Once inside the boat, Tresawna extinguished the lantern, for he knew the seas around the coast better in what little natural light there was than by artificial means.
Holmes bent close to me as we sat in the stern. “Have you brought your revolver as I requested, Watson?”
“I have. But do you expect me to shoot at a twelvefoothigh naked dancer?” I inquired sarcastically.
“Not quite, old fellow. I expect a more tangible, fleshandblood target to present itself.”
The little boat rocked its way through the calm, dark seas along the tower cliffs of Pednmendu, out to a point where we could see the line of white surf breaking along the stretch of Whitesand Bay.
“There be the Tribbens now, sir,” called our boatman, pointing toward the black shadows that were looming up ahead of us. We could hear the whispering seas sighing and crashing gently against them.
“They don’t look so menacing,” I ventured.
“Not to us in this small boat, sir,” Noall Tresawna agreed. “But a large vessel with a lower keel could be ripped open by the hidden jagged rocks that be just a few feet below us.”
“Is that what happened to the vessels that have been sunk here?” asked Holmes.
“That’s about it, sir. A good skipper can take his vessel up between Talymen and Kettle’s Bottom to the west or between Kettle’s Bottom and the Peal on the east. After that, it is a straight run between Shark’s Fin and the Tribbens and out across the bay. But I hear tell from those who have survived that the curiosity to see the dancing lady caused them to steer too close to the rocks on their starboard and before they knew it, the ship’s keels were sheared away, like a knife going through butter.”
“Is it a deep bottom here?”
“Not too deep as happens, but deep enough.”
“What do you think is the cause of these vessels foundering? Do you think it is wreckers?”
“Not for me to say, sir. I wouldn’t say so. If it were wreckers, why choose a place where the ships aren’t driven ashore so that you could pick up the cargoes? That’s what they did in the old days. But here, the ships go down and lay on the bottom. There’s no currents to bring anything ashore.”
The rocks were now closer. The one closest to the cliffs was almost an island in its size, and this, Tresawna told us, was called Cowloe. Beyond these rocks were two other large pinnacles jutting from the sea.
Holmes glanced at his pocket watch. “Nearly midnight. The Torrington Lass should be approaching here soon, if Sir Jelbart’s timing of her sailing is correct.”
Tresawna rested on his oars. Everything was silent except for the incessant whispering of the sea.
Then suddenly a curious white light seemed to illuminate the waters between the rocks.
A cold fear seized me such as I had never known.
I have been in some pretty tight spots, I can tell you. Not even when I received my wound at the battle of Maiwand, facing the hordes of Afghan tribesmen, thinking that I was about to breathe my last, did I feel such fear.
I gripped Holmes’s arm in a vise.
“God, Holmes! Look there! Tell me that it is an illusion! Tell me that you don’t see it?”
On the farthest rock, a cold white light bathed.
And in that white ethereal light stood the figure of a giant woman, nearly twelve feet high. It was a strange flickering; one which had a transparent quality, for I could see the rock through the image. The figure was that of an attractive woman. Quite beautiful. She was naked. She moved in voluptuous contortions, dancing in such provocative poses that I have never seen before; seductive, alluring, moving as an enchantress to ensnare weak souls.
The hairs on the nape of my neck rose. I could not draw my attention away from the figure. I felt like a rabbit before a snake.
“Fascinating!” muttered Holmes at my side.
From a distance there came a sound of a ship’s horn.
“Come, Watson, old fellow, get a grip of yourself.” Holmes nudged me. “That’s the Torrington Lass approaching.”
I stared at him in bewilderment. “But, Holmes, don’t you see her… God help us, it is a phantom!..”
Holmes had turned sharply to Tresawna. “Have you brought the rockets ready, as I asked?”
“I have, Mr. Holmes.” The man had kept his gaze averted from the rocks while muttering some prayer.
“Then we must send them up at once. There is no time to get nearer the rocks before the Torrington Lass will be down upon them.”
