CHAPTER XXVII
Flint House looked a picture of desolation in the chill grey day, wrappedin such silence that Charles's cautious knock seemed to reverberatethrough the stillness around. But the knocking, repeated more loudly,aroused no human response. After waiting awhile the young man pulled thebell. From within the house a cracked and jangling tinkle echoed faintly,and then quivered into silence. He rang again, but there was no sound offoot or voice; no noise but the cries of the gulls overhead and the hoarsebeat of the sea at the foot of the cliffs.
A cormorant, sitting on a rock near by, twisted its thin neck to starefearlessly at the visitor. But Charles Turold was not thinking ofcormorants. Where was Thalassa? Where was his wife? He believed they werestill in Cornwall, but they might have left the house. He had been inLondon a long while. Not so long, though--only twelve days. Twelve days!Twelve eternities of unendurable hopelessness and loneliness, such as thedamned might know. Was he to fail, now, after finding Sisily? He had aresponsibility, a solemn duty. He had reached Cornwall safely fromLondon--run the gauntlet of all the watching eyes of the police--and hewould not go back without seeing Thalassa. His mind was thoroughly madeup. He would find him, if he had to walk every inch of Cornwall in searchof him. And when he found him he would wrest the truth out of him--yes, byGod, he would! When he found him, but where was he to be found? The craftyold scoundrel might be in the house at that moment, lurking there like awolf, perhaps grinning down at him from behind some closed window.... Asudden rage surged over him at that thought, and he fell savagely on theshut door, beating it with insensate fury with his fists. Damn him, hewould force his way in!
The cormorant ruffled its greenish feathers and watched him curiously. Thefaint cries of the gulls overhead seemed borne downward with a note ofmocking derision. Charles Turold stepped back from the door with an uneasylook at the cormorant, as though fearing to detect in its unreflectingbeadiness of glance some humanly cynical enjoyment at his loss ofself-control. The wave of feeling had spent itself. Not thus was victoryto be won. He paused to consider, then tried the knocker again. Theknocker smote the wood with a hollow sound, like a stroke on the iron doorof a vault, loud enough to rouse the dead. Charles Turold had adisagreeable impression of Robert Turold starting up in his grave-clothesat the summons, listening.... But no! The dead man was safe in his graveby this time. He had forgotten that.
A sudden silence fell on the house: a deep and profound stillness, asthough seas and wind had hushed their wailing speech to listen for theanswer to the knock. The birds, too, were silent. The house remainedimmutably quiet. Charles Turold bent down, and peered through the keyhole,but could see nothing within but darkness. Then, as he looked, a soundreached his ears, a sound like a thin cackle of laughter from the interiorof the house. In the gathering gloom within he had a momentary impressionof a stealing greyish shape--a shape which vanished from his vision as helooked.
He rose to his feet, his mind groping blindly for some tangibleexplanation of this spectral thing, but finding none. A ghost? He shookoff that feeling roughly. God knows, that house might well be haunted, butnot by a ghost that could laugh, though there was no merriment in thatghastly cackle. The reality of the thing, whatever it was, could not beworse than the sound. Had he really seen anything, after all? Was theresome trap about it, some danger to himself? He would have to risk that.
The distant sight of a human figure far away on the wide space of themoors, clambering over the granite slabs of a stile, turned his thoughtsto a more perceptible danger. If he could see that man more than half amile away, his own figure must be apparent over a long distance in thatclear brown expanse. Perhaps at that very moment the policeman from thechurchtown was prowling about the moors in search of him. His actions atthat lonely house were suspicious enough to attract anybody's attention.That was an act of imprudence which he had no right to commit. He had notevaded the keen eyes of the London police to be trapped like a rat by arural constable. It was too dangerous for him to remain there. Hedetermined to spend the rest of the day among the cliffs, and return toFlint House when night fell.
