The clock in Dr. Ravenshaw’s study ticked loudly in the perfect stillness and then struck ten with a note of metallic derision as though rejoicing in the theft of an hour from a man who prided himself on knowing the value of time. Startled to find that it was so late, Barrant sprang to his feet and rang the bell. A sleepy Cornish maid appeared in answer, and Barrant informed her that he could not wait any longer.
“The doctor may be in at any time now, sir,” the girl eagerly assured him, as though she were in league with the clock to steal more of his time.
“I will call again,” said Barrant curtly.
“Any message, sir? Oh, here’s the doctor now. A gentleman to see you, sir.”
Dr. Ravenshaw advanced into the room. He looked tired and weary, as if he had spent a long vigil by a patient. He dismissed the girl with a nod, and turned inquiringly to his visitor.
“I am Detective Barrant, doctor; I have waited to see you on my way back from Flint House. I am investigating the case.”
“Yes?” said the doctor inquiringly. “Please be seated.”
“It is a strange case, you know,” began the detective. “And one of the strange things about it is that the dead man’s relatives differ whether it is murder or suicide. That’s what brings me to you. You are a medical man, and you knew Robert Turold intimately. Would you consider him a man of suicidal tendencies?”
“Many men have tendencies towards suicide at odd moments,” replied the doctor, “particularly men of Robert Turold’s temperament.”
“Was there anything in Robert Turold’s demeanour which suggested to you recently that he valued his life lightly, or was likely to take it?”
“I would rather not give a definite opinion on that point. I have to give evidence at the inquest, you know.”
Barrant nodded. He realized the force of the doctor’s objection to the expression of a view which might be proved erroneous later. So he turned to another phase of the case.
“You saw Robert Turold’s body soon after you arrived at Flint House?”
“Within a few minutes.”
“How long had he been dead?”
“About ten minutes, I should say.”
“What was the cause of death?”
“He was shot through the main blood vessel of the left lung. It was possible to arrive at that conclusion from the very severe haemorrhage. The blood was still flowing freely when we broke into the room. That would cause death from heart failure, following the haemorrhage, within two or three minutes, in all probability.”
“He was quite dead when you entered the study?”
“Quite.”
“How long after was the body carried into the bedroom?”
“An hour or more. It was some time before Pengowan arrived, and Thalassa and he removed the body a little later.”
Barrant looked disappointed at his reply. “Would it be possible to make marks on a corpse after that length of time?” he asked.
“What sort of marks?” asked the doctor.
“There was a mark of five fingers on the left arm, made by a left hand.”
“Then you have finger-prints to help you?”
“Unfortunately no. It’s a grip—a clutch—which, will not reveal print marks in the impressions. I thought they might have been caused during the removal of the body.”
“It is not possible to make such marks on a corpse. Reaction sets in at the moment of death. Sometimes blue spots appear on a dead body, and such appearances have been occasionally mistaken for bruises.”
“Did you observe any marks when you examined the body?” asked Barrant as he rose to his feet.
“No, but my examination was confined to ascertaining if life was extinct.”
Barrant thanked him and said good night. The doctor rose also, and escorted him to the door.
Outside, a wild west wind sprang at him. Barrant pulled his hat over his eyes and hurried away.
The following morning he sought out Inspector Dawfield at his office in Penzance and disclosed to him his conclusions about the case.
“I intend to go to London by this morning’s train, Dawfield,” he announced. “We must find Robert Turold’s daughter.”
“You think she has gone to London?”
“I feel sure of it, and I do not think it will be difficult to trace her. I shall try first at Paddington. I will get the warrant for her arrest backed at Bow Street, and put a couple of good men on the search before returning here. You had better have the inquest adjourned until I come back. This is no suicide, Dawfield, but a deep and skilfully planned murder.”
“I should think the flight of the girl makes that pretty clear,” said Dawfield, as he made a note on his office pad.
Barrant shook his head. “It’s too strange a case for us to have any feeling of certainty about it yet,” he said. “There is some very deep mystery behind the facts. Every step of my investigation convinces me of that. The disappearance of Miss Turold does not explain everything.”
“She was up at Flint House on that night, and now she is not to be found. Surely that is enough?”
“This is not a straightforward case. It’s going to prove a very complicated one. But I have come to the conclusion that the quickest way to get at the truth is to find Sisily Turold. Her flight suggests that she is implicated in the crime in some way, and it may even mean that she is guilty.”
“Do not the circumstances point to her guilt?”
