Not a single day—nay, not a single hour had Kester St. George spent at Park Newton since his accession to the property. He had been down to Duxley on two occasions, and had taken up his quarters at the Royal Hotel, where his steward had waited upon him for the transaction of necessary business, and where the chief tenants of the estate had been invited to a banquet at his expense. But not once had he set foot even inside the park gates. He hated the place, the neighbourhood, the people. London and Paris, according to his view, were the only places fit for a man of fortune to live in, and it was from the latter place that he despatched a letter to his uncle, half ironical in tone, congratulating that veteran on his choice of the ancestral roof-tree for his future home, and hoping that he might live for fifty years to enjoy it. The General smiled grimly to himself as he read the letter and tossed it over to Richard. “Uncle, you must invite him here before we are many weeks older,” said the latter. “But he hates the place, and won’t come.” “He hates the place undoubtedly, but he will come all the same if you couch your invitation properly.” “In what terms would you like me to couch it?” “Pardon me for saying so, but you have only got to hint that you feel you are growing old, and that you have serious thoughts of making your will before long, and then press him to come and see you.” “And you think the bait will tempt him?” “I am sure of it. Your property would make a nice addition to his income. He would be the most dutiful and affectionate of nephews as long as you lived; he would bury you with every outward semblance of regret; and a month later there would be another horse in his stable at Newmarket.” “Faith, I believe you’re right, Dick! But not a single penny of my money will ever go to Kester St. George. All the same I’ll write the letter in the way you wish it to be written, when you tell me that the time for sending it has come.” “We will let Christmas get quietly over, and then we will talk about it again.” But still the General was puzzled. “I’m bothered if I can comprehend why you want to invite Kester to Park Newton,” he said. “You hate the man, and yet you want me to ask him to come and stop under the same roof with you, where you must, out of common courtesy, meet him once or twice a day all the time he is here.” “The coming of Kester St. George to Park Newton may help us to another link in the chain of evidence which Bristow and I together are trying to forge out of the very poor materials at our command. It may prove in the end to be nothing better than a chain of sand—or it may prove strong enough to drag a murderer to his doom.” The General shuddered slightly. “Your words are very strong, my boy,” he said. “I have seen so many tragedies in the course of the sixty years I have lived in this world that I have no desire ever to see another—least of all among those of my own kith and kin.”