Well, he determined, with the ferocious resoluteness of a dogged soul, to follow Lord Dolmer’s advice. He said to himself that there ought to be no special difficulty in doing so, since only three days had passed since he first saw this creature whom he was enjoined to forget. He walked slowly along Piccadilly, down Regent Street, and through Trafalgar Square to his little office in Adelphi Terrace. Some trifling business awaited him there, and this occupied him till the hour of luncheon. He then went out and lunched, as his custom was, at Gatti’s.
Richard’s usual mode of life was extremely simple. His office, a single small room, was on the third-floor of No. 4, Adelphi Terrace. On the fourth-floor he had a bedroom, rather larger than the office, and quite commodious enough for the uses of a young bachelor who had no fancy tastes. When occasion needed he used the office as a sitting-room. All his meals he took out of doors. His breakfasts, which cost him fourpence, he consumed at a vegetarian restaurant hard by; his luncheons and dinners were eaten at Gatti’s. Frequently at the latter establishment he would be content with a dish of macaroni and half a pint of bitter, at an expenditure of eightpence—a satisfying repast. His total expenses were thus very small, and hence, although his income was irregular and fluctuating, he nevertheless continually saved money. It was seldom that less than one hundred pounds stood between him and the workhouse. In case of necessity he could have lived for a whole year, or even two years, on one hundred pounds. So he was always in an independent position. He could always afford not to bend the knee to any employer or client. He was, in fact, just what he looked, a shrewd and confident man, successful and well dressed, who knew how to take care of himself. He spent more on his wardrobe than on anything else, and this, not because he was a coxcomb, but from purely commercial motives. He accepted the world as he found the world, and he had learnt that clothes counted.
All afternoon he did nothing but idle about in his office, wondering whether by that time Lord Dolmer had told Simon Lock of the barren result of his inquiries, and wondering also what the upshot of their interview would be. At seven he dined at Gatti’s. At eight he returned to Adelphi Terrace, and ascended directly to his bedroom. Opening the window wide, he placed an easy-chair in front of it, lighted a pipe, and sat down to perpend upon things in general.
Richard had chosen this bedroom because of its view. It looked out at an angle on the river Thames, stateliest and most romantic of busy streams. It is doubtful if any capital in Europe, unless it be Buda-Pesth, the twin city on the blue Danube, can show a scene equal in beauty to the Thames Embankment and the Thames when the hues and mysteries of sunset are upon them. This particular evening was more than commonly splendid, for after a day of heavy rain the clouds had retreated, and the sun burst out in richest radiance. The red jury-sails of the barges as they floated up-stream with the flowing tide took on the tints of the ruby. The vast masonry of Waterloo Bridge and of Somerset House seemed like gigantic and strange temples uncannily suspended over the surface of the glooming water. In the west Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament stood silhouetted in profound black against the occidental sky. The sky was like Joseph’s coat there, but in the east it was like a maiden’s scarf.
Up from the Embankment rose the hum and roar and rattle of London’s ceaseless traffic. The hansoms had lighted their starry lamps, and they flitted below like fireflies in the shadows of a wood. No stranger could have guessed that they were mere hackney vehicles plying at the fixed rate of two miles for one shilling, and sixpence for every subsequent mile or part of a mile.
‘Yes,’ Richard mused, ‘this is all very well, and I am enjoying it, and nothing could be very much better; but the fact remains that I haven’t earned a cent this blessed day. The fact also remains that I am a bit of a frost. Further, and thirdly, the fact remains that the present state of affairs must be immediately altered.’
His pipe went out.
‘I’ll look in at the Empire,’ he said.
Now, by what process of reasoning a young man who, on his own confession, had drawn a blank day could arrive at the conclusion that the proper thing to do was to go to the Empire we cannot explain. But so it was. He looked at his watch. The hour was nine-fifteen. Half an hour yet, for no self-respecting man-about-town ever thinks of entering the Empire before a quarter to ten! At this point Richard probably fell into a doze. At any rate, a knock on his bedroom-door had to be repeated several times before it attracted his attention.
‘What is it?’ he answered at length.
‘A person to see you, sir,’ said a feminine voice, not without asperity.
‘A person to see me! Oh! ah! er!... Show him into the office. I’ll be down directly.’
He descended to the third-floor, and, instead of the Somerset House acquaintance whom he had expected, he found the very last person that by all the laws of chance ought to have been in his office—he found Mrs. Bridget.
Mrs. Bridget turned round and faced him as he went into the little paper-strewn room. She was dressed in black alpaca, with a curiously-shaped flat black bonnet. Her hands, which were decently covered with black gloves, she held folded in front of her.
