ROBERT REDMAYNE IS SEEN
A sense of unreality impressed itself upon Mark Brendon after this
stage in his inquiry. A time was coming when the false atmosphere in
which he moved would be blown away by a stronger mind and a greater
genius than his own; but already he found himself dimly conscious
that some fundamental error had launched him along the wrong
road--that he was groping in a blind alley and had missed the only
path leading toward reality.
From Paignton on the following morning he proceeded to Plymouth and
directed a strenuous and close inquiry. But he knew well enough that
he was probably too late and judged with certainty that if Robert
Redmayne still lived, he would no longer be in England. Next he
returned to Princetown, that he might go over the ground again, even
while appreciating the futility of so doing. But the routine had
to be observed. The impressions of naked feet on the sand were
carefully protected. They proved too indefinite to be distinguished,
but he satisfied himself that they represented the footprints of two
men, if not three. He remembered that Robert Redmayne had spoken of
bathing in the pools and he strove to prove three separate pairs of
feet, but could not.
Inspector Halfyard, who had followed the case as closely as it was
possible to do so, cast all blame on Bendigo, the brother of the
vanished assassin.
"He delayed of set purpose," vowed Halfyard, "and them two days may
make just all the difference. Now the murderer's in France, if not
Spain."
"Full particulars have been circulated," explained Brendon, but the
inspector attached no importance to that fact.
"We know how often foreign police catch a runaway," he said.
"This is no ordinary runaway, however. I still prefer to regard him
as insane."
"In that case he'd have been taken before now. And that makes what
was simple before more and more of a puzzle in my opinion. I don't
believe that the man was mad. I believe he was and is all there; and
that being so, you've got to begin over again, Brendon, and find why
he did it. Once grant that this was a deliberately planned murder
and a mighty sight cleverer than it looked at first sight, then
you've got to ferret back into the past and find what motives
Redmayne had for doing it."
But Brendon was not convinced.
"I can't agree with you," he answered. "I've already pursued that
theory, but it is altogether too fantastic. We know, from impartial
testimony, that the men were the best of friends up to the moment
they left Princetown together on Redmayne's motor bicycle the night
of the trouble."
"What impartial testimony? You can't call Mrs. Pendean's evidence
impartial."
"Why not? I feel very certain that it is; but I'm speaking now of
what I heard at Paignton from Miss Flora Reed, who was engaged to
Robert Redmayne. She said that her betrothed wrote indicating his
complete change of opinion; and he also told her that he had asked
his niece and her husband to Paignton for the regattas. What is
more, both Miss Reed and her parents made it clear that the soldier
was of an excitable and uncertain nature. In fact Mr. Reed didn't
much approve of the match. He described a man who might very easily
slip over the border line between reason and unreason. No, Halfyard,
you'll not find any theory to hold water but the theory of a
mental breakdown. The letter he wrote to his brother quite confirms
it. The very writing shows a lack of restraint and self-control."
"The writing was really his?"
"I've compared it with another letter in Bendigo Redmayne's
possession. It's a peculiar fist. I should say there couldn't be a
shadow of doubt."
"What shall you do next?"
"Get back to Plymouth again and make close inquiries among the onion
boats. They go and come and I can trace the craft that left Plymouth
during the days that immediately followed the posting of Redmayne's
letter. These will probably be back again with another load in a
week or two. One ought to be able to check them."
"A wild-goose chase, Brendon."
"Looks to me as though the whole inquiry had been pretty much so
from the first. We've missed the key somewhere. How the man that
left Paignton in knickerbockers, and a big check suit and a red
waistcoat on the morning after the murder got away with it and never
challenged a single eye on rail or road--well, it's such a flat
contradiction to reason and experience that I can't easily believe
the face value."
"No--there's a breakdown somewhere--that's what I'm telling you; but
whether the fault is ours, or a trick has been played to put us
fairly out of the running, no doubt you'll find out soon or late. I
don't see there's anything more we can do up here whether or no."