“Circumstances can lie with the facility of humanity, at times. Moreover, we do not know all the circumstances yet. But let us examine the facts we have discovered. We believe that the girl visited her father’s house on the night of his death, and has since disappeared. We must assume that it was she who was seen listening at the door during the afternoon by Mrs. Pendleton, because that assumption provides strong motive for the murder by giving the key of interpretation to Miss Turold’s subsequent actions. We must picture the effect of that overheard conversation on the girl’s mind. She had been kept in ignorance about the secret of her birth, and she suddenly discovers that instead of being a prospective peeress and heiress, she is only an illegitimate daughter, a nameless thing, a reproach in a world governed by moral conventions. Her prospects, her future, and her life are shattered by her father’s act. The effect might well be overwhelming. She broods over the wrong done to her, and decides to go to Flint House that night and see her father, though not, I think, with the premeditated idea of murder. Her idea was to plead and remonstrate with him.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Dawfield.
“She could not have foreseen that her absence from the hotel would pass unnoticed. That was pure luck, due to Mrs. Pendleton’s chance visit to Flint House. It was just chance that the girl did not encounter her aunt there. She must have got away from Flint House shortly before Mrs. Pendleton arrived. But the strongest proof that there was no premeditation is to be found in the fact that Miss Turold made the journey openly, in a public conveyance.”
“And returned the same way,” put in Dawfield.
“I confess that her action in taking that risk after the murder strikes me as remarkable,” observed Barrant thoughtfully. “But she would be anxious to return as speedily as possible, and perhaps she was aware that the last wagonette from St. Fair to Penzance is generally empty. But we can only speculate about that. She must have reached Flint House not later than half-past eight or perhaps a few minutes earlier, if she walked quickly across the moors. I ascertained that by taking the same wagonette last night, and walking across the moors from the cross-roads, as she did. The murder was not committed until half-past nine, according to the stopped clock, which is another point suggesting lack of premeditation. Let us assume that up to the time she arrived at Flint House she had no intention of murdering her father. She knocked, and was perhaps admitted by Thalassa, and went up to her father’s room. What happened during that interview? We do not know, but we are told that Robert Turold was a man of harsh, unyielding disposition, the slave of his single idea, which was the acquisition of a lost title. Such a man was not likely to be moved by pleading or threats. We must imagine a long and angry scene, culminating in the daughter snatching up her father’s revolver and shooting him.”
“Thalassa told Pengowan that Robert Turold kept the revolver in the drawer of his writing table,” Dawfield remarked.
“I have read Pengowan’s report,” returned Barrant impatiently, “and I am assuming that Robert Turold’s daughter knew where it was kept. This is a purely constructive theory of her guilt, and we have to assume many things. We must further assume that when she left the room she locked the door behind her and brought away the key in order to suggest suicide. When she got downstairs she told Thalassa the truth, and begged him to shield her. He promised to do so, and when the door of the study was broken open he took an opportunity to drop the key on the floor, in order to suggest the idea that Robert Turold had locked himself in his room before shooting himself, and that the key was jolted out of the lock when the door was burst in. It was an infernally clever thing to do. That’s the case against the girl, Dawfield. What do you think of it?”
“It sounds convincing enough.”
“It would sound more convincing to me if it was entirely consistent with the other facts of the case. Have you those sheets of unfinished writing which were found in Robert Turold’s study?”
Dawfield produced two sheets of foolscap from his desk. Barrant laid them on the table, and examined them with a magnifying glass.
“It is certain that Robert Turold did not put down his pen voluntarily,” he said. “He stopped involuntarily, in the midst of a word. That suggests great surprise or sudden shock. The letter ‘e’ in the word ‘clear’ terminates in a sprawling dash and a jab from the nib which has almost pierced the paper. Could the unexpected appearance of his daughter have startled him in that fashion? It rather suggests that somebody sprang on him unawares, surprising him so much that he almost stuck the pen through the paper.”
“Might not that have been his daughter?”
“Women scratch like cats when they use violence, but they do not spring like tigers. I have been examining those marks on Robert Turold’s arm again, and I have come to the conclusion that they were made by somebody in a violent passion.”
“I have the photographs here,” said Dawfield, rummaging in a drawer. “They do not help us at all. There are no finger-prints—nothing but blurs.”
Barrant glanced at the photographs and pushed them aside.
“I have been thinking a lot about those marks,” he said. “They strike me as a very important clue. I have been examining them very closely, and discovered the faint impression of finger-nails in the marks left by the first and second fingers. That suggests that the owner of the hand was in a state of ferocity and tightened nerves.”
“I do not see that.”
“Allow me to experiment on your arm. When I grip you firmly, as I do now, you can feel my fingers pressing their whole length on your flesh, can you not?”
“I can indeed,” said Dawfield, wincing. “You’ve a pretty powerful grip. I shall be black and blue.”
“The grip on Robert Turold’s arm is quite a different thing,” pursued Barrant earnestly. “Do not be afraid, I am not going to demonstrate again. It was more in the nature of a pounce—a sort of tiger-spring hold, made by somebody in a state of great mental excitement, with tightened muscles which caused a tense clutch with the finger-tips, the nails digging into the skin, the fingers bent and wide apart. My opinion is that it is a man’s grip.”
