The Treasure at Poldarrow Point (An Angela Marchmont Mystery) (6 page)

Barbara stood ankle-deep in the shallows and watched the waves come in. Farther out, the breeze whipped the sea up into white, choppy peaks, but here in the little cove, all was calm thanks to the shelter provided by the rugged cliffs that loomed above and all around.

Helen Walters was swimming with powerful strokes up and down the little bay. She caught sight of Barbara and slowed her pace, then stopped and waved, treading water.

‘Hallo,’ she called. ‘Are you coming in? The water is simply splendid this morning.’

‘Not today,’ Barbara called back. ‘I don’t have my bathing things.’

She kicked the water grumpily with a bare foot. She wanted the place to herself so she could look for the smugglers’ tunnel, but the girl from next door was spoiling everything by taking her bathe now. Soon the tide would come in and cover the beach, and then she wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the cliffs.

‘I can scout about a bit, at any rate,’ she said to herself. ‘Helen needn’t know what I am up to.’

She walked back up the beach and pulled her shoes on over wet feet, then headed to the section of cliff that she thought was most likely to contain the entrance to the tunnel. Stopping now and again by a rock pool and poking about amongst the seaweed (might as well make it look as though she were merely hunting for interesting sea-creatures), she worked her way slowly along the cliff face, glancing up occasionally in the hope of seeing an opening that might be the entrance.

At last she came to a little rocky outcrop that looked as though it might be just the thing: just after it, the cliff appeared to fold in on itself and form a kind of recess. Barbara’s eyes gleamed in excitement. Surely this was it! She glanced up to see where Helen had got to, and saw that she had come out of the water and was wrapping herself in a towel while proceeding slowly across the sand back towards the cliff path that led back to her cottage. Barbara waited a minute or two until Helen was out of sight then turned back to look more closely at the cliff face. As far as she could judge, the recess was almost directly below Poldarrow Point itself. This was promising. She skirted round a large seaweedy pool and rounded the rock, then almost jumped out of her skin as she came face to face with a man who was crouching in the recess in a most suspicious manner.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. The man straightened up in a hurry. He was clearly as
surprised as she was. He went pink in the face.

‘I am very sorry,’ he said. ‘I do not wish to frighten you.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Barbara. ‘I just got a shock, that’s all. I didn’t know anyone was here, you see.’

She looked more closely at the man. He was obviously foreign, and was dressed in a rather odd pair of knee breeches and a hat with a feather. Despite his luxuriant moustache, he was younger than she had first thought. On the ground next to him was a knapsack, attached to which were one or two glass jars and a number of digging implements. He saw her curiosity and waved a hand towards the equipment.

‘I am Pierre Donati, from Switzerland,’ he said. ‘I am a scientist.’

‘Oh!’ said Barbara. ‘How fascinating. Are you studying something here?’

He went pink again.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I look for the hore.’

‘The what?’ said Barbara.

‘The hore. Metal, yes? Cornwall is rich in hore. Tin, copper. Also other things, such as wolfram, or tungsten as it is also known.’

‘Oh,
ore
—yes, of course,’ said Barbara. ‘I did know that. We learned about it at school, but I’m afraid I wasn’t listening very carefully.’

‘It can be a little dry for a young mind,’ he agreed, ‘but it is very important, for if metal can be found in the soil, it may be worth many thousands of pounds.’

‘I say!’ said Barbara. ‘That sounds more like it. Perhaps I shall pay more attention in future. You can’t carry much in those jars, though.’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I do not dig up the hore itself. I merely take little samples of the soil here and there, which I will test later.’

‘But there’s no soil in here, only sand.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr. Donati. ‘I come here for a little break from my work. The view is most beautiful.’

‘What, from behind this rock?’

He looked confused, and coughed.

‘No, I was on the beach, then I happened to see this little—what do you call it?—cave, and I was very curious, so I came to take a closer look.’

