Would our mother have wished it?
These words, uttered in a tone of grave, sad questioning, were followed
by a hush among the group which sat under the trees in the orchard
that same afternoon. The two mares belonging to Mr. Craig, and Juana’s
strawberry roan, were feeding close by, the summer flies their sole
trouble. The group consisted of Raphael Craig, the two girls who, as he
had said, were his daughters by right of all he had done for them, and
Richard. Old Craig had, without any reservation, told Juana and Teresa
the history of their mother, and the history of his vengeance on the man
who had so cruelly wronged their mother. He explained to them, with a
satisfaction which he took no trouble to hide, how Simon Lock, after a
career of splendour, was now inevitably doomed to ruin. He told them how
for twenty years he had lived solely for the achievement of that moment,
and that, now it had come, he was content.
But Juana had said, ‘Would our mother have wished it?’ And her
phrase reminded Richard of the old man’s phrase to Simon Lock in the
morning--‘Hers was a gentle heart.’ The sisters looked at each other,
unquiet, irresolute.
‘This Simon Lock is our real father, then?’ said Teresa.
‘Have I not just told you so?’ said the old man.
‘Let him off, father,’ Juana murmured; and Teresa’s eyes, though she
said nothing, supported her sister.
‘Why?’ asked Raphael Craig.
‘Surely you despise him too much to notice him. Is not the best
punishment for him his own conscience and your silent contempt?’
‘No,’ cried the old man, suddenly starting up. ‘No, I will never let him
go free! After all these years of labour and sleepless watching, shall
I take my hands! off his throat now? You don’t know what you ask, Juana.
But you were always against me, Juana, ever since you were a little
child--you who bear your mother’s name, too!’
‘Nay, father,’ said Juana; ‘I admire your defence of my mother. I love
you for it. I think you are the noblest man alive. But you will be
nobler if you let this man go free. He is beneath your notice.’
‘Never!’ repeated the old man, and walked quickly out of the orchard.
The three young people, left together, scarcely knew what to say to
each other. The girls were, very naturally, excited and perturbed by the
recital to which they had just listened. As for Richard, he was still
in a state of suspense, of apprehension, almost of fear. To him the very
atmosphere of Queen’s Farm seemed to be charged with the messages of
fate. Raphael Craig’s profound self-satisfaction struck Richard as quite
child-like. Did this man, so experienced in the world, really think that
Simon Lock would quietly allow himself to be ruined? Did he really think
that the struggle was over? And if, on the other hand, he thought that
Simon Lock would procure his arrest, was he actually prepared to go to
prison, and to die there? Richard pictured Simon Lock as planning all
sorts of deep-laid schemes against Raphael Craig. He felt that Simon
Lock would never be ‘at the end of his tether,’ as the old man had
termed it, until Simon Lock was dead. He felt just a little bit for
Simon Lock on account of the humiliations which that proud personage
had been made to suffer that morning, and he felt so, despite his
detestation of Lock’s past career and of his general methods. He found
it impossible to get very angry about a sin committed twenty years ago.
That night Nolan, the detective, though better than on the previous day,
was suffering from a slight temporary relapse. Richard volunteered to
sit up with him, as the man could only sleep at intervals. Both Bridget
and Juana were exhausted with the nursing, and Juana would not hear of
Teresa sitting up. So it came about that Richard insisted on performing
the duty himself.
It was a warm summer night, rather too warm for comfort, and for a
little space the two men talked on miscellaneous subjects. Then Nolan
asked for something to drink, and having drunk, went off into a sound
sleep. So far as Richard could see, the patient was better again.
Richard occupied an easy-chair by the window. There was twilight all
through the night. For a long time Richard gazed idly out of the
window into the western arch of the sky. As hour after hour passed
the temperature grew chilly. He closed the window. Nolan still slept
peacefully. Richard drew down the blind, and said to himself that he
would have a doze in the easy-chair.
The next thing of which he was conscious was a knocking at the door.
‘Yes, yes,’ he answered sleepily, and Mrs. Bridget burst in.
‘Mr. Redgrave!’ she cried, ‘an’ have ye heard nothing? Surely the
ould master’s not in his bed, and something’s happened. May the Virgin
protect us all this night?’
Richard saw wild terror in the woman’s eyes. He sprang up. He was
fully and acutely awake, but the sick man slept on. He went quietly and
quickly out of the room. Juana and Teresa stood in the passage, alarmed
and dishevelled.