“Thalassa?”
“That I cannot say. He’s a cunning and wary devil, and I could get nothing out of him last night. He says he was in the coal cellar when his master met his death. That’s where he showed his cleverness in protecting himself as well as shielding the girl, because if he was actually down in the coal cellar she might have gained entrance to the house and left it again without Thalassa knowing anything about it. He says that he admitted nobody, and heard nobody.”
“Perhaps he helped in the murder, and sprang on his master.”
“That is possible. But why should Thalassa spring on his master in maniacal excitement? To secure the revolver to shoot him? I can see no other reason. What happened afterwards? Robert Turold wasn’t shot immediately. Some seconds, perhaps minutes, elapsed. What took place in that brief yet vital space of time? Did Thalassa hold his master in a grim clutch while the girl took the revolver out of the drawer and shot him? What took Robert Turold to the clock in his dying moments? These are questions we cannot answer at present. But it is certain that whoever committed the murder left the room immediately after firing the shot, and the door was locked on the outside and the key removed. If the daughter committed the murder it was probably Thalassa who replaced the key in the room afterwards.”
“Have you any doubt on that point?”
“The probabilities point to Thalassa, but it was Austin Turold who actually picked up the key. It is as well not to lose sight of that fact.”
Inspector Dawfield looked up quickly, but his colleague’s face revealed nothing of his thoughts.
“Hadn’t you some idea that the marks on the arm might have been caused by the removal of the body into the next room?” he hazarded.
“Not now,” Barrant replied. “That theory was only tenable on the supposition that life was not completely extinct when the body was removed. But I interviewed Dr. Ravenshaw on that point last night, and what he told me disposes of that theory.”
“I heard something from one of my men this morning which may have some bearing on the case,” remarked Dawfield. “There has been a lot of local gossip about it. Robert Turold was generally regarded as very eccentric. When he crossed the moors from the churchtown to Flint House it was his custom to go almost at a run, glancing over his shoulder as he went, as if afraid.”
“I have heard nothing of this,” commented Barrant. “Is the story to be believed, do you think?”
“A fisherman of the churchtown told my man in a graphic sort of way. He says that Robert Turold had a dog which he used to take with him on these walks, and he says that the master used to cover the ground with such great strides that the dog had to run after him panting, with lolling tongue.”
“That sounds stretched,” said Barrant. “Most fishermen exaggerate. However, I’ll look up this man when I return, and question him. It never does to throw away a chance.” He glanced at his watch and rose to his feet. “I’ll be off now to catch the train. If anything important occurs during my absence you’d better send me a wire to Scotland Yard.”
It was from Mrs. Pendleton that Mr. Brimsdown gained his first real knowledge of the drama of strange events surrounding Robert Turold’s death. In response to his call at the hotel she came down from her room fingering his card nervously, her eyes reddened with weeping, and an air of tremulous bewilderment about her which sat ill on her massive personality.
The lawyer greeted her with formal courtesy. He was newly shaved and bathed, his linen was spotless, and his elderly grey eyes looked out with alert watchfulness on a world of trickery.
“As your late brother’s legal adviser for many years, I felt it incumbent upon me to come down,” he said, fixing a grave glance on the distracted lady before him. “It seemed to me that I might be of some use, perhaps, assistance. That is the object of my call.”
The fact that she had not seen Mr. Brimsdown before did not lessen the hysterical gratitude with which Mrs. Pendleton received this piece of information. The events of the last forty-eight hours had shaken her badly. Her brother’s tragic death, and the terrible suspicion which enveloped Sisily, had stripped her of her strength, and left her with a feminine longing to cast her burden on a man’s shoulders. She had discovered to her dismay that a husband who has been snubbed and kept under for twenty years is apt to prove a thing of straw when a woman likes to feel that the male sex was devised by Providence to take the wheel from female hands if the barque of life drifts on the breakers. But Mr. Pendleton had revealed no latent capacity to play the part of the strong man at the helm in the crisis. He had shown himself a craven and kept out of the way, leaving his wife to her own resources. The appearance of Mr. Brimsdown was as timely to her as the arrival of a heaven-sent pilot in a storm.
“Thank you,” she murmured incoherently. “Such a dreadful end. Poor dear Robert.” She sobbed into her handkerchief.
“A deplorable loss to his family—and England,” assented the lawyer. “I am glad to see you. They ascertained your address for me at the hotel where I am staying. I have been resting after travelling all night, and I shall go and see the police in the morning. So far I have only read the reports in the London evening papers, and there may be intimate particulars which were not disclosed to the press. If such exist, perhaps you will impart them to me. You need not hesitate to disclose to me all you know. Your late brother honoured me with his confidence for nearly thirty years.” Mr. Brimsdown coughed discreetly.
