Death on the Lizard (11 page)

Alice crouched down, peering. To one coral leg was attached a metal band and a tiny metal canister. She took hold of the bird, which made a soft sound in its throat but did not struggle, and managed to detach the canister from the band. Then she set the bird on its feet again and pulled out a fragment of flimsy paper. Something was written on it, very small, and not in any words Alice could read, although she prided herself on being able to read very well, better than Harriet, even.

She frowned down at it impatiently. What was the use in going to all the bother of writing something if you couldn't spell a single word right? She wadded up the paper into a tight little ball and thrust it into her pocket. The bird gobbled as much grain as it could hold, and then, with a flurry of chocolate-dipped wings and a soft coo which sounded like goodbye, flew out of the belfry and away, toward Frenchman's Creek.

Alice watched the pigeon fly away, thinking about it. She kept on thinking about it until she heard voices and looked down and saw Harriet's mother and the two ladies who had arrived at Penhallow the previous afternoon. Lady Loveday was carrying her usual basket of roses, and Alice felt the way she always did when she saw Harriet's mother: desperately sad and guilty and full of regret for what had happened and for her own part in it—although, she reminded herself again, it hadn't been her fault. The whole thing had been Harriet's idea, hadn't it? and all she had done was to go along. Alice wriggled her mouth and said the sentence again, whispering it sternly to herself, “The whole thing was Harriet's idea, and all I did was to go along.” But her disclaimer of responsibility did not ease her guilt, and she was sure that it wouldn't appease Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, a stern character in her favorite book,
The Water Babies
. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid knew what everyone had done before they even thought of doing it and was ready to hold them all entirely accountable.

Today, it seemed that Lady Loveday had come to show Harriet's new monument to her friends, for there she stood in the path, pointing it out. Alice's mouth curled with a cynical sort of amusement at the thought of what Harriet herself would say to that ridiculous stone angel, flinging its stone pleadings into the empty face of the sky.

Alice, like Harriet, did not believe in God, or angels, or prayers. She believed in birds on the wide, wild moor; and oak trees older than any human, even a Druid, could possibly know; and the lovely storms which raged and roared around Granny Godden's cottage in the long, black winter nights, while Alice curled up in her attic bed with a stolen stub of candle and the ragged copy of
Treasure Island
Harriet had lent her. God, Harriet had said scornfully, was only make-believe and prayers were a lot of empty words. Harriet was so positively negative that Alice had not found a reason to doubt her friend's declaration of unbelief.

Which only made it more difficult, of course. If Alice had believed in God, she might have taken some comfort from the thought that He had whisked Harriet off to the beautiful place that the vicar mumbled about in Sunday sermon, where she would no doubt discover Smutty, the dear old black cat who had died in the shed last winter and whom they had buried under the gooseberry bushes. And that ill-tempered boy who had fallen off the cliff and broke his head on the rocks—although perhaps he wouldn't go to heaven, but to the other place, for in Alice's opinion, he had been truly beastly.

As it was, there was scarcely a shred of comfort, for Alice, who was a practical child, could plainly see that even if Harriet had wanted to rise up, she would be weighted down by that wretched marble slab installed on top of her. So Alice swallowed her loss as best she could, and eased the pain a little by imagining that Harriet (like Tom the chimney sweep in
The Water Babies
), had become amphibious and lived on in the water where she had drowned. And Alice scattered blossoms on the water of Frenchman's Creek, and in the grass around Harriet's grave, and sometimes tiny shells and bird feathers, and she had even brought back the doll, although Harriet hadn't much liked it.
Treasure Island
was another matter altogether. Alice had no intention of returning
it
.

At that moment, the fair-haired man strode around the corner of the church and surprised the three ladies, to whom he was obviously a stranger. He was no stranger to Alice, of course, for she had seen him more than once down by Frenchman's Creek with his field glasses, watching the boat moored there. In fact, he had been there again yesterday, when Harriet's mother went to the boat. Alice knew this, for she had seen all three of them: the man with the field glasses, who kept himself well hidden behind the large oak tree on the other side of the creek; and Lady Loveday, who had run to climb into the boat; and the man with the white yachting cap who had put his arms around her and held her for a long time.

There were moments, like now, when Alice missed Harriet a very great deal, for she had been clever in ways that Alice was not, and immediately guessed things which Alice had to puzzle over for quite a long time. Harriet would have been able to guess in a flash why her mother's face had turned a dark, dull red when the man with the field glasses spoke to her reproachfully just now—Alice hadn't quite been able to hear what he said—and why her voice had been so thin and trembly when she replied. Harriet had known why her mother went to the boat, although when Alice asked, she had pressed her lips together in a thin line and said she didn't want to discuss it. Alice hadn't pressed, for although the two of them had shared a great many secrets, they both knew that there were some things which were too secret to be talked about. The boat, and the man in it, was certainly one of them.

After a few minutes, the fair-haired man bowed and walked on, and the three ladies began to make their way back up the path toward the manor. Alice said goodbye to the pigeons. They clucked to her softly, and ducked their gray heads, and the boldest flew down to retrieve the last bit of grain she had thrown on the floor. And then she lifted the trap door and climbed swiftly down the belfry ladder, and ran along the path, hunched nearly double, ducking behind first one headstone and then another.

For now, of course, she was no longer a lookout posted high on the mast of a pirate ship, but Jim Hawkins, trailing Ben Gunn across the empty beaches of Treasure Island.

CHAPTER NINE

 
 
 
Early on Thursday morning, following the hotel clerk's directions, Charles Sheridan located King's Chemist Shop on Mullion High Street, then turned and walked down a narrow alley between two white-painted buildings, and went round the back into a cobbled yard. A sign on the wall announced, in large green letters, that he had reached the office of the Devon-Cornwall Constabulary, Thomas Deane, Constable. A red bicycle with wire baskets fore and aft was leaning against the wall beneath the sign and a wire-haired terrier was sleeping beside it.