He walked away, briskly at first, but with a more laggard step as heplunged into the shelter of the great rocks, for he had had nothing to eatsince the night before, and was beginning to be conscious of his weakness.But he strode on, doggedly enough, for more than an hour, until he foundhimself at a part of the coast he had not seen before--a theatre of blackrocks, with dark towering walls, and a hissing sea whitening at the base.
At the foot of these cliffs three jagged conical rocks rose bare andglistening, the spray from the broken sea dashing far up their sides. AsCharles stood there, looking down, he saw a man appear from the edge ofthe furthest one and walk rapidly across the sloping shelf of rock whichspanned the narrow bay near the surface of the sea. His heart leapt withinhim as he took in the figure of the man. It was Thalassa.
As Charles climbed down from the higher cliffs to intercept him, therecame to his mind an imperfectly comprehended fragment of conversationwhich he had overheard, between waking and dozing, in the train thatmorning. The voices drifted to his dulled hearing from the nextcompartment, where some men seemed to be discussing somebody of whom theystood in dread, somebody who was forever striding along the cliffs withhis eyes fixed on some distant horizon, as though seeking some one. Theobject of the mysterious being's quest, if it was a quest, nobody who methim cared to ask. So much he had gathered. He had heard one of thespeakers say: "I've met un, ever so laate, stalkin' aloong like th' devil.Tes aw token o' a bad conscience. Tes dreadful to think about. I got owto' his way.... I'd as soon speak to th' devil. Iss, aw'd." Charles hadthought nothing of this chatter at the time, but he wondered now if theywere talking of Thalassa. Did the local fisherfolk believe that he hadsomething to do with the murder, and shunned him like Ishmael inconsequence?
He looked like Ishmael at that moment, crossing that wild place, earnestlyscanning every nook of those seamed and riven walls, sometimes glancingstealthily behind him. His preoccupation in this search--if it was asearch--was so great that he never once glanced ahead, and he did not seeCharles until the young man leaped down the last few paces of his slipperydescent and stood plainly forth before him. Thalassa's brown face did notmove a muscle as he looked at him.
"Thalassa," said Charles sternly, "I have been looking for you."
Thalassa went on, still scanning the secret places of the towering cliffsas he walked forward with Charles beside him. When the rugged passage wascrossed, and the narrow wild bay left behind, he spoke.
"For what?"
"To have the truth out of you, you infernal scoundrel!" cried the youngman fiercely, his self-control suddenly vanishing at that indifferenttone. "You know all about the murder of your master; you're going to tellme, or I'll throw you off these cliffs into the sea."
He gripped the other's arm as he spoke, but Thalassa tore off his fingers,and leapt backward against a rock, a knife in his hand, snarling like awild beast.
"Keep off!" he cried. "Keep off, or by Christ, I'll--" He hooked the airwith his knife.
Charles eyed him across the space, affected almost to nausea by his evilglance. What a fool he had been to lose his temper! Not in that way wasthe truth to be reached. The man before him was not to be terrorized orintimidated. Sisily's way would have been the best. He wondered whether itwas too late to attempt it.
"I was hasty, Thalassa," he said. "Come, do not let us quarrel after Ihave risked everything to get down here to see you. I have a message foryou--from Sisily."
The face of the man crouching by the rock changed instantly. He made astep forward, as if to speak, then cast a gleaming eye of unbelief at hiscompanion.
"It's a lie!" he said. "You haven't seen her."
"I'm speaking the truth," Charles earnestly replied. "Do you think I'dhave come back to Cornwall otherwise, knowing the police are searching forme?"
"Ay, you know that, do you?" muttered the other. "They've been watchingFlint House for you.
You were a fool to come back here."
"I'd risk more than that to learn the truth, Thalassa. It's for Sisily'ssake. I've seen her. She's in London, and I've come from her. She gave methis message to bring to you. She said: 'Tell Thalassa that I ask him totell the truth--if he knows it.' The police are looking for her as well asme."
