Barrant had returned with a feeling of irritation against the mischances
of events which had brought an important piece of evidence to light after
his departure for London. He had chosen to commence inquiries into
Sisily's disappearance as soon as he had reached London instead of going
to Scotland Yard, where a guarded telegram from Inspector Dawfield awaited
him, and although he had hastened to obey the summons back to Cornwall as
soon as he received it, two valuable days had been lost. It was true that
in that time he had found traces of the girl which he believed would lead
to her early arrest, but the letter, with its implication that the dead
man was aware of his impending doom, was a highly significant clue, and
strengthened Barrant's original belief that the real mystery of Robert
Turold's death lay much deeper than the plausible surface of events
indicated.
He sat now, with a kind of sombre thoughtfulness, listening to Mr.
Brimsdown's account of his first meeting with his dead client. That story
carried with it a suggestion of adventure and mystery, but it was
difficult to say whether those elements had anything to do with Robert
Turold's death, thirty years later. It brought up the image of a man,
rugged and dominant even in youth, winning his way into the heart of a
middle-aged lawyer by the story of his determination to possess an old
English title. Most men have the spirit of Romance hidden in them
somewhere, and chance or good luck had sent Robert Turold, on his return
to England, to the one solicitor in London to whom his story was likely to
make the strongest kind of appeal. The spirit of Romance in Mr.
Brimsdown's bosom was no shimmering thing of thistledown and fancy, but
took the concrete shape of the peerage law of England, out of which he had
fashioned an image of worship to the old nobility and the days of
chivalry.
Barrant gathered so much from the lawyer's description of that first
meeting. And if Robert Turold had found in the solicitor the man he most
needed in his search for the missing title, it was equally clear that his
own great quality of rugged strength had exercised the most extraordinary
sway on the lawyer--a species of personal magnetism which had never lost
its original effect. It was not until the second or third meeting--Mr.
Brimsdown was not quite sure which--that the question of money was
introduced. The lawyer had pointed out to his client that the search for
the title was likely to be prolonged and expensive, and Robert Turold had
indifferently assured him that he had money at his command for that
purpose lying on deposit at a London bank. The amount, when he did mention
it, was much greater than Mr. Brimsdown imagined--nearly £50,000 in fact.
It was at Robert Turold's suggestion that Mr. Brimsdown undertook to
invest the sum at better rates of interest, and thus, before a year had
passed, the whole of Robert Turold's business affairs were in the hands of
the solicitor.
On one point Mr. Brimsdown was clear. He had never heard from Robert
Turold how he first came into possession of this large sum of money, and
his client had never encouraged inquiry on the subject. Mr. Brimsdown had
once ventured to ask him how he had made his fortune, and Robert Turold,
with a freezing look, had replied that he had made it abroad. Mr.
Brimsdown had never again referred to the subject, deeming it no business
of his.
Barrant, listening to this with the air of a man who was not to be
deceived, could not see that the narration threw any illumination on the
letter or the other circumstances of Robert Turold's death. It seemed too
far-fetched to suppose there was any connection between the fortune which
Robert Turold had brought from abroad thirty years before and the letter
he had sent to his solicitor on the night of his death. The idea did
indeed cross his mind that some iniquity in that money-getting may have
been responsible for a belated revenge, but he dismissed that thought as
too wide for the scope of his inquiry. Abroad! That was a vague word, and
thirty years was a long while back.
As he contemplated the manifold perplexities of the case, Barrant tried to
shut out the more sinister inference of the letter by asking himself, if
after all, the postscript was not capable of some entirely innocent
interpretation. But his conscientious mind refused to permit him to evade
responsibility in that way. The letter could not be dismissed with a wave
of one's wishing wand. It remained stubbornly in Barrant's perspective, an
unexplained factor which could be neither overlooked nor ignored.
These thoughts ran through his mind as Mr. Brimsdown talked of his dead
client. At the same time, the detective's attitude towards the lawyer
underwent a considerable change. His professional caution, amounting
almost to suspicion, became modified by the more perceptive point of view
that as the dead man had turned to Mr. Brimsdown for assistance, it would
be better for him to trust the lawyer also--to look upon him as an ally,
and make common cause with him in the search for Robert Turold's murderer.
