her disappearance. He also thought
he saw the motive--that vital factor in murder--looming behind her
nocturnal expedition. But that was a question he was not inclined to
analyze too closely at that moment. He wanted to know how she had been
able to disappear that day without the knowledge of her aunt.

Mrs. Pendleton had a ready explanation of that. She said that after
returning from her visit to the police station that morning she had been
engaged with her brother Austin until nearly lunch-time, and when she went
up to Sisily's room she found it empty. She concluded that her niece had
gone out somewhere to be alone with her grief--she was the type of girl
that liked to be alone. After lunch Mrs. Pendleton had letters to write,
and then she had gone to her bedroom and fallen sound asleep till
dinner-time, worn out by the shock of her brother's death, and the
sleepless night which had followed it. When Sisily did not appear at
dinner she began to grow uneasy, but sought to convince herself that
Sisily might have gone on a _char-a-banc_ trip to Falmouth which had
been advertised for that day. The incongruity of a sad solitary girl like
Sisily nursing her grief in a public vehicle packed with curious
chattering trippers did not seem to have occurred to her. But as time
passed she grew seriously alarmed, and sent her husband out to make
enquiries.

She had sat in the lounge listening with strained ears for the girl's
footsteps until Barrant arrived.

"Has your niece any friends in Cornwall or London, or anywhere, for that
matter, who would receive her?" Barrant abruptly demanded.

"I really do not know," said Mrs. Pendleton.

She wiped the tears from her eyes with a large white handkerchief. She was
overwhelmed by the shock of her niece's disappearance, and the terrible
interpretation Barrant evidently placed upon it. But Barrant was in no
mood to allow for her confused state of mind.

"You had better try and remember," he said irritably. "It seems to me that
I've been kept in the dark. You went to the police to demand an
investigation into your brother's death, but you did not say anything of
the disclosure he made to you yesterday of his daughter's illegitimacy.
Instead of doing so, you only directed suspicion to his man-servant.
Meanwhile your niece, who was placed in your care, disappears to heaven
knows where, and you took no steps to inform the police. You have acted
very indiscreetly, Mrs. Pendleton, to say t