His tone invited confidences which Mrs. Pendleton, in her perplexity of spirit, was only too anxious to impart to a sympathetic ear. Mr. Brimsdown, sitting stiffly upright, his eyes fixed on a portrait of Royalty glimmering inanely down at them through a dirty glass frame on the opposite wall, listened with unmoved front. Yet the story had its surprises, even for him. Not the least of them was the fact that Mrs. Pendleton’s description of her niece tallied with the appearance of the girl whose identity he had tried to recall at Paddington. He was chagrined to think he had failed to recognize his late client’s daughter, but he recalled that it was ten years since he had seen Sisily, who was then a dark-eyed little girl. At Norfolk. Oh, yes! he remembered her readily enough now, playing innocently about some forgotten tombstones in a deserted graveyard on a wild grey coast, while her father wrested savagely with the dead for his heritage. Strange that he should have met her again at the moment of her flight, when he was setting out for Cornwall in response to her dead father’s letter! Life had such ironical mischances.
He said nothing of this chance encounter, or of Robert Turold’s letter, to the dead man’s sister who was now pouring out her fears and suspicions to him. He was a receptacle into which confidences might be emptied, but he gave nothing in return. Mrs. Pendleton did not need that. Her state of mind compelled her to speak, and her impulsiveness hurried her along on the high tide of a flood of words. The story she had to tell oppressed her listener with the sense of some great unknown horror. It was like trying to see a dark place by lightning. The flashes of her revelations revealed a distorted surface, but not the hidden depths. Mrs. Pendleton’s agitated mind, doubling in and out a maze of conjectures like a distracted hare, turned again and again to the question of Sisily’s complicity in her father’s death.
“I can hardly believe it even now,” she said with a shudder. “Such a sweet pretty girl! And yet—there was something strange in her manner. I remarked it to Joseph—my husband—before this happened.” She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
The lawyer, with a sideways glance at the Royal portrait opposite, which seemed in the act of smiling blandly at his companion’s grief, reflected, soberly enough, that sweet and pretty girls were as human as the rest of creation, if it came to that.
“Charlie Turold—my nephew, you know—will have it that she is innocent.”
“In spite of her disappearance?”
“Yes. He came this morning, before I was up, to see if I knew where Sisily had gone. After tea he came again in a terrible state, raving against the detective for taking out a warrant for her arrest. He said it was madness on his part to imagine that a girl like Sisily would kill her father. I told him that as Sisily had disappeared he could hardly blame the police for looking for her. He turned on me when I said that, and used such violent language that I was quite frightened of him. But I make allowances, of course.”
“Why?” the lawyer asked, looking at her.
“I think Charlie is very fond of Sisily,” murmured Mrs. Pendleton with womanly intuition.
“Do you mean that they love each other?” said the lawyer, regarding her attentively.
“I cannot say about Sisily. And I never guessed it of Charlie until this morning. I’m sure poor Robert had no idea of it. He would never have agreed—after what he told us on the day of the funeral, I mean.”
Mr. Brimsdown gave a tacit unspoken assent to that. Some men might have welcomed such a solution of an ugly family scandal, but not Robert Turold, with his fierce pride for the honour of the title which he had sought to gain.
“Is your nephew’s belief in Miss Turold’s innocence based on anything stronger than assertion? Does he suspect any one else?”
“He did not say so. He was very excited, and talked on and on, without listening to me in the least. He seems very impulsive and headstrong. I noticed that on the day of the funeral. When Robert told us about his marriage, Charles said to him that his first duty was to his daughter. Robert looked so angry.”
“I can well believe it,” murmured the lawyer. “The young man must have courage.”
“Oh yes, he served with distinction in the war,” Mrs. Pendleton innocently rejoined. “In temperament he takes after me, I think, more than after his father. Austin and I never did think alike. We even disagreed over poor Robert’s terrible death. Austin thought he had … destroyed himself.” Her voice dropped to a shocked whisper.
“On what grounds did he base that belief?” Mr. Brimsdown cautiously asked.
“He thought the circumstances pointed to it,” she rejoined. “But I knew better—I knew Robert would never do anything so dreadful. Besides, had I not seen that horrible old man-servant glaring through the door? That is why I went to the police.”
As Mrs. Pendleton showed a tendency to repeat herself, Mr. Brimsdown rose to terminate the interview. Mrs. Pendleton rose, too, but she had not yet reached the end of her surprises for him.
“And then there’s Robert’s will—so strange! Really—”
“The will! What will?” interrupted the lawyer testily. “Did your brother make his will down here?”