This changed attitude, carrying with it a seeming friendliness, the
establishment, as it were, of an understanding between them, was not lost
upon Mr. Brimsdown. But it had its awkward side for him, by giving added
weight to the responsibility of deciding whether he should reveal or
withhold his chance encounter with Sisily at Paddington. Till then, Mr.
Brimsdown had been unable to make up his mind about that. There were some
nice points involved in the decision. In an effort to reach a solution he
broached the subject.
"Is it still your opinion that Miss Turold is guilty--after this letter?"
he asked.
"Her disappearance lays upon her the obligation of explaining her secret
visit to her father on the night of the murder," was the guarded reply.
"Then you intend to arrest her?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where she is?"
A quick consideration of this question led Barrant to the conclusion that
it would do no harm to let the lawyer know the scanty truth.
"She is in London. I have traced her to Paddington."
Mr. Brimsdown decided that, as the detective knew that much, it absolved
him from any obligation to betray the daughter of his dead client. His
feeling of relief unsealed his lips, and led him into an indiscretion.
"It seems incredible that she can be guilty." As he spoke the memory of
Sisily's tender and wistful face, as he had seen it that night, came back
to him.
"She had some justification, you know, if she was listening at the door
that afternoon," replied Barrant thoughtfully.
"It is hardly possible that she could have inflicted those marks on the
arm," Mr. Brimsdown said.
"How did you learn of them?" asked the detective quickly, in a changed
tone.
Too late Mr. Brimsdown realized that in contrast to his silence with
Charles Turold, he had now gone to the other extreme and said too much. He
hesitated, but his hesitation was useless before the swiftness of
Barrant's deduction.
"Was Charles Turold showing you the marks when I found you in the other
room?" he asked with a keen glance.
Mr. Brimsdown's admission of that fact was coupled with an assurance that
the young man had shown him the marks because he was convinced of Sisily's
innocence.
Barrant dismissed young Turold's opinions about the case with an impatient
shake of the head. "Who told him about the marks?" he said.
It was the thought which had occurred to Mr. Brimsdown at the time, but he
did not say so then. "How did you discover them?" he asked.
"When I was examining the body. But Charles Turold had no reason to
examine the body. Perhaps Dr. Ravenshaw told him. I must ask him."
"It is a terrible and ghastly crime," said Mr. Brimsdown, in an effort to
turn the mind of his companion in another direction. "There is something
about it that I do not understand--some deep mystery which has not yet
been fathomed. Was it really his daughter? If so, how did she escape from
the room and leave the door locked inside? Escape from these windows is
plainly impossible."
He crossed to the window, and stood for a moment looking down at a grey
sea tossing in futile restlessness. After an interval he said--
"Do you suspect Thalassa as well?"
The detective looked at him with a cautious air: "Why do you ask that?" he
said, with some restraint in his tone.
"It might account ... for certain things."
Barrant shook his head in a way which was more noncommittal than negative.
He wanted to ascertain what the lawyer thought, but he was not prepared to
reveal all his own thoughts in return.
"Do you think that Robert Turold invented this story about his marriage?"
he asked suddenly.
"For what purpose?"
"He did not want his daughter to succeed him in the title. His
announcement about the previous marriage strikes me as just a little too
opportune. Where are the proofs?"
"You would not talk like that if you had known Robert Turold," said the
lawyer, turning away from the window. "He was too anxious to gain the
title to jeopardize the succession by concocting a story of a false
marriage. He had proofs--I have not the slightest doubt of that. I believe
he had them in the house when he made his statement to the family."
"Then where are they now?"
"They may have been stolen."
"For what reason?"
"By some one interested."
"The person most interested is Robert Turold's daughter," said Barrant
thoughtfully. "That supposition fits in with the theory of her guilt.
Robert Turold is supposed to have kept valuable papers in that old clock
on the wall, which was found on the floor that night. Apparently he
staggered to it during his dying moments and pulled it down on top of him.
