‘Here is father, Juana,’ she said anxiously. ‘If he should come upstairs----’ ‘Go down and stop him from coming upstairs. Bridget and I will attend to this poor fellow.’ Her voice was charged with sympathy as she glanced at the sufferer on the bed. The reference to himself caused the detective to open his eyes. ‘I fell over the edge of the pit,’ he murmured faintly. ‘It was owing to the short grass being so slippery after the rain.’ He had no Irish accent now. Then he closed his eyes again. Teresa gave a sigh of relief as she left the room. Her father, then, was not in thought a murderer. As she entered the hall from the stairs Raphael Craig and Richard came in through the front-door. They had housed the two cars. ‘Where is he?’ asked Raphael of his daughter. ‘In the back bedroom, father. He is not seriously hurt.’ ‘I will go up and have a look at him,’ said Raphael, actuated apparently by mere idle curiosity. ‘No, father, don’t!’ Teresa pleaded. ‘Bridget is looking after him, and I believe he is just going to sleep.’ Raphael gave a gesture of assent ‘And now, sir,’ he said to Richard, opening the drawing-room door, ‘a word with you.’ The two men passed into the drawing-room. Raphael was closing the door when Teresa stepped forward. ‘I also have a word to say, father,’ she remarked firmly. ‘Say it to me afterwards, then,’ he replied briefly. ‘No. It is a word that must be said now.’ The old man, smiling slightly and ironically, pulled the door open and allowed his daughter to enter the room. Raphael Craig sat down on the Chesterfield sofa, but Richard and Teresa remained standing, Richard, for his part, determined that there should be no beating about the bush; and he had not the least intention of allowing the old man to put him in the wrong by asking difficult questions. So he began at once, fixing his eyes on a greenish-coloured newspaper that stuck out of Mr. Craig’s right-hand pocket. ‘Mr. Craig,’ he said, ‘let me cut a long story short. I came up here a few days ago to bring you a Williamson electric car. True, I was for the time being a genuine employe of the Williamson Company, but that was not my real business. I confess to you, Mr. Craig, that I am a private inquiry agent. It was in my professional capacity that I visited your House.’ ‘Ah!’ said Mr. Craig. ‘You were, then, after all, a spy? I had guessed correctly.’ ‘Spy?’ Richard repeated calmly. ‘Yes; it is an epithet that has been applied to me before.’ He glanced at Teresa, who met his glance fairly. ‘To continue,’ he said: ‘I have abandoned my inquiries. To be precise, I gave up my mission this morning; therefore, since I am here again, I am not here as a spy.’ ‘What led you to abandon your mission, Mr. Inquiry Agent?’ asked Raphael, stroking his gray beard. ‘I gave it up, Mr. Craig,’ said Richard plumply, ‘out of regard for your daughter.’