From the cross-roads the way again inclined downward to the sea in increasing savageness of desolation. Stones littered the purple surface of the moors, or rose in insecure heaps on the steep slopes, as though piled there by the hands of the giants supposed to have once roved these gloomy wilds. Solitude held sway, but there was more than solitude in that lonely aspect: something prehistoric and unknown, unearthly, incomprehensible. Cairn Brea and the Hill of Fires brooded in the distance; the remains of a Druid’s altar showed darkly on the summit of a nearer hill. No sound broke the stillness except the faint and distant sobbing of the sea.
St. Fair lay almost hidden in a bend or fold of the moors about a mile before them, and beyond it Dawfield pointed out to his companion Flint House, standing in gaunt outline on a tongue of coast thrust defiantly into the restless waters of the Atlantic.
“A lonely weird place,” said Barrant, eyeing his surroundings attentively. “An ideal setting for a mysterious crime.”
They drove on in silence until they reached the churchtown. Inspector Dawfield steered the car to the modest dwelling of Sergeant Pengowan, whom they found at his gate awaiting their arrival—a shaggy figure of a rural policeman of the Cornish Celtic variety, with no trace of Spanish or Italian ancestry in his florid face, inquisitively Irish blue-grey eyes, reddish whiskers, and burly frame.
Inspector Dawfield bade him good-day, and added the information that his companion was Detective Barrant, of Scotland Yard. Pengowan greeted Barrant with the respect due to the name of Scotland Yard, and took a humble seat at the back of the car.
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.