It may be explained here that the aforesaid Williamson Company had supplied Lord Dolmer with his motor-car. Richard had visited their office in order to ascertain if, by chance, Mr. Raphael Craig was a customer of theirs, and had been told that he was, and, further, that there was an electric car then on order for him. It was a matter of but little difficulty for Richard to persuade Williamson’s manager to allow him to pose for a few days as an employe of the company, and to take the car up to Hockliffe himself. He foresaw that in the rôle of a motor-car expert he might gain a footing at Craig’s house which could not be gained in any other way. When the two cars had been attached, and the journey--necessarily a slow one--began, a rather desultory conversation sprang up between Richard and Miss Craig, who sat by his side in the leading car. ‘You, too, must have miscalculated your distances,’ she said suddenly, after they had discussed the remarkable beauty of the moon. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I like travelling at night. I admit that I thought Hockliffe considerably further on. I expected to deliver the car about breakfast-time.’ ‘You will permit us to offer you a bed?’ she said. ‘You will be able to get at least five hours’ sleep. We breakfast at seven. It is early, but that is my father’s custom.’ He thanked her. ‘Take the little road on the right,’ she directed him later. ‘It leads only to our house In Ireland we call such a road a boreen.’ It was then that he noted a faint Irish accent in her voice. Richard brought the two cars to a standstill in front of a green gate. Leaning over the gate was an old man. ‘Teresa!’ the old man murmured. She rushed at him and kissed him passionately. CHAPTER III--CHINK OF COINS I am getting on excellently,’ said Richard to himself as he descended from the car; but his self-satisfaction was momentarily checked by the glance flashed at him by the old man--a glance which seemed to penetrate at once to that locked chamber where Richard kept his secret intentions and desires. He returned the glance modestly, and then wondered whether, after all, Mr. Craig was as old as he looked. The manager of the Kilburn branch of the British and Scottish Bank had white hair, rather long at the back, and a heavy white beard; a pale face with prominent bones, the lower jaw large and protruding, the nose fine and delicate, the black eyes deep-set; the forehead was rather narrow, but the bossy temples gave indication of unusual intellectual force. The face was the face of an old man, yet the eyes were young and fresh. Richard remembered that Simon Lock had stated the manager’s age to be fifty-five, and he came to the conclusion that this might be a fact, though any merely casual observer would have put it at sixty-five at least. ‘Who is----’ Raphael Craig began questioning in tones of singular politeness, with a gesture in the direction of Richard, after he had returned his daughter’s salutation.