To Perish in Penzance (27 page)

“Well? Get on with it!”

I was not going to be rushed. This story had to be told properly.

“I asked Mr. Pendeen—that's the mayor—how Mr. Boleigh had made his money. I didn't put it quite that way, of course, but Mr. Pendeen told me that an uncle of Mr. Boleigh had left him a fortune. That was more or less what Alan had said. But when I mentioned money, Mr. Pendeen corrected me. Eleanor, Mr. Boleigh was left, according to the mayor, not money but a fabulous collection of art treasures.”

I let that one sink in for a moment and then went on. “My second question had to do with the man seen with Lexa and Pamela Boleigh at the rave club. The police did a little more checking on it and came back with the information that the man was, as I had finally suspected, Mr. Boleigh. Pamela's grandfather.
And
—” I paused for effect. “
And
, as the manager has only just been willing to tell us, having learned of Mr. Boleigh's death, Boleigh was the owner of the club.”

Eleanor looked at me in stark incomprehension for a moment, and then she burst out, “He killed them! The bloody bastard killed both of them!”

“If he did, Eleanor, he's beyond the reach of human justice now. You see why Alan said that proof didn't matter quite so much. But—no, wait. Alan, I think you might send down for some brandy. I know I could use it, and I'm sure Eleanor could.” I turned to her. “If you're allowed alcohol, that is?”

“Probably not, but what does it matter?”

“Indeed.”

“But I want to know everything. I don't understand!”

“Yes, I want to tell you everything. But it's a pretty painful story, so if you don't mind, I'd rather wait till our drinks get here.”

W
E
settled, drinks in hand. Afternoon had faded to evening. Alan had drawn the drapes and turned on lamps. The room looked as cozy and comfortable as the beginning of a fairy tale. In a way, it was appropriate, because the tale I had to tell certainly had a number of ogres in it. I began the story accordingly.

“Once upon a time there was a very pretty girl named Betty Adams. She was a pleasant girl, but not always wise in her choice of friends. She lived in London, but one day she went to Penzance for a weekend with some of those not-so-wonderful friends. She made more friends, oh, very quickly, and one of them was a man named John Boleigh. He was married and had at least one child, a daughter probably about five or six years old, but he didn't tell Betty that. He probably didn't tell her his real name, either. He met her at a party where a lot of drugs were circulating, and both of them smoked a good deal of marijuana. They both became amorous, and he became indiscreet, as well. He took Betty to a place where they could have some privacy, perhaps a deserted house at the top of a cliff, perhaps only his car. They made love, and then he began to talk.

“He told Betty that he was a policeman, but that he wouldn't need to go on working much longer, because of a piece of incredibly good luck. He had found, he said, yes, found at the bottom of this very cliff, a cache of fabulous treasures. Paintings, sculpture, religious artifacts, jewels—a king's ransom. He had to sell them slowly, he said, but when he had enough money, he'd be free.

“Though she sometimes did foolish things, Betty was no fool, even under the influence of a drug. She didn't believe him. So he pulled out, from somewhere he kept it handy so he could gloat over it now and then, the smallest of the things he had found, a lovely ruby-studded cross. He handed it to her. ‘Here, take it. Keep it. There's plenty more where that came from.'”

I took another sip of brandy. The next part was hard.

“Eventually he took her back to her friends, and she went home to London with a souvenir of her trip. Two souvenirs, in fact, though she didn't know for a few weeks that she was pregnant.

“You know all of this part, how she decided that, since the baby's father, Lexa's father, was rich, he should help with support. How she went back to Penzance, leaving behind the cross but not her memory of the story.

“Somehow she found Boleigh, I don't know how. At any rate, she did, probably at another party. She got him off to himself and told him about Lexa.

“Boleigh, meanwhile, had begun his career of patron of the arts. He had probably sold most of his treasures, most likely through some highly dubious channels. He had put it about that they'd been auctioned respectably, to explain why he was now a very wealthy man indeed. He had a position and a reputation to maintain, as well as a growing family.

