Chapter XVI
The twilight had deepened into darkness when Barrant reached Flint House. A faint ray of light flickered from the kitchen window on the giant cliffs, like a taper from a doll’s house. He approached the window by a line of rocks which guarded it like sentinels, and looked in.
Within, Mrs. Thalassa sat alone by the table in a drooping attitude of dejection or stupor. Her head was bent over her crossed hands, which rested on the table, and her grey hair, escaping from the back comb which fastened it, fell on both sides of her face. An oil lamp smoked on the table beside her, sending forth a cloud of black vapour like an unbottled genie, but she did not heed it. There was something uncanny in her complete detachment from the restless activity of life. The dead man lying upstairs was not more still.
Had Barrant known her better he would have had matter for surprise and conjecture in the fact that her patience cards stood untouched in their shabby leather case, but knowing nothing of that he fell to wondering what her husband had seen in such a queer little creature to marry her. The consideration of that question led him to the conclusion that perhaps Thalassa had been impelled to his choice by the realization that she was as good-looking a wife as he could afford. Barrant reflected that women resembled horses in value. The mettlesome showy ones were bred to display their paces for rich men only. Serviceable hacks, warranted to work a lifetime, could not be expected to be ornamental as well as useful. So long as they pulled their burdens without jibbing overmuch, one had to be content.
He began to wonder where Thalassa was, and moved closer to the shadow of one of the rocks in case he happened to be prowling around the house. In the silence of the night he listened for the sound of footsteps on the rocks, but could hear nothing except the moan of the sea and the whimper of a rising wind. His eye, glancing upwards, fell upon a chink of shuttered light in the back of the house which looked down on the sea. The light came from the dead man’s study, and had not been there a few moments before.
Barrant walked to the kitchen door and tapped lightly. There was no answer, but somewhere within the house a dog howled dismally. The door handle yielded to his touch when he tried it, and he walked in.
The little old woman at the table made a sudden movement at his appearance, but he gave her a reassuring smile and nod. She sat quite still, with a look of fear in her eyes. Above his head he heard someone moving in the study.
“Your husband is upstairs?” he asked in a voice which was little more than a whisper. “I want to see him—I am going up to him.”
He did not wait for her to reply, and she watched him out of the room with staring eyes. Stealthily he directed his steps to the staircase, and with infinite precautions for silence commenced to ascend. But midway he stumbled in the dark, and the stair creaked loudly. Above his head a door opened sharply, and when he reached the landing he saw the figure of Thalassa framed in the lighted doorway at the far end of the long passage, listening.