“Yes. A will drawn up by a local lawyer—a man with the extraordinary name of Bunkom—a most terrible little creature. Bunkom, indeed!” continued Mrs. Pendleton, shaking her head with a feeble assumption of sprightliness. “Everything is left to my brother Austin. I do not mind in the least about myself. After all, Robert and I met almost as strangers after many years, and I want nothing from him. But his treatment of this unfortunate girl, his daughter, is really too dreadful. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but I must say that much, whether Sisily had anything to do with Robert’s death or not, for, of course, Robert couldn’t have known about that at the time—when he made his will, I mean,” concluded Mrs. Pendleton, in some confusion of mind.
“It is strange that your brother did not consult me before drawing up this will,” said Mr. Brimsdown.
“Perhaps he imagined you might persuade him against it,” sighed Mrs. Pendleton. “It is all very strange. I do not understand it a bit.”
Mr. Brimsdown thought it strange, then and afterwards. Next day, after going to the police station and handing Robert Turold’s letter to Inspector Dawfield, he sought out the Penzance lawyer who had drawn up the will. Mr. Bunkom was a spidery little man who spun his legal webs in a small dark office at the top of Market Jew Street, a solicitor with a servile manner but an eye like a fox, which dwelt on his eminent confrère from London, as he perused the will, with an expression which it was just as well that Mr. Brimsdown didn’t see, so sly and savage was it. The Penzance spider knew his business. The will was watertight and properly attested. The bulk of the property was bequeathed to Austin Turold unconditionally. There were only two other bequests. Robert Turold had placed Thalassa and Sisily (“my illegitimate daughter”) on an equality by bequeathing to them annuities of £50 a year each. Austin Turold and Mr. Brimsdown were named as joint executors, and that was all.
Mr. Brimsdown would not have occupied such a distinguished place in the legal profession if he had not been a firm believer in the sacred English tradition that a man has the right to dispose of his own property as he thinks fit. Moreover, his legal mind realized the folly of speculating over the reasons which had prompted this hurried will when the man who had made it was beyond the reach of argument, reproof, or cross-examination.
But the lack of all mention of the title was a different matter, calling for investigation. It was remarkable that a man like Robert Turold should have gone to the grave without binding his heir to prosecute the claim for the Turrald title. To that end Robert Turold had devoted his life, and to the upkeep of the title he had proposed to devote his fortune. The absence of this precaution puzzled Mr. Brimsdown considerably at first, but as he pondered over the matter he began to see the reason. Robert Turold was so close to the summit of his ambition that he had not thought it necessary to take precautions. He was a strong man, and strong men rarely think of death. Once the title was his, it descended as a matter of course to his brother, and then to his brother’s son—provided, of course, that the proofs of his daughter’s illegitimacy were in existence.
That conclusion carried another in its wake. If Robert Turold had not safeguarded his dearest ambition because he hoped to carry it out himself, it followed as a matter of course that he did not take his own life. Mr. Brimsdown had never accepted that theory, but it was strange to have it so conclusively proved, as it were, by the inference of an omission. That brought the lawyer back to the position that some foreboding or warning of his murder had caused Robert Turold to summon him to Cornwall by letter. The next step of his investigations led Mr. Brimsdown to the dead man’s study, where that frantic appeal had been penned.
He engaged a vehicle at the hotel and drove over to Flint House in the afternoon. The impression of that visit remained. Flint House, rising from the basalt summit of the headland like a granite vault, its windows coldly glistening down on the frothy green gloom of the Atlantic far beneath, the country trap and lean black horse at the flapping gate, the undertaker’s man (dissolute parasite of austere Death) slinking out of the house, and Thalassa waiting at the open door for him to approach—all these things were engraved on Mr. Brimsdown’s mind, never to be forgotten. Who was it that had staged such a crime in such a proscenium, in that vast amphitheatre of black rocks which stretched dizzily down beneath those gleaming windows?
Then came other impressions: the dead man upstairs, the disordered dusty study, the stopped clock, the litter of papers. It was in the room where Robert Turold had been murdered that Mr. Brimsdown questioned Thalassa about the letter, and heard with a feeling of dismay his declaration that he had not posted it. Where was the nearest pillar box? Nearly a mile away, at the cross-roads. Could his late master have gone there to post it that night? If he had, Thalassa hadn’t heard him go out. Could anybody else have posted it? No; there was nobody else to post it.
It was like questioning a head on an old Roman coin, so expressionless was Thalassa’s face as he delivered himself of these replies. But the lawyer had the feeling that Thalassa was deriving a certain grim satisfaction from his questioner’s perplexity, and he dismissed him somewhat angrily. Then, when he had gone, he turned to an examination of some of the papers and documents which littered the room, but that was a search which told him nothing.
