by Robin Paige
Alice was so deep in her reading that she failed to hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path. It wasn’t until she heard someone knocking on the cottage door and calling out “Alice, are you at home?” that she looked up.
Or rather, looked down. “What do you want?” she asked, peering through the leaves. And then she saw that it was Lady Sheridan, and that Lady Loveday was with her, and regretted her peremptory tone. “Hullo,” she said, more nicely.
“Oh, there you are,” Lady Sheridan said, looking up. She smiled. “The tree seems a perfectly wonderful place to read a book, but I wonder if you wouldn’t mind coming down and having some tea with us.”
“I suppose,” grumbled Alice, “that you’ll expect me to make the tea.” But she tucked the book under her arm and began to climb down anyway.
“I rather thought,” Lady Loveday said, when Alice reached the ground, “that we might have tea at Penhallow. I understand that you are fond of Mrs. Tremaine’s currant cakes.” She held out her hand. “My name is Lady Loveday. I am Harriet’s mother. And you must be Alice.”
Alice, of course, did not need an introduction, for she had been keeping a close eye on Lady Loveday since Harriet died. But she was pleased at the unexpected possibility of currant cakes, and there was also the matter of the book. “Thank you for Wonderland,” Alice said, and bobbed as brief a curtsey as possible.
“Well, then,” Lady Sheridan said cheerfully, “Now that we’ve had our introductions perhaps we can all go and have tea.” With a smile, she put her arm on Alice’s shoulder. “Lady Loveday told me just now that she would very much like to hear your story about Harriet.”
“Really?” Alice gave her a doubtful look. “It’s very sad, you know.”
“I am sure it is,” Lady Loveday said. “But sometimes it does one good to hear a sad story, particularly if it answers questions which have been plaguing one for months and months.” She held out her hand. “Will you come, my dear?”
For a second or two, Alice hesitated, and then she took Lady Loveday’s hand. “Yes,” she said. “I rather think I will.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
He who is embarked with the devil must make the passage in his company.
Dutch Proverb
Charles Sheridan settled himself in the heather which edged the bluff overlooking Mullion Cove. His elbows on his knees and his field glasses to his eyes, he scanned the small harbor some forty feet below. Down and to his left was the lifeboat station, the pilchard cellar and net store nearby. The small harbor itself was embraced by two massive stone arms of the seawall. Several fishing boats, dinghies, and rowboats were pulled up on the shingle inside the wall, above the flood tide, and a white sloop was moored at the end of the north arm: Kirk-Smythe’s sloop.
Crouched beside Charles, Constable Deane pointed to the breakwater. “Built in the last decade,” he said, “by Lord Robartes. The pilchard fleet had bad years, back-to-back— the whole fleet nearly wiped out by storms. The fishermen are glad of the breakwater.”
“I’m sure they must be,” Charles said. On this pleasant July evening, with the warm scent of heather rising around them, the calm sea a turquoise blue, and the sky clear above, it was difficult to imagine the ferocity of the winter gales which must lash Mullion Cove. The little harbor would be at the mercy of the sea for months on end, and boats left in the water, or even pulled onto the beach, would surely be broken by the waves. The breakwater would provide a fair measure of protection in the worst of the weather.
Charles took out his watch, glanced at it, and put it back. “He should be here shortly, Constable, if things go according to plan.” Of course, sometimes they didn’t. The man they were waiting for might prefer to delay until after dark, which would seriously complicate their scheme. Or he might have got the wind up, and not appear at all.
The constable nodded, his attention fixed on the track which led from the village down to the seawall.
Charles looked to the west, out past Mullion Island. The sunset promised to be stunning. The red-orange clouds banked above the horizon were pierced with the golden shafts of the setting sun. And beyond the horizon, below the curve of the earth and so far to the west that it was still bathed in the light of midday, the wireless station at Glace Bay might at this very minute be receiving the Morse dots and dashes sent from the transmitter at Poldhu, now back in operation. He shivered as he thought of the staggering immensity of the distance and the threadlike fragility of the electromagnetic signals cast out into the void—and the remarkable, perhaps even miraculous fact that they could be received and converted into human language. “Marconi’s miracle,” as it was called, might be just a small first step, but it could lead to other inventions which would change the world.
