The blazing door was locked. Richard called, shouted shouted again.
There was no answer, but in the extraordinary outer silence he could
still hear the industrious shovelling of silver.
‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘they’re bound to find out pretty soon that
the show’s on fire.’
He threw himself against the door angrily, and, to his surprise, it
yielded, and he fell over the river of flame into the interior of
the shed. The noise at last startled Raphael and Teresa out of the
preoccupation of their task.
‘Haven’t you perceived that the place is being burned down?’ he
exclaimed drily.
At the same instant he sprang towards Teresa. The stream of burning
petrol had found its way into the central runnel of the stone floor, and
so had suddenly reached the hem of Teresa’s dress, which already showed
a small blaze. Fortunately, it was a serge travelling frock; had it
been of light summer material, Teresa would probably have been burnt to
death. Richard dragged her fiercely from the region of the runnel, and
extinguished the smouldering serge between his hands, which showed the
scars of that timely action for a fortnight afterwards. He glanced round
quickly, saw a pile of empty sacks in a corner--had they been used as
money-bags? he wondered--and, seizing several of them, laid them fiat
on the burning petrol and against the door. His unhesitating celerity no
doubt prevented a magnificent conflagration. The petrol, it is true, had
nearly burnt itself out, but the woodwork of the door was, in fireman’s
phrase, ‘well alight,’ and, being aged and rotten, it formed a quick
fuel.
When the flames had been conquered, the three occupants of the shed
looked at each other without a word. Strange to say, under the steady
gaze of Raphael Craig, Richard’s eyes blinked, and he glanced in another
direction--up at the little window in the opposite wall where he had
seen the face of Micky, but where the face of Micky was no longer on
view. Then he looked again at Raphael Craig, whose dark orbs seemed to
ask accusingly: ‘What are you doing here?’ And, despite the fact that he
had in all probability been the means of saving Teresa’s life, he could
not avoid the absurd sensation of having been caught in a misdeed.
He felt as if he must explain his presence to Raphael Craig. At that
juncture, we are obliged to confess, his imperturbability deserted him
for a space.
‘I--I happened to be passing the end of the road,’ he said lamely, ‘and
I saw what I took to be a flame, so I ran along--and found--this, I’m
glad it’s no worse.’
‘So am I,’ said Raphael Craig, with cold gravity.
Teresa was silent.
‘I’m glad I was in time,’ said Richard, as awkwardly as a boy.
‘I’m glad you were,’ Mr. Craig agreed.
‘It is possible that my daughter owes her life to you. I cannot imagine
how I could have been so careless with that petrol. It was inexcusable.
We thank you, Mr. Redgrave, for your services so admirably rendered.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Richard; ‘that’s nothing at all.’
The whole interview was becoming too utterly ridiculous. But what could
be said or done? It was the heaps of silver coins lying about that
rendered the situation so extremely difficult. Useless for Raphael Craig
to pretend that he and Teresa had been engaged in some perfectly usual
and common-place task. Useless for Richard, notwithstanding his lame
explanation, to pretend that he had not been spying. The heaps of
silver made all parties excessively self-conscious, and when you are
self-conscious you can never say the right thing in the right manner.
It was Raphael Craig who first, so to speak, came to himself.
‘As you are here, Mr. Redgrave,’ he said, ‘as you have already laid us
under one obligation, perhaps you will consent to lay us under another.
Perhaps you will help us to finish off these few coins. Afterwards I
will beg the honour of a few words with you in private.’
It was magnificent, thought Richard, this audacious manouvre of the old
man’s. It took the bull by the horns in a very determined fashion. It
disarmed Richard instantly. What course, save that of complying with so
calm and courteous a request, could he pursue? He divined that Raphael
Craig was not a man moulded to the ordinary pattern of bank managers,
‘With pleasure,’ he replied, and thereupon the heaps of silver seemed
less bizarre, less confusing, less productive of a general awkwardness.
By a fiction unanimously agreed to, all three began to behave as if
shovelling thousands of new silver coins at dead of night in a disused
stable was a daily affair with them.
Still without uttering a word, Teresa handed her galvanized iron bucket
to Richard. He noticed a little uncertainty in the motion of her hand as
she did so. The next moment there was a thud on the floor of the stable.
