ness rest where it is.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that our unhappy brother has
ended his own life--all the facts point to it only too clearly--and I
particularly desire, for all our sakes, that you do nothing to put your
ill-informed suspicions into action. Let the thing drop."

"It is too late," said Mrs. Pendleton decidedly. "I have already been to
the police. There is a detective from Scotland Yard on his way over from
Bodmin."

"You might have told me this before and saved my time," said Austin,
rising with cold anger. "In my opinion you have acted most ill-advisedly.
However, it's too late to talk of that. No, there is no need to rise. I
can find my way out."

Austin Turold left the hotel, and made his way up the crooked street to
the centre of the town. His way lay towards Market Jew Street, where he
intended to hire one of the waiting cabs to drive him back to St. Fair. As
he neared the top of the street which led to the square, his eye was
caught by the flutter of a woman's dress in one of the narrow old passages
which spindled crookedly off it. The wearer of the dress was his niece
Sisily. She was walking swiftly. A turn of the passage took her in the
direction of the Morrab Gardens, and he saw her no more.

Her appearance in that secluded spot was unexpected, but at the moment
Austin Turold did not give it more than a passing thought. He hurried
across Market Jew Street and engaged a cabman to drive him home.

The ancient vehicle jolted over the moor road in crawling ascent, and in
due time reached the spot where the straggling churchtown squatted among
boulders in the desolation of the moors, wanting but cave men to start up
from behind the great stones to complete the likeness to a village of the
stone age. The cab drifted along between the granite houses of a wide
street, like a ship which had lost its bearings, but cast anchor before
one where a few stunted garden growths bloomed in an ineffectual effort to
lessen the general aspect of appalling stoniness. Austin Turold paid the
cabman and walked into this house. He opened the door with his latchkey,
and ascended rapidly to the first floor.

Lunch was set for two in the room which he entered, and Charles Turold was
seated at the table, turning over the pages of a book. He glanced up
expectantly, and his lips formed one word--

"Well?"

"It is not well," was the testy response. "My charming sister has called
in the assistance of Sc