found him lying here—here where I came to seek him. He must have fallen over this miniature precipice.’
‘He isn’t dead,’ said Teresa eagerly; she had knelt beside the detective.
‘I did not suppose that he was. But if he had been it would have been only a just punishment.’
‘Had we not better carry him to the house, sir?’ Richard suggested quietly.
‘As you wish,’ said Raphael. ‘It appears that you have taken charge of our affairs.’
‘Mr. Redgrave is here at my urgent request, father,’ said Teresa.
‘You!’ Raphael gazed at her hard. ‘You! Shall I curse you as I cursed your sister?’
Nevertheless, he helped Richard to carry the body of the detective up the path and into the field—a task of considerable difficulty. When they reached the electric car they put the lifeless organism into the back part of it.
‘Take him,’ said Mr. Craig to Richard succinctly—‘take him off.’
‘And you?’ said Richard.
‘I will follow.’
Richard and Teresa got into the electric car and moved off down the field. They spoke not a word. Arrived at the house, the detective was taken upstairs and put into a bed by the three women. The lamps had been relighted. The little man had regained consciousness, but he was too feeble to give any utterance to his thoughts. He pointed weakly to his head, whereon his nurses found a lump, but no other sign of injury. They surmised that he was suffering from concussion of the brain, how caused they could only guess. He drank a little brandy-and-water, and lay extended on the bed as though unwilling almost to put himself to the exertion of breathing.
The noise of the DÉcauville sounded outside. Teresa sprang to the window.
‘Here is father, Juana,’ she said anxiously. ‘If he should come upstairs——’
‘Go down and stop him from coming upstairs. Bridget and I will attend to this poor fellow.’
Her voice was charged with sympathy as she glanced at the sufferer on the bed. The reference to himself caused the detective to open his eyes.
‘I fell over the edge of the pit,’ he murmured faintly. ‘It was owing to the short grass being so slippery after the rain.’ He had no Irish accent now.
Then he closed his eyes again.
Teresa gave a sigh of relief as she left the room. Her father, then, was not in thought a murderer.
As she entered the hall from the stairs
Raphael Craig and Richard came in through the front-door. They had housed the two cars.
‘Where is he?’ asked Raphael of his daughter.
‘In the back bedroom, father. He is not seriously hurt.’
‘I will go up and have a look at him,’ said Raphael, actuated apparently by mere idle curiosity.
‘No, father, don’t!’ Teresa pleaded. ‘Bridget is looking after him, and I believe he is just going to sleep.’
Raphael gave a gesture of assent
‘And now, sir,’ he said to Richard, opening the drawing-room door, ‘a word with you.’
The two men passed into the drawing-room. Raphael was closing the door when Teresa stepped forward.
‘I also have a word to say, father,’ she remarked firmly.
‘Say it to me afterwards, then,’ he replied briefly.
‘No. It is a word that must be said now.’
The old man, smiling slightly and ironically, pulled the door open and allowed his daughter to enter the room.
Raphael Craig sat down on the Chesterfield sofa, but Richard and Teresa remained standing, Richard, for his part, determined that there should be no beating about the bush; and he had not the least intention of allowing the old man to put him in the wrong by asking difficult questions. So he began at once, fixing his eyes on a greenish-coloured newspaper that stuck out of Mr. Craig’s right-hand pocket.
‘Mr. Craig,’ he said, ‘let me cut a long story short. I came up here a few days ago to bring you a Williamson electric car. True, I was for the time being a genuine employe of the Williamson Company, but that was not my real business. I confess to you, Mr. Craig, that I am a private inquiry agent. It was in my professional capacity that I visited your House.’
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Craig. ‘You were, then, after all, a spy? I had guessed correctly.’
‘Spy?’ Richard repeated calmly. ‘Yes; it is an epithet that has been applied to me before.’ He glanced at Teresa, who met his glance fairly. ‘To continue,’ he said: ‘I have abandoned my inquiries. To be precise, I gave up my mission this morning; therefore, since I am here again, I am not here as a spy.’
‘What led you to abandon your mission, Mr. Inquiry Agent?’ asked Raphael, stroking his gray beard.
‘I gave it up, Mr. Craig,’ said Richard plumply, ‘out of regard for your daughter.’
‘Indeed!’ Raphael remarked, with the frostiest politeness. ‘So my daughter is fortunate enough to have won your regard?’
‘If you care to put it so.’
