Operation Piracy

by Paul Somers

  “Hallo,” she said, “you still here?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “The story seems to be over.”

  “Well, I can watch for smoke signals too! Have you discovered where Mellor’s camp is?”

  She hesitated, then gave a little shrug. Obviously I’d find out in any case. “Yes,” she said, “Anstey just told me. It’s at a place called Penlo Cove, on the other side of the Helford river.” With a delicately tinted fingernail, she indicated the spot on the map.

  “And now,” I said, “I suppose you’re thinking of taking a run up there and having a look round?”

  “I might.”

  “You know,” I said, “the way you’re going on, you could get into trouble.”

  “So could lots of girls, but most of them don’t.”

  “I don’t mean that—not entirely, anyway. You seem to forget a man has been murdered. There could be some pretty desperate characters around.”

  “I thought you were so sure Mellor was on the level.”

  “I am, but I could be wrong.”

  “In that case, I shall probably get a scoop.”

  “Or a posthumous award! Look, I’ve got a proposition to make. You share the hypothetical scoop with me, I’ll share the hypothetical risk with you. What do you say?”

  For a moment she didn’t answer. Then, to my astonishment, she said, “All right—it’s a deal.”

  I smiled. “Now I know you don’t really believe in your hunch,” I said.

  Chapter Twelve

  To reach Penlo, we had to make a fifteen mile trip round the head of the Helford river again. We skirted Gillan Creek once more, this time keeping to the south of it. The cove was a mile or so farther on. The road became very narrow as we approached the coast, and in the end it was no more than a cart track. It passed through a farmyard and petered out at a gate that opened on to a field of barley, sloping down towards the sea. There was a stile near the gate, and a path alongside the barley. At the bottom of the field there was a dry-stone wall, with another stile. Beyond was the untamed Cornish cliff-top—a spectacular fringe of granite-sown turf, bracken, gorse bushes, and wild, tumbled rocks, linking an endless line of coves.

  Penlo Cove proved to be a particularly fine one. It lay on the south side of a long promontory, so that the grassy slopes above it commanded a view of sea and cliff extending for a mile or more along the coast. It had a tiny stream, running down a gulley that gave easy access from the clifftop to the beach, and judging by the many footmarks in the sand it was well-used by holiday-makers. As a camping spot it was ideal; as a base for a man supposedly engaged in some nefarious business, it seemed to me to be much too popular a place. My scepticism grew with every step.

  It didn’t take us long to find Mellor’s tent. We caught sight of it, from some distance away, on a grassy ledge about fifty feet above the beach. I turned my glasses on it, but there was no sign of Mellor. We’d rather expected that, as we hadn’t seen his car parked anywhere. It made it easy for us to have a look round.

  The camp was all that a camp should be. The tent was small, but there was ample room for one person. The site was bone dry. Thick gorse bushes to the north and east gave it some protection in case a fresh breeze should get up. The tent itself opened on to a breathtakingly lovely seascape to the south. Everything had been left very tidily. The heavier camp equipment was mostly tucked away behind some rocks—a four-gallon can of drinking water, a can of paraffin, a new-looking pressure stove, and a stack of tinned food. The flaps of the tent were closed, but there was a gap between them and we took a look inside. There was a neatly-folded sleeping-bag, and a pillow; a suitcase and a kitbag; a pile of paper-backed thrillers, and a small portable radio. Various other belongings were ranged around the edges of the tent. Mellor must have had quite a job, I thought humping all his stuff across the barley field, but I could well believe he’d found the effort, worth while. I’d have camped there with great pleasure myself.

  I grinned at Mollie. “All frightfully suspicious, isn’t it?”

  She gave a faint shrug. “It looks all right—but I wouldn’t mind having a quick look inside now we’re here, all the same.”

  “Tent-breaking probably ranks with house-breaking,” I said.

  “I don’t care—we’ll never have a better chance to check on him … Keep watch, will you, I’m going in.”

  I wasn’t very happy about it, but she was already undoing the flaps. A moment later she’d slipped inside and was trying to open the suitcase. It was locked, but the kitbag wasn’t, and she began to investigate its contents. I left her to it, and climbed to a strategic point above the camp, and looked carefully around. Two hikers were crossing the promontory, but they were still some distance away. From the beach below came the voices of children, playing. I hoped they’d stay there and not come rushing up. It would be pretty awkward if Mellor heard that a girl with red hair had been ransacking his belongings. Almost as bad as if he suddenly returned and caught us in the act. At the thought of that, I walked up to the stile and glanced across the field. But there was no sign of him. The two hikers had turned away inland. Presently I heard a halloo from Mollie and went down again to the tent. She was standing by the entrance, with a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “Something interesting?” I said.

  She gave a rueful smile. “You win, I’m afraid—that trip was on the level.” She showed me the paper. It was a letter from Mellor’s bank in London, and it was addressed to him at the hotel where he’d been staying in Falmouth. It said: “Thank you for your letter of August 18th. We note that you will not after all be using the withdrawal facilities arranged for you at our branch in St. Mary’s, Isles of Scilly. In accordance with your request, we are asking our Falmouth branch to provide facilities there.”

