He scarcely liked Nolan’s curt language in regard to Teresa.
‘I did hear about it,’ said Nolan; ‘let that suffice. And listen further. I will make you a present of a fact—an absolutely indisputable fact—which I have discovered: Raphael Craig never had an uncle. His father was an only son. Moreover, no person has died within the last few years who could by any means be related to Craig. The records at Somerset House have been thoroughly searched.’
‘No uncle!’ was all Richard, the nonplussed, could murmur.
‘And,’ Nolan continued, ‘while I am about it, I will make you a present of another little fact. You say that Craig told you that he had brought all his silver here, the last load having arrived to-night. On the contrary, he has gradually been taking silver away from here, I admit that he has brought some, but he has carted far more away. For what else should he need all this generous supply of motorcars?’
Richard began to suspect that he had mistaken his vocation.
CHAPTER VIII—THE PEER’S ADVICE
On the Monday morning Richard presented himself at Queen’s Farm. The day was jocund, the landscape smiled; in the forty-acre field below the house a steam-plough, actuated by two enormous engines and a steel hawser, was working at the bidding of a farmer who farmed on principles of his own, and liked to do his ploughing at midsummer. The steam-plough rattled and jarred and jolted like a humorous and high-spirited leviathan; the birds sang merrily above it; the Chiltem Hills stretched away in the far distance, bathed in limitless glad sunshine; and Watling Street ran white, dazzling, and serene, down the near slope and up the hill towards Dunstable, curtained in the dust of rural traffic.
In the midst of all these things joyous and content, behold Richard, melancholy and full of discontent, ringing at the front-door bell of Queen’s Farm. He rang and rang again, but there was no answer. It was after eight o’clock, yet not a blind had been drawn up; and the people of the house had told him that they took breakfast at seven o’clock! Richard had passed a wretched week-end in the village of Hockliffe, his one solace having been another chat with Mr. Puddephatt, wine-merchant and horse-dealer to the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. He was at a loss what to do. What, indeed, could he do? The last words of Nolan, the detective, had given him pause, hinting, as they did, at strange mysteries still unsolved. Supposing that he, Richard, continued his investigations and discovered some sinister secret—some crime? The point was that Teresa was almost certainly involved in her father’s schemes. Here was the difficulty which troubled him. His fancy pictured a court of justice, and Raphael Craig and Teresa in the dock, and Richard Redgrave giving evidence against them, explaining how he had spied upon them, dogged their footsteps, and ultimately arrived at the heart of the mystery. Could he do that? Could he look Teresa in the face? And yet, what, after all, was Teresa to him—Teresa, whom he had known only three days?