get
nothing more out of me if you question me till Doomsday."

"But why should you keep anything back?" asked Barrant softly.

Thalassa looked at him with a startled air, then recovered himself
quickly. "I'm not keeping anything back," he said. "Why should you say
that?"

"I did not say it. You said I'd get no more out of you."

"Because there is nothing more to be got. Is that plain enough?"

"Quite. Well then, let us go over the events of this night once more.
Perhaps that will help you to recall something which you have forgotten."

"That's not likely."

"Nevertheless, we will try. You were busy in the coal cellar at the time,
I think you said?"

"At what time?" said Thalassa with a quick glance.

"At the time the crash happened upstairs."

"Yes."

"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.

"Thalassa"--Barrant's voice remained persuasive, but to an ear attuned to
shades, there was a note of menace underlying its softness--"you know
there was somebody else here that night."

"Somebody? Who?"

"Your master's daughter--Miss Sisily Turold." Barrant brought it out
sharply and angrily.

Thalassa turned a cold glance on him. "If you know that why do you ask
me?" he said