"There isn't," admitted Mark. "It's all been routine work and a
devil of lot of time wasted in my opinion. Between ourselves, I'm
rather ashamed of myself, Halfyard. I've missed something--the thing
that most mattered. There's a signpost sticking up somewhere that I
never saw."
The inspector nodded.
"It happens so sometimes--cruel vexing--and then people laugh at us
and ask how we earn our money. Now and again, as you say, there's a
danger signal to a case so clear as the nose on a man's face, and
yet, owing to following some other clue, or sticking to a theory
that we feel can and must be the only right one, we miss the real,
vital point till we go and bark our shins on it. And then, perhaps,
it's too late and we look silly."
Brendon admitted the truth of this experience.
"There can only be two possible situations," he said; "either this
was a motiveless murder--and lack of motive means insanity; or else
there was a deep reason for it and Redmayne killed Pendean, after
plotting far in advance to do so and get clear himself. In the first
case he would have been found, unless he had committed suicide in
some such cunning fashion that we can't discover the body. In the
second case, he's a very cute bird indeed and the ride to Paignton
and disposal of the corpse--that all looked so mad--was super-craft
on his part. But, if alive, mad or sane, I'm of opinion he did what
he said in his letter to his brother he meant to do, and got off for
a French or Spanish port. So that's the next step for me--to try and
hunt down the boat that took him."
He pursued this policy, left Princetown for Plymouth on the
following day, took a room at a sailors' inn on the Barbican and
with the help of the harbour authority followed the voyages of a
dozen small vessels which had been berthing at Plymouth during the
critical days.
A month of arduous work he devoted to this stage of the inquiry, and
his investigation produced nothing whatever. Not a skipper of any
vessel involved could furnish the least information and no man
resembling Robert Redmayne had been seen by the harbour police, or
any independent person at Plymouth, despite sharp watchfulness.
A time came when the detective was recalled to London and heartily
chaffed for his failure; but his own unusual disappointment
disarmed the amusement at his expense. The case had presented such
few apparent difficulties that Brendon's complete unsuccess
astonished his chief. He was content, however, to believe Mark's own
conviction: that Robert Redmayne had never left England but
destroyed himself--probably soon after the dispatch of his letter to
Bendigo from Plymouth.
Much demanded attention and Brendon was soon devoting himself to a
diamond robbery in the Midlands. Months passed, the body of Michael
Pendean had not been recovered, and the little world of Scotland
Yard pigeon-holed the mystery, while the larger world forgot all
about it.
Meantime, with a sense of secret relief, Mark Brendon prepared to
face what had sprung out of these incidents, while permitting the
events themselves to pass from his present interests. There remained
Jenny Pendean and his mind was deeply preoccupied with her. Indeed,
apart from the daily toll of work, she filled it to the exclusion of
every other personal consideration. He longed unspeakably to see her
again, for though he had corresponded during the progress of his
inquiries and kept her closely informed of everything that he was
doing, the excuse for these communications no longer existed. She
had acknowledged every letter, but her replies were brief and she
had given him no information concerning herself, or her future
intentions, though he had asked her to do so. One item of
information only had she vouchsafed and he learned that she was
finishing the bungalow to her husband's original plan and then
seeking a possible customer to take over her lease. She wrote:
"I cannot see Dartmoor again, for it means my happiest as well
as my most unhappy hours. I shall never be so happy again and,
I hope, never suffer so unspeakably as I have during the recent
past."
He turned over this sentence many times and considered the weight of
every word. He concluded from it that Jenny Pendean, while aware
that her greatest joys were gone forever, yet looked forward to a
time when her present desolation might give place to a truer
tranquility and content.
