Arthur J. Rees

“ You must not go,” she cried in affright. “It would not be safe for you.”
“Would it be any more dangerous than hiding in London like a skulking rat?” he bitterly replied. “This cannot go on. We are both in a dangerous position, and might be arrested at any moment. What would happen then? Who would believe my story—or yours? They sound improbable even to ourselves. Here, at least, is a chance of discovering the truth, for I most solemnly believe that Thalassa knows it, or guesses it. What other chance have we of finding out the hideous mystery of that night? I must go, Sisily. ”

“ He engaged a vehicle at the hotel and drove over to Flint House in the afternoon. The impression of that visit remained. Flint House, rising from the basalt summit of the headland like a granite vault, its windows coldly glistening down on the frothy green gloom of the Atlantic far beneath, the country trap and lean black horse at the flapping gate, the undertaker’s man (dissolute parasite of austere Death) slinking out of the house, and Thalassa waiting at the open door for him to approach—all these things were engraved on Mr. Brimsdown’s mind, never to be forgotten. ”

“ Barrant passed him with a side glance, his mind full of the problem of the girl’s disappearance. He left the hotel in a state of thoughtfulness, fully realizing the difficulties of the task which lay before him in tracing Sisily’s movements on the previous night, and discovering where she had flown. The deeper questions of motive and the inconsequence of some of her actions he preferred to leave till later. Action, and not mental analysis, was the need of the moment. Barrant prided himself on being a man of action, and he was also a detective. The thrill of pursuit stirred in his blood. ”

“ When Sisily first saw the cliffs of Cornwall she was reminded of those early days, with the difference that the Cornish granite rocks stood firm, as though saying to the sea, “Here rises England.”
The house Robert Turold had taken looked down on the sea from the summit. It was a strange place to build a house, on the brink of a broken Cornish cliffline, above the grey surges of the Atlantic, among a wilderness of dark rocks, facing black moors, which rolled away from the cliffs as lonely and desolate as eternity. ”

“ Thalassa went on, still scanning the secret places of the towering cliffs as he walked forward with Charles beside him. When the rugged passage was crossed, and the narrow wild bay left behind, he spoke.
“For what?”
“To have the truth out of you, you infernal scoundrel!” cried the young man fiercely, his self-control suddenly vanishing at that indifferent tone. “You know all about the murder of your master; you’re going to tell me, or I’ll throw you off these cliffs into the sea.” ”

“ As he stood staring into the open grave, regardless of a lurking grave-digger waiting to fill it, he looked like a man whose part in the drama of life was Care. There was no hint of happiness in his long narrow face, dull sunken eyes, and bloodless compressed lips. His expression was not that of one unable to tear himself away from the last glimpse of a loved wife fallen from his arms into the clutch of Death. It was the gaze of one immersed in anxious thought.
The mourners, who had just left the churchyard, awaited him by a rude stone cross near the entrance to the church. ”

“ Before I could guess what was likely to happen Turold grabbed them up quick, and put them in his bottle. ‘These two are mine, Thalassa’s and mine,’ he said. ‘You’ve had your share, Remington.’ Remington sprang from the rock quick as a snake. ‘One’s mine,’ he said. But Turold was up as quick. ‘It’s not for you,’ he says, with his dark smile. ‘We’ll put it against the girl you filched from me, and call it an even deal. What does a happy lover want with diamonds?’ ‘Damn you!’ cries the other, and hit him in the face. ”

“ His agitation arose from the death of Robert Turold—his client. He had gathered that piece of news from an evening newspaper in the restaurant where he had dined. Mr. Brimsdown had reached an age when the most poignant events of human life seem little more than trifles. It was in the nature of things for men to die. As a lawyer he had prepared many last wills and testaments—had helped men into their graves, as it were—unmoved. But that unexpected announcement of Robert Turold’s death had come to him as an over-whelming shock. ”

“ I set out across the moors in the darkness. It was raining, and I walked fast until Flint House loomed out of the blackness before me. Then I paused to consider my course of action. I was about to thwart a madman with a fixed idea, in a lonely house where he had in his service another man who could be depended on to make common cause against me when he knew the truth. I was not afraid of Robert Turold, but I was of Thalassa. I knew he was strong enough to hurl me through the window into the sea. ”

“ On her death-bed the unhappy woman must have had her fears concerning the future of her daughter—belated uneasy premonitions arising after her dying confession to the man supposed to be her husband, perhaps causing her to doubt the wisdom of that revelation. That seemed plain enough to Charles afterwards, though not apparent at the time Sisily had confided in him, for she had died without giving the girl the slightest indication of her life’s secret, as if in some inscrutable hope that the tangle might be made straight. ”

“ There had been loud voices, and she had seen a fiery threatening eye—Thalassa’s—and her; father’s moody averted face.
From a child she had developed in her own way, as wild and wayward as the gulls which swooped around the rocks where she was sitting. Nature revealed her heart to her in long solitary walks by sea and fen. But of the world of men and women Sisily knew nothing whatever. The secrets of the huddle of civilization are not to be gathered from books or solitude. ”

“ Barrant had heard all he wanted to know at second hand at that stage of his investigations, and he now preferred to be guided by his own impressions and observations.
His professional interest in the case had been greatly quickened by his first sight of Flint House. Never had he seen anything so weird and wild. The isolation of the place, perched insecurely on the edge of the rude cliffs, among the desolation of the rocks and moors, breathed of mystery and hinted at hidden things. But who would find the way to such a lonely spot to commit murder, if murder had been committed? ”

