To Perish in Penzance (20 page)

Ignoring my grumblings, he settled to the task, and after a histrionic sigh, I did, too.

It took a while, but when our two lists were boiled down, they amounted to more questions than answers.

“All right, we know Lexa came to Penzance to look for her father. We need to know who he is. We know she died in the same place her mother did—”

“Correction. We know she was found in the same place as her mother. We don't actually know where either of them died.”

“Okay, okay. But we need to know what they were both doing there and how they got there. We know Lexa died of that drug, PMA, and we need to know where she got it and who gave it to her.”

“If anyone did.”

“She would not have taken it herself,” I said stubbornly, and didn't wait for Alan's argument. “We know drugs were involved in both deaths, and we know there are drugs circulating in and around Penzance. We need to know where they're coming from.”

“And if the police haven't been able to find that out, with the resources they have available, it isn't likely we will.”

“You never know. Now, everything else we have is a question. What did Lexa learn at the library? What did she do all day Thursday, and where did she go after she left the rave club? Who was the man who quarreled with her and Pamela? Where is Pamela? And, going further afield into background material, what more, if anything, do the other four young men from the party know? Why is the Reverend Mr. Polwhistle obsessed with the devil? Is there anything suspicious about Mr. Pendeen and his importing business? Finally, what about the extra money Colin Cardinnis thinks is circulating in Penzance?”

I yawned, stretched, and threw the notebook on the table. “You know, I don't really understand about that last one. Surely, in this day and age, it's easier than ever to trace money.”

“Not if the source doesn't want to be traced. It's very easy to hide behind layers of holding companies and foreign bank accounts. Once money gets into an account in the Cayman Islands, or in Geneva, the individual behind that money is all but invisible. Oh, it's
possible
to find him. Anything is possible, given sufficient time, resources, and international cooperation.”

I sighed. “And of course the suspicion of a Penzance policeman that something funny's going on isn't likely to raise enough of any of those necessary things.”

“Not so long as it's only a suspicion.”

“So somebody's laundering money, and doing it very effectively.”

“If Colin is right about his uneasiness.”

“Well, there doesn't seem to be very much we can do about it, so let's get to work on something manageable. And I really do think, Alan, that our first duty is to talk to Mr. Boleigh. He'll be glad to see you, I imagine, and he might just have some useful information. If we can find Pamela, we'll take several giant steps forward.”

“Boleigh it is, then. Poor old Roley.”

“I thought his name was John.”

“That's his middle name. His first name is Roland. The nickname, I was told, was a leftover from school days. Apparently he was always a bit stout, even as a boy, and with his surname, of course—”

“Roley-Boleigh. Of course. Goodness, children can be cruel! No wonder he dropped his first name. I don't imagine anyone would dare call him that now, though.”

“Oh, affectionately, perhaps. I shouldn't have thought he'd mind anymore.”

“Probably not. I wish you hadn't told me, though, Alan. It would be awful if I slipped, especially now, when he must be worried sick.”

“You'll behave yourself. You almost always do. Are you ready?”

“As soon as I talk to Eleanor. I'll make that as short as I decently can, but she'll probably be upset because of the funeral today. Alan, why don't you come with me? I really hate the thought of telling her about Pamela, and I could use some moral support.”

Eleanor was not alone. When we knocked on her door, it was answered by a woman in a nurse's uniform.

“Good morning,” she said. “May I help you?”

We introduced ourselves. “We came to talk to Mrs. Crosby for a minute. You must be from hospice?”

“Yes. My name is Janet Banks. Come in, please. Mrs. Crosby has told me about you. We were just making some plans for today.”

“The funeral?”

“Yes, I've told Mrs. Crosby I'd be happy to drive her to the churchyard.”

Eleanor, sitting in the big armchair, looked unutterably weary. She nodded to us.

“Oh, we can do that. That is, if Eleanor would like to go with us?”

Eleanor nodded again, spiritlessly.

“Perhaps,” said Alan to the nurse, “you could accompany us, in case Mrs. Crosby should need your assistance.”