Charles rapped lightly on a half-open door. At a man's shouted “Come in!” he pushed it wide and stepped inside.

The constable's office was a small, windowless room, stone-walled and stone-floored and chilly, although the morning air was mild. The constable himself was a tall, rangy man in his mid-forties, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his blue serge uniform jacket slung over a nearby chair. With a reading glass and an air of focussed intensity, Deane was studying an Ordnance Survey map spread out on the table in front of him.

“Good morning, sir.” He straightened and put down the glass. “What can I do for you?”

Charles introduced himself and explained his errand.

“Bad business, that,” the constable said, shaking his head. “Very bad business.” He took his jacket off the chair and motioned to Charles to be seated. “Near as I could tell, poor chap fell into the works.” He shrugged into the jacket. “Got a fatal jolt of current.”

“So it seems,” Charles said, taking the chair. The terrier stood in the door, yawned, scratched, and came to lie down on the rug spread for him in one corner. “When is the inquest?”

The constable glanced at the clock on the wall above the terrier. “In about an hour, in the school. You'll be attending, will you?”

“Yes,” Charles said. He removed his hat, put it on the floor, and took his pipe out of his jacket pocket. “I wonder—did your investigation of the accident happen to take you to the Marconi office in the Poldhu Hotel?”

“The office?” Deane rolled up the map and stood it in a corner. “Why, no. I kept to the transmitter building itself, where the accident occurred. Not much to see, of course. The body spoke for itself, I'm afraid. One flash, and that was it. The best which can be said is that it must've been a quick death.” There was a tea kettle on a gas ring on a nearby shelf, and he turned on the flame. “About the office—why do you ask?”

“Because,” Charles said, taking out his pouch and filling his pipe, “Gerard's notebook can't be located—the diary in which he kept detailed notes about an experimental piece of equipment he was working on. The equipment seems to have gone missing, as well. The door to the company office does not appear forced, but the desk drawer was pried open with a sharp-pointed tool.” He paused, pursing his lips. “I checked the hotel room where Gerard lived, of course. Didn't find the two items there, either.”

The constable grunted. “I'll have to let the coroner know about this. You won't object to testifying at the inquest?”

“Actually,” Charles said, “I would prefer not, although I am very willing to speak with the coroner privately.” And in a few words, he explained why he thought it would be best if the information about the missing items was not made public.

“I can't speak for the coroner, of course,” Deane replied thoughtfully, “but I have no objections. What you say makes sense.” He paused. “I'm not surprised to hear of the theft. There're several who might like to steal a few of Marconi's secrets, or at the least, cause trouble at the station.”

“Several, eh?” Charles lit his pipe and drew on it. “Who might you have in mind?”

The constable sat down in the chair behind his table and measured Charles with a shrewd glance. “I'm not sure why I should tell you.”

Charles was silent for a moment. “Because,” he said, “the intentions of these troublemakers may bear upon the security of the Royal visit.”

Deane stared. “The Royal visit?
What
Royal visit?”

“Oh, then you didn't know.” Charles clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I suppose the Palace intended to keep it secret for as long as possible—although that does make things more difficult for you. You'll no doubt have work to do, and the more time you have to do it in, the better.”

The constable's eyes narrowed. “Which Royals? When?”

“The Prince and Princess of Wales, on 18 July. Which would be—” Charles eyed the calendar on the wall—“Saturday fortnight. They will most likely be accompanied by a delegation of important people, including Admiral Jackie Fisher. Questions of security have already come up, especially given the recent death of Mr. Gerard and these property thefts. It would be much better if the advance party knew from which quarters trouble might be expected.” The Palace was not known for its forward planning and Charles was inventing this, but it sounded good, at least to his ears. He hoped the constable would be persuaded to cooperate.

It did. “I see, I see,” Dean said testily. “Well, I'm certainly obliged to you for letting me know.” He pushed his lips in and out, frowning. “Where were we?”

“We were discussing those who might steal secrets or cause trouble,” Charles prompted.

“Ah, yes. Well, the Marconi people haven't gone out of their way to make themselves popular. The employees keep to themselves out there at the Poldhu Hotel. Oh, they may occasionally drink in one of the Mullion or Lizard pubs, but as a general rule, they have very little to do with either village, or with me. Unless there's trouble, of course.”

“There
has
been trouble, I understand,” Charles said. “A fair amount of it, so it seems. Two years ago, some of the guy wires were cut and the masts were blown down. Not long after, there was a fire in the generator building, and a great deal of equipment was lost. There have been several thefts, and more recently, one of the Bass Point operators was killed in a fall from the cliff.”

“Nobody's reported any thefts to me,” Deane put in crossly. “And Jack Gordon spent the evening drinking at the Drowned Boy, in Lizard Village. He'd had a few too many pints, and he went along the cliff path. Everybody knows it's not the safest way, even in daylight. It was moonlight, and treacherous. He took a misstep and fell.”

“Witnesses?”

“None.” The tea kettle had begun to hiss, and the constable got up to measure loose tea into a china pot and pour in boiling water. “You're not suggesting,” he said when he turned around, “that the fellow was pushed?”

“There were no witnesses,” Charles said. He paused. “No witnesses to Gerard's electrocution, either. Two recent accidents. Two dead men.”

There was silence for a long moment. Deane poured tea into two chipped mugs and pushed one across the table to Charles. He sat down in his chair again, hooked his heels over the rungs, and tipped the back of the chair against the wall. “I doubt any of the local folk would be driven to murder,” he remarked. “But it's fair to say that the Marconi people aren't much liked here on the Lizard.”