‘But,’ said Mr. Craig, ‘all this does not account for your presence here to-night, Mr. Inquiry Agent.’
‘I am here now——’ Richard began, and then stopped.
‘Mr. Redgrave is here now,’ Teresa said, at the same time seating herself, ‘because I asked him to come.’
‘When did you ask him, girl?’
‘I went to London in the DÉcauville to Mr. Redgrave’s office, and——’
‘You went to London alone?’
The old man sprang up thunderously, and the newspaper fell out of his pocket. Richard quietly picked it up from the floor. It was that day’s Westminster Gazette.
‘Bridget went with me,’ said Teresa, quailing before her father’s outburst.
It was evident from both their respective demeanours that Mr. Craig’s temper was not one of absolute serenity.
‘Bridget!’ sneered Raphael. ‘You went down to London to ask Mr. Redgrave to come up to Hockliffe?’
‘I went to ask him to abandon his inquiries.’
‘But still, you brought him back with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘At one o’clock in the morning?’
‘Yes. But, father——’
‘Miss Craig was in a very awkward situation,’ said Richard.
‘I agree with you,’ the old man interposed.
‘And I was anxious to do anything in my power to help her.’
‘And you helped her by visiting this house at one o’clock in the morning during my absence?’
‘Father,’ said Teresa pleadingly, ‘can’t you and I discuss that aspect of the question afterwards? What is it that you want to ask Mr. Redgrave?’
‘My girl,’ said Mr. Craig, ‘we will, if you please, discuss it now. Mr. Redgrave is equally involved with yourself. Remember that it was you that insisted on joining this little conference. You insisted on coming into the room.’ Then he turned to Redgrave. ‘What was the exact nature of the difficult situation in which you say my daughter was placed?’
‘I will tell you, hither,’ said Teresa, standing up. ‘If you insist on Mr. Redgrave hearing it, he shall. I had reason to think that either you had killed Micky, or that Micky had killed you.’
‘And which proposition did you favour?’
‘I favoured,’ said Teresa, with a coldness equalling her father’s, ‘I favoured the proposition that you had killed Micky. Bridget heard a revolver-shot in the night. I knew that you kept a revolver. Bridget had previously heard you and Micky at high words. This morning you had disappeared without warning me. Micky had also disappeared. Father, you were not treating me fairly.’
‘You consider that before I leave my house I must give you “warning” like a servant, eh, Teresa? I wonder what Mr. Redgrave thinks of all this.’
‘I do not see that it matters what Mr. Redgrave thinks,’ said Teresa.
‘It matters greatly,’ the old man contradicted; ‘and I will give you the reason.’ He walked across the room very deliberately to the tall clock. ‘Mr. Redgrave will be your husband, Teresa.’
‘Father!’
Richard tried to think of something suitable to such an extraordinary occasion, but could not.
‘You have hopelessly compromised yourself with him, and he shall marry you.’
‘Never!’ said Teresa, with every nerve tingling with a girl’s pride. ‘I will die first!’
‘Very well,’ said Mr. Craig, with frightful calmness, ‘you will die, Teresa.’
His lips were white, and his eyes blazed as he opened the clock-case and took there from a revolver.
‘Mr. Craig,’ said Richard, ‘may I beg you to remain calm?’
‘I am entirely calm, sir. Teresa, you have never heard your mother’s story. It is the remembrance of that story which makes me firm now. Some day you shall hear it. You may think me mad, but I am not so. You may think me of uncertain temper, mysterious, secretive, a bully, perhaps a criminal. Well, you must think those things; but when you know all, if ever you do know all, you will forgive all.’ His voice softened a little, and then grew firm again. ‘In the meantime, you shall marry Mr. Redgrave. You have visited his room at an unconscionable hour; he has visited this house at an hour still more unconscionable, and there is only one alternative to marriage. I am quite serious when I say that I would sooner see you dead than that you should remain single after this episode. I have seen what I have seen. I know your blood. I know what darkened my life, and darkened your mother’s life, and finally killed her.’
‘You threaten——’ Teresa began.
‘Stop, Teresa!’ Richard exclaimed masterfully, and turning to Raphael Craig: ‘Mr. Craig, nothing will suit me better. I have the honour to ask your daughter’s hand.’
Teresa started violently.
‘As Teresa’s father,’ said Craig solemnly, ‘I give her to you. May she prove a worthy wife!’
‘And you?’ Richard questioned, gazing at Teresa.