The fact that this should be so, however, astonished Brendon. He
judged her words were perhaps ill chosen and that she implied a
swifter return to peace than in reality would occur. He had guessed
that a year at least, instead of merely these four months, must pass
before her terrible sorrow could begin to dim. Indeed he felt sure
of it and concluded that he was reading an implication into this
pregnant sentence that she had never intended it to carry. He longed
to see her and was just planning how to do so, when chance offered
an opportunity.
* * * * *
Brendon was called to arrest two Russians, due to arrive at Plymouth
from New York upon a day in mid-December; and having identified them
and testified to their previous activities in England, he was
free for a while. Without sending any warning, he proceeded to
Dartmouth, put up there that night, and started, at nine o'clock on
the following morning, to walk to "Crow's Nest."
His heart beat hard and two thoughts moved together in it, for not
only did he intensely desire to see the widow, but also had a wish
to surprise the little community on the cliff for another reason.
Still some vague suspicion held his mind that Bendigo Redmayne might
be assisting his brother. The idea was shadowy, yet he had never
wholly lost it and more than once contemplated such a surprise visit
as he was now about to pay.
Suspicion, however, seemed to diminish as he ascended great heights
west of the river estuary; and when within the space of two hours he
had reached a place from which "Crow's Nest" could be seen, perched
between the cliff heights and a grey, wintry sea, nothing but the
anticipated vision of the woman held his mind.
He came ignorant of the startling events awaiting him, little
guessing how both the story of his secret dream and the chronicle of
the quarry crime were destined to be advanced by great incidents
before the day was done.
His road ran over the cliffs and about him swept brown and naked
fields under the winter sky. Here and there a mewing gull flew
overhead and the only sign of other life was a ploughman crawling
behind his horses with more sea fowl fluttering in his wake. Brendon
came at last to a white gate facing on the highway and found that he
had reached his destination. Upon the gate "Crow's Nest" was
written in letters stamped upon a bronze plate, and above it rose a
post with a receptacle for holding a lamp at night. The road to the
house fell steeply down and, far beneath, he saw the flagstaff and
the tower room rising above the dwelling. A bleakness and melancholy
seemed to encompass the spot on this sombre day. The wind sighed and
sent a tremor of light through the dead grass; the horizon was
invisible, for mist concealed it; and from the low and ash-coloured
vapour the sea crept out with its monotonous, myriad wavelets
flecked here and there by a feather of foam.
As he descended Brendon saw a man at work in the garden setting up a
two-foot barrier of woven wire. It was evidently intended to keep
the rabbits from the cultivated flower beds which had been dug from
the green slope of the coomb.
He heard a singing voice and perceived that it was Doria, the motor
boatman. Fifty yards from him Mark stood still, and the gardener
abandoned his work and came forward. He was bare-headed and smoking
a thin, black, Tuscan cigar with the colours of Italy on a band
round the middle of it. Giuseppe recognized him and spoke first.
"It is Mr. Brendon, the sleuth! He has come with news for my
master?"
"No, Doria--no news, worse luck; but I was this way--down at
Plymouth again--and thought I'd look up Mrs. Pendean and her uncle.
Why d'you call me 'sleuth'?"
"I read story-books of crime in which the detectives are 'sleuths.'
It is American. Italians say 'sbirro,' England says 'police
officer.'"
"How is everybody?"
"Everybody very well. Time passes; tears dry; Providence watches."
"And you are still looking for the rich woman to restore the last of
the Dorias to his castle?"
Giuseppe laughed, then he shut his eyes and sucked his evil-smelling
cigar.
"We shall see as to that. Man proposes, God disposes. There is a god
called Cupid, Mr. Brendon, who overturns our plans as yonder
plough-share overturns the secret homes of beetle and worm."
Mark's pulses quickened. He guessed to what Doria possibly referred
and felt concern but no surprise. The other continued.
"Ambition may succumb before beauty. Ancestral castles may crumble
before the tide of love, as a child's sand building before the sea.
Too true!"
