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He had turned at Jenny Pendean's voice and shown Mark a brown, bright, clean-shorn face of great beauty. It was of classical contour, but lacked the soulless perfection of the Greek ideal. The Italian's black eyes were brilliant and showed intelligence. "Giuseppe Doria has a wonderful story about himself," continued Mrs. Pendean.
On examining Michael Pendean's ancestry, as a preliminary to finding out everything remembered of Pendean himself, I at once made a highly important discovery. Joseph Pendean, Michael's father, was often in Italy on his pilchard business for the firm, and he married an Italian woman. She lived with her husband at Penzance and bore him one son, and a daughter who died in infancy.
"For God's sake don't allow yourself to speak in that way," said Brendon. "Look forward. If we can no longer be happy in the world, that is not to deny us the power and privilege of being useful in it. Think what your husband would have wished you to do and how he would have expected you to face any great tragedy, or grief." "You are a good man," said Mrs. Pendean quietly.
"The point is to know how I get clear afterward," considered Brendon, returning to the sequel. "As soon as your brother has left the house, it is certain that Mrs. Pendean, probably Doria also, will hasten to know what has happened and what you have determined." "Afterward nothing matters," repeated Bendigo.
"Tell me, if it won't hurt you too much, a little about Michael Pendean." But she appeared not to hear him. Her thoughts were concerned entirely with herself and her present situation. "I can trust you. You are wise and know life. I have not married a man, but a devil!" Her hands clenched and he saw a flash of her teeth in the gloom of the silent chamber.
"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.
"It may be natural development of years and experience, combined with the sudden, awful shock of her husband's death. These things would unite to tone her down and perhaps break her spirit, if only for a time." "True. But she's not a sober-sided woman for all her calm. She was too full of the joy of life for Pendean, or any man, to empty it all out of her in four years.
He fell asleep at last, thinking not of the vanished sailor, but Jenny Pendean. That she must suffer at her uncle's sudden death was natural and he had not been surprised to learn of her collapse. For she was sensitive; she had lately been through a terrible personal trial; and to find herself suddenly associated with another tragedy might well induce a nervous breakdown.
Thus, on seeing a possible glimpse of Giuseppe Doria's beautiful countenance reflected upon my eyes from the photograph of the mother of Michael Pendean, I began to marshal all my knowledge to confound any deduction from that accident. But judge of my interest and surprise when I found nothing that could be pointed to as absolute refutation of the theory now taking such swift shape in my mind.
At the edge of the central stain were smears and, among them, half the impress of a big, nail-studded boot. "Have the workmen been in here this morning?" asked Brendon, and Inspector Halfyard answered that they had not. "Two constables were here last night after one o'clock the men I sent from Princetown when Mrs. Pendean gave the alarm," he said.
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