They went on again, and in a few minutes the car stopped at the end of the
rough moor track, close to where the black cliffs dropped to the grey sea.

Flint House rose solitary before them, perched with an air of bravado upon
the granite ledge, as though defying the west wind which blustered around
it. The unfastened gate which led to the little path banged noisily in the
breeze, but the house seemed steeped in desolation. A face peeped
furtively at them from a front window as they approached. They heard a
shuffling footstep and the drawing of a bolt, and the door was opened by a
withered little woman who looked at them with silent inquiry.

"Where's your husband?" asked Sergeant Pengowan.

She glanced timidly up the stairs behind her, and they saw Thalassa
descending as though in answer to the question. He scanned the police
officers with a cautious eye. Barrant returned the look with a keen
observation which took in the externals of the man who was the object of
Mrs. Pendleton's suspicions.

"You are the late Mr. Turold's servant?" he said.

"Put it that way if you like," was the response. "Who might you be?"

Barrant did not deign to reply to this inquiry. "Take us upstairs," he
said.

"Pengowan wants us to look at the outside first," said Dawfield, but
Barrant was already mounting the stairs.

"You do so," he called back, over his shoulder. "I'll go up."

At the top of the staircase he waited until Thalassa reached him. "Where
are Mr. Turold's rooms?" he asked.

Thalassa pointed with a long arm into the dim vagueness of the passage.
"Down there," he said, "at the end. The study on the right, the bedroom
opposite."

"Very well. You need not come any further."

The old man's eyes travelled slowly upward to' the detective's face, but
he kept his ground.

"Did you hear me?" Barrant asked sharply. "You can go downstairs again."

Again the other's eyes sought his face with a brooding contemplative look.
Then he turned sullenly away with moving lips, as though muttering
inarticulate words, leaving Barrant standing on the landing, watching his
slow descent.

When he was quite sure that he was gone, Barrant turned down the
passage-way. He had his reasons for wishing to be alone. The value of a
vivid first impression, the effect of concentration necessary to reproduce
the scene to the eyes of imagination, the mental arrangement of the facts
in their proper order and conformity--these were things which were