Doria sighed and looked at Brendon closely. The Italian stood in a
tight-fitting jersey of brown wool, a very picturesque figure
against his dark background. The other had nothing to say and
prepared to descend. He guessed what had happened and was concerned
rather with Jenny Pendean than the romantic personality before him.
But that the stranger could still be here, exiled in this lonely
spot, told him quite as much as the man's words. He was not chained
to "Crow's Nest" with his great ambitions in abeyance for nothing.
Mark, however, pretended to miss the significance of Giuseppe's
confession.
"A good master--eh! I expect the old sea wolf is an excellent friend
when you know his little ways."
Doria admitted it.
"He is all that I could wish and he likes me, because I understand
him and make much of him. Every dog is a lion in his own kennel.
Redmayne rules; but what is the good of a home to a man if he does
not rule? We are friends. Yet, alas, we may not be for long--when--"
He broke off abruptly, puffed a villainous cloud of smoke, and went
back to his wire netting. But he turned a moment and spoke again as
Brendon proceeded.
"Madonna is at home," he shouted and Mark understood to whom he
referred.
He had reached "Crow's Nest" in five minutes and it was Jenny
Pendean who welcomed him.
"Uncle's in his tower," she said. "I'll call him in a minute. But
tell me first if there is anything to tell. I am glad to see
you--very!"
She was excited and her great, misty blue eyes shone. She seemed
more lovely than ever.
"Nothing to report, Mrs. Pendean. At least--no, nothing at all. I've
exhausted every possibility. And you--you have nothing, or you would
have let me hear it?"
"There is nothing," she said. "Uncle Ben would most certainly
have told me if any news had reached him. I am sure that he is
dead--Robert Redmayne."
"I think so too. Tell me a little about yourself, if I may venture
to ask?"
"You have been so thoughtful for me. And I appreciated it. I'm all
right, Mr. Brendon. There is still my life to live and I find ways
of being useful here."
"You are contented, then?"
"Yes. Contentment is a poor substitute for happiness; but I am
contented."
He longed to speak intimately, yet had no excuse for doing so.
"How much I wish it was in my power to brighten your content into
happiness again," he said.
She smiled at him.
"Thank you for such a friendly wish. I am sure you mean it."
"Indeed I do."
"Perhaps I shall come to London some day, and then you would
befriend me a little."
"How much I hope you will--soon."
"But I am dull and stupid still. I have great relapses and sometimes
cannot even endure my uncle's voice. Then I shut myself up. I chain
myself like a savage thing, for a time, till I am patient again."
"You should have distractions."
"There are plenty--even here, though you might not guess it.
Giuseppe Doria sings to me and I go out in the launch now and then.
I always travel to and fro that way when I have to visit Dartmouth
for Uncle Ben and for the household provisions. And I am to have
chickens to rear in the spring."
"The Italian--"
"He is a gentleman, Mr. Brendon--a great gentleman, you might say. I
do not understand him very well. But I am safe with him. He would do
nothing base or small. He confided in me when first I came. He then
had a dream to find a rich wife, who would love him and enable him
to restore the castle of the Doria in Italy and build up the family
again. He is full of romance and has such energy and queer, magnetic
power that I can quite believe he will achieve his hopes some day."
"Does he still possess this ambition?"
Jenny was silent for a moment. Her eyes looked out of the window
over the restless sea.
"Why not?" she asked.
"He is, I should think, a man that women might fall in love with."
"Oh, yes--he is amazingly handsome and there are fine thoughts in
him."
Mark felt disposed to warn her but felt that any counsel from him
would be an impertinence. She seemed to read his mind, however.
"I shall never marry again," she said.
"Nobody would dare to ask you to do so--nobody who knows all that
you have been called to suffer. Not for many a long day yet, I
mean," he answered awkwardly.