“Look there,” said the constable, and a light tap on his shoulder brought Charles back from his thoughts, “That’s our man, isn’t it?”
Charles trained his glasses on a small figure with a Gladstone bag in his hand, trudging down the track toward the harbor. “Indeed,” he said, and got to his feet. “Time to move into position. We need to be close by and ready when Kirk-Smythe gives the signal.” And with that, they scrambled down the heather-covered hillside and made their way onto the breakwater.
Their quarry did not look back. He walked rapidly out to the end of the sea wall, climbed down the stone steps, and stopped beside a moored boat. “Ahoy,” he called, somewhat tentatively. “Anybody here?”
Kirk-Smythe appeared above deck, beckoned, and went below again, and the man, glancing apprehensively around, climbed over the deck rail and boarded the sloop.
Charles and the constable moved out onto the sea wall and waited. In a few moments, Kirk-Smythe came up the galleyway carrying a bucket of water. He glanced in their direction, tossed the water into the harbor, and disappeared again.
“That’s the signal,” Charles said, with some relief. “The fellow has it with him.”
So much, at least, had gone as they hoped. From the camera bag on his shoulder, Charles took out the Webley revolver the constable had lent him and tested the action, gently lowering the hammer against the frame. It wasn’t likely there’d be a need for the gun, for the constable was armed with his stout wooden truncheon, and Charles hoped that it alone would be sufficient to dissuade their man from any rash action. But when the trap was sprung, the fellow would be desperate—and if armed, dangerous.
He looked around. There was nothing to be seen but a pair of fishing boats making for the leeward end of the island, and a sailing yacht running in toward the sea wall on a fair west wind, its mainsail out and jib luffing.
“Let’s go,” he said crisply.
“Right behind you, sir,” said the constable.
At the end of the wall, they descended the stairs and stepped onto the sloop. Charles nodded to the constable, who rapped the deck rail smartly with his truncheon. “Police! Up top, smartly, now. Show yourselves!”
A brief, angry exchange could be heard below, and the galley door opened. Kirk-Smythe climbed up, holding a wooden box. He was followed by Dick Corey, who wore a frightened look on his round face.
“The box—is it what you’re looking for, sir?” the constable asked Charles, as both men came on deck.
Charles took the box from Kirk-Smythe, slid the wooden lid to one side, and studied the interior. “It appears to be,” he replied cautiously. There was no way to tell until Marconi himself could examine it, but it certainly looked to him like a wireless tuner, surely the one Dick Corey had taken.
“Dealing in stolen property, are you?” The constable glowered at Kirk-Smythe and Corey.
“Thank God you’re here, Constable,” Corey cried. He pointed a wavering finger at Kirk-Smythe. “This fellow offered to sell me the tuner, and I pretended to go along with his game in order to get it back for the Marconi Company. Arrest him!”
The constable folded his arms. “Well, now, Mr. Corey, if that’s what you intended, it would have been smart to have let me in on th
e secret. Dealing with a thief is dangerous. And you’ve certainly put yourself into a compromising situation.”
Corey licked his lips, his glance skittering from the constable to Charles, whom he clearly recognized, and back again. “There . . . well, there wasn’t time, you see. He approached me with an offer to sell, and I had to move on it right away, or lose the chance.” His voice rose a notch, and Charles heard the bluster in it. “Arrest him, Constable! Don’t let him get away!”
Deane patted the palm of his left hand with his truncheon. “Well, now, that’s queer,” he said, with apparent relish. “This fellow—” nodding at Kirk-Smythe, “he had time to contact me.” He paused, and Corey blanched. “But according to him, it was the other way round. You were offering to sell the thing to him. And you must have thought it was valuable, seeing how much you demanded for it.” He glanced at Kirk-Smythe. “Is that how it was, sir?”
“Yes,” Kirk-Smythe said. “That’s exactly how it was.”
“Oh, no,” Corey cried. “No, no, that wasn’t it at all! This man came to me at the hotel while I was having my lunch! He said he—”
“Do you have any proof, Mr. Corey?” Deane asked.
