“What time was that?”
“How should I know? Do you suppose there’s a clock in the coal cellar? It must have been about half-past nine.”
“According to the clock upstairs. Did you think I had overlooked that? Then you heard your wife call, and went to the kitchen. Next, you went upstairs, tried your master’s door, found it locked, and decided to go for assistance. But before you could do so Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton and Dr. Ravenshaw arrived. Have I got it right?”
“That be right.”
“All except one thing, Thalassa.”
Thalassa met Barrant’s look steadily, with no sense of guilt in his face. “Well?” he said.
“I see that you do not intend to be frank. Let me help your memory a little. Did you have no other visitors—before Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton and Dr. Ravenshaw arrived?”
“Visitors?” There was scorn now in his straight glance, but nothing more. “Is this a place where there’s likely to be visitors?”
“Not in the ordinary course of events”—Barrant was still smilingly affable—“but the night your master met his death was not an ordinary night. Somebody may have come to the house.”
He paused, again searching for some sign of guilty consciousness in the face revealed in such clear outline near him, but saw none. Again, Thalassa met him with answering look, but remained mute.