Teresa had fainted. She lay extended on the stone floor. Richard ran to
pick up that fair frame. He had lifted the girl’s head when the old man
interposed.
‘Never raise the head of a person who has lost consciousness,’ he said
coldly; ‘it is dangerous. Teresa will recover in a few minutes. This
swoon is due only to the shock and strain of the last few minutes. In
the meantime, will you open the door?’
Richard, having complied, stood inactive, anxious to do something, yet
finding nothing to do.
‘Shall I fetch some water from the house?’ he asked. ‘Swoons are
sometimes very serious if they last too long.’
‘Are they, my friend?’ said Raphael, with the trace of a smile. ‘This
one is already over--see?’
Teresa opened her eyes.
‘What are you two staring at?’ she inquired curiously, and then sighed
as one fatigued.
Her father raised her head in his arm and held it so for a few moments.
‘Now, my chuck,’ he said, ‘try if you can stand. Mr. Redgrave, will you
assist me?’
Mr. Redgrave assisted with joy. The girl at length stood up, supported
on one side by Raphael Craig and on the other by the emissary of Simon
Lock. With a glance at Richard, she said she could walk. Outside stood
the motor-car.
‘Shall we take her round to the front-door on this?’ Richard suggested.
‘Are you mad?’ exclaimed Raphael Craig, with sudden disapproval. ‘Teresa
will walk.’
He locked the charred door of the stable with a padlock which he took
from his pocket, and they proceeded to the house.
Bridget stood at the front-door, seeming to expect them.
‘You’re not well, mavourneen,’ she said, glancing at Teresa’s face, and
led the girl away.
During the whole of the time spent by him at Queen’s Farm nothing
impressed Richard more than the impassive yet affectionate demeanour of
Mrs. Bridget, that mysterious old servant, on this occasion.
The two men were left together in the hall. Mrs. Bridget and Teresa had
gone upstairs.
‘Mike!’ Raphael Craig called.
‘Yes, sorr,’ answered Mike, appearing from a small butler’s pantry under
the staircase.
‘Bring whisky into the drawing-room.’
‘That I will, sorr.’
Richard admired Micky’s sangfroid, which was certainly tremendous, and
he determined to have an interview with the man before many hours were
past, in order to see whether he could not break that sangfroid down.
‘Come into the drawing-room, will you?’, said Raphael Craig.
‘Thanks,’ said Richard.
The drawing-room proved to be the room into which Mr. Craig had vanished
on the _previous_ night. It presented, to his surprise, no unusual
feature whatever. It had the customary quantities of chairs, occasional
tables, photographs, knicknacks, and cosy corners. It was lighted by a
single lamp suspended from the middle of the ceiling. The only article
of furniture that by any stretch of fancy could be termed extraordinary
in a drawing-room was a rather slim grandfather’s clock in an inlaid
case of the Sheraton period. This clock struck one as they went into the
room.
Micky arrived with the whisky.
‘You will join me?’ asked Raphael, lifting the decanter.
‘Thanks,’ said Richard.
‘That will do, Mike.’
Mike departed. The two men ignited cigars and drank. Each was seated in
a large easy-chair.
‘Now for it,’ said Richard to himself.
Mr. Raphael Craig coughed.
‘I dare say, Mr. Redgrave,’ the bank manager began, ‘that certain things
which you have seen this evening will have struck you as being somewhat
strange.’
‘I am happy to have been of any help,’ said Richard.
Raphael bowed.
‘I will not disguise from you,’ he continued, that when you arrived here
in such a peculiar manner last night I had my suspicious of your good
faith. I even thought for a moment--it was very foolish of me--that you
were from Scotland Yard. I don’t know why I should have thought that,
but I did think it.’
‘Really,’ said Richard, ‘I have not the least connection with Scotland
Yard. I told you my business.’
‘I believe you,’ said Raphael. ‘I merely mention the course of my
thoughts concerning you. I am fully convinced now that, despite certain
unusual items connected with your visit, you are exactly what you said
you were, and for my doubts I now offer apology. To tell you the truth,
I inquired from the Williamson Company this morning as to you, and was
quite reassured by what they said. But,’ Mr. Craig went on, with a
very pronounced ‘but,’ interrupting Richard, who had embarked on some
protest--‘but I have at the same time been forced to the conclusion, Mr.