“ Thalassa dropped on his knees beside her. “Sisily, Sisily!” he cried hoarsely—“It’s me—Thalassa!”
He stooped over her, calling her repeatedly, but she did not reply. Her face showed still and white in the moonlight. He unfastened the front of her dress, and put his hard hand on her soft flesh, but he could not feel her heart beating. He lifted her tenderly in his arms, and she lay against his body inert and cold, her wet head resting on his shoulder. Thus he started the ascent of the cliff.
A giant’s strength still lurked in his ageing frame. ”

“ The thin face, narrow white forehead, and high-bridged nose might have belonged to an Oxford don or fashionable preacher, but, apart from these features, Austin Turold had nothing in common with such earnest souls. By temperament he was a dilettante and cynic, who affected not to take life seriously. His axiom of faith was that a good liver was the one thing in life worth having, and a far more potent factor in human affairs than conscience. He had at one time regarded his brother Robert as a fool and visionary, but had seen fit to change that opinion latterly. ”

“ His brown face remained expressionless, but his little dark eyes glittered warily, like a snake’s.
“Think again, Thalassa,” urged Barrant, in a voice of the softest insistence. “It may be that you have forgotten something—overlooked an incident which may be important.”
“I’ve overlooked nothing,” was the sullen response.
“There’s just an odd chance that you have,” said Barrant, searching the other’s face from raised contemplative eyebrows. “The best of memories plays tricks at times. It’s always better not to be too sure. Think again, Thalassa, if you haven’t something more to tell me.” ”

“ She had felt so hopelessly alone there; far lonelier than she had ever been in Cornwall or Norfolk. Nature could be brutal, but never indifferent. She could be friendly—sometimes. The sea and the sky had whispered loving greetings to her, but not London. There was nothing but a hideous and blank indifference there. She was glad to get away—away from the endless rows of shops and houses, from the unceasing throngs of indifferent people, back to the lonely moors of Cornwall, to look down from the rocks at the sea, and breathe the keen gusty air. ”

“ There was an uncanny thrill in sitting there within an arm’s length of him, meeting his unsuspicious glance, and listening to him with the knowledge that I could have put his plans and ambitions to flight with a single word, and had him begging for mercy. I was in the position of Providence, and withheld my hand, as Providence generally does. My desire to punish Robert Turold had long since died. At sixty, revenge is a small thing. What is human retribution to the ferocity of Time’s revenge on us all? Retribution and Justice—these are human catchwords, signifying nothing. What is Justice? ”

“ It was there in the spell of solitude thirty years before that Robert Turold’s soul had yielded to temptation at the beck of his monstrous ambition.
That, however, was the end—or what Robert Turold imagined to be the end—of the story. The listener was first invited to contemplate a scene in human progress when men gathered from the four corners of the earth and underwent incredible hardships of hunger, thirst, disease, lived like beasts and died like vermin for the sake of precious stones in the earth. ”

“ It was not that the theory of these two young people committing murder for love was too cynical for belief. He had encountered more incredible things than that in his professional career. Life was a cynical business, and youth could be brutal in pursuit of its aims, especially when the aim was passion, as it usually was. In his experience youth and age were the dangerous periods—youth, because it knew nothing of life, and age because it knew too much. ”

“ The division, commenced good-humouredly enough, soon developed the elements of a gamble between Robert Turold and Remington. They forgot Thalassa’s existence as they argued and disputed over the allotment of certain stones. The foot or so of flat rock became the circumference of their thoughts, ambitions, and passions—their world for the time being. In that sordid drama of greed Thalassa seemed to have comported himself with greater dignity than his two superiors by birth and education. ”

“ Austin Turold took off his glasses, and posed himself in an attitude of expectation, with his eyes fixed upon the detective’s face.
Barrant eyed the elder man with a puzzled curiosity which was tolerably masked by official impassivity. Barrant had his own methods of investigation and inquiry. He brought an alert intelligence, a seeing eye, and a false geniality to bear in his work. Unversed in elaborate deduction, he flattered himself that he knew enough about human nature to strike the balance of probabilities in almost any case. ”

“ Pendleton cast a moist, grateful glance at the speaker, but Austin Turold turned on him a look of cold hostility.
Robert Turold sat brooding for a few moments in silence. He had asked advice, but his own mind was made up. The humane views of his sister and Dr. Ravenshaw were powerless to affect his decision. The monstrous growth of his single purpose had long since strangled such transient plants as human affection and feeling in his heart and mind.
“The facts must be made public,” he said inexorably. “The honour of a noble family is in my hands, and I must do my duty. ”

“ So Charles passed nearly a week of interminable tramping of London streets, scanning the endless medley of faces in the hope of a chance glimpse of Sisily’s wistful eyes and pale features. But it is one thing to gamble with Fortune, and another to win from her. Sometimes she flattered Charles with a chance resemblance which sent him flying across the traffic at the risk of his life, and once he sprang off a ‘bus after a girl he saw vanishing into an Underground lift, but it was not Sisily. ”

“ At the foot of these cliffs three jagged conical rocks rose bare and glistening, the spray from the broken sea dashing far up their sides. As Charles stood there, looking down, he saw a man appear from the edge of the furthest one and walk rapidly across the sloping shelf of rock which spanned the narrow bay near the surface of the sea. His heart leapt within him as he took in the figure of the man. It was Thalassa. ”

“ Pendleton, will you wait downstairs while we investigate?” suggested Dr. Ravenshaw.
“No,” she resolutely answered. “I will come with you, doctor. Robert may need 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 his courage, followed last. The lamp in Thalassa’s hand burnt unsteadily, first flaming angrily, then flickering to a glimmer which brought them to a pause, one above the other on the stairs, listening intently, and looking into the darkness above. ”