Richard said nothing at first. He was too astounded, and—shall we say?—pleased. He scented what the reporters call ‘further revelations’ of an interesting nature.
‘Good-avenin’,’ said Bridget; ‘and can ye see a lady privately?’
‘Certainly,’ said Richard, ‘I can see you privately; but,’ he added, with a mischievous smile, ‘I’m afraid our interview won’t amount to much unless you’re more communicative than you were this morning.’
‘Bless and save ye, sir! ’tis not meself that wants ye—’tis her.’
‘Her?’
‘The misthress sent me up to find out whisht whether ye could be seen.’
‘Miss Craig is outside?’
‘The same, sir. Ye’ll see her?’
‘See her? Naturally I will see her. But—but—how did you discover my address?’
By this time they were hurrying down the multitudinous steps to the ground-floor.
‘Sure, we called at the Williamson Company, and they said you’d left and they didn’t know your address. And then we came out, and who should we see but Mr. Puddephatt leading a pony. ’Twas the Virgin’s own miracle! “Hullo!” he says, lifting his hat.
“Puddephatt,” says my mistress——’
The recital was never finished, for at that moment they reached the front-door. In the roadway stood the Décauville motor with lights gleaming. By the side of the Décauville stood Teresa Craig enveloped in a gray mackintosh.
Richard’s face showed his intense pleasure at the most unlooked-for encounter.
‘Miss Craig,’ he said eagerly, ‘I hope you are in no trouble. Can I be of any assistance?’
She glanced at him coldly, inimically.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ she replied with bitterness, and then looked about—the little street was deserted—‘I have come to seek an explanation from you. If you are an honourable man you will give it. And I have come, much against my inclination, to ask a favour. Bridget, take care of the motor.’
She swept imperially before him into the portals of the house.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ said Teresa, in a tone which clearly indicated that she meant to lead the conversation, ‘we have not seen each other since I was so foolish as to faint in the—the shed.’
They sat together in Richard’s little office. It was not without difficulty that he had induced her even to sit down. Her demeanour was hostile. Her fine, imperious face had a stormy and implacable look—a look almost resentful, and Richard felt something of a culprit before that gaze. He met her eyes, however, with such bravery as he could muster.
‘Not since then,’ he assented. ‘I trust you are fully recovered, Miss Craig.’
Ignoring the utterance of this polite hope, she resumed:
‘I have to thank you for the service you rendered on Saturday night.’
‘It was nothing,’ he said, in a voice as cold and formal as her own.
‘It was everything,’ she corrected him gravely. ‘I might have lost my life but for you.’
‘I am happy to have been of any assistance,’ he said. But his thoughts ran: ‘She hasn’t come to London to tell me this. What the deuce, then, has she come for?’
‘Bridget tells me you had an interview with my father that night. May I ask what passed?’ Teresa continued.
‘You have not seen your father since then?’ said Richard.
‘I have not.’ Her voice seemed momentarily to break.
‘Or doubtless he would have told you?’
‘Doubtless.’
Richard determined to try a bold stroke.
‘I understood from Mr. Craig that he wished our interview to be strictly confidential.’
‘What?’ she cried. ‘From me? From his daughter?’
She stood up, suddenly angry.
‘If, indeed, you are his daughter,’ said Richard quietly.
Her eyes blazed, and her hands shook; but she collected herself, and smiled bitterly:
‘You, then, have heard that silly rumour?’
‘By chance I heard it,’ he admitted.
‘And you believe it?’
‘I neither believe it nor disbelieve it. What has it to do with me?’
‘Exactly,’ she said; ‘a very proper question. What has it to do with you? Listen, Mr. Redgrave. I have the most serious reasons for asking you to tell me what passed between yourself and my father on Saturday night.’
A look of feminine appeal passed swiftly across her features. Fleeting as it was, it sufficed to conquer Richard. A minute ago he had meant to dominate her. Now he was dominated.
‘I will tell you,’ he said simply, and told her—told her everthing without any reservation.
‘Then my father did not accuse you of being a professional spy?’ she demanded when Richard had finished.
‘No,’ said Richard, somewhat abashed.
‘He did not accuse you of having entered our house under entirely false pretences?’
‘No,’ said Richard, still more abashed.
There was a silence.
‘I wonder,’ she said calmly, glancing out of the window, ‘I wonder why he did not.’
She made the remark as though she were speculating privately upon a curious but not very important point.
‘Miss Craig!’ he exclaimed, with an air of being affronted.
I read in a famous book the other day,’ she went on, ‘these words: “A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life.”’
‘Do you mean to insinuate,’ said Richard, forced to defend himself, ‘that I am a professional spy?’
