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

the key?”

“The key?” Charles started slightly. “You mean—”

“I mean the key of the room upstairs. You said you found the key in the passage outside. You must have locked the door after you and taken it away with you.”

“I did,” replied the young man, in some hesitation.

“For what reason?”

Charles realized that he was on very thin ice. In his intense preoccupation with Thalassa’s story he had forgotten that his own impulsive actions on that night must be construed as proof of his own guilt or bear too literal interpretation of having been done to shield Sisily. 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 the study after the locked door was burst open. It was your father who found it, on the floor. At least, he pretended to find it there. It was your father who started the suicide theory.” He paused, then added in a smooth reflective voice, “Really, the whole thing was very ingenious. It reflects much 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 to reveal that, but I see that concealment will only direct unmerited suspicion to him. When I returned from Flint House that night I let myself in with my latchkey and went straight to my bedroom. My clothes were wet through, and I lit a fire in my room to dry them. As I was spreading them out in front of the blaze the key of the study dropped out of the waistcoat 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 come to tell me of my uncle’s death—the news had just arrived from Flint House. His face was very white. ‘Your uncle has been found dead—shot in his study,’ he said. I had jumped up when he came in and was standing in the centre of the room. As he spoke his eyes travelled past me to my wet clothes in front of the fire, and then returned to my face with a strange expression. ‘Did you go to Flint House?’ he asked sharply. I could only nod. ‘And did you see him—your uncle?’ was his next question. On that, I told him the truth—told him what I had found. I told him about locking the door, and showed him the key on the mantel-piece. He slipped it in his pocket, then turned and gave me a terrible look. ‘I am going over to Flint House,’ 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 foreseen it when he saw the detective standing at the gate of Flint House. The relation of Thalassa’s story to Barrant had carried with it the inevitable admission that Sisily was at Flint House on the night of her father’s death. The point Charles had to decide was whether he should divulge the additional information that he had seen her leave Flint House with Thalassa on that night. As he covered the space which intervened between him and Barrant waiting at the gate, he decided that the moment had come to tell all he knew.

“I know now that it couldn’t have been much after half-past eight,” he said in reply to Barrant’s question.

“Did you see Miss Turold there?”

“I was coming to that. I was standing outside, considering what I would say 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 before I could reach them. I hastened after them, but I got off the road track and wandered about the moors for nearly half an hour before I could find my 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 in my own ears? Even my father refused to believe it—then, or afterwards.”

“Still, you might have cleared Miss Turold on the question of time. There was the stopped clock, you know. You reached Flint House shortly after half-past eight, and went upstairs thirty minutes later.”

Charles Turold was subtle enough to see that this remark covered more than a trap. It suggested that Barrant discredited the whole of his story. The hood clock in the dead man’s study had pointed to half-past nine on the night he was killed. Thalassa’s story, as it stood, proved that Sisily must have left the house long before then. But Charles’s story threw suspicion back on to Sisily by suggesting that the police had been misled about the time of the murder, which must have been committed at least half an hour earlier than they assumed. Charles did not attempt to point out this supposed flaw in the detective’s reasoning. He confined himself to a reply 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 own arrival at Flint House on that night,” he said.

“The clock found lying on the floor upstairs was stopped at half-past nine,” remarked Barrant with a reflective air, as though turning over all the facts in his mind. “According to the story told you by Thalassa, he and Miss Turold left the house shortly after half-past eight. Thalassa could not have returned until after half-past nine. He found the house in darkness, his wife lying unconscious in the kitchen, and his master dead upstairs. Thalassa, retracting his previous statement that he was not out of Flint House that night, for the first time tells of some mysterious avenger who, he thinks, killed Robert Turold while he was out of the house with Miss Turold. Thalassa now suggests (if I understand you rightly) that this man Remington, wronged by Robert Turold many years before, was lurking outside in the darkness, and seized the opportunity of Thalassa’s absence to enter the house and murder the man who had wronged him. Have I got it right?”

