Death on the Lizard (36 page)

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 the 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. When 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.

“Stop!” shouted the constable, seeing that Corey was about to be rescued. “Stop, in the name of the law!”

And then, just as Corey was about to reach the safety of the boat, Charles saw the yachtsman raise a pistol and take quick aim. There was a single loud report. Corey lost his grip on the life preserver and fell back into the sea. In the space of a breath, he had disappeared beneath the surface. Without a glance, the yachtsman reached for the tiller, put it down hard, and swung up into the wind.

“Stop!” cried the constable again.

Charles, watching, knew what he had to do. He raised the Webley, cocking back the hammer with his thumb. His elbow locked. As the front and rear sights came into perfect alignment on the blurred silhouette, he squeezed the trigger.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

 
 
 
 
Kate and Charles had remained in Poldhu just long enough to attend the coroner's inquest into the deaths of Richard Corey and the adventurer known to the people around Helford as Niels Andersson. Bradford had decided to bring his wife, Edith, to the Lizard for the Royal visit, so that Kate was able to escape the irksome task of paying court to Princess May. Feeling relieved at having been excused from that duty, she had said a fond goodbye to Jenna Loveday and returned home with Charles, to the farm, her school, and her garden.

It was now high summer, a fortnight after their return. If the fine weather held, the haying would be done in a day or two and after that, the sheep-shearing. Kate was on her way from the dairy barn, preoccupied with an assortment of busy thoughts: the milking arrangements that she and Mrs. Bryan had discussed, the tree that had fallen across the rhubarb patch, Meg O'Malley's long-anticipated arrival the next week, and the letter she had received in the morning's post from Jenna Loveday, which mentioned Andrew Kirk-Smythe three times. That had made Kate smile with pleasure, for Jenna's tone seemed light and optimistic. She was still thinking of Jenna and Andrew when she heard the chug-chug of an approaching motor car and turned to see Bradford Marsden's new green Royce coming up the drive. Bradford pulled the motor to a stop and got out, stripping off his goggles and gloves as Kate came through the gate.