‘Oh, so it
is
a cave,’ said Barbara in excitement. ‘Might I see?’

He stepped out of the way to allow her to enter the recess. Sure enough, there was a narrow fissure in the cliff face that was quite screened from the view of anyone who might be looking from the beach. It appeared to be the entrance to a passage.

‘Have you been inside?’ she said to Donati.

‘No, I have not the torch,’ he replied.

‘I have a torch,’ she said. ‘Would you like to come in with me?’ She spoke out of politeness since he had, after all, found the cave first, but was relieved when he shook his head.

‘No, I thank you,’ he said. ‘I must return to work now. Goodbye. Perhaps we shall meet again soon.’

‘Oh yes, goodbye,’ said Barbara, then turned her attention back to the cave and promptly forgot about the strange man, who had picked up his knapsack and was already heading back towards the path, clanking as he went.

She ducked in through the low entrance and followed the passage which, after six or seven feet, took a sharp turn to the right. Beyond that point it was too dark to see, so she took out her electric torch and switched it on. By the dim light she saw that a few yards ahead the little tunnel opened out into a larger space. She hurried forward, then stopped and looked about her, waving the torch around as she turned her head this way and that. She was in a cave of perhaps thirty feet square which had presumably been hollowed out by the tides of many millions of years. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the walls glistened and oozed with festoons of clinging seaweed. Underfoot, rippled paths of wet sand wound in and out among dark rock pools. The air was damp and chill.

Sure that she had found the right place, Barbara started forward into the cave and began to explore it carefully. She walked slowly around it, shining her torch on any recess that might be the entrance to the tunnel, or any large patch of seaweed that might possibly conceal an opening. After three circuits of the place, however, by which time she had in desperation begun pulling aside smaller and smaller patches of seaweed that could not possibly hide anything, she was forced to concede that there was no tunnel here. The thought rather cheered her, since it meant that the discovery was still all her very own to make without any interference from Swiss scientists, and she emerged into the sunshine undaunted and as determined as ever.

She proceeded along the bottom of the cliff, examining the face carefully but finding nothing—although she noted that the tide had advanced surprisingly far while she had been inside the cave. She had now reached the very furthest extremity of the Poldarrow Point headland without finding the smugglers’ tunnel, and there seemed to be nowhere else to look: any farther on and she would be past the headland and into the other side of Tregarn Bay proper.

‘Where on earth can it be?’ she said to herself. ‘I’ve searched every inch of this cove, it seems, but I haven’t found anything. Could that cave be the entrance after
all? Perhaps the tunnel has been blocked by a rock-fall, or something. Or perhaps it’s back there, where the path comes out onto the beach.’

She clambered up to sit on a large, flat outcrop at the base of the cliff and gazed back in the direction she had come, searching for any signs she might have missed, but saw nothing that looked a likely prospect. She sighed and began to spin around idly on her seat, debating whether or not to leave the search for today and come back tomorrow, as the tide was approaching rapidly now. It would be lunch-time soon, too, and Barbara realized that she was hungry. Then she remembered that Cook had promised to bake some more scones, and that decided it. She was going back.

She spun herself round one more time—too violently, for she lost her balance and before she could regain it, fell off the rock and landed six feet below on the far side of it.

‘Oof!’ she said, and then, ‘Ow!’

She lay there for a moment or two to get her breath back, then sat up gingerly and rubbed her elbow. Nothing seemed to be broken. She was about to utter a word that would certainly be forbidden at school, when her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, for there it was—the entrance to the smugglers’ tunnel, as plain as the eye could see, right there before her. No wonder she had missed it: the slab of rock hid it completely from the beach, and except at very low tide, it was totally inaccessible. It was a low, wide opening in the rock which a quick inspection showed opened out into a little cave. Without bothering to stand up (it was too low to walk under in any case), Barbara scrambled inside and saw that she had at last found what she was looking for. She got to her feet. The ceiling of this cave was lower than the other one, and the floor made mostly of rock, but this one too was dripping and strewn with wet seaweed. Barbara glanced out through the entrance into the sunshine and saw that the sea was not twenty yards away. She briefly considered leaving her expedition until the next low tide, but then the gleam of the torch happened to fall on the tunnel entrance itself at the back of the cave, and her decision was made.

