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"Is this a place where there's likely to be visitors?" "Not in the ordinary course of events" Barrant was still smilingly affable "but the night your master met his death was not an ordinary night. Somebody may have come to the house." He paused, again searching for some sign of guilty consciousness in the face revealed in such clear outline near him, but saw none.
"How do you know that I'm a Londoner?" said Barrant, parrying the latter part of the question. "I can tell a Londoner at once," returned the other. "'Twould be straange if I couldn't. I'm Peter Portgartha. P'raps you haven't heard of me, but I'm well known hereabouts, and if you want to see any of the sights, you'd best coome to me, and I'll show you round." "A guide, eh?"
As the wagonette stopped at the cross-roads Barrant jumped down from his seat and disappeared in the indicated direction before Mr. Crows could summon his slow wits to determine the value of the coin which the detective had pressed into his passively expectant palm. The twilight had deepened into darkness when Barrant reached Flint House.
He was well aware that he had not yet gathered sufficient evidence to satisfy the law that she had murdered her father, but his action was justified by her flight and the presumption of her secret visit to her father's house when she was supposed to be in bed and asleep at the hotel. These things fulfilled, Barrant then applied his mind to the question of Thalassa's complicity.
With women especially, the jump from an impression to a conclusion was sometimes as rapid as the thought itself. "Did you see his face?" he asked. "Only the eyes. But I am sure that they were Thalassa's eyes." Barrant did not press the point. He did not doubt the honesty of her belief, but the words in which it was conveyed suggested hasty impression rather than conviction.
The morning's enquiries made it manifest that Sisily had left Penzance by the mid-day train on the previous day. After leaving Mrs. Pendleton, Barrant had gone to the station. The sour and elderly ticket-clerk on duty could give him no information, but let it be understood that there was another clerk selling tickets for the mid-day train, which was unusually crowded by farmers going to Redruth.
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.
"You were here last night when they brought you the news of your brother's death, I understand?" remarked Barrant, in a casual sort of way. "Yes; I did not go out again after I returned from the funeral." "Was your son home with you?" "Most of the time. He came in later than I, and then went out for a walk when the storm cleared away. I did not see him again until this morning.
Again, Thalassa met him with answering look, but remained mute. "Thalassa" Barrant's voice remained persuasive, but to an ear attuned to shades, there was a note of menace underlying its softness "you know there was somebody else here that night." "Somebody? Who?" "Your master's daughter Miss Sisily Turold." Barrant brought it out sharply and angrily. Thalassa turned a cold glance on him.
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.
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