The Moon Rock

by Arthur J. Rees

  CHAPTER XII

  With a slightly incredulous air Inspector Dawfield placed his Londoncolleague in possession of his own knowledge of the facts of the case,based on the statements made to him by Mrs. Pendleton that morning and thefacts as set forth in Sergeant Pengowan's report.

  Detective Barrant listened attentively, with the air of a man smiling tohimself. He was not actually doing so, but that was the impressionconveyed by his keen bright eyes. He was a Londoner, with an assuredmanner, and the conviction that his intelligence was equal to any callwhich might be made upon it. By temperament he was restless, but his workhad given him a philosophical outlook which in some measure counterpoisedthat defect by causing him to realize that life was a tricky and deceptivebusiness in which intelligence counted for more than action in the longrun. He had a wider outlook and more shrewdness than the averagedetective, and he already felt a keen interest in the case he had beencalled in to investigate.

  When the inspector had finished his story he picked up the blue foolscapon which was inscribed the sprawling report of the churchtown sergeant.With a severe effort he mastered the matter contained under the flowingcurves and flourishes.

  "The local man seems certain that it is suicide," he said, "but thesister's statement certainly calls for further investigation. How far awayis this place?"

  "Flint House? About five miles across the moors. I've hired a motor-car todrive you up. Nothing has been disturbed so far. As soon as I learnt youwere coming I telephoned to Pengowan to leave things as they were untilyou arrived."

  Barrant nodded approval. "Let us go," he said.

  The car was waiting outside. The way lay through the town and then acrossthe moors in undulating ascent until at the highest point a rough trackcrossed the road at a spot where four parishes met. On one side of thesecross-roads was a Druidical stone circle, and on the other was a waysidecross to the memory of an Irish female saint who had crossed to Cornwallas a missionary in the tenth century, after first recording a holy vowthat she would not change her shift until she had redeemed the whole ofthe Cornish natives from idolatry.

  From the cross-roads the way again inclined downward to the sea inincreasing savageness of desolation. Stones littered the purple surface ofthe moors, or rose in insecure heaps on the steep slopes, as though piledthere by the hands of the giants supposed to have once roved these gloomywilds. Solitude held sway, but there was more than solitude in that lonelyaspect: something prehistoric and unknown, unearthly, incomprehensible.Cairn Brea and the Hill of Fires brooded in the distance; the remains of aDruid's altar showed darkly on the summit of a nearer hill. No sound brokethe stillness except the faint and distant sobbing of the sea.

  St. Fair lay almost hidden in a bend or fold of the moors about a milebefore them, and beyond it Dawfield pointed out to his companion FlintHouse, standing in gaunt outline on a tongue of coast thrust defiantlyinto the restless waters of the Atlantic.

  "A lonely weird place," said Barrant, eyeing his surroundings attentively."An ideal setting for a mysterious crime."

  They drove on in silence until they reached the churchtown. InspectorDawfield steered the car to the modest dwelling of Sergeant Pengowan, whomthey found at his gate awaiting their arrival--a shaggy figure of a ruralpoliceman of the Cornish Celtic variety, with no trace of Spanish orItalian ancestry in his florid face, inquisitively Irish blue-grey eyes,reddish whiskers, and burly frame.

  Inspector Dawfield bade him good-day, and added the information that hiscompanion was Detective Barrant, of Scotland Yard. Pengowan greetedBarrant with the respect due to the name of Scotland Yard, and took ahumble seat at the back of the car.

  They went on again, and in a few minutes the car stopped at the end of therough moor track, close to where the black cliffs dropped to the grey sea.

  Flint House rose solitary before them, perched with an air of bravado uponthe granite ledge, as though defying the west wind which blustered aroundit. The unfastened gate which led to the little path banged noisily in thebreeze, but the house seemed steeped in desolation. A face peepedfurtively at them from a front window as they approached. They heard ashuffling footstep and the drawing of a bolt, and the door was opened by awithered little woman who looked at them with silent inquiry.

  "Where's your husband?" asked Sergeant Pengowan.

  She glanced timidly up the stairs behind her, and they saw Thalassadescending as though in answer to the question. He scanned the policeofficers with a cautious eye. Barrant returned the look with a keenobservation which took in the externals of the man who was the object ofMrs. Pendleton's suspicions.

  "You are the late Mr. Turold's servant?" he said.

  "Put it that way if you like," was the response. "Who might you be?"

  Barrant did not deign to reply to this inquiry. "Take us upstairs," hesaid.

  "Pengowan wants us to look at the outside first," said Dawfield, butBarrant was already mounting the stairs.

  "You do so," he called back, over his shoulder. "I'll go up."

  At the top of the staircase he waited until Thalassa reached him. "Whereare Mr. Turold's rooms?" he asked.