She crossed the slippery floor carefully and entered the passage, looking about her. Her heart beat in her chest as the tunnel dipped down steeply and then began to wind upwards, and she gripped her torch more firmly, thankful that she had remembered to bring it. After a hundred yards or so the damp passage emerged into a sort of chamber that was much drier. Barbara had a vague recollection of having once read a book about Cornish smugglers, and supposed that in the olden days, when customs men might turn up at any time or the tide take them by surprise, the men must have brought the smuggled booty to this place first of all. Afterwards, once
it had all been brought ashore safely, they would carry it up to the cellars of Poldarrow Point at their leisure.

The chamber was rather cold. Barbara could feel a draught of air on her skin, which was welcome after the stuffiness of the tunnel, and a faint light came from somewhere—or at least, the darkness was less impenetrable here. Barbara’s eyes gleamed as she spotted two old wooden barrels standing against the wall, and she went across to examine them. The first one was empty and the wood quite rotten: it fell to pieces when she touched it, and she started as a large spider ran out and attempted to climb up her arm. She brushed it off hurriedly and pointed the torch at what remained of the barrel. It was quite empty. The second cask was made of stronger stuff, being bound with metal rather than wooden hoops. It was impossible to get into, so Barbara ended by tipping it up and rattling it about in order to find out whether it contained anything, but it, too, was empty. She did not really expect to find a priceless necklace inside an old wine cask, but told herself that a true detective should leave no stone unturned.

There was nothing else to see in the chamber, so Barbara continued on through the tunnel. The path had become much steeper now, and she panted as she pressed on eagerly. Surely she must be close to the house by now. At last she came to a fork. One branch led straight on, while the other doubled back and curved sharply out of sight a short distance ahead. Supposing that the first path led to the house, Barbara decided to see where the second one went, but was brought up short after about thirty yards by a rock-fall that blocked her way. She returned the way she had come and, shortly afterwards, arrived at the bottom of the shaft that led up to the trap-door into the cellar of Poldarrow Point. She recognized the metal rungs down which she had climbed herself only the day before.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have found the tunnel, at any rate, although there’s no sign of any necklace. I suppose Preacher Dick must have taken it into the house—of course, he must have, since all his men knew about this tunnel and it wouldn’t have been safe to hide it here.’

At that moment it occurred to her that she had spent rather a long time wandering around in the dark, and that the tide was coming in rapidly. She turned and hurried back down the passage as fast as she could. The light from her torch had been growing weaker for some time, but she judged that it would last until she got outside. She passed rapidly through the barrel-chamber, as she called it in her mind, and into the bottom section of the tunnel. Then she stopped short and a chill ran through her. Ahead of her, the path dipped slightly and rose again, and into that depression a thin
stream of water was flowing. She ran forward and through the pool that had formed, then gave a whimper of dismay. The path sloped steeply downwards from here to the cave, and it was completely flooded and impassable. As she stood there, she felt a little rush of water that threatened to knock her off her feet and she retreated hurriedly. She had obviously been gone much longer than she thought, and the tide had come in and blocked her way out of the tunnel.

At that moment her torch gave out.

‘Bother,’ said Barbara.

Mrs. Marchmont sat on the terrace at Kittiwake Cottage, reading the anonymous letters and frowning to herself. At last she gave a sigh and threw them down upon the table.

‘It’s no use,’ she said to Marthe, who was picking up Barbara’s things from where she had strewn them all over the garden. ‘I am not Sherlock Holmes and never shall be.’

‘
Pardon,
madame
? Who?’