“Yes,” said Charles, “you have it right.”

“The story rests on Thalassa’s bare statement, and Thalassa is a facile liar.” Barrant’s tone was scornful.

“He is not lying now,” returned Charles, “and there is more than his bare statement to support his story. Thalassa found his master cowering upstairs with fear in his study shortly before he met his death. He then told Thalassa he had heard Remington’s footsteps outside. Thalassa laughed at him, but undoubtedly Remington was out there, waiting for his opportunity, which he took as soon as he saw Thalassa leave the house. If I 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 story lacks.”

“There are other proofs,” Charles earnestly continued. “There were the marks on my uncle’s arm, and the letter he wrote to his lawyer under the influence of the terror in which Thalassa found him—the fear caused by overhearing Remington’s footsteps. Thalassa posted that letter.”

“Did he tell you so?” asked Barrant quickly. Then, as Charles remained silent, 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 the mystery. 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 quick change of tone.

“I shall investigate this story later,” he said coldly. “Meantime—”

“Why not investigate it immediately?” asked Charles in a disappointed voice. “Thalassa will be back directly, or I can take you down to the cliffs were I left him.”

Barrant was reminded of the flight of time. It would be as well to remove Charles before Thalassa returned. Time enough for Thalassa’s story later! At that moment it seemed to Barrant that the final solution of the mystery was almost in his hands. Mrs. Thalassa had been wiser than he. The single game of patience suggested the solution of the problem of the time. It did more than that. It seemed to provide the key of the greater problem of Charles Turold’s actions on that night. He had endeavoured to shield Sisily by altering the hands of the clock. The rest, for the present, must remain 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 not turned out as he expected. There were other means, and he must be patient.

And Sisily? There was anguish in that thought.

Chapter XXXI

With a beating heart Sisily gained the shelter of her room and locked the door, her eyes glancing quickly around her. She did not expect to see anything there, but she had reached the stage of instinctive terror when one fears lurking shadows, unexpected noises, or an imagined alteration in the contour of familiar things. There was nothing in the room to alarm her, and her thoughts flew back to the face of the man she had seen in the street outside. The owner of the face had leered at first, and then his glance hardened into suspicion as he looked. When she hurried past him he had shifted his position to stare at her by the light of the street lamp. Had he followed her? That was the question she could not answer. She had heard footsteps behind her in the dark street, horrible stealthy footsteps which had caused terror to rush over her like a flood, and sent her flying along the street to her one haven. As she ran she had felt a touching faith in the security of her room, if she could reach it. Out there, in the open street, it had seemed impregnable, like a fortress.

Now as she sat there she had a revulsion of feeling. The room was not safe, the house was not safe. Not now. She had been very imprudent. She had run straight home to her hiding-place, her only refuge. Why had she not waited to make sure that she was followed? Then she could have slipped away in a different direction until she had evaded pursuit, and returned to her room afterwards. She had been very foolish.

She approached her window and gazed down, but could discern nothing in the darkness. She tried to shake off her fear, telling herself that it was imagination. But her mind remained full of misgivings, and her inner consciousness peopled the obscurity of the street below with lurking figures.

Weariness overcame her. She retired from the window and laid down on her bed, not to sleep, but to think. Her fright had turned her mind temporarily from the contemplation of a greater disaster. That was the arrest of Charles Turold. She had learnt the news from an evening paper which she had bought at the corner of the street. The announcement was very brief, merely stating that he had been arrested in Cornwall. The guarded significance of the information was not lost upon her. Charles had been captured on his way back to her, and her agonized heart whispered that she was responsible for his fate.

Bitterly she now blamed herself for having let him go on the quest. She hardly asked herself whether it had succeeded or failed, perhaps because she had subconsciously accepted the view that Thalassa, after all, had nothing to tell. Nor did she think of the calamity which had again overtaken her love. The effect of her original renunciation was still strong within her, and Charles’s discovery of her and her promise to him had not really altered her attitude. His finding her, and