CHAPTER XXX
Barrant hastened from the room downstairs to the front door. From the opendoorway he saw Charles Turold advancing across the rocks in the directionof the house, and he ran swiftly down the gravel path to intercept him.
Charles looked up and came on as if there was nothing to turn back for.His clear glance dwelt on the figure by the gate without fear--withseeming gratification. Barrant was amazed. He had been prepared for anattempt at flight, but not this welcoming look. Never before had he knowna man show joy at the prospect of arrest. The experience was so disturbingthat he went across the intervening space to meet Charles, and laid a handupon his arm.
"I suppose you know you are wanted by the police?" he said.
"I am aware of it," was the quiet reply. "I was going to give myself up."
"Did you come back to Cornwall for that purpose?" asked the detective,shooting another puzzled glance at him.
"I came back to try and discover the truth."
"About what?"
"About my uncle's death."
"And have you discovered it?"
"I have."
Barrant did not understand the young man's attitude, or the tone ofheartfelt relief in which he uttered these words, but he felt that theconversation in its present form had gone far enough.
"Do you propose to tell me the truth?" he asked, with a slight cynicalemphasis on the last word.
"I do."
Barrant's surprise kept him silent for a moment, but when he spoke he wasvery incisive--
"In that case it is my duty to warn you--"
"There is no need to warn me," Charles quickly interrupted. "I know. Anystatement I make will be taken down and used against me. That's theformula, isn't it, or something to that effect? Let us go into thehouse--my story will take some time in the telling."
He made this request as a right rather than a favour, and Barrant foundhimself turning in at the gate with him. In silence they walked to thehouse, and it was Charles Turold who led the way to the sitting-room.
"It was here it began," he murmured, glancing round the desertedapartment, "and it seems fitting that the truth should be brought to lightin the same place."
"Provided that it is the truth," commented his companion.
Charles did not reply. They had been standing face to face, but he nowdrew a chair to the table and sat down. Barrant walked to the door andlocked it before seating himself beside him.
"You can begin as soon as you like," he said.
"I think I had better tell you about my own actions, first of all, on thatnight," said Charles, after a brief silence. "It will clear the way forwhat follows. I was up here that night--the night of the murder."
"I know that much," was Barrant's cold comment.
"You suspected it--you did not know it," Charles quickly rejoined.
He remained profoundly silent for a moment, as if meditating his words,and then plunged into his tale.
The account of his own visit to Flint House on the night of the murder herelated with details withheld from Sisily. The visit was the outcome of aquarrel between father and son over Robert Turold's announcement about hiswife's previous marriage. Charles was shocked by his uncle's decision tomake the story public, and had wandered about the cliffs until dark tryingto decide what to do. Ultimately he returned home and asked his father touse his influence with his brother to keep the secret in the family. Hisfather called him a fool for suggesting such a thing, declined to offendhis brother or blast his own prospects by such damned quixotic nonsense.On this Charles had announced his intention of seeing his uncle andtelling him he would leave England immediately and forever unless thescandal was kept quiet. That made his father angry, and they quarrelledviolently. Charles cut the quarrel short by flinging out of the house inthe rain, to carry out his intention of interviewing his uncle. He walkedacross the moors to Flint House. The front door was open, the downstairsportion of the house in darkness, and his uncle lying upstairs in hisstudy--dead.
He hurried over all this as of small importance in the deeper significanceof Thalassa's story. That was to him the great thing--the wonderfuldiscovery which was to clear Sisily and put everything right. He believedthat the plan which had brought him to Cornwall was working splendidly.The chance encounter with the detective was really providential--aspeeding up, a saving of valuable time.
The possibility of disbelief did not dawn upon him. He overlooked that hislistener was also his custodian and judge--the suspicious arbiter of abelated story told by one whose own actions were in the highest degreesuspicious. His overburdened mind forgot these things in the excitement ofhope. He talked with the candour and freedom of one young man confiding inanother. When he had finished he looked at his companion expectantly, butBarrant's eyes were coldly official.
"A strange story!" he said.
"A true one," Charles eagerly rejoined. "Thalassa has been walking alongthe coast ever since in the expectation of finding this man. He will killhim if he meets him."
