The Red Redmaynes Part 8

"Aye, aye, ma'am," he answered and altered their course for the open sea.

He had turned at Jenny Pendean's voice and shown Mark a brown, bright, clean-shorn face of great beauty. It was of cla.s.sical contour, but lacked the soulless perfection of the Greek ideal. The Italian's black eyes were brilliant and showed intelligence.

"Giuseppe Doria has a wonderful story about himself," continued Mrs.

Pendean. "Uncle Ben tells me that he claims descent from a very ancient family and is the last of the Dorias of--I forget--some place near Ventimiglia. My uncle thinks the world of him; but I hope he is as trustworthy and as honest in character as he is handsome in person."

"He certainly might be well born. There is distinction, quality, and breeding about his appearance."

"He is clever, too--an all-round sort of man, like most sailors."

Brendon admired the varied charms of the Dartmouth coast, the bluffs and green headlands, the rich, red sandstone cliffs, and pearly precipices of limestone that rose above the tranquil waters.

The boat turned west presently, pa.s.sed a panorama of cliffs and little bays with sandy beaches, and anon skirted higher and sterner precipices, which leaped six hundred feet aloft.

Perched among them like a bird's nest stood a small house with windows that blinked out over the Channel. It rose to a tower room in the midst, and before the front there stretched a plateau whereon stood a flagstaff and spar, from the point of which fluttered a red ensign. Behind the house opened a narrow coomb and descended a road to the dwelling. Cliffs beetled round about it and the summer waves broke idly below and strung the land with a necklace of pearl. Far beneath the habitation, just above high-tide level, a strip of shingle spread, and above it a sea cave had been turned into a boathouse. Hither came Brendon and his companion.

The motor launch slowed down and presently grounded her bow on the pebbles. Then Doria stopped the engine, flung a gangway stage ash.o.r.e, and stood by to hand Jenny Pendean and the detective to the beach. The place appeared to have no exit; but, behind a ledge of rock, stairs carved in the stone wound upward, guarded by an iron handrail. Jenny led the way and Mark followed her until two hundred steps were climbed and they stood on the terrace above. It was fifty yards long and covered with sea gravel. Two little bra.s.s cannon thrust their muzzles over the parapet to seaward and the central s.p.a.ce of gra.s.s about the flagpole was neatly surrounded with a decoration of scallop sh.e.l.ls.

"Could anybody but an old sailor have created this place?" asked Brendon.

A middle-aged man with a telescope under his arm came along the terrace to greet them. Bendigo Redmayne was square and solid with the cut of the sea about him. His uncovered head blazed with flaming, close-clipped hair and he wore also a short, red beard and whiskers growing grizzled. But his long upper lip was shaved. He had a weather-beaten face--ruddy and deepening to purple about the cheek bones--with eyebrows, rough as bent gra.s.s, over deep-set, sulky eyes of reddish brown. His mouth was underhung, giving him a pugnacious and bad-tempered appearance. Nor did his looks appear to libel the old sailor. To Brendon, at any rate, he showed at first no very great consideration.

"You've come I see," he said, shaking hands. "No news?"

"None, Mr. Redmayne."

"Well, well! To think Scotland Yard can't find a poor soul that's gone off his rocker!"

"You might have helped us to do so," said Mark shortly, "if it's true that you've had a letter from your brother."

"I'm doing it, ain't I? It's here for you."

"You've lost two days."

Bendigo Redmayne grunted.

"Come in and see the letter," he said. "I never thought you'd fail.

It's all very terrible indeed and I'm d.a.m.ned if I understand anything about it. But one fact is clear: my brother wrote this letter and he wrote it from Plymouth; and since he hasn't been reported from Plymouth, I feel very little doubt the thing he wanted to happen has happened."

Then he turned to his niece.

"We'll have a cup of tea in half an hour, Jenny. Meantime I'll take Mr. Brendon up to the tower room along with me."