  Thalassa pointed with a long arm into the dim vagueness of the passage."Down there," he said, "at the end. The study on the right, the bedroomopposite."

  "Very well. You need not come any further."

  The old man's eyes travelled slowly upward to the detective's face, buthe kept his ground.

  "Did you hear me?" Barrant asked sharply. "You can go downstairs again."

  Again the other's eyes sought his face with a brooding contemplative look.Then he turned sullenly away with moving lips, as though mutteringinarticulate words, leaving Barrant standing on the landing, watching hisslow descent.

  When he was quite sure that he was gone, Barrant turned down thepassage-way. He had his reasons for wishing to be alone. The value of avivid first impression, the effect of concentration necessary to reproducethe scene to the eyes of imagination, the mental arrangement of the factsin their proper order and conformity--these were things which were liableto be broken into by the disturbing presence of others, by the vexatiousinterruption of loudly proffered explanations.

  He knew all the facts that Inspector Dawfield and Sergeant Pengowan couldimpart. He knew of Robert Turold's long quest for the lost title, theobject of his visit to Cornwall, his near attainment to success, hissummons to his family to receive the news. In short, he was aware of thewhole sequence of events preceding Robert Turold's violent and mysteriousdeath, with the exception of the revelation of his life's secret, whichMrs. Pendleton had withheld from Inspector Dawfield. Barrant had heard allhe wanted to know at second hand at that stage of his investigations, andhe now preferred to be guided by his own impressions and observations.

  His professional interest in the case had been greatly quickened by hisfirst sight of Flint House. Never had he seen anything so weird and wild.The isolation of the place, perched insecurely on the edge of the rudecliffs, among the desolation of the rocks and moors, breathed of mysteryand hinted at hidden things. But who would find the way to such a lonelyspot to commit murder, if murder had been committed?

  Reaching the end of the long passage, he first turned towards the study onthe right. The smashed door swung creakingly back to his push, revealingthe interior of the room where Robert Turold had met his death. Barrantentered, and closed the broken door behind him. It was here, if anywhere,that he might chance to find some clue which would throw light on thecause.

  The profusion of papers which met his eye, piled on the table and fillingthe presses and shelves which lined the musty room, seemed, at the outset,to give ground for the hope that such an expectation might be realized.But they merely formed, in their mass, a revelation of Robert Turold'sindustry in gathering material for his claim. There were genealogicaltables without number, a philology of the two names Turold and Turrald,extracts of parish registers and corporation records, copies frominscriptions from tombstones and mural monuments, copied pedigrees fromthe
British Museum and the great English collections, a host of old deedsand wills, and other mildewed records of perished hands. But they allseemed to have some bearing on the quest to which Robert Turold hadsacrificed the years of his manhood.

  He had died as he lived, engrossed in the labour of his life. A copy ofBurke's "Vicissitudes of Families" was lying open on the table, and besideit were two sheets of foolscap, covered with notes in thin irregularhandwriting. The first of these depicted the arms of the Turrald family,as originally selected at the first institution of heraldry, and thequarterings of the heiresses who had married into the family at a laterdate.

  The second sheet was headed "Devonian and Cornwall branch of the Turolds,"and contained notes of Robert Turold's ancestral discoveries in that spot.The notes were not finished, but ended abruptly in the middle of asentence: "It is necessary to make it clea--"

  Those were the last words the dead man had written. He had dropped thepen, which lay beside the paper, without finishing the word "clear."

  The sight of this unfinished sheet kindled Barrant's imagination, and hestood thoughtful, considering the meaning of it. Was it the attitude of aman who had committed suicide? Was it conceivable that Robert Turold wouldbreak off in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word, and shoothimself? It seemed a strange thing to do, but Barrant's experience toldhim that there were no safe deductions where suicides were concerned. Theyacted with the utmost precipitation or the utmost deliberation. Some woundup their worldly affairs with businesslike precision before embarking ontheir timeless voyage, others jumped into the black gulf without,apparently, any premeditated intention, as if at the beckoning summons ofsome grisly invisible hand which they dared not disobey. Barrant recalledthe strange case of a wealthy merchant who had cut his throat on a Bankholiday and confessed before death that he had felt the same impulse onthat day for years past. He had whispered that the day marked to him sucha pause in life's dull round that it seemed to him a pity to start again.He had resisted the impulse for years, but it had waxed stronger with eachrecurring anniversary, and had overcome him at last.

  Every suicide was a law unto himself. Barrant willingly conceded that, buthe could not so easily concede that a man like Robert Turold would put anend to his life just when he was about to attain the summit of that life'sambition. It was a Schopenhauerian doctrine that all men had suicidaltendencies in them, in the sense that every man wished at times for thecessation of the purposeless energy called life, and it was only theviolence of the actual act which prevented its more frequent commission.But Barrant reflected that in his experience suicides were generallypeople who had been broken by life or were bored with it. Men of action orintellect rarely committed suicide, not because they valued life highly,but because they had so much to do in their brief span that they hadn'ttime to think about putting an end to it. Death usually overtook them inthe midst of their schemes.

