CHAPTER IX
A few minutes later the car stopped in the gloom outside the old house onthe cliffs. The storm had passed, but the sea still raged white beneath aninky sky. A faint gleam from a shuttered front window pointed a finger oflight to the gravel path which led to the front door.
Mrs. Pendleton knocked, and an answer came quickly. The door was partlyopened, and Thalassa's voice from within parleyed: "Who's there?"
"Mrs. Pendleton--your master's sister," was the reply. "Let us in,Thalassa."
The door was at once opened wide, and Thalassa stood back for them toenter. By the light of the lamp he carried they saw that he was dressedand coated for a journey, with his hat on.
"I'm glad you've come," he said to Dr. Ravenshaw. "It's you I was justgoing out to fetch."
There was something strange in his manner, and the doctor looked at himquickly. "What's the matter with you, man? Is there anything wrong?"
"That's what I don't know. But I'm afeered, yes, by God, I'm afeered."
His voice broke hoarsely, and he stood before them with his eyes avertedfrom the three wondering faces regarding him. Mrs. Pendleton steppedquickly forward, and grasped his arm.
"What is it, Thalassa? Has anything happened to my brother?"
"There's been a great noise in his room, like as if something heavy hadcrashed down, then silence like the grave. I went up and called--an' triedto open the door, but I couldn't."
"Why didn't you try to break in the door?" said Dr. Ravenshaw.
"Tweren't my place," was the dogged retort. "I know my place. I was justgoing to St. Fair for you and his brother."
"How long is it since this happened--since you heard the crash, I mean."
"Not many minutes agone. Just before you came to the door."
"Light us upstairs at once, Thalassa," said Mrs. Pendleton sharply.
"Mrs. Pendleton, will you wait downstairs while we investigate?" suggestedDr. Ravenshaw.
"No," she resolutely answered. "I will come with you, doctor. Robert mayneed me. Do not let us waste any more time."
She slipped past him to Thalassa, who was mounting the stairs. Dr.Ravenshaw hurried after her. Mr. Pendleton, with an obvious call on hiscourage, followed last. The lamp in Thalassa's hand burnt unsteadily,first flaming angrily, then flickering to a glimmer which brought them toa pause, one above the other on the stairs, listening intently, andlooking into the darkness above.
"His bedroom is open and empty," said Thalassa when they had reached theend of the passage above. "See!" He pointed to the gaping door, and thenturned to the closed one opposite. "He's in here." His voice sank to awhisper. "It was from here the noise came."
He placed the lamp on the floor, and knocked hesitatingly on the darkpanel of the closed door, then again more loudly, but there was no reply.Far beneath them they could hear the solemn roar of the sea dashingagainst the cliffs, but there was no sound in the closed chamber. Itsstillness and hush seemed intensified by the clamour of the sea, as thoughcalamity were brooding in the darkness within.
"Robert, Robert!" The high pitch of Mrs. Pendleton's voice shattered thequietude like the startling clang of an unexpected bell. "Knock again,Thalassa, more loudly, very loudly," she cried, in the shrill accents oftightened nerves.
Thalassa approached the door again, but recoiled swiftly. "God A'mighty!"he hoarsely exclaimed, pointing, "what's that?"
They followed the direction of his finger to the floor, and saw a sluggishthin dark trickle making its way underneath the door. Mr. Pendletonstooped and examined it, but rose immediately.
"There's been trouble in there," he said, with a pale face.
"How could anybody get in?" said Thalassa sullenly. "The door is lockedfrom the inside, and it's two hundred feet from the windows to the bottomof the cliffs."
"Oh, for pity's sake stop talking and do something," cried Mrs. Pendletonhysterically. "My poor brother may be dying." She rattled the door-handle."Robert, Robert, what is the matter? Let me in. It is I--Constance."
"We must break in the door," said Dr. Ravenshaw. "Stand away, Mrs.Pendleton, please. Now, Thalassa, both together."
The doctor and the servant put their shoulders to the door. Mr. Pendletonwatched them with a white face, but did not go to their assistance. At thefourth effort there was a sound of splintering wood, the lock gave, andthe door swung back.
They peered in. At first they could see nothing. The light of theswinging-lamp had been lowered, and the interior of the room was veiled inshadow. Then their eyes detected a dark outline on the floor between thetable and the window--the figure of a man, lying athwart the carpet witharms outstretched, face downwards, the spread finger-tips clutching atsome heavy dark object between the head and the arms.
