Richard brought the two cars to a standstill in front of a green gate. Leaning over the gate was an old man.
‘Teresa!’ the old man murmured.
She rushed at him and kissed him passionately.
CHAPTER III—CHINK OF COINS
I am getting on excellently,’ said Richard to himself as he descended from the car; but his self-satisfaction was momentarily checked by the glance flashed at him by the old man—a glance which seemed to penetrate at once to that locked chamber where Richard kept his secret intentions and desires.
He returned the glance modestly, and then wondered whether, after all, Mr. Craig was as old as he looked. The manager of the Kilburn branch of the British and Scottish Bank had white hair, rather long at the back, and a heavy white beard; a pale face with prominent bones, the lower jaw large and protruding, the nose fine and delicate, the black eyes deep-set; the forehead was rather narrow, but the bossy temples gave indication of unusual intellectual force. The face was the face of an old man, yet the eyes were young and fresh. Richard remembered that Simon Lock had stated the manager’s age to be fifty-five, and he came to the conclusion that this might be a fact, though any merely casual observer would have put it at sixty-five at least.
‘Who is——’ Raphael Craig began questioning in tones of singular politeness, with a gesture in the direction of Richard, after he had returned his daughter’s salutation.
‘This is a gentleman from the Williamson Company, dad,’ Teresa explained. ‘He has brought the new car. He likes travelling at night, and thought our house was much further on.’