Tresawna had three rockets of the sort carried by ships as distress signals. He placed one in the bow and struck a match. Within moments it took off into the night sky.
About half a mile away, we could see the lights of the steam packet heading in our direction.
Tresawna set off the remaining two rockets and eventually we saw the ship turn westward and move on its northerly course.
“Now,” cried Holmes triumphantly, “make for the rocks.”
Even as we turned and Tresawna began to row with all his might toward the rocks, there came a crack much like a rifle shot. The ethereal white light suddenly vanished, and all was dark and quiet.
“ “Vast rowing,” snapped Holmes.
We sat in silence. There was no sound except the whispering sea again.
Holmes gave a deep sigh. “I don’t think there will be anything more we can do until daylight. We won’t see anything more tonight. Best take us back to Chy Trevescan and meet us there again tomorrow as soon as it is light.”
Holmes was in one of his infuriating moods, not answering any questions, not even when our host, Sir Jelbart, demanded to know what adventure had befallen us.
The next morning we had just finished breakfast when a tall naval officer arrived and was greeted familiarly by Sir Jelbart. He introduced the man as his brother Captain Silas Trevossow. The Captain had ridden over from St. Ives that morning. Holmes admitted responsibility for sending up the rockets to prevent the Torrington Lass being lured onto the rocks.
“Thank God you did. The skipper and his crew were petrified. They froze like ice as a fear gripped the ship. Only when we saw your danger signals was the skipper brought back to his senses, and he seized the wheel to alter course.”
“You are in time to come with us, Captain,” Holmes invited. “I think you might find this interesting, and I assure you, by this evening you will have apprehended the person behind these sinkings. A most evil genius.”
An hour later found Holmes, Captain Trevossow, Noall Tresawna and myself out by the rocks again, though they seemed less menacing in daylight.
“That is the rock on which we saw the dancing woman,” Holmes pointed. “Make for that.”
We came close to the rock on which the giant woman had been dancing.
“Look!” I cried. “Look at the angle of the face of this rock. No physical entity could stand on it, much less dance. It is almost a forty-five-degree-sheer angle.”
“Close to sixty degrees, Watson,” replied Holmes unmoved. “As smooth a rock face as ever you would see, and look at the covering on it.”
I frowned, examining it.
“Covering? That is only guano.”
“Exactly, my medical friend. The longaccumulated dung of sea fowl, a yellow white substance as if the rock, that flat, almost vertical surface, has been whitewashed.”
“I don’t see how that concerns us.”
Holmes merely shook his head sadly and glanced around. “Now, Tresawna, head for that other rock there.”
He indicated a large pinnacle raising itself above the water some fifteen yards away. This was easy to land on as the waves were not at all rough, and Holmes insisted on climbing onto it while we held the boat steady. He took with him a small canvas bag, which he had brought from Sir Jelbarts house. He spent some time examining a particular area, all the while glancing back to the first guanocovered rock as if taking measurements or alignments.
Eventually he turned to a third rock at an angle to both of thes
e. He seemed to measure the distance to it. It was about another fifteen yards away, rising higher than the others and larger. Holmes scrambled back into the boat.
“What did you find, Mr. Holmes?” asked Captain Trevossow, for Holmes had put several items into the canvas bag. He handed it to the captain, who glanced into it.
“Be careful,” Holmes admonished. “They are sharp.”
“Why, they are only fragments of glass.”
“Only?” Holmes raised an eyebrow. “In fact, they are more than glass. They are fragments of a shattered concave mirror.”
He answered no more questions but instructed Tresawna to row toward the third rock that he had indicated.
This pinnacle had a natural sea pool at the foot of it, making an excellent landing place, and we could all climb out and follow a little circular path that went around the islandlike rock to a small cave. It was no higher than four feet at its entrance.