Redgrave, that my household, such as it is, and my ways, such as
they are, have roused in you a curiosity which is scarcely worthy
of yourself. I am a fairly good judge of character, and I know by
infallible signs that you have a nature far above idle curiosity.’
‘Thanks for your good opinion,’ said Richard; ‘but, to deal with your
suspicions in their order, may I ask why you thought at first that I was
an agent of Scotland Yard? Were you expecting Scotland Yard at Queen’s
Farm?’
He could not avoid a faint ironic smile.
Mr. Craig threw his cigar into the fireplace.
‘I was,’ said Raphael briefly, ‘and I will tell you why. Some time ago
an uncle of mine died, at a great age, and left me a huge fortune. My
uncle, Mr. Redgrave, was mad. For fifty years he had put all his savings
into silver coins. He had once been in a Mexican silver-mine, and the
experience in some mysterious way had affected his brain. Perhaps his
brain was already affected. He lived for silver, and in half a century
he collected more than half a million separate silver coins--all
English, all current, all unused. This fortune he bequeathed to me. I
was, in fact, his sole relative.’
‘A strange old fellow he must have been,’ Richard remarked.
‘Yes,’ said Raphael. ‘But I am equally strange. I have said that
my uncle had a mania. I, too, have that mania, for I tell you, Mr.
Redgrave, that I cannot bring myself to part with those coins. I have
the same madness for silver that my uncle had. Away from the silver, I
can see myself steadily, can admit frankly to myself that on that one
point my brain is, if you like the term, “touched.” In the presence of
the silver I exist solely for it, and can think of nothing else.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Richard dispassionately, ‘I was told in the village
to-day that you paid for everything in silver. If you are so attached
to silver, how can you bring yourself to part with it? Why not pay in
gold?’
‘Because,’ Raphael replied, ‘I never handle gold save in my professional
capacity as bank manager. I take my salary in silver. I cannot help it.
The weight frequently proves a difficulty, but I cannot help it. Silver
I must have. It is in my blood, the desire for silver. True, I pay away
silver--simply because I have no other coins available.’
‘I see,’ said Richard.
He scarcely knew what to think of his strange companion. The man seemed
absolutely sane, absolutely in possession of every sense and faculty,
yet, behold him accusing himself of madness!
‘Let me finish,’ said Raphael Craig. ‘When I came into my uncle’s
fortune I was at a loss what to do with it. The small house which I then
had over at Sewell, near Chalk Hill, had no accommodation for such a
valuable and ponderous collection. I made a confidante of my daughter.
She sympathized with me, and suggested that, at any rate for a time, I
should conceal the hoard in a disused chalk-pit which lay a few hundred
yards from our house. The idea, at first sight rather wild, grew upon
me. I adopted it. Then I took this house, and gradually I have removed
my silver from the chalk-pit to Queen’s Farm. It is hidden in various
quarters of the place. We brought the last load to-night.’
‘This is very interesting,’ said Richard, who had nothing else to say.
‘I have told you this,’ the old man concluded, ‘in order to account to
you for what you saw to-night in that stable. It is but just that you
should know. I thank you again for your prompt services in the matter
of the fire, and I ask you, Mr. Redgrave, to pity the infirmity--the
harmless infirmity--of an old man.’
Raphael Craig stood up and gazed at Richard with his deep-set melancholy
eyes.
‘It is an infirmity which draws suspicion upon this house as a magnet
draws iron. Once already I have had the local police up here making
stupid inquiries. I put them off as well as I could. Daily I am
expecting that the directors of the bank will call me up to explain my
conduct. Yet I cannot do otherwise.’
‘Why,’ said Richard, ‘if you are rich, do you still care to serve the
bank? Pardon my impertinence, but, surely, if you left the bank one
source of your apprehensions would be stopped?’
‘I cannot leave the bank,’ said Raphael Craig, with solemn pathos; ‘it
would break my heart.’
With these words he sank back into a chair, and appeared to be lost in
thought So the two sat for some time. Then Richard rose and went quietly
towards the door.
‘You are the only person, save Teresa, who knows my secret. Remember
that, Mr. Redgrave.’
The manager’s voice sounded weak and distant. Richard bowed and stole
from the room. He sucked at his cigar, but it had gone out.