‘Sherlock Holmes. He is a great detective in a book. If he were here, he would take these letters and at once tell us who sent them, whether he is left- or right-handed, what he does for a living, and probably even what he had for supper last night.’

‘Pfft! That is easy,’ said Marthe in disdain, and picked up a letter. ‘One can see immediately that this was sent by a woman, and that she was left-handed.’

‘Really?’ said Angela in surprise. ‘How can you tell?’

Marthe shrugged.

‘Look at those loops. Only a woman would write so. A man would place the letters closer together.’ She lifted the paper to her nose and sniffed delicately. ‘Ah!
Shalimar
. I knew it!’

Even more astonished, Angela took the letter and sniffed at it herself. She detected the faintest of scents.

‘I can smell perfume,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t possibly have identified it. But how can you tell she is left-handed?’

‘Here, you see,’ said Marthe. She indicated one or two places where the ink was smeared. ‘Her hand went through the wet ink when it passed over what she had already written. She was probably writing with a pen to which she was not accustomed, otherwise she would not have made such a mistake.’

‘But whoever sent the letters was not accustomed to writing at all, to judge by the spelling, which is quite illiterate.’ Angela stopped and frowned. ‘But that can’t be right either. What would such a person be doing wearing expensive perfume?’

She looked at the letters again.

‘How silly of me not to notice,’ she said. ‘Of course, the writer is only pretending to be uneducated. Look—it’s all wrong. She spells “here” and “give” incorrectly, and yet she is perfectly capable of getting “nephew” and “earlier” right. And she spells “once” wrongly in one letter, and right in another. So, then, the letters were written
by a left-handed woman with a certain level of education and income, who was pretending to be illiterate, presumably in order to disguise her identity. Thank you, Marthe. I shall certainly come to you in future if I require any more deductions of this sort.’

Marthe preened.

‘But you haven’t told me what she had for supper last night,’ went on Angela slyly.

‘
Madame
,’ said Marthe, in the manner of one stating the obvious, ‘a woman who wears
Shalimar
does not eat supper.’

‘Ah, of course,’ said Angela.

Marthe went inside, leaving Angela smiling and shaking her head.

‘I wonder if Sherlock Holmes had a lady’s maid,’ she said to herself.

A few minutes later Marthe came back out and informed her that lunch was served.

‘Where is Barbara?’ asked Angela. ‘It’s not like her not to turn up to lunch. And I thought Cook was making scones today. Most odd.’

She sat down to her meal, expecting Barbara to come rushing in at any moment and throw herself down at the table with a perfunctory apology for her lateness, but to her surprise no Barbara appeared. Angela, forgetting about the tides, supposed that she had found the tunnel and was happily exploring it, in hopes of finding the necklace.

The thought of the necklace reminded Angela of her conversation with George Simpson that morning, and she wondered whether she perhaps ought to accompany Barbara to Miss Trout’s the next day. She did not relish the thought of spending another afternoon in that musty old house, but she had promised Simpson that she would keep an eye on things, and she could hardly do that from a distance.

‘What if Barbara finds the necklace?’ she said to herself. ‘Can the three of them between them be trusted to have the sense to put it somewhere absolutely safe? A bank would be the best place, naturally—at least until we can hand it over to the police. Perhaps I ought to go too, so I can persuade them if necessary.’

Having made this resolution, Angela decided to go out for a little while to walk off her lunch, which had been a hearty one (the sea air certainly gave one a healthy appetite). She had one or two things she needed to buy, and so she headed back into Tregarrion, where a number of general stores supplying all kinds of goods had sprung up in recent years, in response to the arrival of the tourists.

She completed her purchases and emerged into the street, where she immediately
bumped into a man who had not been looking where he was going. It was Clifford Maynard. He began to apologize profusely, and then saw who she was.

