His later activities that night and the following day brought to light many things, but not all that he wanted to know.  He convinced himself, in the first place, that it was possible for the girl to have left her room and! returned to it on the night of her father’s death without any of the inmates of the hotel being aware of her absence.  That lessened the complexity of the case by absolving Mrs. Pendleton from the suspicion of pretended ignorance.  Barrant was also convinced the aunt believed her niece to be in bed and asleep during the time of her own visit to her brother’s house.  Sisily had to pass the office of the hotel in going out and returning, but she could easily have done so unobserved.  There were few guests at that season of the year, and the proprietor’s daughter, who looked after the office, was in the dining-room having her dinner at half-past seven.  She went to bed shortly after ten, leaving the front entrance in charge of the porter, who had duties to perform in various parts of the house.  And it was possible to descend the stairs and leave the hotel without being seen from the lounge or smoking-room.

There was a wagonette to St. Fair from the railway station at half-past-seven.  The hotel dinner was at a quarter to seven for the convenience of some permanent guests, and Sisily, who left the table before the meal was concluded—­about a quarter-past seven, according to Mrs. Pendleton—­had time to catch the wagonette.  On the assumption that even a Cornish wagonette would cover the journey of five miles across the moors in less than an hour, Sisily had probably reached her father’s house at half-past eight or a little earlier.  The stopped clock in the study indicated that he met his death at half-past nine.  If so, Sisily must have left Flint House shortly before her aunt’s arrival to catch the returning wagonette at the cross-roads where the young woman was seen waiting by Peter Portgartha.

But that plausibly conceived itinerary of events needed the support of proof, and there Barrant found himself in difficulty.

The morning’s enquiries made it manifest that Sisily had left Penzance by the mid-day train on the previous day.  After leaving Mrs. Pendleton, Barrant had gone to the station.  The sour and elderly ticket-clerk on duty could give him no information, but let it be understood that there was another clerk selling tickets for the mid-day train, which was unusually crowded by farmers going to Redruth.  The other clerk, seen in the morning, had no difficulty in recalling the young lady of Barrant’s description.  She was pretty and slight and dark, with a pale clear complexion, and she carried a small handbag.  She asked for a ticket to London.  The clerk understood her to ask for a return ticket, but as she picked it up with the change for the five pound note with which she paid for it, she said that she thought she had asked for a single ticket.  He assured her that she had not, but offered to change it.  At that moment the departure of the train was signalled, and she ran through the barrier without waiting to change the ticket.  The incident caused him to observe her, and his description tallied so completely with Mrs. Pendleton’s description that Barrant had not the least doubt that it was Sisily.