"I've heered so." With these words, uttered quickly, Thalassa fell intothe silence of a man on his guard and pondering. Charles approachednearer.
"Thalassa," he pleaded, "if you are keeping anything back you must tell mefor Sisily's sake."
"How do I know you've seen her?" retorted Thalassa, darting a dark craftylook at him.
Charles was overwhelmed by a sense of catastrophe. Here was a possibilitywhich had been overlooked. How was he to instil belief that he spoke thetruth? A moment passed. Thalassa cast another black look at him, andturned as if to walk away. "I'll keep my word," he muttered to himself.
The young man's quick ear caught the whispered sentence, and saw the way."I'll prove it to you," he said. "You promised Sisily that you'd tellnobody she was at Flint House to see her father on the night he waskilled. How could I know that unless I'd seen her?"
"What else?" said Thalassa, facing him with a strange and doubtful glance.
"You let her in," Charles rapidly continued, "and you waited downstairsfor her. Afterwards you took her back across the moors to catch thewagonette. It was on the way, near the cross-roads, that Sisily made youpromise not to tell anybody that she'd been there that night."
"Suppose it's true--what then?" Thalassa's voice was edged with thecraftiest caution. "She's sent you to me to ask for the truth, say you.'Twould have been safer not. What else is there to say, when she's toldyou everything?" He cast a look of savage jealousy at the young man.
"Much." Charles spoke rapidly, but his glance was despairing. "Whathappened while you were away from the house? What sent your wife mad? Whatdid you find when you returned? You know these things, Thalassa."
"Happen I did, what good'd come of telling them?"
"To save Sisily."
"They'd not help to save her."
"Do you think she shot her father?"
Thalassa gave him another dark look, but remained silent.
"You know she didn't, you hound!" cried Charles, anger flaring up in himagain. "It was you--it must have been you. Listen to me! I know almostenough to hang you. I was in the house while you were away, and found yourmaster lying dead in his study, and the key of the door in the passageoutside. Who could have dropped it there except you?"
"'Tweren't me. 'Twas done afore I got back to the house," answeredThalassa.
"What time was it when you left the house with Sisily?"
"Agone half-past eight: perhaps ten minutes after. She came runningdownstairs, her eyes staring and blazing. 'Thalassa, dear Thalassa, forpity's sake let me out,' she said half-sobbing. 'Oh, what did I come for?He's wicked--wicked.' Twasn't for me to say anything between father anddaughter, so I just opened the door without a word, and went out withher."
"What time did Sisily catch the wagonette?"
"That's what I don't know. She made me go back when we got to thecross-roads. She knew as well as I did that the old fool who drives itwasn't particular as to time, and she worried about my old woman gettingscairt if she found herself alone, and me out. 'Go back to her, Thalassa,'she said, 'I shall be all right now.' That was just after she'd made mepromise to tell nobody that she'd been to see her father that night. And,by God, I kept my word. Nobody got anything out of me, though they triedhard enough. Well, when she sent me back I went, leaving her standing, forI had my own reason for going. When I looked back after a bit I saw herstanding there by the light of the dirty little lamp above thecross-roads."
"Did you see the wagonette on the road?"
"Not a sign of it. Just her--alone."
A faint hope died in Charles's breast. Even the drunken irregularity of aCornish cabman told against Sisily. But that point was not so immediatelyimportant as Thalassa's story that the murder had been committed duringhis absence from Flint House. Although his own experience supported thatsupposition, Charles was reluctant to accept a theory which plunged theevents of that night into deeper mystery than ever.
"Well, go on," he said. "What did you find when you got back?"
"The house was dark and the door open. The wind was coming in from the seasharp enough to take your head off your shoulders, and I thought perhapsI'd jammed the door without closing it, and it had blowed open with thewind. But when I got inside I heered something like moaning. I thoughtthat might be the wind too, for it's for ever screeching up and down thepassages like a devil, specially o' nights. I--" He stopped suddenly,with a cautious sidelong look at his listener.
