Maggie found Turnstall's, its shop lit and Mr.Turnstall himself, stout and red-faced, behind his bloody counter.She went in and asked him where "The Sea Dog" might be.He explained to her that it was close at hand, on the right, looking over the Promenade.She found it at last because it had an old-fashioned creaking wooden sign with a blue sailor painted on it.Timidly she stepped into the dark uneven passage.To the right of her she could see a deserted room with wooden trestles and a table.The bar must be near because she could hear voices and the clinking of glasses, but, in spite of those sounds the house seemed very dead.Through the walls and rooms she could hear the pounding beat of the sea.She walked to the end of the passage and there found an old wrinkled man in riding breeches and a brightly-coloured check shirt.
"Can you tell me where a gentleman, Mr.Cardinal, is staying?" she asked.
He was obviously very deaf; she had to shout.She repeated her question, adding."He came from London to-day."A stout middle-aged woman appeared."What is it?" she asked."The old man's stone deaf.He can't hear at all.""I was wondering," said Maggie, "whether you could tell me where Icould find a Mr.Cardinal.He came down from London to-day and is staying here.""Cardinal...Cardinal?" The woman thought, scratching her head.
"Was it Caldwell you meant?"
"No," said Maggie."Cardinal."
"I'll go and see." The woman disappeared, whilst the old man brushed past Maggie as though she were a piece of furniture; he departed on some secret purpose of his own.
"What a horrible place!" thought Maggie."Uncle must be in a bad way if he comes here.I never should sleep for the noise of the sea."The woman returned."Yes.'E's here.No.5.Come this afternoon.Up the stairs and second door on the right."The stairs to which she pointed offered a gulf of darkness.The woman was gone.The noises from the bar had ceased.The only sound in the place was the thundering of the sea, roaring, as it seemed, at the very foot of the house.
Maggie climbed the stairs.Half-way up she was compelled to pause.
The darkness blinded her; she had lost the reflection from the lamp below and, above her, there was no light at all.She advanced slowly, step by step, feeling her way with a hand on the rickety bannisters.At the top of the stair there was a gleam of light and, turning to the right, she knocked on the second door.There was no answer and she knocked again.Listening, the noise of the sea was now so violent that she fancied that she might not have heard the answer so she turned the handle of the door and pushed it open.She was met then by a gale of wind, a rush of the sea that seemed as imminent as though she were on the shore itself and a dim grey light that revealed nothing in the room to her but only shapes and shadows.
She knew at once that the windows must be wide open; she could hear some papers rustling and something on the wall tapped monotonously.
"Uncle Mathew!" she whispered, and then she called more loudly.
"Uncle Mathew! Uncle Mathew!"