"You understand," she replied and took his hand impulsively. "There
is a great gulf I think fixed between us Anglo-Saxons and the
Latins. Their minds move far more swiftly than ours. They are more
hungry to get everything possible out of life. Doria is a child in
many ways; but a delightful, poetical child. I think England rather
chills him; yet he vows there are no rich women in Italy. He longs
for Italy all the same. I expect he will go home again presently. He
will leave Uncle Ben in the spring--so he confides to me; but do not
whisper it, for my uncle thinks highly of him and would hate to lose
him. He can do everything and anticipates our wishes and whims in
the most magical way."
"Well, I must not keep you any longer."
"Indeed you are not doing that. I am very, very glad to see you, Mr.
Brendon. You are going to stop for dinner? We always dine in the
middle of the day."
"May I?"
"You must. And tea also. Come up to Uncle Bendigo now. I'll leave
you with him for an hour. Then dinner will be ready. Giuseppe always
joins us. You won't mind?"
"The last of the Doria! I've probably never shared a meal with such
high company!"
She led him up the flight of stairs to the old sailor's sanctum.
"Mr. Brendon to see us, Uncle Ben," she said, and Mr. Redmayne took
his eye from the big telescope.
"A blow's coming," he announced. "Wind's shifted a point to
southward. Dirty weather already in the Channel."
He shook hands and Jenny disappeared. Bendigo was pleased to see
Brendon, but his interest in his brother had apparently waned. He
avoided the subject of Robert Redmayne, though he revealed other
matters in his mind which he approached with a directness that
rather astonished the detective.
"I'm a rough bird," he said, "but I keep my weather peeper open, and
I didn't find it difficult to see when you were here in the summer,
that my fine niece took your fancy. She's the sort, apparently, that
makes men lose their balance a bit. For my part I never had any use
for a woman since I was weaned, and have always mistrusted the
creatures, seeing how many of my messmates ran on the rocks over
'em. But I'm free to grant that Jenny has made my house very
comfortable and appears to feel kindly to me."
"Of course she does, Mr. Redmayne."
"Hold on till I've done. At this minute I'm in sight of a very
vexatious problem; because my right hand--Giuseppe Doria--has got
his eyes on Jenny; and though he's priceless as a single man and
she's invaluable as a single woman, if the beggar gets round her and
makes her fall in love with him presently, then they'll be married
next year and that's good-bye to both of 'em!"
Mark found himself a good deal embarrassed by this confidence.
"In your place," he said, "I should certainly drop Doria a pretty
clear hint. What is good form in Italy he knows better than we do,
or ought to, seeing he's a gentleman; but you can tell him it's
damned bad form to court a newly made widow--especially one who
loved her husband as your niece did, and who has been separated from
him under such tragic circumstances."
"That's all right; and if there was only one in it I might do so;
though for that matter I'm afraid Doria isn't going to stop here
much longer in any case. He doesn't say so, but I can see it's only
Jenny who is keeping him. You've got to consider her too. I'm not
going to say she encourages the man or anything like that. Of course
she doesn't. But, as I tell you, I'm pretty wide awake and it's no
good denying that she can endure his company without hurting
herself. He's a handsome creature and he's got a way with him, and
she's young."
"I rather thought he was out for money--enough money to reëstablish
the vanished glories of his race."
"So he was and, of course, he knows he can't do that with Jenny's
twenty thousand; but love casts out a good many things besides fear.
It blights ambition--for the time being anyway--and handicaps a man
on every side in the race for life. All Doria wants now is Jenny
Pendean, and he'll get her if I'm a judge. I wouldn't mind too much
either, if they could stop along with me and go on as we're going;
but of course that wouldn't happen. As it is Doria has come to be a
friend. He does all he's paid to do and a lot more; but he's more a
guest than a servant, and I shall miss him like the devil when he
goes."
"It's hard to see what you can do, Mr. Redmayne."
"So it is. I don't wish to come between my niece and her happiness,
and I can't honestly say that Doria wouldn't be a good husband,
though good husbands are rare everywhere and never rarer than in
Italy, I believe. He might change his mind after they'd been wed a
year and hanker for his ambitions again and money to carry them out.