‘Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Marchmont,’ he said. ‘Do forgive me. I was wandering along in a day-dream. I am quite prone to it, I’m afraid, and Aunt Emily often laughs at me for my inattention. I do hope you’re not hurt?’

Angela reassured him that there was no harm done, and asked after his aunt.

‘Oh, she is well, very well,’ he replied. ‘She is very much looking forward to seeing young Barbara tomorrow. Old people are very fond of the company of the young, I find. It reminds them of their own childish days. You won’t let her forget, now, will you?’

‘I’m sure Barbara is looking forward to it very much,’ said Angela. ‘As a matter of fact, I was wondering whether your aunt would mind if I came with her. I have never taken part in a treasure-hunt, and I must confess that it sounds rather entertaining. And you know, many hands are supposed to make light work.’

‘Why, we should both be delighted to see you again,’ said Mr. Maynard jovially. His manner suddenly changed, and became confidential. ‘By the way, Mrs. Marchmont,’ he said in a low voice, ‘there was something I wanted to speak to you about.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. Let us go over here.’ He took hold of Angela’s elbow in a proprietary manner and led her out of the way of the crowds. Angela raised her eyebrows slightly but allowed herself to be conducted across the street without fuss. He stopped next to the window of a shop which appeared to specialize in selling waterproof clothing. It was closed, and a hand-written sign hanging on the door read, ‘Back Next Week.’

‘I feel I ought to apologize for yesterday,’ began Mr. Maynard without further ado. ‘I fear that my aunt has imposed upon you, rather.’

‘Because of the necklace?’ said Angela. ‘Please, don’t give it a moment’s thought. Barbara is terribly excited to be allowed to join a real treasure-hunt, and I confess it pleases me that she has something to occupy her time. It must be dull for her here, with no other children to play with.’

‘I didn’t mean that, exactly,’ he said. He lowered his voice still further. ‘My aunt is very old, Mrs. Marchmont, and I fear that she may be getting—how can I put it?—a little bit vague in her mind.’

‘I see,’ said Angela. ‘Do you mean she is losing her memory?’

‘Partly,’ he said. ‘But it’s not only that. Much as it pains me to say it, I am afraid her imagination has also begun to run away with her, although she denies it, of
course.’

‘I don’t quite understand. What do you mean, exactly?’

‘I mean that she has begun to tell some rather tall stories. They are not lies as such, because I am fairly sure that she believes them implicitly herself, but I have caught her out on several occasions recently. For example, only a week or so ago, while we were wondering what to do about this problem with the lease, the conversation turned to our family history, as you might expect. I was saying what a pity it was that the Trouts had been so poor as to need to sell the freehold of Poldarrow Point, and she said something like, “Ah, yes, but of course, throughout history the illegitimate descendants of royalty have always been treated unfairly.” Naturally, I had no idea what she was talking about, and when I asked her what she meant, she said, “Don’t be silly, Clifford—of course you know that Preacher Dick was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Gloucester, who was the brother of George the Third.” This was quite a surprise to me, and I asked her if she was quite certain of it, and she said, “But I thought everybody knew. The Duke had a secret mistress here in Cornwall, who lived here in Tregarrion and gave birth to a son, Richard—our ancestor. But the Duke did not do right by the poor woman, and denied that the child was his. She eventually married a man named Warrener and the boy took his name.”’

‘It is certainly an extraordinary story,’ said Angela. ‘Are you sure it is not true?’

‘Of course it’s not true,’ said Mr. Maynard impatiently. ‘Why, our family history is perfectly well documented locally, and there is no record of the Duke of Gloucester’s ever having even visited Tregarrion, much less taken a mistress here. It was all in her imagination—a fact proved a day or two later when I mentioned the story again and she denied ever having said such a thing—seemed astonished, in fact, and accused me of making up silly stories.’

‘Dear me,’ said Angela.