When the shades of evening warned him to relinquish that task, he told himself that he really ought to go and see Austin Turold before returning to Penzance. But he shrank, with unaccountable reluctance, from the performance of that obvious duty. He felt very old and tired, and his temples were throbbing with a bad nervous headache. He therefore decided to postpone his visit to Austin Turold until later.
When the interview with Austin Turold did take place, Mr. Brimsdown learnt with a feeling which was little less than astonishment that Robert Turold had died without confiding to his brother the proofs, on which so much depended, of the statement he had made on the day of his death.
“I cannot understand it,” he murmured, putting down his tea-cup as he spoke.
Austin had received him in the blue sitting-room, hung with the specimens of Mr. Brierly’s ineffectual art, and had given him tea, as he had given Barrant tea some days before. But there was a subtle difference in the manner of Mr. Brimsdown’s reception; the tone was pitched higher, with fine shades and inflections attuned for a more gentlemanly ear.
“It disposes of the suicide theory finally and utterly,” added the lawyer thoughtfully.
“The suicide theory disappeared with Robert’s daughter,” said Austin, glancing at his son, who had taken no part in the conversation.
“You think her disappearance suggests guilt?” asked Mr. Brimsdown.
“It hardly suggests innocence, does it?”
“I would not like to hazard an opinion,” responded Mr. Brimsdown, with a thoughtful shake of the head. “My experience of women is that they are capable of the strangest acts without weighing the consequences.”
“That was before the war, when women were delightfully irrational creatures, but now they’re no longer so. They’ve become practical and coarse, like men. They smoke, drink, and tell improper stories with demure expression and heads a little on one side like overwise sparrows.”
“Was Robert Turold’s daughter a girl of this sort?” asked the lawyer in surprise.
“She was not.”
It was Charles Turold who made answer, with an angry glance at his father. Austin, looking at him, gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Slight as the warning was, it was intercepted by Mr. Brimsdown’s watchful eye, and he wondered what it meant.
“I do not think any useful purpose can be gained by discussing my brother’s death,” Austin interposed, turning to him. “It is a very painful subject, and does no good. The police are endeavouring to unravel the mystery—let us leave it to them.”
“I was merely going to say that your brother would have given you the proofs of this statement about his marriage if he had meditated self-destruction,” Mr. Brimsdown observed. “The proofs must be in existence, of course, but I do not think that they are at Flint House. Did your brother confide the information to you beforehand—before his public announcement, I mean?”
“Shortly before his death he hinted to me of some very important disclosure which he intended to make at the proper time—some family matter—but he did not say what it was, nor did I ask him.”
His son looked at him quickly, and the lawyer doubtfully, as he made this statement, but his own glance sustained both looks serenely and equably.
“My brother did inform me, a week ago, that I would succeed to his fortune,” he added.
“That proves that your brother was aware of the illegality of his marriage at that time,” said Mr. Brimsdown, with an air of conviction.
“Why so?”
“Because you could not succeed to the Turrald title if your brother’s daughter was legitimate.”
“That would not prevent my brother disposing of his property as he thought fit,” remarked Austin coldly.
“I am aware of that,” replied Mr. Brimsdown guardedly. He refrained from stating what was obvious to him, that Robert Turold had intended his fortune for the upkeep of the title when gained, and for no other purpose. “After all, it does not matter very much how long your brother was aware of the fact. The great point is—where are the proofs? I cannot understand why your brother did not send them on to me. I intend to make another and longer search among his papers at Flint House. They must be found. The House of Lords will require the most convincing proof on this head before terminating the abeyance in your favour.”
“If I proceed with the claim, you mean,” said Austin.
The lawyer turned on him a startled glance which had something of consternation in it. His own interest in the title, was, by force of long association with Robert Turold, so deep and intimate that it had never occurred to him to suppose that the younger brother might not share in the obsession of the elder.
“Titles are at a discount nowadays—like virtuous women,” proceeded Austin. “The most extraordinary people have them. Are you aware that there were nearly four thousand names in the last Royal bestowal of Orders of the British Empire? There’s kingly munificence for you! It’s the same with the Masonic order. The gentleman you address as ‘Right Worshipful Sir’ overnight delivers poultry and rabbits at your back door next morning. Democracy has come into its own, Brimsdown. Sooner or later we shall have a king wearing a cloth cap.”
“Your remarks do not apply to the old nobility,” returned Mr. Brimsdown austerely. “They will never become common. It would be a pity not to prosecute your brother’s claim to the Turrald title. He gave thirty years of his life to establishing the line of descent.”
“My brother had the temperament of a visionary,” replied Austin. “I am more practical. But I shall respect his wishes, if possible, though from what you say it would seem to be quite useless to go on with the claim if the missing proofs about his wife’s previous marriage are not recovered.”