Holmes gave a cry of elation as he beheld it. He immediately bent down and entered. There was only room for himself in the cave, but we heard, almost at once, a further cry of exaltation. He reemerged pushing a large square glass container with some metal pieces in it, zinc and some other substance. This seemed to have been discarded at the back of the cave. Holmes brought it forward. There was a chemical smell to it which I hazarded was ammonium chloride.
“What do you make of that?” he announced.
Captain Trevossow and I exchanged a bewildered glance and shrugged.
Holmes sighed impatiently. “This is a Leclanche cell, and a pretty strong one,” he said irritably when he saw we were lost.
“An electric battery?” Captain Trevossow frowned. “What’s that doing on this godforsaken rock?”
Holmes gave him one of his enigmatic looks. “I am sure that we will be able to find the answer very soon.”
He suddenly took his magnifying glass from his pocket and examined a flattopped rock that was in the center of the entrance. He went down on his hands and knees and seemed to take a sighting from the rock, gazing straight out across the sea to the smaller pinnacle on which he had found the mirror fragments.
“You’ll notice the grooves here and the scraping of metal on this rock,” he inquired of us.
We both nodded, still confused.
Holmes stood up with a smile of satisfaction. “Excellent. I think that we will now pay a visit on Mr. Harry Penwarne at Tregriffian House.”
It took some time to row back to the shore and collect Sir Jelbart from Chy Trevescan. Leaving Noall Tresawna to attend to his boat, Sir Jelbart and his brother, Holmes and myself, climbed into the carriage and made the journey through Sennen along the road above Whitesand Bay to Tregriffian House.
Harry Penwarne was no more than thirtyfive. A young man whose boyish looks seemed to have a hardness to them. He smiled only with a movement of his facial muscles, but he bade us welcome to his house. I thought his eyes held a suspicious look in them. Then I realized that they were quite bloodshot. His manservant was a muscular man also with dour looks, who appeared less like a servant and more like a soldier or sailor. He spoke little, but I detected a French accent when he did.
“What can I do for you, Sir Jelbart?” he inquired. “What brings you and your friends to my house?”
Holmes intervened immediately. “You’ll forgive me,” he said, “but when I saw your diving experiments the other day, I just had to come and meet you.”
Penwarne’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at Sir Jelbart, who was looking in astonishment at Holmes.
“I didn’t know it was generally known that I was making such experiments.”
Holmes smiled. “My dear sir, I have been reading Kleingert of Breslau’s experimentations with diving equipment, and it seemed obvious you were using a machine to send compressed air to the diver.”
Harry Penwarne frowned. “Are you involved in deepsea diving, Mr. Holmes?”
“I have a little knowledge,” confessed Holmes. “Though I confess to being a mere amateur. I know that there are some new French inventions which have extended the time divers can remain underwater.”
“You mean the new compressor modification by Laplace of the Sorbonne?” inquired Penwarne.
“Exactly so. I understand that you, also, were a student at the Sorbonne?”
“I graduated from there ten years ago.”
“Pray what were you studying?”
“Marine engineering, of course.”
“I think, at that time, Dr. Marey was experimenting at the Sorbonne with his new invention, wasn’t he?”
“Dr. Marey? I do not know the gentleman.” Penwarne shook his head. “I am not a medical man, Mr. Holmes.”
Holmes looked at him sharply. “I did not say that he was a doctor of medicine.”
Penwarne’s mouth tightened.
“However, you are right. He was a physician, but his experiments were concerned with another discipline. Ten years ago, he invented the first motion pictures using a single camera.”
“Is that supposed to be of interest to me?” asked Penwarne defensively. “My study is marine engineering, sir.”
“You are possessed of a bright mind, Mr. Penwarne. You saw the potential of Marey’s camera and started your own development of it. But two years ago, Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented their cinematograph in Paris. They produced a combined camera and projector operating at sixteen frames a second. You were devastated. You were working on a similar system, but they were first with the patent. Therefore, I believe that you have turned your invention to a more dreadful use.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” protested Penwarne. His face was white now. His nervousness was selfevident. For the first time, I began to see the direction in which Holmes was leading.