Mrs. Pendean disappeared into the house and Mark followed her with the sailor.

They pa.s.sed through a square hall full of various foreign curiosities collected by the owner. Then they ascended into a large, octagonal chamber, like the lantern of a lighthouse, which surmounted the dwelling.

"My lookout," explained Mr. Redmayne. "In foul weather I spend all my time up here and with yonder strong, three-inch telescope I can pick up what's doing at sea. A bunk in the corner, you see. I often sleep up here, too."

"You might almost as well be afloat," said Brendon, and the remark pleased Bendigo.

"That's how I feel; and I can tell you there's a bit of movement, too, sometimes. I never wish to see bigger water than beat these cliffs during the south-easter last March. We shook to our keel, I can tell you."

He went to a tall cupboard in a corner, unlocked it and brought out a square, wooden desk of old-fashioned pattern. This he opened and produced a letter which he handed to the detective.

Brendon sat down in a chair under the open window and read this communication slowly. The writing was large and sprawling; it sloped slightly-upward from left to right across the sheet and left a triangle of white paper at the right-hand bottom corner:

"DEAR BEN: It's all over. I've done in Michael Pendean and put him where only Judgment Day will find him. Something drove me to do it; but all the same I'm sorry now it's done--not for him but myself. I shall clear to-night, with luck, for France. If I can send an address later I will. Look after Jenny--she's well rid of the blighter. When things have blown over I may come back. Tell Albert and tell Flo. Yours,

"R. R."

Brendon examined the letter and the envelope that contained it.

"Have you another communication--something from the past I can compare with this?" he asked.

Bendigo nodded.

"I reckoned you'd want that," he answered and produced a second letter from his desk.

It related to Robert Redmayne's engagement to be married and the writing was identical.

"And what do you think he's done, Mr. Redmayne?" Brendon asked, pocketing the two communications.

"I think he's done what he hoped to do. At this time of year you'll see a dozen Spanish and Brittany onion boats lying down by the Barbican at Plymouth, every day of the week. And if poor Bob got there, no doubt plenty of chaps would hide him when he offered 'em money enough to make it worth while. Once aboard one of those sloops, he'd be about as safe as he would be anywhere. They'd land him at St. Malo, or somewhere down there, and he'd give you the slip."

"And, until it was found out that he was mad, we might hear no more about him."

"Why should it be found that he was mad?" asked Bendigo. "He was mad when he killed this innocent man, no doubt, because none but a lunatic would have done such an awful thing, or been so cunning after--with the sort of childish cunning that gave him away from the start. But once he'd done what this twist in his brain drove him to do, then I judge that his madness very likely left him. If you caught him to-morrow, you'd possibly find him as sane as yourself--except on that one subject. He'd worked up his old hatred of Michael Pendean, as a shirker in the war, until it festered in his head and poisoned his mind, so as he couldn't get it under. That's how I read it. I had a pretty good contempt for the poor chap myself and was properly savage with my niece, when she wedded him against our wishes; but my feeling didn't turn my head, and I felt glad to hear that Pendean was an honest man, who did the best he could at the Moss Depot."

Brendon considered.

"A very sound view," he said, "and likely to be correct. On the strength of this letter, we may conclude that when he went home, after disposing of the body under Berry Head, your brother must have disguised himself in some way and taken an early train from Paignton to Newton Abbot and from Newton Abbot to Plymouth. He would already have been there and lying low before the hunt began."

"That's how I figure it," answered the sailor.

"When did you last see him, Mr. Redmayne?"

"Somewhere about a month ago. He came over for the day with Miss Reed--the young woman he was going to marry."

"Was he all right then?"

Bendigo considered and scratched in his red beard.

"Noisy and full of chatter, but much as usual."

"Did he mention Mr. and Mrs. Pendean?"

"Not a word. He was full up with his young woman. They meant to be married in late autumn and go abroad for a run to see my brother Albert."