“Betty represented embarrassment, but more, she represented danger. Betty knew things she should not. He had to get rid of her somehow. He could pay her off, yes, but how was he to know she wouldn't keep coming back and back? She had the means of blackmail readily at hand.”

“She would never have done such a thing!”

Eleanor would have continued, but I held up my hand. “No, I don't think she would, but you have to remember Boleigh didn't know her. He'd met her exactly once. How was he to know? To him she was a threat, nothing more nor less.

“We'll never know exactly what happened, except that he, or someone, gave her some LSD, enough to hamper her judgment severely. Maybe he made the mistake of taking her out to the cliff house again, as a nice, lonely spot to dispose of someone, and she recognized the place and tried, despite the stormy weather, to fly over the cliff to find the treasure cave. I suspect that's the answer, but maybe he pushed her into the sea at some other spot and the currents carried her back to the cave after several days of stormy weather. At any rate, he must have had a nasty shock when her body was found. Even if all the treasure was gone by that time, he might have left some trace of his treasure raids to the cave, and questions could well be asked.

“However, nothing came of it, and for over thirty years he prospered. Not, perhaps, entirely as he had planned.

“He'd had to sell his treasures on the black market. No matter what their origin, Nazi loot or pirate's booty, they couldn't be sold openly. And the old saw is, unfortunately, all too true. One cannot touch pitch and not be soiled.

“His partners in crime figured out where the treasures had been found, I don't know how. Maybe they hauled out some of the larger pieces themselves. At any rate, they, or some of their associates, began to see the possibilities of a lovely, hidden place that was easily accessible by sea. They approached Boleigh about using the cave for a little storage of their own, and hinted that perhaps, since he liked to use a little in the way of drugs now and then, he'd be interested in getting into distribution himself.

“I think, by then, that he'd probably stopped using drugs completely. His community position and his family were of growing importance to him, and he'd never taken more than a little pot. He didn't want to fall in with their scheme. At least that's what I believe. But the criminals who wanted to use him didn't care about his scruples, and they had a mighty hold over him. They knew the origin of his wealth. So Boleigh found himself in the drug business.”

Eleanor made an inarticulate noise. Alan pushed her brandy glass into her hands and made her take a sip. I took a pull of mine, too. The story was becoming more and more unsavory.

“The business wasn't all bad. He made a lot of money from it, was able to spend more and more on his pet charities, buy more and more niceties for his lovely home, lavish more and more gifts on his children and, by now, grandchildren. He also bought, on the sly, an old building, turning it into a rave club where the drugs could be distributed and where, incidentally, he could make a lot more money even without the lucrative little sideline. He was, I suspect, able to persuade himself that the drugs hurt only those foolish enough to buy them, and that those people were, in any case, the dregs of society.

“Then two things happened in quick succession. Lexa came to town, looking the image of her mother, and met him. Not only that, but she was being escorted by a retired chief constable, and Boleigh overheard her talking about drugs! He'd scarcely taken that in when he found out that his beloved granddaughter Pamela was frequenting the rave club and taking drugs.”

Eleanor's hands clenched. “So he lured both of them out of the club and killed them! Wherever he is now, I hope he's paying for his devilment!”

“He may have done that, but I don't think so. This is what I think happened.”

I fortified myself with the last few drops of brandy.

“He was with the girls at the club. Then the three of them went out. I'm sure the manager only appeared to throw out Boleigh, who was his boss, after all, but he, the manager I mean, must have made it clear that things would be better for everyone if Boleigh left. Boleigh had given Lexa what I imagine he thought was ecstasy, probably two or three tablets of it dropped into her water or orange juice or whatever she was drinking. I'm sure he gave Pamela nothing, but she had undoubtedly taken some ecstasy—or something—of her own accord.