“Oh, of course. That's the sort of thing we always try to do. Now, you'd like to talk, so I'll be on my way. I'll be back at about one-thirty.”

“She seems like a nice woman,” I said.

“Pleasant enough, I daresay.” Eleanor looked at me briefly, then down at her lap. She had been crying.

I tried to steel myself to give her the bad news, but Alan grasped my elbow and took over. “Eleanor, we realize this is a bad day for you, and we'd have preferred not to add to your burdens, but you need to know that the girl Pamela, the one Lexa met at the rave club, has disappeared.”

Even as tired, ill, and depressed as she was, Eleanor was quick. “That means she knows something. Pity no one found her to get her to tell it before she went missing.”

Her tone was scathing. Alan nodded. “A very great pity. But there are two ways to look at the situation. The other is that whereas we had only a Christian name before, we now know her identity, and the police are very actively looking for her. She may be found more quickly this way.”

“If she didn't know
too
much.” Eleanor was not to be comforted.

“There is that possibility,” Alan admitted. “We are on our way right now to talk to the girl's grandfather. He may be of some help.”

Eleanor nodded, sunk in misery once more, and we took our leave.

“She's not going to be with us much longer, is she?” I said in a low tone when we were safely outside the room.

“Not unless we can come up with something to interest her in life for a little longer. I'm not entirely sure that would be a kindness.”

“The kindness would be to find Lexa's killer, so Eleanor can die in peace. Alan, whatever happens afterward, I'm sure it's better for people to die with their souls at rest.”

He smiled down at me. “I don't know that it makes one whit of difference to the dead, but I know
you'll
not rest till the questions are resolved. Shall we go talk to poor old Roley?”

“I'll get my hat.”

W
E
telephoned first. After some skirmishing with the functionary who answered the phone, we were told that yes, Mr. Boleigh was at home and would be pleased to see us. So we drove over to Bellevue, the elegant villa where Mr. Boleigh liked to throw elegant parties. It seemed, in the brilliant light of a September morning, to be an awfully big house for just him and his wife to be rattling around in.

Mr. Boleigh answered the door himself. “Please forgive our disorganization,” he said somewhat stiffly. “My wife is with our daughter, who is prostrated, of course. So my secretary is having to take on Caroline's household duties as well as his normal ones, and at the same time try to keep the press at bay.” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. “It's all rather difficult.”

“I'm sorry, John.” Alan grasped Boleigh's arm for a moment in a gesture of sympathy. “We're the ones who should apologize for the intrusion, but we thought we might be of some help. I'm sure the police are exploring every possible avenue, but is there any small thing we might do?”

I don't know if it was Alan's touch or the sympathy in his voice, but Boleigh's face crumpled and he dropped his polite facade. “I don't know. I can't think what's to be done. I stopped thinking like a policeman long ago, when I left the force. I was never much good at it anyway, as I expect you remember. Now I—oh, Lord, I can't seem to think at all!”

His face was ashen. He had seemed a healthy, hearty middle-aged man when we'd first met on St. Michael's Mount, and again at the party. Now he might have been eighty. I gave Alan a desperate look. He nodded.

“Now, John, this will never do. When did you last have any food?”

He gave us a bewildered look, as though he had forgotten what food was.

“Right. Dorothy, will you try to find the kitchen? John, sit down before you fall down, and tell me where you keep the whiskey.”

I scurried off toward the back premises and eventually, after a few false turns and dead ends, found the kitchen. It was empty. If the Boleighs kept a cook, he or she was off duty at the moment. I had no idea where the secretary might be, but I was here, and food, presumably, was here. I rummaged, found eggs, butter, bread, and tea. A skillet, a spatula, a teakettle and pot, and a toaster were all the equipment I needed, and very shortly I had a plate of scrambled eggs and several slices of toast. The tea was steeping in the pot. I found a large tray, rustled up a knife and fork, sugar, milk, and a small pot of marmalade, and carried the whole works back to the front of the house, where the sound of conversation led me to a room to the left of the front hall.

I plunked the tray down on a small table. “There you are. Now, Mr. Boleigh, you'll have to stop talking and eat this right away. The plate is warm, but the kitchen's a long way from here, and cold eggs are an abomination unto the Lord.”