It was Barrant's lot to listen to many strange stories which were alwaystrue, according to the narrators, but generally they caused him to feelashamed of the poverty of human invention. He was not immediatelyconcerned to discover whether Thalassa's story was true or false, orwhether it had been concocted between him and Charles with the object ofdeceiving the authorities. The consideration of that infamous brownfacedscoundrel's confession could be postponed--if it had ever been made. Thepresent business was with Charles Turold. There was something infernallymysterious in his unexpected reappearance in that spot. He had gone toLondon when he disappeared--he admitted that. What had brought him back?To see Thalassa, as he said, in order to try and get at the truth?Nonsense! He--Barrant--was not simple enough to believe that. What then?
Barrant was not prepared to supply a ready answer to that question. Buthis trained ear had detected many gaps in the young man's own narrativewhich, filled in, might give it. Turold knew more than he had said--he waskeeping things back. Again--what things? Behind him stood the shadowyfigure of the girl and her unexplained flight. Barrant's instinct told himthat Charles was shielding her. He turned to the task of endeavouring toreach the truth.
"Let's go back a bit," he said casually. "You've left one or two points inyour own story unexplained. What about the key?"
"The key?" Charles started slightly. "You mean--"
"I mean the key of the room upstairs. You said you found the key in thepassage outside. You must have locked the door after you and taken it awaywith you."
"I did," replied the young man, in some hesitation.
"For what reason?"
Charles realized that he was on very thin ice. In his intensepreoccupation with Thalassa's story he had forgotten that his ownimpulsive actions on that night must be construed as proof of his ownguilt or bear too literal interpretation of having been done to shieldSisily. He saw that he was in a position of extraordinary difficulty.
"I was hardly conscious of what I was doing, at the time," he said.
"You took the key away with you?"
Charles nodded with the feeling that the ice was cracking beneath him.
"And how did it get back into the room afterwards?"
Charles paused to consider his reply, but the detective supplied it.
"The inference is fairly obvious," he said. "The key was found inside thestudy after the locked door was burst open. It was your father who foundit, on the floor. At least, he pretended to find it there. It was yourfather who started the suicide theory." He paused, then added in a smoothreflective voice, "Really, the whole thing was very ingenious. It reflectsmuch credit on both of you."
Charles spoke with an air of sudden decision.
"My father did these things to shield me," he said. "I did not want toreveal that, but I see that concealment will only direct unmeritedsuspicion to him. When I returned from Flint House that night I let myselfin with my latchkey and went straight to my bedroom. My clothes were wetthrough, and I lit a fire in m
y room to dry them. As I was spreading themout in front of the blaze the key of the study dropped out of thewaistcoat pocket on to the floor. I had forgotten all about it till then.I picked it up and placed it on the mantel-piece.
"Some time after I was aroused by my father entering the room. He had cometo tell me of my uncle's death--the news had just arrived from FlintHouse. His face was very white. 'Your uncle has been found dead--shot inhis study,' he said. I had jumped up when he came in and was standing inthe centre of the room. As he spoke his eyes travelled past me to my wetclothes in front of the fire, and then returned to my face with a strangeexpression. 'Did you go to Flint House?' he asked sharply. I could onlynod. 'And did you see him--your uncle?' was his next question. On that, Itold him the truth--told him what I had found. I told him about lockingthe door, and showed him the key on the mantel-piece. He slipped it in hispocket, then turned and gave me a terrible look. 'I am going over to FlintHouse,' he said, 'but you had better stay here.' And he left the room."
"What time did you reach Flint House that night?" asked Barrant.
Charles Turold realized that the critical moment had come. He had foreseenit when he saw the detective standing at the gate of Flint House. Therelation of Thalassa's story to Barrant had carried with it the inevitableadmission that Sisily was at Flint House on the night of her father'sdeath. The point Charles had to decide was whether he should divulge theadditional information that he had seen her leave Flint House withThalassa on that night. As he covered the space which intervened betweenhim and Barrant waiting at the gate, he decided that the moment had cometo tell all he knew.
"I know now that it couldn't have been much after half-past eight," hesaid in reply to Barrant's question.
"Did you see Miss Turold there?"
"I was coming to that. I was standing outside, considering what I wouldsay to my uncle, when the door opened and she and Thalassa came out."
"Did you not speak to them?"
"I went to do so, but they disappeared in the darkness of the moors beforeI could reach them. I hastened after them, but I got off the road trackand wandered about the moors for nearly half an hour before I could findmy way back to Flint House."
"And found the door open and your uncle lying dead upstairs?"
"Yes."