‘He is gone!’ Teresa exclaimed. ‘I wonder you heard nothing, as his
was the next room. It was Bridget who heard a sort of shout, she says,
outside, and then looked out of her window, and she thinks she heard a
motorcar.’
‘Which way was it going?’ asked Richard.
‘Sure and it’s meself that can’t tell ye, sir,’ said Mrs. Bridget.
Richard reflected a moment.
‘Why has he gone off like this in the night?’ questioned Juana.
‘Suppose that he has been captured--abducted--what then?’ said Richard.
‘Teresa,’ he added, ‘put your things on. You and I will go after him.
Juana and Bridget must see to the nursing. Let there be no delay.’
His words were authoritative, and both girls departed. Richard proceeded
to examine the bedroom of the vanished Raphael Craig. It was in a state
of wild confusion. The bed had not been slept in; the bed was, indeed,
almost the sole undisturbed article in the room. A writing bureau stood
in the corner between the window and the fireplace, and apparently Mr.
Craig had been sitting at this. The ink-bottle was overturned, the rows
of small drawers had all been forced open, and papers, blown by the wind
from the open window, were scattered round the room. The window was wide
open from the bottom, and on the sill Richard noticed a minute streak
of blood, quite wet. The wall-paper beneath the window was damaged,
as though by feet. The window-curtains were torn. Richard judged that
Raphael Craig must have been surprised while writing, gagged, and
removed forcibly from the room by the window. He turned again within
the room, but he observed nothing further of interest except that the
drawers and cupboards of a large mahogany wardrobe had been forced, and
their contents flung on the floor.
Richard went downstairs and out of the house by the front-door. He
travelled round the house by the garden-path, till he came under the
window of Raphael’s bedroom, and there he found the soil trodden down
and some flowers broken off their stalks; but there were no traces of
footsteps on the hard gravelled path. He returned to the house.
‘Mr. Craig has certainly been carried off,’ he said to Teresa, who was
just coming down the stairs, candle in hand.
She wore over her dress a coat, and a small hat was on her head.
‘Carried off!’ she exclaimed, and the candle shook. ‘By whom?’
‘Need we ask? Your father thought he had done with Simon Lock, but Simon
Lock is not so easily done with.’
‘But what can Simon Lock do with father?’
‘Anything that a villain dares,’ said Richard.
‘Come along; don’t wait. We will take one of the motor-cars and follow.’
They ran forth from the house to the sheds. The Décauville car stood in
the first shed.
‘Is it ready for action, do you know?’ asked Richard.
‘Perfectly. I had it out the day before yesterday.’
But when they came to start it they discovered that the pipe which led
the petrol to the cylinder had been neatly severed. It was the simplest
operation, but quite effective to disable the car. Nothing could be done
without a new pipe.
‘Where is the electric car?’ Richard demanded, almost gruffly. ‘They may
have missed that.’
‘I don’t know. It ought to be here,’ Teresa replied.
‘They have taken him off in his own car,’ was Richard’s comment ‘We can
do nothing.’
‘The horses,’ said Teresa.
‘No horses that were ever bred could overtake that car, or even keep up
with it for a couple of miles.’
They walked back to the house, and met Bridget.
‘Is it the illictric car ye’re wanting?’ she asked, with the intuition
of an Irishwoman.
‘It’s in the far shed.’
With one accord Richard and Teresa ran back to the far end of the range
of buildings. There stood the car, in what had once been the famous
silver shed.
‘I saw the master put it there this very morning as ever is,’ said
Mrs. Bridget, who had followed them, as Richard jumped on to the
driving-seat.
In two minutes they were off, sped by the whispered blessing of Mrs.
Bridget. At the end of the boreen Richard stopped the car.
‘Which way?’ he murmured, half to himself and half to Teresa, as if
seeking inspiration.
‘To London or to the North?’
‘To London, of course,’ said Teresa promptly.
He hesitated.
‘I wonder----’ he said.
‘What is that?’ Teresa asked sharply, pointing to something which
glinted on the road. She sprang down and picked it up. ‘Father’s
spectacles,’ she said--‘cracked.’ The spectacles had lain about a yard
south of the boreen; they therefore pointed to London. ‘Didn’t I tell
you?’ said Teresa.
Richard shot the car forward in silence.
‘Do you think dad threw out these specs, to guide us?’ questioned
Teresa.
‘Perhaps,’ answered Richard absently.