Jenny will have plenty some day, for there's poor Bob's money sooner
or late, I suppose, and there'll be mine and her Uncle Albert's so
far as I know. But, taking it by and large, I'd a good bit sooner it
didn't happen. I'll tell you these things because you're a famous
man, with plenty of credit for good sense."
"I appreciate the confidence and can return a confidence," answered
Brendon after a moment's reflection. "I do admire Mrs. Pendean. She
is, of course, amazingly beautiful, and she has a gracious and
charming nature. With such distinction of character you may rest
assured that nothing will happen yet a while. Your niece will be
faithful to her late husband's memory for many a long month, if not
forever."
"I believe that," answered Bendigo. "We can mark time, I don't
doubt, till the turn of the year or maybe longer. But there it is:
they are thrown together every day of their lives and, though Jenny
would hide it very carefully from me, and probably from herself also
as far as she could, I guess he's going to win out."
Brendon said no more. He was cast down and did not hide the fact.
"Mind you, I'd much prefer an Englishman," admitted the sailor; "but
there's nobody to make any running in these parts. Giuseppe's got it
all his own way." Then he left the subject. "No news, I suppose, of
my poor brother?"
"None, Mr. Redmayne."
"I'd pinned my faith that the whole horrid thing might be capable of
explanation along some other lines. But the blood was proved to be
human?"
"Yes."
"Another secret for the sea, then, as far as Pendean is concerned.
And as for Robert, only doomsday will tell where his bones lie."
"I also feel very little doubt indeed that he is dead."
A few minutes later a gong sounded from beneath and the two men
descended to their meal. It was Giuseppe Doria who did the talking
while they ate a substantial dinner. He proved a great egotist and
delighted to relate his own picturesque ambitions, though he had
already confessed that these ambitions were modified.
"We are a race that once lorded it over western Italy," he declared.
"Midway inland, between Ventimiglia and Bordighera, is our old
fastness beneath the mountains and beside the river. An ancient
bridge like a rainbow still spans Nervia, and the houses climb up
the hills among the vines and olives, while frowning down upon all
things is the mighty ruin of the Doria's castle--a great ghost from
the past. In the midst of all the human business and bustle, removed
by a century from the concerns of men, it stands, hollow and empty,
with life surging round about, like the sea on the precipices below
us. The folk throng everywhere--the sort of humble people who of old
knelt hatless to my ancestors. The base born wander in our chambers
of state, the villagers dry their linen on our marble floors,
children play in the closets of great counsellors, bats flutter
through the casements where princesses have sat and hoped and
feared!
"My people," he continued, "have sunk through many a stage and very
swiftly of late. My grandfather was only a woodman, who brought
charcoal from the mountains on two mules; my uncle grew lemons at
Mentone and saved a few thousand francs for his wife to squander.
Now I alone remain--the last of the line--and the home of the Doria
has long stood in the open market.
"With the fortress also goes the title--that is our grotesque
Italian way. A pork butcher or butter merchant might become Count
Doria to-morrow if he would put his hand deep enough in his pocket.
But salvation lies this way: that though the property and title are
cheap, to restore the ruin and make all magnificent again would
demand a millionaire."
He chattered on and after dinner lighted another of his Tuscan
cigars, drank a liqueur of some special brandy Mr. Redmayne produced
in honour of Brendon, and then left them.
They spoke of him, and Mark was specially interested to learn
Jenny's attitude; but she gave no sign and praised Giuseppe only for
his voice, his versatility, and good nature.
"He can turn his hand to anything," she said. "He was going fishing
this afternoon; but it is too rough, so he will work in the garden
again."
She hoped presently that Doria would find a rich wife and reach the
summit of his ambitions. It was clear enough that he did not enter
into any of Mrs. Pendean's calculations for her own future. But
Jenny said one thing to surprise her listener while still speaking
of the Italian.
