In those words he stood revealed as one with all the resources of the law at his back, able to issue commands which other people must obey.  The rights of liberty and freedom were in his hands.  It needed not that to show Austin Turold how near he stood to the edge of the precipice.  The strain of the interview had told on him.  This was the first actual buffet of the beast’s paw.  He led the way to his son’s room and watched Barrant go through his intimate belongings with the feeling that intelligence was a flimsy shield against the brutal force of authority.  The law in search of prey cared nothing for such civilized refinements as intellect or self-respect.  As well try to stop a tiger with a sonnet.

The search revealed nothing, and Barrant went away without another word.  A moment later Austin heard him questioning the frightened women on the floor beneath.  Listening intently, he made out a fragment of the conversation, sufficient to remove all doubts of the origin of the detective’s present visit.  Austin’s mind flew to the episode he had seen from his window on the previous afternoon.  Why in the name of heaven had this Brierly woman been such a fool?  Why had she not come to him with her story, and asked for money to shut her mouth?  Why was she sobbing and snivelling downstairs now, when it was too late?

CHAPTER XXIV

Austin Turold was wrong in supposing that his son had left Cornwall to fly from England.  Charles had stated his intention truly enough when he said he was going to London to look for Sisily, but he did not disclose to his father the real reason that led him there.

His visit to London was the pursuit of a definite plan.  He was animated by the hope that he knew where Sisily was likely to have sought shelter.  Ever since her disappearance this idea had lurked in his imagination and occupied his secret thoughts.

It was the fruit of one of their last talks together—­a memory they shared in common.  How well he remembered the occasion!  They had been on the cliffs looking down at the Gurnard’s Head wallowing like a monster with a broken back in the foam of a raging sea.  It was the day after the death of Sisily’s mother, and Sisily had clung to him as if he were the only friend she had in the world.  She had spoken to him from the depth of an overburdened soul impelled to confide in another, telling him of her mother’s sad life, unintentionally revealing something of the unhappiness of her own.  And she told him a strange thing about her mother’s last hours.

On her death-bed the unhappy woman must have had her fears concerning the future of her daughter—­belated uneasy premonitions arising after her dying confession to the man supposed to be her husband, perhaps causing her to doubt the wisdom of that revelation.  That seemed plain enough to Charles afterwards, though not apparent at the time Sisily had confided in him, for she had died without giving the girl the slightest indication of her life’s secret, as if in some inscrutable hope that the tangle might be made straight.