In this mysterious nocturnal disappearance of Raphael Craig he saw the
hand of the real Simon Lock. During the whole of that strange interview
which had taken place in the morning it had seemed to Richard that Simon
Lock had been acting a part--had, at any rate, not conducted himself
with that overbearing and arrogant masterfulness and unscrupulousness
for which he had a reputation. Richard decided in his own mind that
Simon Lock had arranged for this abduction, in case of necessity, before
his visit to Raphael Craig. It was more than possible that he might
have urged his visit chiefly as a visit of observation, to enable him to
complete his plans for exercising force to compel Raphael Craig to agree
to his wishes. With painful clearness Richard now perceived that Simon
Lock was, in fact, fighting for all that he held most dear--perhaps for
his very life and liberty, in addition to the whole of his fortune, for
Richard knew that when these colossal financiers do happen to topple
over into ruin the subsequent investigation of their affairs often leads
to criminal prosecution, a process disagreeable to the financier, but
pleasant enough to the public. A man such as Simon Lock had, therefore,
a double, or, at least, a highly intensified, motive in avoiding
financial failure. Yes, thought Richard, Simon Lock would stop at
nothing to compel Raphael Craig to give way. His mind wandered curiously
to tales of the Spanish Inquisition, and to the great torture scene in
Balzac’s ‘Catherine de Medici.’ He involuntarily shuddered, and then
with an effort he drew his mind back again to the management of the car.
This vehicle, new and in beautiful order, and charged for a journey of a
hundred and twenty miles, travelled in the most unexceptionable manner.
The two and a half miles to the North-Western station at Dunstable
were traversed in precisely five minutes, in spite of the fact that the
distance included a full mile of climbing.
The electric lights flashed along the deserted main streets of ancient
Dunstable, which is only a little more sleepy at night than in the
daytime. As they passed the Old Sugar-Loaf Inn a man jumped out of the
stable archway and hailed them frantically. His voice echoed strangely
in the wide thoroughfare.
‘What is it?’ demanded Richard, unwillingly drawing up.
‘You after a motor-car?’ the man inquired. He looked like an ostler.
‘Yes,’ said Richard.
‘Mr. Craig?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard.
‘They stopped here,’ said the man, ‘and they told me to tell you if you
came by that they’d gone to Luton, and was a-going on to Hitchin.’
‘They! Who?’ asked Teresa.
‘The gents in the car.’
‘Who was in the car?’
‘Four gents.’
‘How long since?’
‘About half an hour, or hardly.’
‘And was it Mr. Craig who told you they’d gone to Luton and Hitchin?’
‘How do I know his blooming name as told me?’ exclaimed the man. ‘They
gave me a shilling to stop here and tell ye, and I’ve told ye, and so
good-night.’
‘Thanks,’ said Richard, and he started the car. In another moment they
were at the crossing of the two great Roman high-roads, Watling Street
and the Icknield Way. The route to Luton and Hitchin lay to the left;
the route to London was straight ahead.
‘Now, was that a fake of Lock’s, or are we all wrong about Lock? and has
your father got still another mystery up his sleeve?’
He gazed intently at the macadam, but the hard road showed no traces of
wheels anywhere, not even their own.
‘We will go straight ahead,’ said Teresa earnestly.
Richard obeyed her instinct and his. Everything pointed to the
probability that Simon Lock, anticipating pursuit, had laid a trap
at the Old Sugar-Loaf to divert such pursuit. Then Raphael Craig must
surely have been drugged, or he would have protested to the ostler.
Before they had got quite clear of the last houses of Dunstable they
picked up Mr. Craig’s gold watch, which lay battered in their track. If
Craig had been drugged he must have quickly recovered! Teresa was now
extremely excited, anxious, and nervous. Previously she had talked, but
she fell into silence, and there was no sound save the monotonous,
rather high-pitched drone of the motor-car. They passed through
Markyate, four miles, and through Redbourne, another four miles, in
quick succession. The road lies absolutely straight, and the gradients
are few and easy.
‘Surely,’ said Teresa at length, ‘if they are on this road we should
soon overtake them at this speed?’
‘Fifty miles an hour,’ he said.
They were descending the last part of the hill half-way down which lies
Redbourne. It was a terrible, perilous speed for night travelling, but
happily the night was far from being quite dark. Though there was no
moon, there were innumerable multitudes of stars, and the dusty road
showed white and clear.
‘Some cars can do up to seventy an hour. And if Simon Lock got a car he
would be certain to get the best.’
As he spoke they both simultaneously descried a moving light at the
bottom of the hill. In a few seconds the car was within a hundred
yards of the light, and they could see the forms of men moving and hear
voices.
