“You had better try and remember,” he said irritably.  “It seems to me that I’ve been kept in the dark.  You went to the police to demand an investigation into your brother’s death, but you did not say anything of the disclosure he made to you yesterday of his daughter’s illegitimacy.  Instead of doing so, you only directed suspicion to his man-servant.  Meanwhile your niece, who was placed in your care, disappears to heaven knows where, and you took no steps to inform the police.  You have acted very indiscreetly, Mrs. Pendleton, to say the least.”

“I did not know—­I did not think,” gasped Mrs. Pendleton.  She endeavoured to commence a flurried explanation of the mixed motives and impulses which had swayed her since her brother’s death, but Barrant cut it short with an impatient wave of the hand.

“Never mind that now,” he said.  “I have lost too much time already.  Have you no idea where your niece is likely to have sought refuge?”

Mrs. Pendleton shook her head.  “Robert had no friends,” she said, “and Sisily led a very lonely life.  Robert told me that yesterday.  That was the reason he wanted me to take charge of her—­so as to give her the opportunity of making some girl friends of her own age.”

She paused, embarrassed by the recollection that her brother’s real intention in placing Sisily in her charge was altogether different.  Barrant noted her hesitation, and interpreted it aright.

“No,” he said.  “The real reason of your brother parting with his daughter provides the motive for her return to his house last night.  What happened between them is a matter for conjecture, at present.  Apparently she was the last person who saw him alive before he was shot, and now she is not to be found.”

There was something so portentously solemn in his manner of speaking these last words that his listener quaked in terror, and gazed at him with widened eyes.  Barrant turned abruptly to another phase.

“Are you quite sure that it was the man-servant you saw looking through the door yesterday afternoon?”

It was proof of the fallibility of human testimony that Mrs. Pendleton had sincerely convinced herself that she was quite sure.  “Yes,” she said.

Barrant looked doubtful.  By reason of his calling he was well aware of the human tendency to unintentional mistake in identity.  With women especially, the jump from an impression to a conclusion was sometimes as rapid as the thought itself.

“Did you see his face?” he asked.

“Only the eyes.  But I am sure that they were Thalassa’s eyes.”

Barrant did not press the point.  He did not doubt the honesty of her belief, but the words in which it was conveyed suggested hasty impression rather than conviction.  Such proofs! of identity were not to be relied upon.

“Had your brother’s servant any reason, so far as you know, to be listening at the door?” he asked.