Of course Captain Armitage was very surprised to receive a visit from Mostyn, and he broke off into a volley of oaths when he learned that the latter had profited under the will of Anthony Royce; this, though Mostyn did not give the full particulars as to his strange bequest, seeing no reason why he should do so, but merely mentioned that he had inherited the Grange and a certain sum of money as well.
"He never left me a penny, not a brass farthing," said Captain Armitage solemnly, "yet I was one of his oldest friends, a school-fellow and all the rest of it." This was a lie, and Mostyn knew it to be a lie, but the matter was not worth discussing.
The captain did not present an imposing figure that morning. Mostyn found him lounging in a disreputably worn arm-chair, clad in a soiled but brilliantly-flowered dressing-gown, smoking an old meerschaum pipe, and perusing a sporting paper. His white hair was untidy, his beard unkempt, and his slippers down at the heel. The little sitting-room was dingy and uncared for; Rada had evidently abandoned the hopeless task of tidying it.
"I told you that I was a poor man, Mr. Clithero," Captain Armitage said, waving a deprecating hand round the room, "and now you can see for yourself." Suddenly his dull eyes brightened. "You say Royce has left you some brass," he insinuated. "Have you thought better of that offer I made you the other day?"
"That's what I'm here for," explained Mostyn. "Are you still willing to sell Castor, Captain Armitage?"
"I should say I was, my boy." The old man sprang from his chair with something of the nervous energy that Mostyn remembered he had displayed when on the coach. "Fifteen hundred pounds! Why, it would be the making of me just now." He spoke eagerly. "I know how I could turn it into five, into ten thousand. There's Cardigan, a sure thing for the Liverpool Cup, and Boscowen, a perfect snip at Sandown. Give me fifteen hundred down, and I'll make a fortune. You shall have the tips, too; I'll throw them into the bargain."
So it came about that, without loss of time, Captain Armitage, muttering and mumbling to himself, had shuffled out of the room, leaving Mostyn to gaze out of the uncleaned window over a strip of garden where the grass grew rank, and where weeds choked the few hardy flowers that had endured. Whatever she might be elsewhere, Rada evidently took no pride in her own home; Mostyn told himself that the Mill House, practically little more than a tumble-down cottage, was one of the most dreary spots he had ever visited.
It was not long before the captain reappeared, a little more spruce in his attire and ready to go out. It was, it appeared, not more than half an hour's walk to the training stables, and there was no reason why the bargain should not be clinched at once.
This was all very well, but Mostyn did not feel capable of relying upon his own judgment, nor did he trust Captain Armitage's word. Fifteen hundred pounds was a large sum, and not to be merely thrown away to put cash into the pocket of a drunkard. Would he do well to purchase Castor? Certainly Sir Roderick had admitted the value of the colt. That went for a good deal, but at the bottom of his heart Mostyn knew that his desire to own the horse had something to do with the struggle which he felt, in an indefinite sort of way, had commenced between himself and Rada. "I'm a girl, but I'll back myself to win a Derby before you!" she had cried contemptuously, and the words had galled and stung him. She had great faith in Castor, he knew that; well, it would be a fitting punishment upon her if, by extraordinary luck, he contrived to carry off the race with that particular horse. Mostyn was not spiteful by nature, but he was very human.
As they walked together, passing through the little town and then emerging upon open country, Captain Armitage exerted his powers of persuasion to the full, and he had a plausible tongue. Mostyn had an eye for a horse, so the old man asserted, and he had recognised that fact upon Derby day, or he would not have dreamed of making his offer. He had taken a fancy to Mostyn from the first, especially because the latter had taken his joking in good part. What he was doing was purely out of personal consideration.