‘It is the other car broken down,’ exclaimed Teresa. ‘Put out our
lights, quick!’
Richard realized in a flash that he ought to have taken that simple
precaution before, and to have approached with every circumspection. The
men in front had perceived the second car, and Richard’s extinction of
his lights came too late. He heard a sharp word of command, and then
three men left the disabled car and ran in a body to the other one.
Their forms were distinctly visible.
‘Three to one!’ Richard said softly. ‘It looks like being a bit stiff.’
‘No! Three to two,’ Teresa corrected him. ‘Here! Take this.’ She handed
him a revolver which she had carried under her coat. ‘I just thought
of it as I was leaving the house, and took it out of the clock in the
drawing-room.’
His appreciation of her thoughtfulness was unspoken, but nevertheless
sincere.
The three men were within fifty yards.
‘Slip off behind and into the hedge,’ he ordered. ‘We shall do better
from that shelter if there is to be a row.’
She obeyed, and they cowered under the hedge side by side.
‘Get further away from me,’ he said imperatively. ‘You may be in danger
just here.’
But she would not move.
‘Whose car is this?’ cried a voice out of the gloom--a rough, bullying
voice that Richard did not recognise.
‘Never mind whose car it is!’ Richard sang out. ‘Keep away from it.
That’s my advice to you, whoever you are. I can see you perfectly well,
and I will shoot the first man that advances another step.’
‘Why?’ returned the same voice. ‘What’s all this bluster for? We only
want a bit of indiarubber for a ripped tyre.’
‘It doesn’t take three of you to fetch a bit of indiarubber. Let two of
you get back, and then I’ll talk to the third.’
‘Get on, my lads,’ another voice cried, and this time Richard knew the
voice.
It was Simon Lock’s; the financier was covered with a long overcoat; he
was the rearmost of the three.
Richard, without the least hesitation, aimed at Simon’s legs and fired.
He missed. At the same instant the middle figure of the three flung
some object sharply towards the hedge in the direction whence the
revolver-shot had proceeded, and Richard felt a smashing blow on the
head, after which he felt nothing else whatever. He had vague visions,
and then there was a blank, an absolute and complete blank.
The next thing of which he was conscious was a sense of moisture on
his head. He opened his eyes and saw in the sky the earliest inkling of
dawn. He also saw Teresa bending over him with a handkerchief.
‘You are better,’ she said to him softly.
‘You’ll soon be all right.’
Richard shook his head feebly, as he felt a lump over his eye. He had a
dizzy sensation.
‘Yes, you will,’ Teresa insisted. ‘It was very unfortunate, your being
hit with that stone. You gave an awful groan, and those men thought
you were dead; they certainly thought you were alone. I would have shot
them, every one, but you dropped the revolver in the grass by this bit
of a gutter here, and I couldn’t find it till they’d gone. D’you know,
they’ve gone off with our car? There was a man among them who seemed
to understand it perfectly. I’m awfully glad now I didn’t show myself,
because I couldn’t have done anything, and I can do something now. Oh,
Dick! I saw them pull father out of their car--it’s a big Panhard--and
put him into ours. He was all tied with ropes. It will be a heavy load
for that little car, and they can’t go so very fast. We must mend their
car, Dick, and go on as quickly as possible.’
‘Can we mend it?’ Richard asked, amazed at this coolness, courage, and
enterprise.
‘Yes, of course. Look, you can see from here; it’s only a puncture.’
‘But didn’t one of them say they’d got no indiarubber?’
Teresa laughed.
‘You aren’t yourself yet,’ she said. ‘You’re only a goose yet. That was
only an excuse for attacking us.’
Richard got up, and speedily discovered that he could walk. They
proceeded to the abandoned car. It was a 40 h.-p. concern, fully
equipped and stored. The travellers by it had already begun to mend
their puncture when the pursuing car surprised them. They had evidently
judged it easier to change cars than to finish the mending. Speed was
their sole object, and in the carrying out of the schemes of a man like
Simon Lock a 40 h.-p. Panhard left by the roadside was a trifle.
In twenty minutes the puncture was successfully mended, both Richard
and Teresa being experts at the operation. The effect of the blow on
Richard’s head had by this time quite passed away, save for a bruise.
‘And now for Manchester Square,’ said Teresa, as they moved off.
‘Why Manchester Square?’ Richard asked.
‘That is where they were going; I heard them talking.’
