Richard walked down to the village, engaged Miss Puddephatt’s room, and dined at the White Horse Hotel. He had not yet definitely decided what course of conduct to follow. He was inclined to do nothing further in the affair, and to tell Simon Lock on Monday that, so far as he could discover, Simon Lock’s suspicions about Raphael Craig were groundless. He had taken no money from Simon Lock, and he would take none. Yet why should he pause now? Why should he not, for his own private satisfaction, probe the mystery to the bottom? Afterwards--when the strange secret stood revealed to him--there would be plenty of time then to decide whether or not to deliver up Raphael Craig into the hands of Simon Lock. Yes, on consideration he would, for his own pleasure, find out whatever was to be found out. That evening, an hour after sunset, he lay hidden behind a hedge on the west side of Watling Street, exactly opposite the boreen leading to the Queen’s Farm. Richard slept. He was decidedly short of sleep, and sleep overtook him unawares. Suddenly from the end of the boreen came the faint spit, spit of a motor-car, growing louder as it approached the main road. Would it awake Richard? No, he slept stolidly on. The motor-car, bearing an old man and a young girl, slid down into the valley towards Dunstable, and so out of hearing. An hour passed. The church clock at Houghton Regis, two miles off to the east, struck midnight. Then the car might have been heard returning, it laboured heavily up the hill, and grunted as though complaining of its burden as it curved round into the boreen towards Queen’s Farm.