“I don't think—that is, you're being very kind, but—”

“I'm not being kind. I'm being terribly rude, and I've got some nerve, walking into your kitchen and messing it up. But now that I've done that, you might as well eat it—
while it's hot!
” I picked up the table, tray and all, and put it in front of his chair.

He sighed, picked up the fork, and took a bite. Alan and I turned our backs and walked to the other end of the room, which, now that I took the time to look at it, was a very fine library. Paneled in sage-green wood, it had what looked to my untutored eye like an Adam fireplace, with Wedgwood medallions. Built-in bookcases topped with graceful fan-shaped carvings held an assortment of books arranged by subject and then by author, so as to be easy to find. The books looked well read and well loved. This was a reader's library, not some decorator's dream with leather-bound books purchased by the yard.

The floor was covered with Persian rugs, their colors softened by time, their cost probably somewhere near that of our entire house, Alan's and mine. Soft, squashy leather chairs were dotted here and there, each with a floor lamp and a small table conveniently at hand. A sturdy but graceful writing table occupied the center of the room, and where the walls held no books, they displayed botanical prints.

“If the poor man can find peace anywhere, it ought to be here,” I said in an undertone. “This is one of the loveliest, most soothing rooms I've ever seen.”

“I don't know that he's able to accept peace just now,” said Alan just as softly. “If ever I saw a tortured soul, it's John Boleigh. I got some whiskey into him. It helped his color but didn't do a thing for his state of mind.”

We gave him several more minutes of privacy, then turned back. He had eaten almost nothing, though he had drunk some tea. His head was down and his eyes closed, but he looked up at our approach.

“I'm sorry, Mrs.—er—”

“Dorothy, please. And don't apologize. I forced it on you. I'm just sorry you don't feel able to eat.”

“It's only that I'm so worried! She's such a lovely girl, and only sixteen. There are such dangers out there for pretty girls! Drugs, unsuitable boys …”

“It's a dangerous world, sadly. But she may have just run off, you know. Teenagers do.”

“Not Pamela!” It was the response I'd expected, the automatic denial that a loved one would ever “do a thing like that.”

“No?” said Alan. “What sort of girl is she, John? Quiet, studious?”

I opened my mouth and shut it again. If Alan was asking questions for which he knew at least part of the answers, he had a reason.

“No, not quiet. She enjoys dancing, music, all the things young people do enjoy. But she's a good girl, Alan. Not at all the wild sort.”

“She's left school, I suppose.”

“Yes, at sixteen, and why shouldn't she? School held very little interest for her. She was far more sophisticated than the other girls, and it's not as if she had to prepare for a job. Her father is quite well-off, and of course her mother, Sarah, is my daughter. I settled a considerable sum on Sarah when she married, and on Pamela herself at her sixteenth birthday. Both of them are also in my will. Pamela has no need to earn her living, ever, even if she doesn't marry well.”

I made a mental note: spoiled rotten, both mother and daughter. I wouldn't be surprised if Pamela had gone off with some fortune hunter.

Alan was evidently thinking along the same lines, for he said, “I suppose you and her parents have got in touch with her friends.”

“Of course! That was the first thing we did when she didn't come home Saturday night, but no one had seen her.”

“Saturday night? She spent Thursday and Friday night at home, then?”

“No. I'm telling this badly, I'm sorry. Thursday she went out dancing with some friends and told Sarah, her mother, that she'd probably go home with one of her girlfriends if they were up all night, and then spend Friday night with her, as well. She planned to be home by noon or thereabouts on Saturday.”

“And her parents made no objection to this?”

“I suppose you think they should have done. That's because you've never met Pamela. You don't understand. She's a spirited girl; it's better to let her have her head. She's sensible enough when she's left to herself, but she won't be reined in. She's been out all night before, and never came to harm. So it wasn't until Saturday afternoon that her mother began to wonder, and not until nearly nightfall, when they hadn't heard from Pamela, that anyone began to really worry. Then, of course, they got on the phone, but all of Pamela's friends said they hadn't seen her for several days.”