“That is quite true,” Mr. Brimsdown admitted. “But I feel sure that they are in existence, somewhere. Your brother Robert was not the man to make a statement of that kind without the proofs. He knew the value of documentary evidence too well for that.”
“But so far the proof of his daughter’s illegitimacy rests on his unsupported statement, which would be quite valueless in a court of law?”
“That is so.”
“If these proofs are found, do you think that my chance of regaining the title is as good as Robert’s?” Austin asked. “Are the circumstances of his death likely to tell against my succeeding? I ask you because I know nothing about peerage law.”
“The House of Lords has inherent rights of its own in regard to the granting of any claim,” replied the lawyer carefully, “rights as the guardian of its own privileges. I do not think, however, that your claim would be rejected. The line of descent is clear, if the proofs of your brother’s statement are found. The Turrald barony is a parliamentary peerage which descends to a sole daughter. You can only succeed your brother in the line of descent if she is illegitimate.”
“In any case the present claim could not be gone on with, could it?”
“No. That must be withdrawn. I will write to the Home Secretary acquainting him with your brother’s death. Later on, if we find the proofs, another claim can be prepared on your behalf.”
“If I decide to go on with it.”
“I trust that you will,” said the lawyer. “It was your brother’s dream to restore the title with a male line of descent.”
“His dream will be fruitless so far as I am concerned,” said Charles Turold, who had been listening intently to this conversation. “I shall have nothing to do with this title.” He got up, and strode abruptly from the room without another word.
Mr. Brimsdown was a little surprised at the lack of manners evinced by this precipitate departure, but arose without speaking to take his own leave. Austin did not offer to escort him downstairs. He rang the bell, which was answered by the gaunt maid who had been engaged to sit as Britannia or the Madonna, and to her he consigned his departing visitor after a soft pressure of his white hand.
The maid preceded the lawyer down the staircase with a martial step which outstripped his, and waited at the foot for him to complete the descent. As Mr. Brimsdown reached the last stair, a door immediately opposite opened, and a lady came out. Mr. Brimsdown glanced at her casually in passing, and encountered her glance in return. In that brief look he observed the dawn of swift surprise in her eyes. Her careworn face flushed, and she made an eager step forward, as though about to speak. Somewhat surprised at this action on her part, Mr. Brimsdown hesitated, then, reflecting that he had probably misinterpreted a chance movement on the part of a perfect stranger, went towards the door, which the maid was holding open for him. As he passed through he glanced back, and to his astonishment saw the woman in the passage still standing in the same spot, staring fixedly after him, apparently in a state of consternation or amazement, he could not say which.
He went out of the door with a vision of her questioning gaze following him as far as she could see him. He did not think any more of it just then. A lowering sky suggested rain, and he set off at a round pace for the inn where he had left the vehicle which had brought him to the churchtown.
But quickly as he walked, a footstep behind him was quicker still, and he turned involuntarily to see who was following. Another surprise was in store for him. The tall figure hurrying after him, with the evident intention of overtaking him, was Charles Turold. The lawyer stood still and waited for him.
“I have come after you to tell you something,” Charles said abruptly, “something that you ought to know. You were questioning my father about the facts of this case—about my uncle’s death. You did not learn anything from him, but I can tell you my cousin Sisily is innocent.”
He brought out these words with a breathlessness which may have been the result of his haste. The calmness of the lawyer’s reply was in marked contrast.
“Is this merely an assertion, Mr. Turold?”
“It is more than an assertion. I can prove it to you.”
Mr. Brimsdown was startled. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“If you will come to Flint House I will show you.”
Mr. Brimsdown stroked the cautious chin of an old man plunged into a situation which he could not fathom. “Would it not be better to consult the police first?” he temporized.
“The police are now searching the country for Sisily, and there is no time to be lost.”
There was something so profoundly unhappy in his appearance that pity stirred in the lawyer’s heart. “Very well,” he said, with another look at the lowering sky, “let us go.”
That afternoon remained with the lawyer as another unforgettable memory. It was all of a piece, sombre, yet of a sharp-edged vividness: the desolation of the moors, the sting of the rain, the clamour of the sea, the seabirds soaring slowly with harsh cries. Then they stood, the pair of them, in Robert Turold’s bedroom, looking down on the dead man, swathed in his graveclothes, with a wreath of flowers from Mrs. Pendleton on his breast. Removing this symbol of human pretense against the reality of things, Charles Turold bared the arm of the corpse, and pointing to it exclaimed—
“Could those marks have been made by Sisily?”
In his examination of the marks thus revealed to him, Mr. Brimsdown had the strange feeling that their existence was, in some way, the justification of the dead man’s summons to him.
“Do you know how these marks were made?” he said, turning to Charles.
“I do not. But I do know that they prove that Sisily is innocent.”
Charles Turold spoke defiantly, but there was a slight note of interrogation in his voice which the lawyer chose to ignore.