“Your father was impecunious. You needed desperately to restore the family fortune; otherwise, you were faced with selling Tregriffian House to pay his debts. So a new plan came to your mind, one that would make you a mass murderer but rich. Using your projector, and a piece of film, you lured three ships to their doom. You went into the wrecking business as many folks in these parts used to do over a hundred years ago.”
“How do you claim that I managed to lure them?”
“With a film of some dancer that you probably made in Paris. Because of the angles involved to ensure the ships saw the image, you had to reflect your image via a third means. A concave mirror would bounce the image, which your projector shone onto it, across to the large rock covered with guano. That almost whitewash substance made a suitable screen on which to project it.”
“Rubbish,” snorted the now trembling Harry Penwarne. “The ships went down off the rocks. If I were able to do such a thing, how could I have collected the salvage from those wrecks?”
“You went diving there at night, with your assistant. People heard the whining and gasping of your compressed air apparatus, but being anchored behind the rocks, they did not see your boat. I presume that you went down looking only for the ship’s safe and taking cash and jewels. Perhaps you planned to lift some of the less easily negotiable materials at a later day….”
Harry Penwarne half rose from his chair, but his pale face and dark staring eyes were not on Holmes. They were staring past him.
“JeanClaude!” he cried in French. “We can bluff it out. Don’t give the game away!..”
I turned at once and saw Penwarne’s manservant leveling a revolver at Holmes.
I confess that I was considered something of a crack shot when I was serving in the Northumberland Fusiliers, but until that instant I had never shot so well. I did so from my lap, for thus far only could I draw my revolver and let off a shot that impacted on the hand of JeanClaude. He cried out in pain. The gun fell from his hand. Captain Trevossow leaped forward and scooped it up to cover the manservant.
I was now covering Harry Penwarne, but the shock of the discovery of his nefarious crimes sent the young man into a state of incapability. He collapsed back in his chair.
“I cannot believe it!” cried the astounded Sir Jelbart. “What made you suspect young Harry?”
“When I realized that he was using a compressed air machine on his boat, as I said. Also, when you told me about noticing his bloodshot eyes. It’s a condition caused by breaking blood vessels in the eye, a hazard of deepsea diving that has not been overcome yet.”
Sir Jelbart shook his head. “Astounding,” he muttered.
“You were absolutely right in your theory, Sir Jelbart. The only problem I had was to discover how it was done. A search of the house will probably supply the evidence,” Holmes said airily. “You will find cameras, projectors, the electrical batteries he ferried out to the cave to work the projector, and above all, the film of the young woman dancing.”
“What was the meaning of the broken glass, Mr. Holmes?” asked Captain Trevossow. “Why was it broken?”
“Previously, no one had noticed the mirror that Penwarne had erected to reflect the image where it was needed, so that it could be seen from the ships. He was able to row to the rock and retrieve it at his leisure. Last night, however, he realized someone was near the rocks investigating. Our rockets gave us away. To destroy the evidence of the concave mirror, he used a rifle or pistol to shatter it to save time in rowing across from where he had the camera. He switched off his projector, dismantled it, and hurried home in his boat with his accomplice, JeanClaude. In his rush, he forgot to take the used Leclanche battery.”
As Holmes predicted, in a cellar of the old house, an entire laboratory was discovered with Penwarne’s experiments and models of cameras and projectors and various pieces of film he had shot.
Holmes spent a long time examining them with intense interest.
“In many ways, our friend Penwarne’s development of the camera, projector, and the film he used seems more advanced than Lumiere’s. The coated celluloid is inspirational. In other circumstances, Penwarne might have been a genius and pioneer of this new cinematography and made his fortune. Instead, like all twisted genius, he resorted to crime. Doubtless, he and his accomplice will make that early morning walk to meet the end of a hemp rope at Bodmin Moor. When all is said and done, he was stupid.”
An Ensuing Evil and Others Page 21