  I handed it back to her. “Ah, well, you can’t expect every hunch to come off—and at least you’ve eliminated him.”

  She nodded. “Unfortunately it doesn’t leave anyone …” She put the letter back in its envelope and slipped the envelope between the pages of a book while I stood guard outside.

  I said, “Was that letter marking his place, do you suppose?”

  “If it was, it still is … Don’t worry, everything’s just as we found it.” She closed the tent flaps, and we started back up the slope.

  It was a beautiful evening, and I didn’t at all want to leave. I knew only too well what would happen now. When I reported “no progress” to the office they’d obviously tell me to go back, and then—if past experience was anything to go by—it might be weeks before I saw Mollie again. I’d be crazy not to make the most of these last few hours. I glanced across at her. With Mellor off her mind, she wasn’t looking quite so uncompromisingly professional as she had been doing. I said, “It’s only half past five, Mollie—why don’t we go for a walk?”

  “We went for a walk yesterday,” she said.

  “Well, it’s not a rationed exercise.”

  “It’s not an exercise at all if you take it horizontally! Do you mean a walk?”

  “I’m entirely in your hands … Anyway, you’re off duty now—why not loosen up a bit?”

  “The moment I loosen up with you,” she said, “you try to put a half-Nelson on me …!” She stood for a moment gazing out over the sea, while a faint breeze gently stirred her hair. “Still, it is very lovely … All right, let’s go.”

  We chose a promising path and set off southwards along the cliff. The heat of the day was passing, the air was fragrant with gorse and thyme, the sea was a forget me-not blue and so calm that even around the outlying rocks there was scarcely a ruffle of foam. There were several rowing boats out, and a couple of small yachts, almost stationary in the light airs. The scene couldn’t have been pleasanter. We met a few people, but not enough to make the clifftop seem crowded. The path turned and twisted excitingly, sometimes climbing almost to the edge of the cultivated field, sometimes dropping down to sea level when a gulley broke the line of the
towering cliffs. One cove succeeded another, each different from the last, and each calling for some exploration. Most of them were accessible after a bit of a scramble, through we came across one, about half a mile from our starting point, that was shown on the map as Hell’s Mouth and that we couldn’t get down to at all. Fearsome cliffs dropped precipitously to a jagged, rock-strewn beach, and even on a quite day like this it was an aweinspiring place. Then, beyond the next promontory, the scene softened again. There was a wide scimitar of sand, with several tracks leading down to it. The cove lay full in the evening sun and looked very inviting. A white motor cruiser had dropped its anchor at the entrance, and as she swung broadside on to us I recognised her. She was Curlew—the boat whose occupants had given me the interview I hadn’t used. Mollie hadn’t met them, but she remembered seeing the boat.

  I turned my glasses on to the cruiser. After a moment I said, “There doesn’t seem to be anyone aboard her.”

  “There must be,” Mollie said. “Her dinghy’s alongside.”

  The boat swung a little further, and I could see down into the cockpit and right through the open door into the saloon, and I still couldn’t see anyone. “I expect they’ve swung ashore,” I said. “Probably sunning themselves on the rocks.”

  Mollie took the glasses and idly scanned the boulders that lined the cove. “I don’t see them …” She looked up and gave me a mischievous smile. “Do you suppose she’s another Marie Celeste?”

  “You’re off duty,” I reminded her. “Let’s go down on the beach and paddle.”

  We scrambled down the side of the cove and picked our way over lichened rocks to the sand. It was firm and smooth and still warm from the sun, and where the wavelets flowed over it it had a lovely sheen. Mollie slipped her shoes and stockings off and I rolled up my trousers and we splashed in and out along the tired of that we explored the dripping entrance of a cave under a cliff, where the rock had fascinating veins of pinkish marble, and watched the fish darting in shallow pools where mussels hung in clusters like black grapes; and Mollie gathered some sea shells for a small niece. Then we climbed the arm of the cliff on the other side of the cove and sat down to smoke a cigarette before returning to the car.

  I was just lighting Mollie’s for her when she gave sudden exclamation and pointed out over the water towards Curlew. “Look!”

  I looked, and gaped. Close beside the cruiser’s short ladder a head had come up out of the water—a head with a glass-covered face mask on it. A man with a very brown torso pulled himself up slowly, climbed aboard, and removed the mask. I recognised John Thornton. He had some breathing apparatus strapped to his back.

  He was followed almost at once by a plumper and pinker man—Blake—similarly equipped.

  “Well!—what do you know!” I said. “They’ve been aqualunging. That’s why we didn’t see them.” It was a possibility that simply hadn’t occurred to me—though it should have done. I could see, now, that there were lines of bubbles across the entrance to the cove.

  “They must be pretty tough,” Mollie said, “they’ve been down a long time.” She looked at her watch. “It’s nearly three quarters of an hour since we first saw the boat.”

  “Is that a long time?”

  “It’s a long time for English waters, I’d have thought.”

  “The sea’s warmer than usual.”

  “It wouldn’t feel very warm after you’d been skin-diving for a while.”

  “You sound very knowledgeable,” I said. “Have you ever tried it?”