‘Indeed, I was most dismayed,’ he said, ‘but that is merely the most striking example of what I have been saying. There have been other, minor incidents which are not worth relating, but which all seem to point to one inescapable conclusion: that Aunt Emily is no longer as sound in her mind as she used to be. Most of the time she is as sane and sensible as she ever was, but I fear these episodes will become increasingly frequent as she gets older.’

‘Poor Miss Trout,’ said Angela. ‘Do you believe, then, that she invented the story of the necklace?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ he said. ‘That’s true enough—or at least, the legend certainly exists. Whether there is a necklace, and whether it is in the house, I cannot presume to say.
And everything she has said about Preacher Dick and his smuggling activities is also true. No, I was referring to this story of hers about the anonymous letters. I am afraid it is all nonsense.’

Angela remembered Mr. Maynard’s admonishment to his aunt when she had embarked upon her tale.

‘Do you think she made it up?’ she said. ‘Then who wrote the letters? Are you suggesting that she wrote them herself?’

He looked distressed.

‘That’s just it, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I can’t think of any reason why someone should want her to leave Poldarrow Point. Why, our family have lived here for generations. There’s simply no sense to it. And since I have caught her out on other occasions—well, you may imagine how difficult it is for me to say such things about my own dear Aunt Emily, who is almost the only relation I have, but I hardly know what to think, except that old people do, sadly, sometimes become a little confused.’

Angela did not reply for a second. Clifford Maynard was, of course, unaware that the police believed the letters came from a dangerous criminal, but were the police right? Marthe was certain that they had been written by a woman, and Angela had great faith in Marthe’s intelligence and perspicacity. Perhaps Edgar Valencourt had a female accomplice—Inspector Simpson had mentioned that he had been known to work with other people. Perhaps he was even married. Or, as Clifford had said, perhaps the letters had been written by a confused and lonely old lady who would resort to any stratagem in order to ensure that her visitors kept coming back.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked at last.

Mr. Maynard looked relieved.

‘Why, whatever you think best,’ he said. ‘I had to tell you of this, as I should hate you to waste your time in investigating something that I am certain is the product of her lively imagination, but I will leave the course of action to you—although I am sure you will be kind enough not to let my aunt know that you suspect her of anything.’

‘Of course,’ said Angela. ‘Perhaps I shall make a show of looking into it, for her sake.’

‘That is very good of you,’ he said with a smile, ‘and now I’m afraid I must rush off, as I only came out to get Aunt her medicine. We shall see you later.’

He nodded briskly then went away, and Angela walked slowly home. Barbara had not returned, and Angela was puzzled. She went down to the garden gate and
looked right and left, but there was no sign of the girl.

‘Hallo, Mrs. Marchmont,’ said Helen Walters, who was just then coming out of her own gate. ‘Are you looking for someone?’

‘Yes,’ said Angela. ‘I seem to have lost Barbara. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her today? She did not come home for lunch, and that is most unusual, as I am sure you can imagine.’

‘I saw her this morning, down on the beach,’ said Helen, ‘but I left before she did. She was poking about among the rocks. I thought she was looking for crabs, or something. But the tide is quite high now, so she must have left the beach some time ago.’

Angela frowned. She had warned Barbara against the tides herself, so there was no excuse for her staying down there too long. She could only suppose that the girl had gone off somewhere else—perhaps into Tregarrion—for reasons of her own. She was bound to be back in time for tea, though.

Angela called for Marthe to bring her some coffee and sat down with her book, but did not read. Instead, she watched the seagulls as they made patterns in the air above her, finding a sort of music in their harsh cries. The wind was still strong, but here in the garden it was sheltered and warm. Evidently she was not the only one to find the situation agreeable: after a few minutes, the cat came and jumped onto her lap, and she scratched its chin absently. It purred and kneaded her skirt, then settled down for a nap. Angela sipped her coffee and leaned back more comfortably in her chair, taking care not to disturb her guest. Jewel-thieves and unruly children notwithstanding, she was having a most pleasant time of it.