"Why have you not come forward with this story before?"
"How could I expect any one to believe a story which sounds improbable inmy own ears? Even my father refused to believe it--then, or afterwards."
"Still, you might have cleared Miss Turold on the question of time. Therewas the stopped clock, you know. You reached Flint House shortly afterhalf-past eight, and went upstairs thirty minutes later."
Charles Turold was subtle enough to see that this remark covered more thana trap. It suggested that Barrant discredited the whole of his story. Thehood clock in the dead man's study had pointed to half-past nine on thenight he was killed. Thalassa's story, as it stood, proved that Sisilymust have left the house long before then. But Charles's story threwsuspicion back on to Sisily by suggesting that the police had been misledabout the time of the murder, which must have been committed at least halfan hour earlier than they assumed. Charles did not attempt to point outthis supposed flaw in the detective's reasoning. He confined himself to areply which was a strict statement of fact, so far as it went.
"Until I heard Thalassa's story to-day I had no idea of the time of my ownarrival at Flint House on that night," he said.
"The clock found lying on the floor upstairs was stopped at half-pastnine," remarked Barrant with a reflective air, as though turning over allthe facts in his mind. "According to the story told you by Thalassa, heand Miss Turold left the house shortly after half-past eight. Thalassacould not have returned until after half-past nine. He found the house indarkness, his wife lying unconscious in the kitchen, and his master deadupstairs. Thalassa, retracting his previous statement that he was not outof Flint House that night, for the first time tells of some mysteriousavenger who, he thinks, killed Robert Turold while he was out of the housewith Miss Turold. Thalassa now suggests (if I understand you rightly) thatthis man Remington, wronged by Robert Turold many years before, waslurking outside in the darkness, and seized the opportunity of Thalassa'sabsence to enter the house and murder the man who had wronged him. Have Igot it right?"
"Yes," said Charles, "you have it right."
"The story rests on Thalassa's bare statement, and Thalassa is a facileliar." Barrant's tone was scornful.
"He is not lying now," returned Charles, "and there is more than his barestatement to support his story. Thalassa found his master coweringupstairs with fear in his study shortly before he met his death. He thentold Thalassa he had heard Remington's footsteps outside. Thalassa laughedat him, but undoubtedly Remington was out there, waiting for hisopportunity, which he took as soon as he saw Thalassa leave the house. IfI had not followed Thalassa and Miss Turold I might have seen him."
"It's rather a pity you didn't." Barrant's tone was not free from irony."For then you might have secured the proof which at present the storylacks."
"There are other proofs," Charles earnestly continued. "There were themarks on my uncle's arm, and the letter he wrote to his lawyer under theinfluence of the terror in which Thalassa found him--the fear caused byoverhearing Remington's footsteps. Thalassa posted that letter."
"Did he tell you so?" asked Barrant quickly. Then, as Charles remainedsilent, he went on--
"How did you find out about the marks on your uncle's arm?"
Charles hesitated before replying in a low voice--
"I paid a visit to Flint House on the night after the murder."
"For what purpose?"
"To see if I could find out anything which might throw light on themystery. I got in through a window and went upstairs. I saw the marks ...then."
"Did you discover anything else?"
"No; the dog started to bark, and I left as quickly as I could."
"I see."
Barrant's voice was non-committal, followed after a pause by a quickchange of tone.
"I shall investigate this story later," he said coldly. "Meantime--"
"Why not investigate it immediately?" asked Charles in a disappointedvoice. "Thalassa will be back directly, or I can take you down to thecliffs were I left him."
Barrant was reminded of the flight of time. It would be as well to removeCharles before Thalassa returned. Time enough for Thalassa's story later!At that moment it seemed to Barrant that the final solution of the mysterywas almost in his hands. Mrs. Thalassa had been wiser than he. The singlegame of patience suggested the solution of the problem of the time. It didmore than that. It seemed to provide the key of the greater problem ofCharles Turold's actions on that night. He had endeavoured to shieldSisily by altering the hands of the clock. The rest, for the present, mustremain mere conjecture. One more question he essayed--
"Can you tell me where Miss Turold is to be found?"
"I know, but I am not going to tell you."
Barrant's eye rested on Charles.
"You must come with me," he said.
Charles nodded. Despairingly he reflected that the interview had notturned out as he expected. There were other means, and he must be patient.
And Sisily? There was anguish in that thought.