‘Yes, yes,’ he answered sleepily, and Mrs. Bridget burst in. ‘Mr. Redgrave!’ she cried, ‘an’ have ye heard nothing? Surely the ould master’s not in his bed, and something’s happened. May the Virgin protect us all this night?’ Richard saw wild terror in the woman’s eyes. He sprang up. He was fully and acutely awake, but the sick man slept on. He went quietly and quickly out of the room. Juana and Teresa stood in the passage, alarmed and dishevelled. ‘He is gone!’ Teresa exclaimed. ‘I wonder you heard nothing, as his was the next room. It was Bridget who heard a sort of shout, she says, outside, and then looked out of her window, and she thinks she heard a motorcar.’ ‘Which way was it going?’ asked Richard. ‘Sure and it’s meself that can’t tell ye, sir,’ said Mrs. Bridget. Richard reflected a moment. ‘Why has he gone off like this in the night?’ questioned Juana. ‘Suppose that he has been captured--abducted--what then?’ said Richard. ‘Teresa,’ he added, ‘put your things on. You and I will go after him. Juana and Bridget must see to the nursing. Let there be no delay.’ His words were authoritative, and both girls departed. Richard proceeded to examine the bedroom of the vanished Raphael Craig. It was in a state of wild confusion. The bed had not been slept in; the bed was, indeed, almost the sole undisturbed article in the room. A writing bureau stood in the corner between the window and the fireplace, and apparently Mr. Craig had been sitting at this. The ink-bottle was overturned, the rows of small drawers had all been forced open, and papers, blown by the wind from the open window, were scattered round the room. The window was wide open from the bottom, and on the sill Richard noticed a minute streak of blood, quite wet. The wall-paper beneath the window was damaged, as though by feet. The window-curtains were torn. Richard judged that Raphael Craig must have been surprised while writing, gagged, and removed forcibly from the room by the window. He turned again within the room, but he observed nothing further of interest except that the drawers and cupboards of a large mahogany wardrobe had been forced, and their contents flung on the floor. Richard went downstairs and out of the house by the front-door. He travelled round the house by the garden-path, till he came under the window of Raphael’s bedroom, and there he found the soil trodden down and some flowers broken off their stalks; but there were no traces of footsteps on the hard gravelled path. He returned to the house. ‘Mr. Craig has certainly been carried off,’ he said to Teresa, who was just coming down the stairs, candle in hand. She wore over her dress a coat, and a small hat was on her head. ‘Carried off!’ she exclaimed, and the candle shook. ‘By whom?’ ‘Need we ask? Your father thought he had done with Simon Lock, but Simon Lock is not so easily done with.’ ‘But what can Simon Lock do with father?’ ‘Anything that a villain dares,’ said Richard.