"He doesn't like my sex," she declared. "In fact he makes me cross
sometimes with his scornful attitude to us. He's as bad as Uncle
Ben, who is a very hard-hearted old bachelor. He says, 'Women,
priests, and poultry never have enough.' But I say that men are far
greedier than women, and always were."
The sailor laughed and they went out upon the terrace for a time
where soon the early dusk began to fall. The storm had not yet
developed and there was a fierce and fiery light over the west at
sunset while a tremendous wind blew the sky almost clear for a time.
When the Start lighthouse opened a white, starry eye over the
deepening purple of the sea, and heavy waves beat below them in
hollow thunder, they returned to the house and Mr. Redmayne showed
Brendon curiosities. They drank tea at five o'clock and an hour
later the detective went on his way. A general invitation had been
extended to him and the old sailor expressly declared that it would
give him pleasure to receive Mark as a guest at any time. It was a
suggestion that tempted Brendon not a little.
"You've done a wonderful thing," said Jenny, as she saw him to the
outer gate. "You've quite won my uncle, and really that's a feat."
"Would it bore you if I fell in with his proposal and came down for
a few days after Christmas?" he asked, and she assured him that it
would give her pleasure.
Heartened a little he went his way, but the wave of cheerfulness set
flowing by her presence soon ebbed again. He felt full of suspicion
and half believed her indifference regarding Doria to be assumed. He
guessed that she would be jealous to give no sign until the days of
her mourning were numbered, but he felt a melancholy conviction that
when another summer was passed, Jenny Pendean would take a second
husband.
He debated the wisdom of presently returning to "Crow's Nest" and
felt a strong inclination to do so. Little guessing that he would be
there again on the morrow, he determined to remind Bendigo Redmayne
of his invitation in early spring. By that time much might have
happened, for he intended to correspond with Jenny, or at any fate
take the first step in a correspondence.
The moon had risen as he pursued his lonely road and it shone clear
through a gathering scud that threatened soon to overwhelm the
silver light. Clouds flew fast and, above Brendon's head, telegraph
wires hummed the song of a gathering storm. The man's thoughts
proceeded as irregularly as the fitful and shouting wind. He weighed
each word that Jenny had said and strove to understand each look
that she had given him.
He tried to convince himself that Bendigo Redmayne's theory must,
after all, be false, and he assured himself that by no possibility
could the widow of Michael Pendean ever lose her sad heart to this
stranger from Italy. The idea was out of the question, for surely a
woman of such fine mould, so suddenly and tragically bereaved, would
never find in this handsome chatterbox, throbbing with egotism, any
solace for sorrow, or promise for future contentment. In theory his
view seemed sound. Yet he knew, even while he reflected, that love
in its season may shatter all theories and upset even the most
consistent of characters.
Still deep in thought Brendon tramped on; and then, where the road
fell between a high bank to the windward side and a pine wood on the
other, he experienced one of the greatest surprises that life had
yet brought him.
At a gate, which hung parallel with the road and opened into the
depth of a copse behind, there stood Robert Redmayne.
The five-barred gate alone separated them and the big man lolled
over it with his arms crossed on the topmost bar. The moonlight beat
full into his face, and overhead the pines uttered a harsh and
sullen roar as the wind surged over them; while from far below the
shout of an angry sea upon the cliffs was carried upward. The red
man stood motionless, watchful. He wore the tweed clothes, cap and
red waistcoat that Brendon well remembered at Foggintor; the
moonlight flashed on his startled eyes and showed his great mustache
and white teeth visible beneath it. There was dread upon his face
and haggard misery, yet no madness.
It seemed that he kept a tryst there; but it had not been Mark
Brendon that he expected. For a moment he stared as the detective
stopped and confronted him. He appeared to recognize Mark, or at any
rate regard him as an enemy, for instantly he turned, plunged into
the woods behind him, and disappeared. In a moment he had vanished
and the riot of the storm hid all sounds of his panic flight.