‘It will be Simon Lock’s house,’ said Richard. ‘I must go there alone.’
From Redbourne to London, with a clear road and a 40 h.-p. Panhard
beneath you, is not a far cry. In a shade under the hour the motor-car
was running down Edgware Road to the Marble Arch. Richard kept straight
on to Adelphi Terrace, put up the car at a stable-yard close by without
leave, and, having aroused his landlady, gave Teresa into her charge
until breakfast-time. It was just turned four o’clock, and a beautiful
morning.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Teresa.
‘I don’t exactly know. I’ll take a cab and the revolver to Manchester
Square, and see what happens. You can rely upon me to take care of
myself.’
He could see that she wished to accompany him, and without more words
he vanished. In ten minutes, having discovered a cab, he was in the
vast silence of Manchester Square. He stopped the cab at the corner, and
walked to Simon Lock’s house, whose number he knew. A policeman stood
at the other side of the square, evidently curious as to the strange
proceedings within the well-known residence of the financier. The double
outer doors were slightly ajar. Richard walked nonchalantly up the broad
marble steps and pushed these doors open and went in. A second pair
of doors, glazed, now fronted him. Behind these stood a man in evening
dress, but whether or not he was a servant Richard could not determine.
‘Open,’ said Richard. The man seemed not to hear him.
He lifted up the revolver. The man perceived it, and opened the doors.
‘Where is Mr. Lock?’ Richard demanded in a firm, cold voice. ‘I am a
detective. I don’t want you to come with me. Stay where you are. Simply
tell me where he is.’
The man hesitated.
‘Quick,’ said Richard, fingering the revolver..
‘He was in the library, sir,’ the man faltered.
‘Anyone with him?’
‘Yes, sir; some gentlemen.’
‘How long have they been here?’
‘Not long. They came unexpected, sir.’
‘Well, see that you don’t mix yourself up in anything that may occur.
Which is the library door?’
The man pointed to a mahogany door at the end of the long, lofty hall.
Richard opened it, and found himself, not in a library, but in a small
rectangular windowless apartment, clearly intended for the reception of
hats and coats. Suspecting a ruse, he stepped quickly into the hall.
‘Not that door, the next one,’ said the man, quietly enough. Richard
followed the man’s instructions, and very silently opened the next door.
A large room disclosed itself, with a long table down the centre of it.
The place did not bear much resemblance to a library. It was, in fact,
the breakfast-room, and the library lay beyond it. At the furthest
corner, opposite another door, a man was seated on a chair. His eyes
seemed to be glued on to the door which he watched.
‘Come along, Terrell,’ this man whispered, without moving his head, as
Richard entered.
Richard accordingly came along, and was upon the man in the chair before
the latter had perceived that another than Terrell--whoever Terrell
might be--had thrust himself into the plot.
‘Silence!’ said Richard; ‘I am a detective. Come out.’
The revolver and Richard’s unflinching eye did the rest. Richard led the
astonished and unresisting man into the hall, and then locked him up
in the hat and coat room, and put the key of the door in his pocket.
He returned to the other room, locked its door on the inside, so as to
preclude the approach of the expected Terrell, and took the empty
chair in front of the far door. He guessed that Simon Lock, and perhaps
Raphael Craig, were on the other side of that door.
‘Up to now,’ he reflected, ‘it’s been fairly simple.’
There was absolute silence. It was as though the great house had hushed
itself in anticipation of a great climax.
Then Richard heard a voice in the room beyond. It was Simon Lock’s
voice. Richard instantly tried the door, turning the handle very softly
and slowly. It was latched, but not locked. Using infinite precautions,
he contrived to leave the door open about half an inch. Through this
half-inch of space he peered into the library. He saw part of a large
square desk and an armchair. In this armchair sat Raphael Craig, and
Raphael Craig was tied firmly to the chair with ropes. He could not see
Simon Lock, and he dared not yet push the door further open.
‘Now, Craig,’ the voice of Simon Lock was saying, ‘don’t drive me to
extreme measures.’
For answer Raphael Craig closed his eyes, as if bored. His face had a
disgusted, haughty expression.
‘You’ve got no chance,’ said Simon Lock.
‘Redgrave is caught, and won’t be let loose in a hurry. These two girls
of yours are also in safe hands. Nothing has been omitted. I have here a
list of the firms who have been acting for you in the Princesse shares.
I have also written out certain instructions to them which you will
sign. I have also prepared a power of attorney, authorizing me to act in
your name in the matter of these shares. You will sign these documents.
