“Thalassa? I really couldn’t tell you, because I do not know. But he has a most truculent and overbearing manner—not at all the kind of manner you expect in a servant, and he seemed to do just what he liked. I disliked him as soon as I saw him. I’m sure he looks more like some dreadful old sea pirate than a gentleman’s servant. I would not have him in my household.” Mrs. Pendleton set her lips firmly. “No, not for a single moment. But I suppose poor Robert was attached to him from long association.”
Barrant nodded in an understanding way. “Then this man Thalassa must have known your niece from childhood,” he said in a casual tone. “Was he attached to her, do you think?”
“I know nothing of that.”
“That’s rather a pity,” he said with a gentle shake of the head. He looked at her knowingly.
“I do not understand you,” she faltered.
“You had grounds for your suspicions of Thalassa—reasonable grounds. He must have admitted your niece into the house last night, you know. I must get it out of him.”
She gave a start, for she saw now where his drift of questions was taking them. With a sickening sense of horror she realized that her slight suspicions were being used by him to help fashion a case against her own flesh and blood.
“What are you suggesting?” she breathed, with a nervous look.
“Nothing at present,” he said, with a quick realization of the fact that he was in danger of talking too much. “Can you tell me if your niece is provided with money?”
“My brother gave her twenty-five pounds in bank notes yesterday—he told me.”