"Yes, yes!" cried Charles. "And what then?"
Thalassa went on, but a little moodily.
"I went along to the kitchen and found the old woman lying on the floor,in a kind of fit or faint, making the queer noise I'd just heered. When Ipicked her up she opened her eyes, laughing and crying and making mouthsas she pointed to the ceiling. I could get nothing out of her for a while.Then she mutters something about a crash upstairs, and goes off intoanother fit. I carried her into her bedroom and went upstairs as fast asmy legs would take me. There was a light under his door, but he didn'tanswer when I knocked. I tried to open it, but it was locked inside. In abit there was a knock downstairs. You know what happened after that." Helapsed into silence again, with another look at the young man.
"That was when my aunt and her husband and Dr. Ravenshaw came to thedoor?" said Charles, filling in the pause. "But how was it that you toldthem that you feared something had happened to your master? Was that pureguesswork on your part? You hadn't been in the room, you say."
"I had to tell them something, hadn't I?" retorted the other sullenly. "IfI hadn't told them that, it would a' all come out about me going out withMiss Sisily, and not into the coal cellar, as I said."
"It is astonishing that your story should have been so near the truth whenyou knew nothing of what had taken place."
"I did know something. The door was open, the house dark, and she in a fiton the floor, saying there'd been a crash upstairs. Then his door waslocked, and I couldn't get an answer. Wasn't that enough?"
"Hardly enough to warrant your saying that you feared your master had beenmurdered--unless you expected him to be murdered."
"I didn't say that," replied Thalassa with unusual quickness. "All I saidwas that I was afeered something had happened to him. There was reason forthinking that. I had to make up my story quick--that part about just goingfor Dr. Ravenshaw. That was because I'd still got my hat and topcoat on,just as I'd come in from the moors, and I wasn't going to break my promiseto Miss Sisily."
"Did you see the blood under the door when you went up and tried to getin?"
"I've told you all there is to tell," was the dogged response.
"What frightened your wife so much? Do you think she saw the murderer?"
"That's what I would like to know," responded Thalassa, with a swiftcunning glance.
He turned his face away and looked across the sea, the brown outline ofhis hooked profile more than ever like an effigy carved by savage hands.Charles scanned him despairingly. The feeling was strong within him thathe was still keeping something back.
"Thalassa," he said, "you should have told this story before. You havedone wrong in keeping it back."
"'Twould a' been breaking of my word to Miss Sisily."
"It was of more importance to clear her. You could have done that if youhad come forward and told the police, as you've just told me, that sheleft the house with you before nine o'clock on that night."
"'Twouldn't a' helped if I had. I found out next day that the wagonettedidn't get to the cross-roads that night till nearly ten o'clock. 'Twasafter half-past nine when it left the inn."
"What made you find out that?"
"Do you think I didn't put my wits to work when the dam
ned detective wastrying to put me into it as well as her? I thought it all out then--abouttelling the truth. But I saw 'twould a' been no good for her, but onlymade matters worse. Who'd a' believed me? There be times when a man cansay too much, so I kept my mouth shut."
There was so much sense in this that Charles had nothing to say in reply.In silence they tramped along till they reached the dip of the sea inwhich the Moon Rock lay. Here they paused, as if with the mutual feelingthat the time had come for the interview to end. Behind them towered thecliffs, with Flint House hanging crazily on the summit far above wherethey stood. The eye of Charles ranged along the shore to the spot where hehad said good-bye to Sisily not so very long ago, then returned to restdoubtingly on Thalassa. The old man stood with his hand resting on a giantrock, his dark eyes fixed on the rim of the waste of grey water where aweak declining sun hung irresolutely, as though fearing the inevitableplunge.
"I'd a' given my right arm to have saved her from this," Charles heard himmutter.
