“Did you ever see Miss Turold?”

“I’ve never see any one of the Flint House folk, though I’ve heerd of them, often enough.”

“Did you notice in which direction this girl went?”

“No.  She passed the lamp-post as if she were maakin’ up Market Jew Street, but I suppose she ced ’ave turned off anywhere to the right or left.”

“What time was it when the wagonette reached the cross-roads on the moor, where she got in?”

“About the same time as to-night, getting on for ten, mebbe.”

“She was quite alone?”

“As lonely as any she ghooste, standin’ theer by the old crass.  ’Twaas because I thought she’d feel feersome that I spoke to her.”

Barrant relapsed into a thoughtful silence which lasted until the wagonette pulled up and his fellow-traveller prepared to alight.  Then he turned to him and said—­

“Good-night.  I may see you again.”

He fumbled at the interior window as he spoke, opened it, and touched the driver on the shoulder.  “Drive me to the Central Hotel,” he said.  “Go as fast as you can, and I’ll give you ten shillings!”

Mr. Crows nodded a cold acquiescence, and they rattled off down the silent street, leaving on Barrant’s mind a receding impression of a startled red face staring after them from the footpath.  The wagonette jolted round a corner, and ten minutes later stopped at the entrance of the hotel where Mrs. Pendleton was staying.

CHAPTER XV

When Barrant learnt from the trembling lips of Mrs. Pendleton that she had not seen her niece since that morning, his first step was to get Sisily’s full description, and call up Dawfield on the hotel telephone with instructions to have all the railway stations between Penzance and London warned to look out for her.  That was a necessary precaution, but it did not need Dawfield’s hesitating information about time tables to convince him that it was almost futile.  The later of the two trains by which Sisily might have fled from Cornwall had reached London and discharged its passengers somewhere about the time that Mr. Peter Portgartha, in the depth of the rumbling wagonette, was paying his tribute to shrinking female modesty as exhibited on Mousehole rocks.

After doing this Barrant returned to the empty lounge, where Mrs. Pendleton sat in partial darkness with tearful face.  All the other guests had retired, and a lurking porter yawned longingly in the passage, waiting for an opportunity to put out the last of the lights and get to bed.