“Boleigh, of course, had taken no drugs, and he was a good deal older than the girls. I believe they, flying high, feeling on top of the world, got away from him easily. I think Lexa, who had guessed part of the story just as I did, got Pamela, her now-bosom-buddy Pamela, to drive her out to the cave, maybe to show her where her mother had been, or maybe because Lexa had guessed part of the treasure story. Lexa knew, from her library research, roughly where Bessie's Cove was, and of course Pamela knew the area thoroughly. She was born here.

“How those two got down the cliff path in the dark and the wind I don't know. They were high on drugs, of course, and sometimes the belief that one is invincible helps make it so. Anyway, they did, and they found the cave. If I'm right about the tides and the time they might have arrived, the tide was going out. They would have had no trouble.

“Then what happened—who knows? I suspect that Lexa, in drug-induced exuberance, told Pamela the whole story and showed her the cross. I don't know how Pamela reacted, but I imagine that at some point the girls fell asleep in the cave. They would have been warm enough, especially Lexa, because of the drug. At least Pamela slept. In Lexa, the drug went on doing its deadly work. And in the morning, when Pamela woke, Lexa—didn't.”

Eleanor swallowed hard again. I wished I had more brandy.

“Pamela was down from her high by that time, very far down, very depressed, and very frightened. Frightened of her grandfather, who had been furiously angry, frightened of being there with Lexa's body, frightened of everything. She was cold, too. She scrambled up the cliff, Lexa's cross with her. I don't know what she did the rest of Friday, but on Saturday she took the cross to Mousehole to sell, possibly to buy some heroin. And we know the rest.”

Eleanor lay silent.

“The money?” Alan prompted.

“Oh, yes. I think the crooks who planned the bank robbery were the same ones who were running the drugs. Anyway, they somehow had some information about the cave. It wasn't too hard to persuade Boleigh to let them use the cave for a temporary stash.

“When Boleigh went out this morning on his yacht, he might have been planning to remove the money and give it back. He might have planned to steal it himself and flee the country. His life in Penzance certainly lay in ruins. Or, knowing all he did, he might have planned suicide from the first. He had loved Pamela deeply, and he knew that he had only himself to blame for her destruction.”

“Then,” said Eleanor finally, “then you believe he killed none of them?”

“Not directly, no. Indirectly, he killed all of them, as well as Mr. Polwhistle's granddaughter and possibly a good many more people over the years, people he'd never met. Those ‘society dregs' he cared about so little. Except at the end. He cared then, I think.”

I could find a little sympathy in my heart for him, but I didn't say so. I doubted Eleanor felt the same way.

Alan took my tale to the police the next day. It was a mass of speculation, of course, and Colin took it as such. There were a few things they could check, and they would, if only to rule out other possibilities.

We left Penzance that same day. I vowed I'd never come back.

“No, Dorothy. Don't say that. It's not the fault of the place. Good and evil, remember. Cornwall is beautiful. So are most of its people. We'll go back one day.”

“Climb back on the horse that threw you? Well, perhaps.” But our home and our cats and even the rain that still persisted looked very good to me.

Colin Cardinnis called in a couple of days to say that Eleanor, feeling she could no longer trespass on the hotelkeepers' good nature, had gone to a nursing home. I thought about writing to her, couldn't think of what to say, and left it too late. We heard of her death two weeks after we left Penzance.

“She looked very peaceful,” the nurse said. “They often do.”

“She was at peace, I think.” That was all I could say.

It was weeks later that I got a small package in the mail, with a letter from a law firm.

“It's Lexa's cross,” I said to Alan. I had difficulty speaking, and blew my nose. “Apparently the police decided it
was
Eleanor's property, and she'd left a note asking that it be given to me. Alan, I don't want it!”

“Sell it, then. Christie's will get a good price for you. Give the money to a drug rehabilitation program.”

“Good from evil?” I demanded, still sniffing.

“One can only hope, my dear. One can only hope.”