  Robert Turold was not a man of intellect or action, but he belonged to atype which, as a rule, cling to life: the type from which zealots andbigots spring--men with a single idea. Such men shrink from the idea ofdestroying the vital engine by which their idea is driven forward. Theirego is too pronounced for that.

  It was true that Robert Turold believed he had realized the aim for whichhe had lived, and therefore, in a sense, had nothing more to live for. Butthat point of view was too coldly logical for human nature. Itspresumption was only applicable to a higher order of beings. No man hadever committed suicide upon achieving the summit of an ambition. Therewere always fresh vistas opening before the human mind.

  Barrant left the study for the opposite room where the body of RobertTurold had been taken. It was his bedroom, and he had been laid upon thebed.

  Death had not come to him easily. His harsh features were set in a sternupward frown, and the lower lip was slightly caught between the teeth, asthough bitten in the final rending of the spirit. But Barrant had seen toomuch of violent death to be repelled by any death mask, however repellent.

  He eyed the corpse closely, and then proceeded to examine the death wound.In doing so he had to move the body, and a portion of the sleeve fellback, exposing the left arm to the elbow. Barrant was about to replace itwhen his eye lighted upon a livid mark on the arm. He rolled back thegarment until the arm lay bare to the shoulder. The disclosure revealedfour faint livid marks running parallel across the arm, just above theelbow.

  The arms had been straightened to the body to the elbows, and then crosseddecorously on the breast. Barrant walked round to the other side of thebed, knelt down by the edge of it, and examined the underneath part of thearm. A single livid mark was imprinted upon it.

  The inference was unmistakable. The four upper marks were fingerprints,and the lower one a thumb mark. Somebody had caught the dead man's arm insuch a strenuous grip that the livid impression had remained after death.

  The discovery was significant enough, but Barrant was not at that momentprepared to say how much it portended. It seemed certain that the markshad not been made by Robert Turold himself. Their position suggested aleft-hand clutch, though only a finger-print expert could definitelydetermine that point. Even if they were not, it was too far-fetched asupposition to imagine a man gripping his own arm hard enough to bruiseit.

  The relative weight of this discovery was, in Barrant's mind, weakened bythe fact that the marks might have been caused by the persons who hadcarried the body from the next room. Nevertheless, the marks must beregarded as infirmative testimony, however slight, of the fallibility ofthe circumstantial deductions which had been made from the discovery ofthe body in a locked room, with windows which could not be reached fromthe outside.

  The presumption of suicide rested on the theory that the circumstancesexcluded any other hypothesis. But Barrant reflected that he did not knowenough about the case to accept that assumption as warranted by the facts.The one certainty was that the study could not have been reached from theoutside. Barrant had noted the back windows before entering the house; hissubsequent interior examination had strengthened his conviction that theywere inaccessible. Underneath the study windows there was only thenarrowest ledge of rock between that side of the house and the edge of thecliffs. A descent from the windows with a rope was hazardously possible,but ascent and entrance by that means was out of the question.

  On the other hand, the theory of interior inaccessibility had a flaw init, due to the presence of five different people in the room before thepolice arrived. Their actions and motives would have to be most carefullyweighed and sifted before the implication of the discovery of thefinger-marks could be determined.

  The rather breathless entrance of Inspector Dawfield put an end toBarrant's reflections. He explained that Sergeant Pengowan, in his anxietyto maintain the correctness of his official report, had taken him tovarious breakneck positions at the back of the house and along the cliffsin order to demonstrate the impossibility of anybody entering RobertTurold's rooms from outside. The sergeant was at that moment engaged in aroom downstairs drawing up his reasons for that belief. "A kind ofconfirmatory report," Dawfield explained. "He fears that his reputation isat stake."

  "He can save himself the trouble," said Barrant. "The solution of RobertTurold's death lies in these two rooms, if anywhere."

  Something in his companion's tone caused Inspector Dawfield to direct aninterrogative glance at him. "Have you discovered something?" he asked.

  "Finger-marks on the left arm, a left-hand impression, I should say."

  He drew back the loose sleeve of the dead man, and Dawfield examined themarks attentively. "This is strange," he said. "It looks suspicious."

  "Strange enough, and certainly suspicious. The point is, is it suspiciousenough to upset the theory of suicide? The marks are too faint to enableus to determine whether they are of recent origin. But I think that wemust assume that they are. It has occurred to me that they may have beencaused when the body was picked up from the floor of the other room andcarried in here."

