“It is hardly possible that she could have inflicted those marks on the arm,” Mr. Brimsdown said.
“How did you learn of them?” asked the detective quickly, in a changed tone.
Too late Mr. Brimsdown realized that in contrast to his silence with Charles Turold, he had now gone to the other extreme and said too much. He hesitated, but his hesitation was useless before the swiftness of Barrant’s deduction.
“Was Charles Turold showing you the marks when I found you in the other room?” he asked with a keen glance.
Mr. Brimsdown’s admission of that fact was coupled with an assurance that the young man had shown him the marks because he was convinced of Sisily’s innocence.
Barrant dismissed young Turold’s opinions about the case with an impatient shake of the head. “Who told him about the marks?” he said.
It was the thought which had occurred to Mr. Brimsdown at the time, but he did not say so then. “How did you discover them?” he asked.
“When I was examining the body. But Charles Turold had no reason to examine the body. Perhaps Dr. Ravenshaw told him. I must ask him.”
“It is a terrible and ghastly crime,” said Mr. Brimsdown, in an effort to turn the mind of his companion in another direction. “There is something about it that I do not understand—some deep mystery which has not yet been fathomed. Was it really his daughter? If so, how did she escape from the room and leave the door locked inside? Escape from these windows is plainly impossible.”
He crossed to the window, and stood for a moment looking down at a grey sea tossing in futile restlessness. After an interval he said—