“Proof?” Corey looked around, as if he were searching for something. “Proof? Well, no. But I—”
“Thank you, Mr. Corey,” Deane said. “I think we’ve heard enough.” Turning to Charles, he said, “I don’t quite see how we sort this out, sir. Seems like one man’s word against the other’s, and that’s always the worst sort of thing. Hard to prove, either way.”
“That’s very true,” Charles said gravely. “I appreciate the difficulty.” He frowned. “I suppose we could put both of them in gaol while we see if we can get to the bottom of it.”
“We could. But you have your equipment back, so there’s no real harm done. I propose to keep this fellow here,” he nodded at Kirk-Smythe, “who isn’t one of the Lizard folk, and let Mr. Corey go.” He cocked his head to one side. “What do you say, sir? Shall we release the fellow?”
“Right,” Corey said eagerly, and took two steps backward, toward the deck rail. “Splendid solution, Constable. That’s exactly the way to handle it. You’ve got the tuner, and that’s what’s important.”
“I suppose you’re right, Constable,” Charles replied, in a thoughtful tone. “Although I can’t help but wonder whether Mr. Corey will still be alive at this hour tomorrow— if you don’t take him into custody, that is.”
“Well, there is that, I suppose,” the constable said regretfully.
Corey froze. “Alive?” Alarmed, he stared at Charles. “Why shouldn’t I be alive? Mr. Deane said I could go. You can’t—”
“Oh you have nothing to fear from us,” Charles replied. “We’re perfectly willing to let you go. The problem is your friend Wolf, you see—the foreign fellow who paid you some money when you met him at The Pelican night before last. Wolf is a hard chap, he is, very hard. He takes a dim view of the double-cross.” He eyed Corey. “Perhaps he didn’t bother to tell you that he has already killed one man for this tuner.”
Corey straightened. His look of dismay was genuine. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Who did he—” He stopped and licked his lips nervously, the tip of his tongue flicking in and out. “I don’t know anybody named Wolf.”
“He killed Jack Gordon,” Charles said.
“No!” Corey’s eyes opened wide. “That was an accident! Jack—”
“It was no accident, Mr. Corey,” Charles replied regretfully. “Your friend Wolf was seen shoving Gordon off the cliff.”
“You’re lying!” Corey pointed wildly to the constable. “If it was murder, Constable Deane there would’ve arrested him! He’d never let a killer go free!”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Mr. Corey,” the constable said in a practical tone. “I couldn’t arrest the fellow. The witness refuses to testify. And Wolf, well, he’s a foreign national, working for his government. He’s German, you know.”
“Danish,” Corey said.
“German,” Kirk-Smythe put in firmly.
The constable shrugged. “Those Germans—well, you know how they are. If we nab one of their fellows, they’ll shout bloody murder, and we’d have an international incident on our hands. And with Royalty coming in a fortnight, too.” He sighed. “The Marconi Company will never stand for that, you know.”
“Anyway,” Kirk-Smythe said, “you’d have to catch the fellow.” He grinned wryly. “And Wolf is the very devil to catch. He comes and goes just as he likes. Dangerous, too, bloody dangerous. If he wants to kill, he kills. There’s no stopping him.”
“Kills!” Corey cried desperately. “But he can’t just go around killing innocent people!” He appealed to the constable. “You’ve got to keep me safe, Constable. It’s your responsibility. It’s your duty!”
The constable gave a rueful shrug. “You should have taken account of the devil’s claw, Mr. Corey, before you slept with the fellow. If I were you, I would do whatever I could to keep out of this man’s way.”
Corey tried to speak, but couldn’t. He looked, Charles thought, like a trapped animal, searching frantically for a means of escape. It was time, he decided, to offer the man another alternative.
He spoke quietly. “There is one way, Mr. Corey, that you might save yourself.”
“How?” cried Corey desperately.
“By telling us what happened to Daniel Gerard.”
“Daniel . . .” Corey’s mouth worked. “I don’t know what happened to Daniel Gerard,” he said. “I wasn’t there. I was with my—”
“Yes, your brother in Helston—a brother who doesn’t exist. It is a dangerous lie, Mr. Corey, since it suggests that you had something to cover up, and the likeliest thing is Daniel Gerard’s death. It was so easy, wasn’t it? After all, you had access to the station. And—” he held up the tuner, “you had a motive.”
