The Moon Rock by Arthur J. Rees (e novels to read TXT) 📗

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.”

Chapter XIX

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