Thalassa stepped across the threshold, and with shaking hand turned up thelowered wick of the swinging lamp. The light revealed the stark form ofRobert Turold. At this sight Mrs. Pendleton broke into a loud cry andessayed to cross the room to her brother's side.
"Keep back, Mrs. Pendleton!" cried Dr. Ravenshaw, interposing himself infront of her. "I begged of you not to come upstairs. Mr. Pendleton, takeyour wife away at once."
But Mr. Pendleton's timorous and inferior mind was incapable oftranslating the command into action. He could only stare dumbly beforehim.
"No, no! Let me stay, I will be calm," Mrs. Pendleton pleaded. "Is--is hedead, doctor?"
Dr. Ravenshaw crossed to the centre of the room and bent over the body,feeling the heart. Husband and wife watched him, huddled together, theirwhite faces framed in the shadow of the doorway. In a moment he was on hisfeet again, advancing towards them. "We can do no good here, Mrs.Pendleton," he said gently. "Your brother is dead."
"Dead? Robert dead!" Her startled eye sought his averted face, and herfeminine intuition gathered that which he was seeking to withhold. "Do youmean that he has been killed?" she whimpered.
"I fear that there has been--an accident," he replied evasively. He stoodin front of them in a way which obscured their view of the prone figure,and a small shining thing lying alongside, which he alone had seen."Come," he said, in a professional manner, taking her by the arm. "Let metake you downstairs." He got her away from the threshold, and pulled thebroken door to, shutting out the spectacle within.
"Are you going to leave him there--like that?" whispered Mrs. Pendleton.
"It is necessary, till the police have seen him," he assured her. "We hadbetter send Thalassa in the car to the churchtown. Go for SergeantPengowan, Thalassa, and tell him to come at once. And afterwards you hadbetter call at Mr. Austin Turold's lodgings and tell him and his son.Hurry away with you, my man. Don't lose a moment!"
Thalassa hastened along the passage as though glad to get away. His heavyboots clattered down the staircase and along the empty hall. Then thefront door banged with a crash.
The others followed more slowly, stepping gently in the presence of Death,past the little lamps, hardly bigger than fireflies, which flickeredfeebly in their alcoves. They went into the front room, where a table lampgave forth a subdued light. Mrs. Pendleton turned up the wick and sankinto a chair, covering her face with her hands.
It was the room where only that afternoon Robert Turold had unfolded thehistory of his life's quest: a large gloomy room with heavy old furniture,faded prints of the Cornish coast, and a whitefaced clock on themantel-piece with a loud clucking tick. Dr. Ravenshaw knew the room well,but Robert Turold's sister had seen it for the first time that day, andthe recollection of what had taken place there was so fresh in her memorythat it brought a flood of tears.
"Poor Bob!" she sobbed. "He denied himself all his life for the sake ofthe title, and what's the good of it all--now?"
That was the only light in which she was able to see the tragedy in thefirst moment of the shock. Other thoughts and revelations about herbrother's strange death were to come later, when her mind recovered itsbearings. For the moment she was incapable of thinking coherently. She wasconscious only of the fact that he
r brother had been cut off in the verymoment of success--before it, indeed; ere he had actually tasted thesweets of the ambition he had given all his years to gain.
Silence fell between them, broken only by the clucking of the whitefacedclock and the dreary sound of the wind outside, crying round the old houselike a frightened woman in the dark. Nearly an hour passed before theyheard the sound of a guarded knock at the front door. Dr. Ravenshaw wentand opened it. Austin Turold was standing on the threshold.
"This is bad news, doctor," he said, stepping quickly inside. "I cameahead of the others--walked over. Thalassa is waiting at the churchtownfor the sergeant, who is away on some official business, but expected backshortly. They may be here at any minute."
He spoke a little breathlessly, as though with running, and seemed anxiousto talk. He went on--.
"How did it happen? Tell me everything. I could get nothing out ofThalassa. He was detained at the police station for a considerable time,waiting for Pengowan, before he came to me with the news. He gave a greatknock at the door of my lodgings like the thunder of doom, and when I gotdownstairs he blurted out that my brother was killed--shot--but notanother word of explanation could I get out of him. What does it allmean?"
"I cannot say. Your sister and I reached the house just as Thalassa wasabout to leave it to seek my assistance. Your sister is in thesitting-room."
