‘Oakley, the position which you occupy here is quite beneath your high capabilities. I dismiss you. I will write you out a cheque for a month’s wages. Leave the house within an hour.’
‘With pleasure, sir,’ said Mr. Oakley, exactly as he had accepted the invitation to dinner.
CHAPTER XV—ARRIVAL OF SIMON
At Queen’s Farm, Hockliffe, the excitations of the terrible evening on which Juana faced her father, and on which Richard and Teresa were betrothed, seemed to have exhausted the actors in those trying scenes. Only Teresa herself maintained her spirits through a night of sleeplessness, and Teresa’s eyes disclosed a simple and profound happiness of the soul, which proved how well the forced engagement with Richard suited her inclinations. As for Richard, he, too, was happy in the betrothal, but his experience of the world—a thousandfold greater than Teresa’s—was responsible for forebodings that filled him with apprehension. He could not but feel that disaster—perhaps immediate disaster—waited upon the schemes of Raphael Craig, those schemes of whose success the old man was so proudly confident Richard guessed, naturally, that Raphael Craig was waging war on Simon Lock, and his common-sense predicted with assurance that in this struggle of the weak against the strong the strong would crush and the weak would be crushed. The exact nature of Raphael Craig’s plan, of which Richard was still in ignorance, seemed to the young man to be a matter of comparative unimportance. He perceived, at any rate, that the campaign was a financial one. That was enough; in the realm of finance Simon Lock had long been peerless, and though, as the newspaper hinted, Simon was temporarily at a disadvantage, it was absurd to pretend for an instant that Raphael Craig, undistinguished, even unknown, could win.
So ran the course of Richard’s thoughts as he lay resting during the early hours of the morning on the Chesterfield in the drawing-room. Raphael Craig had retired to his room. Teresa had also retired. Juana and Bridget were attending on the stricken detective. Each had expressed her intention of sitting up all night. Whenever Richard’s somewhat somnolent meditations turned in the direction of the detective he could not help thinking that here, in this sick man, helpless, hurt, delirious, was the instrument of Simon Lock’s ultimate success. Nolan knew, or Nolan shrewdly surmised now, that Raphael Craig had grossly outraged the Coinage Acts. Nolan had doubtless collected a sufficient body of evidence at least to secure a committal for trial, and so it was an indubitable fact to be faced that, immediately Nolan recovered, or partially recovered, the forces of the law would be set in motion against Craig—against Craig, the father of his betrothed. Then—Queen’s Farm would doubtless explode like a bomb!
But was Raphael Craig the father of his betrothed? Had Juana lied on the previous night, or had the old man lied? Here were questions which Richard preferred to shirk rather than to answer.
A much more important question was, What would Raphael Craig be likely to do in regard to Nolan? As things stood, Nolan was at his mercy—helpless in his house. Certainly Craig would by this time have arrived at the conclusion that instantly Nolan was enabled to leave the house his own ruin would occur. Richard did not believe that Craig’s scheme could possibly succeed after Craig was clapped in prison as a coiner. He, indeed, suspected that Craig had only made this boast in order to dispel any suspicions which Richard might entertain as to the bodily safety of Nolan within the precincts of Queen’s Farm.
Yet it came to that: Richard was not without fear that the old man might attempt to murder Nolan. Nolan dead, and his body disposed of, Craig was safe. It was a frightful thought, but Raphael Craig’s demeanour whenever he referred to his life-long scheme of vengeance gave at least some excuse for it.