I will have them sent to the City and put into operation this morning,
and as soon as I have satisfied myself that all has been done that might
be done you will be set free--perhaps in a couple of days.’
Richard saw that Raphael Craig made no sign of any sort.
Simon Lock continued: ‘You did not expect that I should proceed to
extreme measures of this kind. You thought that the law of England would
be sufficient to protect you from physical compulsion. You thought I
should never dare. How foolish of you! As if I should permit myself
to be ruined by an old man with a bee in his bonnet; an old man whose
desire is not to make money--I could have excused that--but to work a
melodramatic revenge. If you want melodrama you shall have it, Craig,
and more of it than you think for.’
‘Why don’t you give me up to the police?’ said Raphael Craig, opening
his eyes and yawning. ‘You’ve got Featherstone’s confession, as you call
it. Surely that would be simpler than all this rigmarole.’
The manager’s voice was pregnant with sarcasm.
‘I will tell you,’ said Lock frankly; ‘there is no reason why I should
not: I have lost the confounded thing, or it has been stolen.’ He
laughed harshly. ‘However, that’s no matter. I can dispense with
that--now.’
‘You can’t do anything,’ returned Craig. ‘You’ve got me here--you and
your gang between you. But you can’t do anything. In three days your
ruin will be complete.’
‘Not do anything!’ said Simon Lock; ‘there are ways and means of
compulsion. There are worse things than death, Craig. You decline to
sign?’
Raphael closed his eyes again, coldly smiling.
‘Terrell,’ called Simon Lock sharply, ‘bring the----’
But what horrible, unmentionable things Terrell was to bring in will
never be known, for at that instant Richard rushed madly into the
room. He saw a revolver lying on the desk in front of Simon Lock. He
frantically snatched it up, and stood fronting Simon Lock.
‘Well done, Redgrave!’ said the old man.
Simon’s face went like white paper.
‘So “Redgrave is caught,” is he?’ said Richard to Lock. Without taking
his eye off the financier, he stepped backwards and secured the door.
‘Now, Mr. Lock, we are together once more, we three. Don’t utter a word,
but go and cut those ropes from Mr. Craig’s arms. Go, I say.’ Richard
had a revolver in each hand. He put one down, and took a penknife from
his pocket. ‘Stay; here is a knife,’ he added. ‘Now cut.’
[Illustration: 0322]
As Simon Lock moved to obey the revolver followed his head at a distance
of about three inches. Never in his life had Richard been so happy. In a
minute Raphael Craig was free.
‘Take his place,’ Richard commanded.
In another two minutes Simon Lock was bound as Raphael Craig had been.
‘Come with me, dear old man. We will leave him. Mr. Lock, your motor-car
is in a stable-yard off Adelphi Street. You can have it in exchange for
the car which you stole from me a few hours ago.’
He took Raphael Craig’s arm, and the old man suffered himself to be led
out like a child.
Within a quarter of an hour father and adopted daughter were in each
other’s arms at Adelphi Terrace. The drama was over.
*****
Two days later the evening papers had a brilliantly successful
afternoon, for their contents bills bore the legend: ‘Suicide of Simon
Lock.’ It was a great event for London. Simon Lock’s estate was found
to be in an extremely involved condition, but it realized over a
million pounds, which was just about a tenth of what the British public
expected. The money, in the absence of a will, went to the heir-at-law,
a cousin of the deceased, who was an army contractor, and already very
rich. The name of this man and what he did with his million will be
familiar to all readers. The heir-at-law never heard anything of the
Princesse shares, for Raphael Craig, immediately on the death of his
colossal enemy, destroyed the contracts, and made no claim whatever.
This act cost him a hundred thousand pounds in loss of actual cash
outlay, but he preferred to do it. Raphael Craig died peacefully six
months later. Both the girls who had called him father were by that time
married--Teresa to Richard and Juana to Nolan, the detective. It was
indeed curious that, by the accident of fate, Raphael should have been
saved from the consequences of the crime of uttering false coin by
the spell exercised by those girls over two separate and distinct
detectives. The two detectives--one professional, the other
amateur--subsequently went into partnership, Nolan having retired from
Scotland Yard. They practise their vocation under the name of --------
-------- But you will have guessed that name, since they are the most
famous firm in their own line in England at the present day.
And Richard says to his wife: ‘I should never have saved him. Everything
might have been different if your courage had not kindled mine that
morning after I swooned by the roadside in Watling Street.’
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Teresa of Watling Street, by Arnold Bennett