Charles found himself looking down at Thalassa's brown muscular arm,corded with veins, stretched out on the rock by which he stood. It was asthough it had been bared for his inspection, which was not, indeed, thecase. If that arm could save Sisily, it was at her service. But what wasthe good of that? What was the good of his own efforts to help her?Charles had a suffocating feeling of the futility of human effort whenopposed by the malignity of Fate. He asked himself with aching heart whatwas to be the outcome of it all? He had failed. What then? It was notuntil that moment that he realized how strongly he had been buoyed up bythe false optimism of hope. His consciousness, as though directed by thepower of a devil, was forced to look for the first time upon the hideousinevitability of the appointed end.
"No, no! Not that--not that," he shudderingly whispered to himself.
Neither moved. The minutes passed leaden-footed. It was silent and stillin that wild spot, as if theirs were the only two human hearts beating ina dead world. It seemed as though neither could bring it upon himself toterminate the interview. Charles was the first to break the silence. Hespoke like a man coming out of a dream.
"Did that clock upstairs keep good time?" he asked in a low voice.
Thalassa turned on him as if not understanding the purport of thequestion.
"It was going shipshape and Bristol fashion in the afternoon. What's thatgot to do with it? What does it signify if it was five minutes fast orslow?"
The logic of the answer was apparent to Charles, who knew he was onlyattempting to pluck something by chance out of the dark maze. But anotherand shrewder idea started up in his mind.
"What was your reason for hurrying back across the moors that night?"
"Miss Sisily told me to go."
"But you had another reason--a reason of your own," said Charles, turningquickly to regard him. "You said so yourself."
"If I had I've forgotten what it was," said Thalassa with a black look.
"You cannot have forgotten!" cried Charles. "What was it?" Hope sprang upin his heart again like a warm flame as he detected something confused andirresolute in the other's attitude. "Thalassa, you are keeping somethingback. You know, or you guess, who the murderer is!"
"I'm keeping nothing back."
"You are. I can see it in your face. What is it that you will not tell?What do you fear?"
"The gallows--for one thing."
"You'd sooner see Sisily lose her life on them?"
This bitter taunt, wrung from the depth of the young man's anguishedheart, had an instantaneous and unexpected effect on his companion.
"No, no!" he hoarsely cried, "I couldn't a' bear that. But it's nothing totell, nothing to help. It was earlier that night, before she came. I waslooking out of the kitchen window, when I thought I saw a rock move. ThenI looked again, and it seemed like a man--though I couldn't see his face."
"Is that all?" Bitter disappointment rang in Charles's voice. "That mighthave been me. I was out on the rocks that night, close to Flint House."
"'Tweren't you." Thalassa's reply was so low as to be almost inaudible. "Idon't know who it was, but I'll take my Bible oath it weren't you."
"Who was it then?" Charles asked breathlessly.
"A dead man, or his spirit. I know that now, though I laughed when_he_ said it. I know better now."
He stopped suddenly, like one who has said too much, and looked moodilyout to sea.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Never mind what I mean. It's nothing to do with you. A man's a fool whenhe gets talking. The tongue trips you up."
"Thalassa," said Charles solemnly, "if you know anything which might throwthe remotest light on this mystery it is your duty to reveal it."
"It's easy to talk. But I swore--I swore I would never tell."
"This is the moment to forget your oath."
"It's fine to talk--for you. But he'd come back to haunt me, if he knew."He jerked his thumb in the direction of the distant churchyard whereRobert Turold lay.
Charles looked at his grim and secret face in despair. "I hope you realizewhat you are doing by keeping silence," he said.
"I'm keeping a still tongue in my head, for one thing."
"For one thing--yes. For another, you're injuring Sisily--you're doingmore than injure her. You're letting her remain under suspicion of herfather's death, in hiding in London, hunted by the police. Yet shebelieved in you. It was she who sent me to you, it was she who said: 'TellThalassa from me to tell the truth, if he knows it.' Is she mistaken inyou, Thalassa? Do you think more of your own skin than her safety?"