Robert Turold hoped that it was an ancestor, but he was not destined to know.

One night the stone was carried off with a great splash which was heard far, and left a ragged gap in the cliffside, like a tooth plucked from a giant's mouth.
When Sisily first saw the cliffs of Cornwall she was reminded of those early days, with the difference that the Cornish granite rocks stood firm, as though saying to the sea, "Here rises England." The house Robert Turold had taken looked down on the sea from the summit.
It was a strange place to build a house, on the brink of a broken Cornish cliffline, above the grey surges of the Atlantic, among a wilderness of dark rocks, facing black moors, which rolled away from the cliffs as lonely and desolate as eternity.

The place had been built by a London artist, long since dead, who had lived there and painted seascapes from an upstairs studio which overlooked the sea.
The house had remained empty for years until Robert Turold had taken it six months before.

It was too isolated and lonely to gain a permanent tenant, and it stood in the teeth of Atlantic gales.

The few scattered houses and farms of the moors cringed from the wind in sheltered depressions, but Flint House faced its everlasting fury on the top of the cliffs, a rugged edifice of grey stone, a landmark visible for many miles.
The house suited Robert Turold well enough, because it was near the churchtown in which he was conducting his final investigations.