Austin Turold brushed past the doctor and opened the door of the lightedroom. At his entrance Mrs. Pendleton sprang from her seat to greet him.Grief and horror were in her look, but surprise contended with otheremotions in Austin's face. She kissed him with clinging hands on hisshoulders.
"Oh, Austin," she cried, "Robert is dead--killed!"
"The news has shocked me to the last degree," responded her brother. "Whathas happened? Did somebody send for you? Is that what brought you here?"
Mrs. Pendleton shook her head, embarrassed in her grief. She rememberedthat she wished to keep the object of her visit secret from her youngerbrother, and she could not very well disclose the truth then.
"Not exactly," she replied, a trifle incoherently. "I wanted to see Robertagain before I returned to London in the morning. So we motored over afterdinner, and found him--dead." Fresh tears broke from her.
Austin Turold wandered around the room quickly and nervously, then drewDr. Ravenshaw to the door with a glance. "I should like to go upstairsbefore the police come," he whispered.
Dr. Ravenshaw nodded, and they went upstairs together. The shattered doorcreaked open to their touch, revealing the lighted interior and the deadman prone on the floor. Austin approached his brother's corpse, eyed itshudderingly, and turned away. Then he stooped to look at the smallrevolver lying alongside, but did not touch it. Again he bent over thecorpse, this time with more composure in his glance.
The object on which the outstretched arms rested was an old Dutch hoodclock, which had fallen or been dragged from a niche in the wall, and layface uppermost, the glass case open and smashed, the hands: stopped at thehour of half-past nine. It was a clock of the seventeenth century, of adesign still to be found occasionally in old English houses. A landscapescene was painted in the arch above the dial, showing the moon above awood, in a sky crowded with stars. The moon was depicted as a human face,with eyes which moved in response to the swing of the pendulum. But thependulum was motionless, and the goggle eyes of the mechanism stared upalmost reproachfully, as though calling upon the two men to rescue it fromsuch an undignified position. At the bottom of the dial appeared the nameof Jan Fromantel, the famous Dutch clockmaker, and underneath was aninscription in German lettering--
"Every tick that I do give Cuts short the time you have to live. Praise thy Maker, mend thy ways, Till Death, the thief, shall steal thy days."
"Look at the blood!" said Austin Turold, pointing to a streak of blood onthe large white dial. "How did it happen?"
"I know very little more than yourself. Your sister called at my houseabout an hour ago and asked me to accompany her here. She wished to seeyour brother on some private business, and she was very anxious that Ishould accompany her. Thalassa let us in, and said he was afraid thatthere was something wrong with his master. We came upstairs immediately,burst in the door, and found--this."
"Did Thalassa hear the shot?"
"He says not, only the crash."
"That would be the clock, of course. Was my brother quite dead when youfound him?"
"Just dead. The body was quite warm."
"The door was locked from inside, I think you said."
"We found it locked."
"Then it must have been locked from inside," returned the other, whoappeared to be pursuing some hidden train of thought. "But where's thekey? I do not see it in the door. Oh, here it is!" He stooped swiftly andpicked up a key from the floor. "Robert must have taken it out afterlocking the door."
"Perhaps it fell out when we were breaking in the door," observed thedoctor.
"Of course. I forgot that. I notice that the clock is stopped at half-pastnine." He bent down to examine it. "My brother kept private papers in theclock-case," he added. "Yes--it is as I thought. Here are some privatedocuments, including his will. I had better take charge of them."
"Yes; I should if I were you," counselled his companion.
Austin rose to his feet and placed the papers in his pocket.
"It is plain to me--now--how it happened," he said. "Poor Robert must haveshot himself, then tried to get his will from the clock-case when he fell,bringing down the clock with him."
"Is that what you think?" said Dr. Ravenshaw.
"I see no other way of looking at it," returned Austin rapidly. "The doorwas locked on the inside, and the room couldn't be reached from thewindow. This house stands almost on the edge of the cliff, which is nearlytwo hundred feet high. My feeling is that after my poor brother shothimself he remembered in his dying moments that his will was hidden in theclock-case and might not be found. He made a desperate effort to reach itand dragged it down as he fell."
The doctor listened attentively to this imaginary picture of RobertTurold's last moments.
"But why should he destroy himself?" he queried.
"Grief and remorse. Do you remember the disclosure he made to us thisafternoon? It is a matter which might well have preyed upon his mind."
"I see," said the other thoughtfully. "Yes, perhaps you may be right."
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a loud knockingdownstairs.
"That must be the police," observed Dr. Ravenshaw. "Let us go down."