“No, not the tuner. That wasn’t the reason!” Corey seemed to shrink. “I didn’t plan it.” His voice was thin and high-pitched. “It was an accident.”
“Perhaps it was,” Charles said. “Perhaps you and Gerard merely had an altercation.”
“Yes, that was it,” Corey replied eagerly. “An altercation. He . . . he was trying to ruin me with Mr. Marconi, you see, and I told him I couldn’t let him do that. And then he . . . well, he stumbled, and fell into the—” He broke off, almost sobbing. “It was awful, I tell you. Like a flash of blue fire, and a horrible . . . a sizzle. And a smell. The smell of burning flesh. I haven’t been able to sleep since.”
“If it was an accident,” Charles said, as if he were puzzled, “why did you take the diary—and the tuner?”
Corey wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I took the diary because I was afraid he’d written something terrible about me. I told you—he was trying to ruin me with the Marconi Company. It wasn’t right, what he was saying about me, all those lies! And then I saw the tuner and . . . well, I thought—” He gulped. “But I always meant to give it back. At least, until—”
“Yes,” Charles said. “In fact, you took the tuner with the intention of recovering it, and of being applauded as a hero. Just as you put the tower right after you cut the guy wires and the wind brought it down.”
“How . . . how’d you know?” Corey asked wonderingly.
“Criminals follow patterns. You’re not the only one to have done this sort of thing. And it might have worked, too—if you’d been content to stop with that. But then you discovered that someone else was willing to pay for the tuner.” He sighed. “Pity you didn’t know that he would also kill for it.”
“Kill!” Corey cried, and covered his face with his hands.
“I think,” said the constable, “that I may have a solution to Mr. Corey’s problem.”
“Very good,” Charles said approvingly. “And what is that?”
“If he’ll sign a statement setting down all he’s just told us, I can see he’s kept safe in the Helston gaol until the Assizes. Whe
n the judge hears that Gerard was killed by accident, and that Mr. Marconi’s property has been returned, I’m sure he’ll—”
“A statement!” Corey gave an hysterical laugh. “Not bloody likely!”
And then, with a manic energy, he bolted between them and across the deck, vaulting the rail awkwardly and half-diving, half-falling into the water. In the next moment, he had broken the surface and was pulling for the opposite sea wall. But he wasn’t making much headway. He was obviously not an expert swimmer, or strong, and his strokes were poorly coordinated.
Charles pulled out the constable’s Webley and aimed it. But after an instant’s reflection, he lowered the revolver. It would have been an easy shot—too easy, and stupid and pointless. Corey was thrashing, more than swimming. He gestured to the rowboats pulled below the sea wall.
“Launch one of those and fish him out,” he directed. “I’ll go up on the end of the wall.”
While Charles climbed up the stairs to the point where he could have a clear view, Andrew and the constable sprinted toward the rowboats, leapt into the nearest, and laid on the oars. It wasn’t going to be much of a contest, Charles saw. Despite Corey’s lead, the man could not swim nearly as fast as his pursuers could row. But he might have hoped he would shortly be free, for he could not see the rowboat behind him. He was making for the gap between the two sea-walls. He obviously aimed to reach the shingle beach beyond, and the sloping cliff, which was not too steep to climb.
But then, just as Corey cleared the end of the sea-wall, a white yacht—the same one which Charles had seen earlier— came into view. The main was down, and the boat was moving easily and lightly under the jib, as if the captain—a blond-haired man, bent over, his hand on the tiller—were preparing to sail in behind the sea-wall and dock for the night. But then the captain straightened and appeared to take in the scene: Corey swimming frantically, the rowboat pulling forward, and Charles standing watch.
Corey, too, saw the yacht, and appeared to recognize the yachtsman. He flung up one arm and shouted, and as the boat bore down on him, shouted again. The yachtsman picked up a round life preserver. As the distance between the boat and the swimmer closed, he heaved it in front of Corey, who grasped it frantically and clung to it as the yachtsman pulled it in.