Inspector Dawfield steered the car to the modest dwelling of Sergeant Pengowan, whom they found at his gate awaiting their arrival--a shaggy figure of a rural policeman of the Cornish Celtic variety, with no trace of Spanish or Italian 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 his companion was Detective Barrant, of Scotland Yard.

Pengowan greeted Barrant with the respect due to the name of Scotland Yard, and took a humble seat at the back of the car.
They went on again, and in a few minutes the car stopped at the end of the rough 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 upon the granite ledge, as though defying the west wind which blustered around it.

The unfastened gate which led to the little path banged noisily in the breeze, but the house seemed steeped in desolation.

A face peeped furtively at them from a front window as they approached.

They heard a shuffling footstep and the drawing of a bolt, and the door was opened by a withered 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 Thalassa descending as though in answer to the question.