They swallowed a hasty meal and Giuseppe displayed growing excitement. He begged Brendon to bring other policemen with him, but this Mark declined to do.
"Plenty of time for that," he said. "We may catch him easy enough. I shall do nothing until I have seen Mr. Bendigo at 'Crow's Nest' and heard his views. If Robert Redmayne is breaking into houses for food he must be at the end of his tether."
By nine o'clock the Italian had started homeward, and as soon as he was gone, Brendon went to the police station, borrowed a revolver and a pair of handcuffs, hinted at his business, and ordered a police car to be ready as quickly as possible. A constable drove him and before setting out he told the local chief of police, one Inspector Damarell, to await a message over the telephone in the course of the morning. He enjoined strictest secrecy for the present.
Mark overtook and passed Doria on his way home. The storm had nearly blown itself out and the morning was clear and cold. Beneath the cliffs a big sea rolled, but it was fast going down.
Any suspicion that the inhabitants of Bendigo's home were seeking to create false impressions left Brendon's mind, when he stood before Jenny and her uncle. The former was nervous and the latter beyond measure puzzled. There was now little doubt that Robert Redmayne must be the man who broke into Strete Farm for food, since Mark's experience of the previous night tended to confirm the fact. He had seen Redmayne some hours before the fugitive alarmed the household at Strete. Where was he now and why had he come hither? All suspected that the unfortunate man had probably returned from France or Spain, and now lay hid close at hand, waiting for a safe opportunity to see the old sailor.
"Your brother has probably got his eye on the house," said Brendon, "and is considering how to approach you, Mr. Redmayne, without risking his own safety."
"There's only one he'll trust, I reckon, and that's me," declared Bendigo. "If he knew that Jenny means him no harm, he might trust her, too, but he may not believe that she's good Christian enough to forgive him. And anyway I guess he don't know she's with me. I'm talking as though he was sane, but I doubt it."
Mark, who had studied Mr. Redmayne's large government survey map of the district, suggested an immediate search over the most likely regions in the neighbourhood.
"I think of you and Mrs. Pendean," he explained. "You don't want hue and cry again and all the past brought up once more. If we can get to him without calling in the police, then so much the better. The man must be in extreme want. His face, as I saw it, was harrowed and tormented. He has probably reached a mental condition of tension and torture in which he will not be sorry to find himself among friendly and understanding fellow creatures. There are two districts which especially suggest themselves to me to search in: the shore, where there are many caves and crevices above sea level safe from observation; and the dense woods into which he plunged when I came suddenly upon him last night. I examined them on my way out this morning. They appear to be very extensive, but they are traversed by drives for sportsmen and you can look up and down these drives for many hundred yards."
Mr. Redmayne summoned Doria who had now reached home again.