“At first I could see nothing except a bright light and the shadow of a form on the wall. Then I made out the form of Charles Turold, standing in his dressing-gown in front of the fireplace, in which a fire of kindling wood was leaping and blazing. I could not make out at first what he was doing. He seemed to be stooping over the fire, moving something about. Then I saw. He was drying his clothes—the suit he had worn that day. They must have been very wet, for the steam was rising from them.
“I must have made a noise which startled him, for I saw him turn quickly and stare at the closed door, then walk towards it. I went away as quickly and noiselessly as I could, and as I turned the corner of the passage, out of sight, his door opened, and then closed again. He had looked out and, seeing nobody, gone back into his room.
“I went downstairs to make the coffee and wait for Mr. Turold. I had to wait some time. When I did hear the sound of his key in the door, I went up the hall with a cup of coffee in my hand. Mr. Turold seemed surprised to see me. He looked at me in a questioning sort of way as he took the coffee, and stood there sipping it. As he handed me back the cup he told me in a low voice that his brother was dead. I said that was why I had waited up—because I had heard the knock and the dreadful news. Mr. Turold, in the same low voice, then said he was very much afraid his brother had taken his own life.
“He then went upstairs. I again retired shortly afterwards, but I could not sleep. I was too upset—too nervous. I could not get Mr. Robert Turold’s suicide out of my head. It seemed such a dreadful thing for a wealthy man to do—so common and vulgar! Suicide sticks to a family so—it is never really forgotten. It is much easier to live down an embezzlement or misappropriation of trust funds. The thought of it put the other thing—the fire and young Mr. Turold and his wet clothes—out of my head completely, for the time.
“As I was lying there tossing and thinking I heard a light footstep pass my door. I slipped out of bed, and opening the door a little, looked out. I saw Mr. Turold, fully dressed, a light in his hand, turning down the passage which led to his son’s room. Then I heard the sound of a creaking door, the murmur of a low conversation, cut short by the shutting of the door. I stood there for a few minutes, and then went back to my bed and fell asleep.
“The next day it all came back to me. I had gone into Charles Turold’s room for some reason when he was out, and there, on the hearth, I could see the remains of the fire he had lit overnight to dry his clothes. He had made some clumsy man-like attempt to clean up the grate, but he left some ends of the charred kindling wood lying about.”
This final revelation brought a silence between Mrs. Brierly and the lawyer; a silence broken only by the distant deep call of the sea beneath the open window. The silence lengthened into minutes before Mr. Brimsdown found his voice.
“You have said nothing to anybody else about this?” He spoke almost abstractedly, but she chose to regard this question in the light of a reproach. She hurriedly rejoined—
“I did not see the necessity—then. If young Mr. Turold got caught in the storm, and chose to dry his clothes in his room, instead of putting them out for the maid, why should I tell anybody? I did not connect it with his uncle’s death. I was under the impression that Mr. Robert Turold had taken his own life. It was not until the detective called to see Mr. Austin Turold that I learnt there was a suspicion of—murder. My maid overheard the detective say something while she was in and out of the room serving tea, and she told me what she had heard. I saw things in a new light then, and I was terribly upset. But I could not see my way clear until you came to the house to-day. Then I decided to tell you.”
“Can you tell me what time Charles Turold came in that night?”