&nb
sp; "In that case the marks would have been underneath the arm. In lifting aheavy weight like a corpse it would be natural to place the hands underthe shoulders, for greater lifting power."

  "There's something in that, but it's by no means certain. It would dependon the position of the body. According to Pengowan's report, Robert Turoldwas found lying face downward. The body would have to be turned overbefore it was lifted, and the grip might have been made in pulling itover. We must find that out."

  "It's a point which can be settled at once by questioning Thalassa. Hehelped Pengowan carry the body into this room."

  "That is the very thing I do not wish to do," rejoined Barrant quickly."We have to remember that Thalassa is, for the time being, suspect. Mrs.Pendleton's suspicions of him may be based on the slightest foundation,but we are bound to keep them in mind."

  "Do you not intend to question him at all?"

  "Not at present. His attitude when he brought me upstairs was that of aman on his guard, expecting to be questioned. I saw that at once, anddecided to say nothing to him. I will take him by surprise later on, whenhe is off his guard, and if he is keeping anything back I may be able toget it out of him. But we must not be too quick in drawing the conclusionthat those marks were made by him."

  "What makes you say so?" asked Inspector Dawfield.

  "Thalassa has a long bony hand, with fingers thickened by rough work. Inoticed it when he was pointing to these rooms from the passage. This griplooks as if it might have been made by a smaller hand, with slim fingers.Look how close together the marks are! Unfortunately, that's about allwe're likely to deduce from them, and I doubt if a finger-print expertwill be able to help us. Observe, there are no finger-prints--merely faintmarks of the middle of the fingers, and a kind of blur for the thumb. Butthe thing is suspicious, undoubtedly suspicious."

  "Still, the door was locked from inside," said Dawfield. "We mustn't losesight of that fact."

  "And the key was found in the room. We must also remember that there wereseveral people in the room after the door was burst open, including thedead man's brother. It seems that it was he who first propounded thesuicide theory to Dr. Ravenshaw, and subsequently to Pengowan. Do you knowanything about the brother?"

  "I know nothing personally. Pengowan tells me that Robert Turold securedlodgings for his brother and his son in an artist's house at thechurchtown about six weeks ago. They arrived next day, and are stillthere. I understand that the brothers have been in pretty close intimacy,meeting each other practically every day, either at the churchtown or inthis house."

  "Do you know what took place at the family gathering which was held inthis house yesterday afternoon, after the funeral?"

  "All I know is that Robert Turold informed his family that he was likelyto succeed in his claim for the title. Mrs. Pendleton was rather vagueabout the details, but she did say that her brother had placed hisdaughter in her charge, and had made a long statement to them about hisfuture plans."

  "She did not indicate what those plans were?"

  "Only in the vaguest way. I remember her saying that her brother was awealthy man: the one wealthy member of the family, was the way she put it.Her principal preoccupation was her suspicion of the man-servant, based onseeing him listening at the door. She was very voluble and excited--somuch so that I did not attach much importance to what she said, and didnot ask her many questions."

  "It is of the utmost importance that we should find out all we can aboutthis family council yesterday. It is possible that it may throw some lighton Robert Turold's death. I am not prepared at present to say whether itis suicide or not, but apart from any suspicious circumstances, I feelthat there is some justification for Mrs. Pendleton's belief that awealthy and successful man like her brother was not likely to take his ownlife, unless there was some hidden reason for him to do so. If we knewmore of what happened downstairs yesterday we might be in a betterposition to judge of that. The case strikes me as a very peculiarone--indeed, it has some remarkable features. My first task will be tointerview all the persons who were present at yesterday's gathering. Canyou tell me if the brothers were on good terms?"

  "I believe so."

  "Is Austin Turold a poor man?"

  "I know nothing about him. But what has that got to do with it?"

  "It may have much to do with it. He may have stood to inherit a fortunefrom Robert."

  "You surely do not suspect the brother?"

  "I suspect no one, at present," returned Barrant. "I am merely glancing atthe scanty facts within our knowledge and seeing what can be gathered fromthem. Robert Turold is found dead in his study, with his hands on an oldclock, where he kept important papers, including his will. We are indebtedto Austin Turold for that knowledge. But how did Austin Turold come toknow that his brother kept his will in the clock-case? Did Robert tellhim, or did he find it out? Was Austin aware of the contents of the will?Why did Robert go to the clock? Was his idea to destroy the will? And wasthat after or before he was shot, or shot himself?

  "These are questions we cannot answer without further knowledge, but theyseem to point to the existence of some family secret of which we knownothing. We must find out what it is. I shall first interview AustinTurold, and then call on Dr. Ravenshaw, if time permits. You'd better dropme at the churchtown on your way back to Penzance. There's really nothingto detain you any longer."

  They returned to the churchtown in the motor-car, and Pengowan from theback seat directed the way to Austin Turold's lodgings.