‘What a farce!’ Teresa sobbed; but at the same moment, try how she might to prevent it, a smile lighted her tears, and her hand found Richard’s hand.
Mr. Craig put the revolver back into the clock-case.
‘I expect you know that we didn’t yield to that tool of yours,’ said Richard half playfully. ‘I am truly fond of Teresa—that is the explanation. You wouldn’t have used that revolver, though you are certainly in some ways a strange man.’
‘As you are good enough to say, Redgrave, I am a strange man. I should have used the revolver.’
The way in which these words were uttered created a profound impression on Richard. Releasing Teresa’s hand, he began to consider what course he should now adopt in the joint interest of himself and of Teresa. He could not dismiss the suspicion that he had a madman to deal with.
‘If I may,’ said he to Mr. Craig, ‘I should like a few words with Teresa outside. After that there are several things to be settled between you, sir, and me.’
Mr. Craig nodded.
‘It is late,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Richard, ‘but such nights as this do not follow every day in the week.’
‘Teresa!’ the young lover exclaimed when they were in the hall, ‘say you don’t regret. I have loved you since the moment I saw you first.’
‘I don’t regret,’ she said simply. ‘Why should I?’
‘Call me Dick,’ he demanded.
‘Dick.’
‘And kiss me.’
She kissed him.
‘Thanks,’ he said in his curious, undisturbed way; ‘that is indeed good. Now go to bed and rest. I will have a thorough explanation with your father at once. I am determined on that. We must know where we stand, you and I;’ and without waiting for her to make any reply, he flung back into the drawing-room and slammed the door.
Raphael still sat on the Chesterfield, apparently lost in thought.
‘Mr. Craig,’ Richard began, ‘I am now, for practical purposes, a member of your family. Your interests are, presumably, your daughter’s interests, and your daughter’s interests are certainly my interests; therefore——’
‘Therefore?’ repeated Mr. Craig imperturbably.
‘Therefore,’ said Richard, ‘don’t you think you had better let me into some of your secrets?’
‘As, for example——’
‘The secret, for example, of what has occurred between you and Micky, whose real name you have doubtless learnt since I left you on Saturday night last. I should tell you that I had ascertained the identity of that gentleman immediately upon the conclusion of my interview with you.’
‘And I,’ said Mr. Craig, ‘ascertained it about twenty-four hours later. It was then that the revolver-shot occurred. The revolver-shot hurt no one and nothing except the piano.’ Here Mr. Craig lifted up the embroidered damask cover of the piano, and showed splintered wood beneath. The perforation in the damask cover was scarcely noticeable. He continued: ‘I was angry at the man’s calm insolence when I taxed him with being a detective. I aimed to hit, but aimed badly. Having missed, I thought better of the idea of an immediate killing, and told him to go. He went. I saw nothing of him again till I saw him lying senseless in the pit to-night; but I guessed that he was still prowling about.’
‘Thanks,’ said Richard.
‘Thanks for what?’ asked the old man.
‘For your candour. I hope you will trust me and confide in me.’ Richard was now trying to be extremely diplomatic. ‘In spite of appearances, I still believe that you are an honourable man, engaged, however, in some scheme which may involve you in difficulties. Mr. Craig, let me beg you, most respectfully, to continue your frankness; you can lose nothing by it. I need not point out to you that you have been very fortunate to-night.’
‘In what way?’
‘In the fact that I happen to have fallen in love with Teresa, and was tempted beyond resistance by the opportunity offered by your amazing proposition. My love for Teresa has not, I hope, impaired my judgment, and my judgment infallibly tells me that you had a far more powerful reason than that of propriety for urging my engagement to your daughter. And, Mr. Craig, I venture to guess that your reason was that I knew too much of your affairs. You discerned the nature of my feelings towards your daughter, and you determined on a bold stroke. You are an incomparable actor.’
Mr. Craig slowly smiled; it was a smile of almost tragic amusement.
‘Your insight does you credit, Redgrave,’ he said at length. ‘I admit that it was part of my wish to secure your silence, and perhaps your co-operation. Nevertheless, my chief reason for insisting on a betrothal was a regard for Teresa’s future. There are pages in the history of my life that——’ He stopped.
‘We will not go into that,’ he said shortly.
‘As you please,’ Richard assented. ‘Perhaps, to change the subject, you will tell ‘me your object in disappearing so completely to-day, to the grave alarm of my future wife?’
The youth’s spectacles gleamed with good-humoured mischief.
