“I had to tell them something, hadn’t I?” retorted the other sullenly. “If I hadn’t told them that, it would a’ all come out about me going out with Miss Sisily, and not into the coal cellar, as I said.”
“It is astonishing that your story should have been so near the truth when you knew nothing of what had taken place.”
“I did know something. The door was open, the house dark, and she in a fit on the floor, saying there’d been a crash upstairs. Then his door was locked, and I couldn’t get an answer. Wasn’t that enough?”
“Hardly enough to warrant your saying that you feared your master had been murdered—unless you expected him to be murdered.”
“I didn’t say that,” replied Thalassa with unusual quickness. “All I said was that I was afeered something had happened to him. There was reason for thinking that. I had to make up my story quick—that part about just going for Dr. Ravenshaw. That was because I’d still got my hat and topcoat on, just as I’d come in from the moors, and I wasn’t going to break my promise to Miss Sisily.”
“Did you see the blood under the door when you went up and tried to get in?”
“I’ve told you all there is to tell,” was the dogged response.
“What frightened your wife so much? Do you think she saw the murderer?”
“That’s what I would like to know,” responded Thalassa, with a swift cunning glance.
He turned his face away and looked across the sea, the brown outline of his hooked profile more than ever like an effigy carved by savage hands. Charles scanned him despairingly. The feeling was strong within him that he was still keeping something back.