  “I did quite a bit of diving with a mask and a schnorkel tube at Porquerolles last summer.”

  “Is there anything you haven’t done?”

  She smiled demurely. “Yes,” she said.

  “Is it fun—skin-diving, I mean?”

  “Wonderful—especially in the Mediterranean. The colours are so marvellous there. And it’s quite amazing what you can see under water with a mask on.”

  One of the men—Thornton—was looking across at us. He evidently recognised me, for he gave a cheery wave. I waved back. He stood leaning against the side of the cockpit for a while, chatting to Blake. They still had their aqualungs on. Presently they went into the saloon and emerged with two long, pointed things that I thought at first were fishing rods but that turned out to be harpoon guns when I studied them through the glasses. They loaded them, and adjusted their masks, and lowered themselves overboard again.

  “They are gluttons for punishment,” Mollie said.

  “What do you suppose they expect to shoot?”

  “Fish, of course.” She seemed a trifle preoccupied.

  “I know that,” I said, “but I wouldn’t have thought there’d be anything very rewarding so close in.”

  “In France,” Mollie said, frowning, “it’s illegal to hunt with aqualung equipment.”

  “Oh?—why?”

  “Well, it’s too easy to make a big haul if you don’t have to come up for air—it doesn’t give the fish enough chance. I’m sure it’s not considered at all sporting here, either.”

  “Those cads can’t have heard,” I said.

  I watched, fascinated, as fresh lines of bubbles spread over the water. This time, though, the divers didn’t stay down long. After about ten minutes the bubble tracks approached the boat and they both climbed out once more. Blake didn’t seem to have used his gun, but Thornton had harpooned one very small fish.

  “They haven’t reduced the underwater population very much, anyway,” I said.

  “Perhaps they’re not very experienced.”

  They were unhitching the aqualungs, now, and beginning to towel themselves. Presently Thornton went forward and got the anchor, and Blake started the engine after a bit of trouble, and then got under way. Thornton gave a parting wave, and then they were out of the cove and turning up the coast in the direction of the Helford river.

  Mollie was still pensive. “You know,” she said, gazing after them, “I think that was rather peculiar.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “What was?”

  “Why, the whole thing. Spending all that time under water without guns—and then suddenly popping back in again with guns. They couldn’t really have wanted to hunt at that stage, surely?”

  I laughed. “They obviously did. Fishing chaps are unaccountable, everybody knows that. As for spending all that time under water, I imagine they were just exploring.”

  “There can’t be much to explore out in the cove itself—and they didn’t go anywhere near the rocks, which is where the interesting things always are. If they had we’d have seen the bubbles.”

  “They were practising, then.”

  “If you’re practising, I’m sure you don’t stay down three-quarters of an hour at a stretch.”

  I shrugged. “Well, what do you think they were doing?”

  “I don’t know—but I’d rather like to.”

  “You’re beginning to look a bit trance-like,” I said. “This isn’t the start of some new hunch, is it?”

  “Not really, but …” She broke off, hesitating. “Well, here we’ve been thinking for days about two crooks who must have had last-minute information about Wanderer, and now we come across two men whose boat was moored fairly near to Wanderer, and they behave as though they’ve something to cover up …”

  “Oh, come!” I protested.

  “Well, they behave strangely, anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t say so—it seemed to me they were just enjoying themselves. Anyway, what are you suggesting?—that these two chaps went to all the trouble of pinching the jewels and then came here and chucked them overboard, or something?”

  “I shouldn’t think so—but I still say it’s rather odd.”

  “It would be even odder,” I said, “if you were right, and we’d happened to stumble on the very crooks we were after, during a casual evening stroll!”

  “Coincidences do happen.”

  I took her arm and drew her up. “Let’s go and get some dinner,” I said. “I th
ink you’re just weak from lack of food!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  We dined together in Falmouth and for me, at any rate, that rounded off a pretty enjoyable day. Mollie was in rather a quiet mood—she said the fresh air had made her sleepy—and she went off shortly after dinner, but before we parted she let me make a provisional date with her for a Saturday evening in town, which was more than she’d ever done before in advance. After she’d gone I rang the office to tell them the idea I’d been working on hadn’t come to anything. I was prepared for a nasty crack or two from Hatcher, but as it happened I didn’t have to speak to him. He was at supper, and Lawson was temporarily in charge of the Desk. Lawson said he trusted I’d had a good time and I said I had but all good things came to an end and this one had, and then he rang Hatcher on another phone and confirmed that I was to go back.

  “Hatcher says ring us to-morrow night when you get in,” he said. “Cheerio, old boy—my regards to your Moll!”

  I made a mental note to beat him to a pulp when I next saw him, and rang off. Soon afterwards I turned in.

  I woke to another exquisite morning—very still, and very warm, with an almost cloudless sky. The barometer in the hotel lobby hadn’t budged a millimetre. The thought of leaving Cornwall for London on such a day was most unappealing, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I had breakfast and was just going up to my room to pack when I was called to the telephone.

  It was Mollie.

  “Oh!—you’re still there!” she exclaimed in a tone of relief. “Hugh, I must see you—can you hang on for a little while?”