He thanked her and took another glass, and between the sips said:
‘I am told this is a great chalk district—there are large chalk-pits, are there not?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you can see them from our windows. Very ugly they look, too!’
‘So far, good!’ Richard privately reflected.
He had, at any rate, learnt that the Craigs had something to conceal.
The hall clock struck three. Outside it was broad daylight.
‘That is a quarter of an hour fast,’ said Teresa. ‘But perhaps it might be as well to go to bed. You are probably not used to these hours, Mr. Redgrave? I am. Micky! Micky!’
The small, alert man came down the side-passage leading into the hall from the back part of the house.
‘This is decidedly a useful sort of servant,’ thought Richard, as he looked intently at Mike’s wrinkled, humorous face.
The Irishman seemed to be about thirty-five years of age.