“Inspector Reece, Paignton.”

“Let me hear at five o’clock if arrest has been made.  Failing arrest I will motor down to you after that hour.”

“Very good, sir.  I expect to hear he’s taken any minute.”

“Nothing from Berry Head?”

“We’ve got a lot of men there and all round under the cliffs, but nothing yet.”

“All right, inspector.  I’ll come down if I don’t hear to the contrary by five.”

He hung up the receiver.

“All over bar shouting, I reckon,” said Halfyard.

“It looks like it.  He’s mad, poor devil.”

“It’s the dead man I’m sorry for.”

Brendon considered, having first looked at his watch.  Personal thoughts would thrust themselves upon him, though he felt both surprise and shame that they could do so.  Certain realities were clear enough to his mind, however future details might develop.  And the overmastering fact was that Jenny Pendean had lost her husband.  If she were, indeed, a widow—­

He shook his head impatiently and turned to Halfyard.

“Should Robert Redmayne not be taken to-day, one or two things must be done,” he said.  “You’d better have some of that blood collected and the fact proved that it is human.  And keep the cigar and boot lace here for the minute, though I attach no importance to either.  Now I’ll go and get some food and see Mrs. Pendean.  Then I’ll come back.  I’ll take the police car for Paignton at half past five if we hear nothing to alter my plans.”

“You will.  This isn’t going to spoil your holiday, after all.”

“What is it going to do, I wonder?” thought Brendon.  But he said no more and prepared to go on his way.  It was now three o’clock.  Suddenly he turned and asked Halfyard a question.

“What do you think of Mrs. Pendean, inspector?”

“I think two things about her,” answered the elder.  “I think she’s such a lovely piece that it’s hard to believe she’s just flesh and blood, like other women; and I think I never saw such worship for a man as she had for her husband.  This will knock her right bang out.”

These opinions made the detective melancholy; but he had not yet begun to reflect on how the passing of a dearly loved husband would change the life of Mrs. Pendean.  He suddenly felt himself thrust out of the situation forever, yet resented his own conviction as irrational.

“What sort of a man was he?”

“A friendly fashion of chap—­Cornish—­a pacifist at heart I reckon; but we never talked war politics.”

“What was his age?”

“Couldn’t tell you—­doubtful—­might have been anything between twenty-five and thirty-five.  A man with weak eyes and a brown beard.  He wore double eye-glasses for close work, but his long sight he said was good.”

After a meal Brendon went again to Mrs. Pendean; but many rumours had reached her through the morning and she already knew most of what he had to tell.  A change had come over her; she was very silent and very pale.  Mark knew that she had grasped the truth and knew that her husband must probably be dead.