For what purpose? His daughter may have guessed that the proofs of her
illegitimacy were kept there, and tried to get them. Her father sought to
stop her, and she shot him."
"That theory does not account for the marks on the arm," said the lawyer.
"It does, because it is based on the belief that there was somebody else
in the room at the time, or immediately afterwards."
"Thalassa?"
"Yes--Thalassa. He knows more about the events of this night than he will
admit, but I shall have him yet."
"But the theory does not explain the letter," persisted the lawyer with an
earnest look. "Robert Turold could not possibly have had any premonition
that his daughter intended to murder him, and even if he had, it would not
have led him to write that letter with its strange postscript, which
suggests that he had a sudden realization of some deep and terrible danger
in the very act of writing it. And if Thalassa was implicated, was he
likely to go to such trouble to establish a theory of suicide, and then
post a letter to me which destroyed that theory?"
"We do not know that Thalassa posted the letter--it may have been Robert
Turold himself. As for premonitions--" Barrant checked himself as if
struck by a sudden thought, stood up, and walked across the room to where
the broken hood clock had been replaced on its bracket. He stood there
regarding it, and the round eyes in the moon's face seemed to return his
glance with a heavy stare.
"If that fat face in the clock could only speak as well as goggle its
eyes!" he said, with a mirthless smile. "We should learn something then.
What's the idea of it all--the rolling eyes, the moon, the stars, and a
verse as lugubrious as a Presbyterian sermon on infant damnation. The
whole thing is uncanny."
"It's a common enough device in old clocks," said the lawyer, joining him.
"It is commoner, however, in long-cased clocks--the so-called grandfather
clock. I have seen all sorts of moving figures and mechanisms in
long-cased clocks in old English country houses. A heaving ship was a very
familiar device, the movement being caused, as in this clock, by a wire
from the pendulum. I have never seen a specimen with the rotating
moon-dial before, though they were common enough in some parts of England
at one time. This is a Dutch clock, and the earlier Dutch makers were
always fond of representing their moons as human faces. It was made by a
great master of his craft, as famous in his native land as old Dan Quare
is in England, and its mechanism has outlived its creator by more than
three hundred years."
"Would it be an accurate timekeeper, do you think?" asked Barrant, looking
mistrustfully at the motionless face of the moon, as though he suspected
it of covertly sneering at him.
"I should think so. These old clockmakers made their clocks to keep
perfect time, and outlast Time himself! And this clock is a perfect
specimen of the hood clock, which marked a period in clock-making between
the old weight clocks and the long cases. Hood clocks were popular in
their day in Holland, but they have always been rare in this country. It
would be interesting to trace how this one came into this house. No doubt
it was taken from a wreck, like so much of the furniture in old Cornish
houses."
"You seem to know a lot about old clocks."
Mr. Brimsdown, astride his favourite hobby, rode it irresistibly. He
discoursed of clocks and their makers, and Barrant listened in silence.
The subject was not without its fascination for him, because it suggested
a strange train of thought about the hood clock which was the text, as it
were, of the lawyer's discourse. He looked up. Mr. Brimsdown, in front of
the clock, was discoursing about dials and pendulums. Barrant broke in
abruptly with the question on his mind--
"Can you, with your knowledge of old clocks, suggest any reason which
would cause Robert Turold to go to it? Are the works intricate? Would such
a clock require much adjustment?"
"Robert Turold was not likely to think of adjusting a clock in his dying
moments," returned Mr. Brimsdown, with a glance which betokened that he
perfectly understood his companion had some other reason for his question.
"There's a smear of blood on the dial," said Barrant, staring at it.
"Was that made by the right or left hand?"
"The right hand was resting on the clock-face. Why do you ask?"
Mr. Brimsdown hesitated, then said: "The thought has occurred to me that
Robert Turold may have gone to the clock for a different purpose--not for
papers. Perhaps his last thought was to indicate the name of the murderer
on the white face of the clock."
"In his blood? Rather a melodramatic idea, that! He had writing materials
before him if he wanted to do that, if he thought of it. He was shot down
in the act of writing, remember."
