That was the question—what was Teresa to him?
He rang again, and the jangle of the bell reverberated as though through a deserted dwelling. Then he walked round the house by the garden, in the hope of encountering Micky, otherwise Mr. Nolan of Scotland Yard. But not a sign of Mr. Nolan could he see anywhere. The stable-door was unlocked; the mares were contentedly at work on a morning repast of crushed oats, followed by clover-hay, but there was no Micky. He began to think that perhaps Nolan knew a great deal more than he had chosen to tell during that night walk along Watling Street. Perhaps Nolan had returned to Scotland Yard armed with all the evidence necessary to conduct a magnificent cause célèbre to a successful conclusion. He could see the posters of the evening papers: ‘Extraordinary Affair in Bedfordshire: A Bank Manager and his Daughter charged with——’
Charged with what?
Pooh! When he recalled the dignified and absolutely sincere air of Raphael Craig at their interview in the drawing-room in the early hours of Sunday morning, when he recalled the words of the white-haired man, uttered with an appealing glance from under those massive brows: ‘I ask you, Mr. Redgrave, to pity the infirmity, the harmless infirmity, of an old man’—when he recalled these words, and the manner of the speaker, he could not but think that Nolan must be on an absolutely false scent; he could not but believe that the Craigs were honest and innocent.
He at last got round to the kitchen-door of the house and knocked. The door was immediately opened—or, rather, half opened—by Mrs. Bridget, who put her head in the small aperture thus made after the manner of certain women. She merely looked at him severely, without uttering a word.
‘I wish to see Mr. Craig,’ he said calmly.
‘I was to tell ye the motor-car is in the shed, and ye are kindly to deliver it at Williamson’s.’
This was her reply.
‘Mr. Craig is not up, then? Miss Craig——’
‘I was to tell ye the motor-car is in the shed, and ye are kindly to deliver it at Williamson’s.’