Raphael and Teresa were, then, doubly spied upon. But who was Micky?
Richard’s attention was diverted from this interesting inquiry by the gradual growth of a light near the door, of which, being parallel with his window, he had no view. Then a long, licking flame appeared. He could see it creeping across the floor, nearer and nearer to the unconscious heavers of silver. Raphael had turned on the waste tap of the exhaust petrol under the motor-car. The highly combustible quid had run beneath the door of the shed it had there come in contact with the ax match used by Raphael to light the candle and then thrown down. Richard saw next that the door of the shed was on fire; at the same moment, unable any longer to keep his grip on the spout and the window-frame, he fell unexpectedly to the ground.
CHAPTER VI—THE DESIRE FOR SILVER
The blazing door was locked. Richard called, shouted shouted again. There was no answer, but in the extraordinary outer silence he could still hear the industrious shovelling of silver.
‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘they’re bound to find out pretty soon that the show’s on fire.’
He threw himself against the door angrily, and, to his surprise, it yielded, and he fell over the river of flame into the interior of the shed. The noise at last startled Raphael and Teresa out of the preoccupation of their task.
‘Haven’t you perceived that the place is being burned down?’ he exclaimed drily.
At the same instant he sprang towards Teresa. The stream of burning petrol had found its way into the central runnel of the stone floor, and so had suddenly reached the hem of Teresa’s dress, which already showed a small blaze. Fortunately, it was a serge travelling frock; had it been of light summer material, Teresa would probably have been burnt to death. Richard dragged her fiercely from the region of the runnel, and extinguished the smouldering serge between his hands, which showed the scars of that timely action for a fortnight afterwards. He glanced round quickly, saw a pile of empty sacks in a corner—had they been used as money-bags? he wondered—and, seizing several of them, laid them fiat on the burning petrol and against the door. His unhesitating celerity no doubt prevented a magnificent conflagration. The petrol, it is true, had nearly burnt itself out, but the woodwork of the door was, in fireman’s phrase, ‘well alight,’ and, being aged and rotten, it formed a quick fuel.