‘I had to perform a certain excursion,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘Now, why in the name of fortune, sir, don’t you say at once that you went to London?’
‘How do you know that I went to London?’
‘By this paper.’ Richard pointed to the Westminster Gazette, which lay on the floor. ‘It is to-night’s special edition. The Westminster Gazette is not on sale in Hockliffe.’
‘Yes,’ said the old man half dreamily, ‘I went to London.’
‘In order to close finally the estate of your uncle, who left you all that silver?’
The irony of Richard’s tone was not lost on the old man.
‘What do you mean, boy?’
‘I said a few moments ago, sir, that you were an incomparable actor. I alluded to our previous interview in this room. Most cheerfully I admit that Teresa’s father imposed on me then to perfection. I believed you absolutely. Since then——’
‘What?’
‘Since then I have found out that you never had any uncle, and that, consequently, your uncle, being non-existent, could not have left you a hundred thousand pounds in silver coin.’
Raphael Craig took a long, deep breath.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I lied to you. But it was a good lie—a lie which I have used so often during the last year or two that I had almost come to believe it truth. You are a clever fellow, Redgrave. How did you discover this?’
‘To be precise,’ said Richard, ‘it was not I, but your precious Micky, who discovered it.’
‘Then you are not so clever a fellow.’
‘Clever enough, sir, to go straight to the point. And the point is, the point at which I have been gradually arriving since our talk began—how did you become possessed of that silver? I ask the question, and I demand an answer to it, as the affianced of your daughter.’
At this moment the lamp, short of oil, began to give a feeble and still feebler light. A slight smell of oil filled the room. Both men instinctively glanced up at the lamp.
‘Redgrave, I may, at any rate, assure you that you are not about to marry a thief’s daughter.’
‘No, sir; probably not. But I may be about to marry the daughter of a man who in some other way has made an enemy of the law.’
‘Listen,’ said Raphael Craig, ‘and believe that I am not acting now. Twenty years ago I formed a scheme, a life-plan. To the success of this scheme money was absolutely essential, money in large quantities. How was I to get it? I was in the service of a bank, and this fact was very helpful to the success of my scheme. I therefore did not wish to leave the bank. But a bank manager cannot make money. At least, he cannot make much money. I needed a lot. I thought and thought, and at length I arrived at the solution of the problem. I began to make money.’
‘But how?’ asked Richard, not yet caring to seem to perceive the old man’s meaning.
‘I made it—made it steadily for nearly twenty years.’
‘You coined it?’
‘I coined it.’
‘Then during the whole of this time you have been spreading bad money everywhere, and have never been found out?’
‘I didn’t make bad money, Redgrave. I made perfectly good money. I cheated no one. I merely sinned against the law. The price of silver, as you know, has been steadily decreasing for many years. The silver in a half-crown, as silver, is now worth little more than a shilling. A half-crown piece is only worth half-a-crown because we choose to call it so. Consult any book on coinage, and you will find that what I say is strictly true. What more easy, then, given the mechanical skill, which I possessed, than to make and utter genuine money at a substantial profit? I made a profit of fifty per cent, on my coinage, and no one on earth can distinguish my money from that of the Mint. It will stand any test.’
Richard did not conceal that he was impressed by the fine simplicity and effectiveness of Raphael’s scheme.
‘But,’ the old man continued, ‘I made money faster than I could get rid of it. It gradually accumulated. Then it was that I invented my Mexican uncle, so that I might deal with the coin more openly.’
‘Yes?’ said Richard.
‘That is all,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘But the object of the scheme?’ asked Richard. ‘You said you needed all this money for a certain scheme.’
‘Yes,’ said the old man solemnly, ‘and the scheme is approaching fruition. Yet a little time, and my task will be done.’
‘It is well,’ Richard put in, ‘that your scheme is nearly completed, for the methods you have employed might even now be found out, and then good-bye to the scheme, whatever it is.’
Raphael Craig smiled.
‘No, my friend,’ he remarked composedly, ‘nothing can upset it now. The last of my silver is disposed of—safely negotiated. Go into my sheds now, and you will discover—nothing. My machinery is destroyed; all evidence is annihilated. For twenty years I have been crossing an abyss by means of a tight-rope; at any moment I might have been precipitated into the gulf. But at last I am on firm ground once more. It is the Other, now, who will shortly be plunged into the abyss.’
