decoration of scallop shells.

"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 grass, 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."