Raffles Haw listened politely, bowed,
smiled, but never showed the slightest inclination to restore the
querulous old gunmaker to his pedestal.
But if the recluse's wealth was a lure which drew the beggars from far
and near, as the lamp draws the moths, it had the same power of
attraction upon another and much more dangerous class. Strange
hard faces were seen in the village street, prowling figures were marked
at night stealing about among the fir plantations, and warning messages
arrived from city police and county constabulary to say that evil
visitors were known to have taken train to Tamfield. But if, as Raffles
Haw held, there were few limits to the power of immense wealth, it
possessed, among other things, the power of self-preservation, as one or
two people were to learn to their cost.
"Would you mind stepping up to the Hall?" he said one morning, putting
his head in at the door of the Elmdene sitting-room. "I have something
there that might amuse you." He was on intimate terms with the
McIntyres now, and there were few days on which they did not see
something of each other.
They gladly accompanied him, all three, for such invitations were
usually the prelude of some agreeable surprise which he had in store for
them.
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