‘The Other!’ Richard repeated, struck by the strange and mordant accent with which Raphael Craig had pronounced that word.
‘The Other,’ said the old man. ‘His hour comes.’
‘And who is he?’ demanded Richard.
‘That,’ Raphael Craig said, ‘you will never know until my deed is accomplished. The train is laid, the fuse is ignited. I have only to wait.’
‘Then you will tell me nothing more?’ said Richard.
‘Have I not interested you so far?’ said the old man.
‘Undoubtedly, but my curiosity is still not quite sated.’
‘It occurs to me that your curiosity exceeds mine. By what right, young man, do you put all these questions? I have never sought to cross-examine you, as I might have done.’
‘Under the circumstances,’ said Richard, ‘I think you have a perfect right to know, and certainly I have no objection to telling you. I came on behalf of the directors of the bank.’
‘Which means Mr. Simon Lock,’ said Raphael Craig.
‘Which means Mr. Simon Lock,’ Richard cheerfully admitted.
‘Ah!’
‘Then you decline to admit me further into your confidence?’ Richard doggedly persisted.
‘Redgrave,’ said the old man, standing up, my scheme is my own. It is the most precious thing I have—the one thing that has kept me alive, given me vitality, vivacity, strength, hope. During all these years I have shared it with none. Shall I share it now? Shall I share it with a man young enough to be my son, a man who forced himself into my house, wormed himself into the secrets of my private life? I shall not. It is too sacred a thing. You do not know what my scheme means to me; you cannot guess all that is involved in it. I can conceive that you might even laugh at my scheme—you who do not yet know what life is and what life means.’
Raphael Craig resumed with dignity his seat on the sofa. Richard was impressed by this exhibition of profound feeling on the part of the old man. He was inclined to admit, privately, that perhaps the old man was right—perhaps he did not know what life was and what life meant; perhaps there were things in life deeper, more terrible, than he had ever suspected.
A silence fell upon the room. The old man seemed not inclined to break it; Richard, still under the hypnotism of the scene, would not speak. To relieve the intensity of the moment he quietly opened the Westminster Gazette. The lamp had sunk lower and lower, and it was with difficulty that he could read. His eye, however, chanced to fall on the financial page, and there, as the heading of a paragraph in the ‘Notes,’ he saw these words: ‘LOCK RUMOURS.’ He brought the page nearer to his face, and read: ‘The rumours that the Lock group are in serious difficulties was again rife on ’Change to-day. Mr. Simon Lock, seen by one of our representatives, merely smiled when told of the prevalence of these sinister rumours. He gave our representative the somewhat cryptic answer that we should see what we should see. We do not doubt the truth of this remark. Dealing in the shares of the newly-floated “La Princesse” Gold Mining Company (Westralian) was very active this morning, but fell flat after lunch. The one-pound shares, which, after a sensational rise last week, fell on Thursday to a shade over par, are now at five and a half, with a distinct tendency to harden, in spite of the fact that the demand is slight.’
Richard looked up from the paper.
‘I see,’ he said, with interest, ‘that it is not absolutely all plain sailing even with the great Simon Lock. Did you read this paragraph here about him?’
‘No,’ murmured the old man. ‘Read it to me.’
Richard did so in the rapidly-dying light.
‘Very curious and interesting,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘I have sometimes permitted myself to wonder whether our respected chairman is, after all, the impregnable rock which he is usually taken for.’
At this moment the lamp went out, and the two men sat in absolute darkness.
The next ensuing phenomenon was the sound of an apparently heavy body falling down the stairs into the hall, and then a girl’s terrified scream.
Richard sprang to the door, but a few moments elapsed before his fingers could find the handle. At length he opened the door. The lamp in the hall was still brightly burning. At the foot of the stairs lay Nolan, the detective, wrapped in a bedgown. At the head of the stairs, in an attitude of dismay, stood Juana.
There was a heavy and terrible sigh at Richard’s elbow. He turned his head sharply. Raphael Craig stood behind him, his body swaying as though in a breeze.
‘Juana!’ he stammered out hoarsely, his eyes fixed on the trembling girl.
‘Do not curse me again, father,’ she cried, with a superb gesture; ‘I have suffered enough.’
An oak chest stood to the left of the drawing-room door. Raphael Craig sank down upon it, as if exhausted by a sudden and frightful emotion.
‘Go!’ he said in a low voice.
But the girl came steadily downstairs towards him.
No one seemed to take any notice of the body of the detective.