A silence fell between them on this declaration--a silence terminated by
Barrant remarking that it was really late, and he must be getting back to
Penzance. Mr. Brimsdown made no suggestion to accompany him. Instead he
rustled papers in Robert Turold's cabinet as though to convey the
impression that the sorting and searching of them would take him some
time. Barrant, from whose eyes speculation and suspicion looked out from a
depth, like the remote glance of a spider which had scurried to a hole,
gave a slight sign of farewell, and wheeled out of the apartment without
another word.
Downstairs he went, plunged in the deepest thought. Looking downward, he
saw Thalassa escorting Dr. Ravenshaw to the front door. The doctor's voice
reached him.
"... She must not be left alone on any account--understand that. You ought
to get somebody to look after her."
"I can't afford nobody," Thalassa made reply.
Dr. Ravenshaw was about to say something more, but the figure of the
descending detective caught his eye. Barrant made a detaining gesture, and
the doctor waited in the passage for him. Barrant, with a slight glance at
the motionless figure of Thalassa, led the way into the front room. He
closed the door before he spoke.
"Doctor," he said, "have you told anybody about those marks on Robert
Turold's arm?"
"I have not," said the doctor promptly, looking up. "Why do you ask?"
His glance carried conviction, and interrogation also. But it was
Barrant's province to ask questions, not to answer them. He ignored Dr.
Ravenshaw's.
"There's another matter, doctor," he continued. "One of the coast
fishermen has a story that when Robert Turold was out on the moors he used
to hasten home with great strides, like a man who feared pursuit. Did you
ever observe this peculiarity in him?"
"I have observed that he used to walk at a quick pace."
"This was more than a quick pace--it was almost a run, according to the
fisherman--looking backward over his shoulder as he went."
"I did not notice that, but I should not be surprised if it were true,
with a man of Robert Turold's temperament."
"He feared pursuit--some unknown danger, then?"
"I cannot say. He may have suffered from agoraphobia."
"What is that?" asked Barrant.
"The dread of open spaces."
"I have heard of claustrophobia--the dread of closed spaces--but not of
this."
"It is common enough--an absurd but insurmountable aversion to open
spaces. The victims are oppressed by a terrible anxiety when crossing a
field. I have known a man who would be terrified at the idea of crossing
Trafalgar Square."
"What is the cause of agoraphobia?" asked Barrant.
"It is a nervous disorder--one of the symptoms of advanced neurasthenia."
"Did Robert Turold suffer from neurasthenia?"
"His nervous system was in a state of irritable weakness through the
monomania of a fixed idea," was the reply--"too much seclusion and
concentration on one object, to the exclusion of all other human
interests."
"How's your patient?" said Barrant, giving the conversation an abrupt
turn.
"What patient do you mean--Mrs. Thalassa?" asked Dr. Ravenshaw in some
surprise.
"Yes. I gathered from what I overheard you say to Thalassa that you have
been attending her."
"I have been attending her since Mr. Turold's death."
"She is in a strange condition," observed Barrant reflectively. "I was
questioning her the other night, but I could get nothing out of her. She
seems almost imbecile."
"She is not a woman of strong mind, and she is now suffering from a severe
shock. She should be looked after or taken away from here altogether, but
her husband seems quite indifferent."
"Do you think she will recover?"
"It is impossible to say."
"How do you think the shock was caused?"
"I should not like to hazard an opinion on that point, either," replied
Dr. Ravenshaw gravely. He glanced at his watch as he spoke. "I must be
going," he said.
They left the house together, but branched off at the gate--Dr. Ravenshaw
to visit a fisherman's dying wife, and Barrant to seek the _Three Jolly
Wreckers_ for supper before returning to Penzance.
From the kitchen window Thalassa watched them go: the doctor walking
across the cliffs with resolute stride, the detective making for the path
over the moors with bent head and slower step, as though his feet were
clogged by the weight of his thoughts. Thalassa watched their dwindling
forms until they disappeared, and then stood still, in a listening
attitude. The sound of the lawyer stirring in the study overhead seemed to
rouse him from his immobility. He closed the door, and stood looking up
the staircase with the shadow of indecision on his face.