“They were made by a man’s hand,” the young man persisted, looking earnestly at him.
“Do the police know of them?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
Another question was in Mr. Brimsdown’s mind, but the young man’s haggard face, the mingled misery and expectation of his glance, checked the utterance of it. He had the idea that Charles’s manner suggested something more—some revelation yet to come. But the young man did not speak.
“Is this all you wanted to show me?” Mr. Brimsdown hinted.
“Is it not enough?”
“I do not see that it throws any light on Miss Turold’s disappearance. Can you explain that?”
“How can I explain what I do not know?” Charles was silent for a moment, then added bitterly. “It may be because of her father’s inhuman conduct.”
“Robert Turold is dead—do not use that tone in speaking of him,” the lawyer counselled.
Charles turned on him a peculiar look. “Do you think the world is the loser by his death?” he said.
Mr. Brimsdown was moved out of himself to declare that the death of Robert Turold was a distinct loss to the world. “He was a wonderful man—a notable personality,” he said emphatically.
Charles gave him a moody glance, and there fell upon them a silence so complete that the dead man in the bed seemed to share in it. The lawyer had an acute perception of the fact that he had handled the situation badly. He intuitively realized that he had put himself into the opposite camp to Charles’s sympathies by the uncompromising partisanship of his last remarks. He was convinced that until that moment, Charles had been meditating the question of some further disclosure. Mr. Brimsdown regretted afterwards that he made no effort to gain his confidence. He felt that if he had done so events might have taken a different course. But it is difficult to bring youth and age together. Youth sometimes yields to impulse, but not age. The lurking devil of self-consciousness whispers caution as the safer quality. Mr. Brimsdown hearkened to the whisper, and stood there in silence, while the minutes slipped by which might have bridged the gap.
There was a quick step in the passage outside, and the door opened to admit Detective Barrant. He looked inquiringly from one to the other, and addressed himself to the lawyer.
“Are you Mr. Brimsdown?” he asked.
“That is my name,” the lawyer replied.
“I am Detective Barrant of Scotland Yard. I wish to speak to you privately.”
His emphasis on the last word was not lost on Charles Turold. With a slight indifferent nod to Mr. Brimsdown he went out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
“I have come to see you about this letter which you left with Inspector Dawfield.” Barrant produced the letter and took the single sheet from the grey envelope.
“That is the reason of my presence in Cornwall,” said Mr. Brimsdown.
“So I imagined. What can you tell me about it?”
“Very little, except that I received it by the last post at my chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields the night after Robert Turold’s death.”
“But why did he send for you?”
“That I cannot even guess.”
“You surely must have some idea.”
“If I had I should be only too happy to assist the course of justice by imparting it to you.”
There was a dryness in the tone of this reply which warned Barrant that he had made a blunder in allowing his irritation to get the better of him. But his private opinion was that the letter was the outcome of some secret of the dead man’s which he had imparted to his lawyer. He changed his mood with supple swiftness, in order to extract the information.
“This letter suggests certain things,” he said, “some secret, perhaps, in Robert Turold’s life, of which you may have some inkling. If you will give me some hint as to what it was, it might be very helpful.”
“Unfortunately, I am as much in the dark as yourself,” returned Mr. Brimsdown, rubbing his brow thoughtfully. “I cannot make the faintest guess at the reason which called forth this letter. I know next to nothing of my late client’s private life. He was a man of the utmost reticence in personal matters. My relations with him were not of that nature.”
This reply was delivered with a sincerity which it was impossible to doubt. In palpable disappointment Barrant turned to a renewed scrutiny of the letter, which he held open in his hand.
“It is very strange,” he muttered.
“Not the least strange part of it is that I cannot ascertain who posted it,” said Mr. Brimsdown, glancing earnestly at the letter. “I asked Thalassa, but he says he knows nothing about it.”
“Thalassa is probably lying to you as he has lied to me. One lie more or less would not weigh on his conscience.”
“Why should he tell a lie over such a small thing as the posting of a letter?”
Barrant did not reply. He was apparently absorbed in examining the postmarks on the envelope. “Indistinguishable, of course,” he muttered, returning the letter to the envelope. “Had Robert Turold any enemies?” he asked.
“I never heard him speak of any.”
“How did he come by his money?” asked Barrant, struck by a sudden thought. “His sister tells me that he made his money abroad.”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“But you invested his fortune for him, did you not?”
“I did,” the lawyer agreed.
“In what circumstances?”
“It is rather a strange story,” replied Mr. Brimsdown slowly.
“I should like to hear it then. It may throw some light on this letter.”
“Let us go into the other room.”
Mr. Brimsdown made this suggestion with a quick glance at his departed client on the bed, as though he feared some sardonic reproof from those grey immobile lips.