‘I not only mean to insinuate it, I mean to assert it,’ she announced loftily, and then continued more quickly: ‘Mr. Redgrave, why did you come to spy on us? For two whole days I trusted you, and I liked you. But that night, as soon as I saw you behind me in the shed, the truth burst upon me. It was that, more than anything else, that caused me to faint. Why did you do it, Mr. Redgrave? My father liked you; I—I—I——’ She stopped for a moment. ‘Surely a man of your talents could have found a profession more honourable than that of a spy?’
She looked at him, less angry than reproachful.
‘I am a private detective,’ said Richard sullenly, ‘not a spy. My business is perfectly respectable.’
‘Why trouble to play with words?’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘We took you for a gentleman. In our simplicity we took you for a gentleman.’
‘Which I trust I am,’ said Richard.
‘Prove it!’ she cried.
‘I will prove it in any manner you choose.’
‘I accept your promise,’ she said. ‘I have travelled up to London to make an appeal to you to abandon this inquiry which you have undertaken—at whose instance I know not.’
‘I cannot abandon it now,’ he said mischievously.
‘Why?’ she queried.
‘Question for question,’ he retorted. ‘How did you discover that I was a professional spy, as you call it?’
‘Bah!’ she replied. ‘Simply by asking. When I got your address, the rest was easy. So you decline to be a gentleman in the manner that I suggest? I might have anticipated as much. I might have known that I was coming to London on a fool’s errand. And yet something in your face hinted to me that perhaps after all——’
‘Miss Craig,’ he said earnestly, ‘I cannot, abandon the inquiry now, because I have already abandoned it. I came down to London this morning with the intention of doing nothing more in the matter, and by noon to-day I had informed my clients to that effect.’
‘I was not, then, mistaken in you,’ she murmured.
To his intense astonishment there was the tremor of a sob in that proud voice.
‘Not entirely mistaken,’ he said, with a faint smile.
‘What induced you to give up the business of spying upon us?’ she asked, looking at him.
‘How can I tell?’ he answered; ‘conscience, perhaps, though a private detective is not supposed to possess such a thing. Perhaps I did it because I reciprocated your sentinents towards me, Miss Craig.’
‘My sentiments towards you?’
‘Yes,’ he said audaciously. ‘You said just how that you liked me.’
Instead of taking offence, she positively smiled. She had the courage of a guileless heart.
‘And let me tell you, Miss Craig,’ he went on, and his earnestness became passionate, ‘that I will do anything that lies in my power to serve you. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care what trouble you are in; count on me.’
‘How do you know that I am in trouble?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said; ‘I merely feel it Miss Craig, let me help you.’
‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ she replied evasively.
He jumped up and seized her hand, the small hand, browned by summer sunshine.
‘Let me help you,’ he repeated.
‘If you knew,’ she said, hiding her face, ‘what trouble I am in!’
He saw that she was crying. She drew away her hand impulsively.
‘I will help you!’ he exclaimed; ‘the spy the scorned spy, insists on helping you. No, tell me.’
‘Let me go,’ she said. ‘I came to London to entreat your silence and inaction. I went about the affair in a strange and silly way, but it happens that I have succeeded. You have promised to do nothing further. That suffices Let me go.’
‘You shall not go,’ he almost shouted; ‘I tell you you shall not go until you have confided in me. I owe you some reparation, and I positively insist on giving it.’
She raised her face and gazed at him.
‘I am the child of all misfortune,’ she said ‘as my country is the most unfortunate of countries. Mr. Redgrave, my father has disappeared.’
‘Oh!’ he said, as if to say, ‘Is that all?’
‘And I dare not search for him.’
‘They told me at the bank that he had gone on his annual holiday.’
‘Then you inquired at the bank?’ she asked swiftly.
‘It was my last act of spying,’ he said. ‘Why dare you not search for your father, Miss Craig?’
‘Because—because I might find more than I wished to find.’
‘You talk in riddles,’ he said firmly. ‘We can do nothing here; let us go back to Hockiffe.
I will accompany you, and on the way you shall answer my questions. I have many to put to you. Leave everything to me; imagine that I am your brother. I have often laughed at the man’s phrase to a woman, “I would lay down my life for you,” but at this moment I feel what it means. Do not mistake me; do not think I am talking wildly. Perhaps I have a better idea of your trouble than you think. But, in any case, you must trust me as you trusted me when first you saw me. You must rely on me. Come, let us go.’
She rose and moved towards the door, ‘Thanks,’ she said, nothing more than that—‘thanks.’
In one part of his mind Richard wondered at himself, in another he felt curiously and profoundly happy.
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’sWestminster 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.’