Death on the Lizard

Table of Contents

 

 

Death at Blenheim Palace

“Paige continues to provide some of the best historical mysteries.
—The Best Reviews

 
Death in Hyde Park

“For those who take their mysteries with dashes of period drama,
Death in Hyde Park
should be on their list of must reads.” —
BooksReviewIndex.com

 
Death at Glamis Castle

“Gypsy prophecies, sing-a-longs at the pub, a possible ghost or two: There's something for everyone. And if you don't fall in love with Glamis Castle, you haven't a wee dram o' romance in your soul.”
—Kirkus Reviews

 
Death at Dartmoor

“A fantasia on themes from
The Hound of the Baskervilles
whose focus on the Sheridans shows an altogether more lighthearted side of the moors than Doyle ever revealed.”

 
Death at Epsom Downs

“Enough danger and intrigue to keep readers turning the pages, which are filled with vivid historical detail.”

More praise for Robin Paige's Mysteries

“If you like mysteries with real characters and historical settings, you will enjoy this series.”
—The Stuart (FL) News

 
“I read it with enjoyment . . . I found myself burning for the injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.” —Anne Perry, author of
Dark Assassin

 
“Wonderfully gothic . . . A bright and lively re-creation of late-Victorian society.”

—Sharan Newman, author of
Heresy

 
“An original and intelligent sleuth . . . a vivid re-creation of Victorian England.”

—
Jean Hager, author of
Blooming Murder

 
“Robin Paige's detectives do for turn-of-the-century technology and detection what Elizabeth Peter's Peabody and Emerson have done for Victorian Egyptology.”

DEATH AT BISHOP'S KEEP
DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN
DEATH AT DAISY'S FOLLY
DEATH AT DEVIL'S BRIDGE
DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN
DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL
DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS
DEATH AT DARTMOOR
DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE
DEATH IN HYDE PARK
DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE
DEATH ON THE LIZARD

 
China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

THYME OF DEATH
WITCHES' BANE
HANGMAN'S ROOT
ROSEMARY REMEMBERED
RUEFUL DEATH
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
CHILE DEATH
LAVENDER LIES

MISTLETOE MAN
BLOODROOT
INDIGO DYING
AN UNTHYMELY DEATH
A DILLY OF A DEATH
DEAD MAN'S BONES
BLEEDING HEARTS
SPANISH DAGGER

CHINA BAYLES' BOOK OF DAYS

 
Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM
THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW
THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

 
Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert

WRITING FROM LIFE
WORK OF HER OWN

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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South Africa

 
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 
DEATH ON THE LIZARD

 
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors

 
Copyright © 2006 by Susan Wittig Albert and Bill Albert.

 
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors' rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-0-425-21039-0

 
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design
are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Charles, Lord Sheridan,
Baron Somersworth, amateur forensic detective and wireless enthusiast

Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan,
Baroness Somersworth, author (under the pen name Beryl Bardwell) of numerous novels

*Guglielmo Marconi,
Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company

Bradford Marsden,
director, Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company

Miss Patsy Marsden,
photographer, world traveler, and lecturer; sister to Bradford Marsden

*John Nevil Maskelyne,
well-known magician and amateur wireless inventor

 
Residents and Visitors: Mullion, Poldhu, Bass Point, and the West Lizard

Miss Pauline Chase,
friend of Mr. Marconi

Tom Deane,
constable, Mullion Village, Helston Bureau, Devon-Cornwall Constabulary

Daniel Gerard,
chief assistant, Poldhu Wireless Station

Dick Corey,
second assistant, Poldhu Wireless Station

Jack Gordon,
operator, Bass Point Wireless Station

Edward Worster,
operator, Bass Point Wireless Station

Bryan Fisher,
American golf enthusiast

Major Robert Fitz-Bascombe,
secretary, Lizard Peninsula Preservation Committee

 
Mrs. Claudia Fitz-Bascombe,
member, Lizard Peninsula Preservation Committee

 
Miss Agatha Truebody,
member, Lizard Peninsula Preservation Committee

 
Residents and Visitors: Penhallow, Helford Village, and the East Lizard

Lady Jenna Tyrrill Loveday,
mistress of Penhallow

Harriet Loveday,
deceased child of Lady Loveday

¹
Sir Oliver Lodge,
physicist and physic investigator

Niels Andersson,
sailor and adventurer

Alice,
Harriet's friend

Andrew Kirk-Smythe,
major, Military Intelligence; a.k.a John Northrup

Dedicated to all the wireless operators in our family:
Charles P. Albert, Robert R. Wittig,
Robert L. Wittig, Robert K. Wittig, and Michael Wittig

PROLOGUE

 
 
 
 
 
They came through the blustery night carrying lanterns, the men of the wide Lizard downs. They came to the Drowned Boy from the farms scattered across the moor like peas spilled across a barn floor, and from Church Cove, and from the coastguard station. They came from up Chapel Lane and down Housel Bay and across Gwendreath Quarry. They walked, most of them, or clattered into the cobbled pub yard on shaggy ponies, or in wagons and carts. They were men who made their living with their hands—farmers and shepherds and miners and fishermen and stone turners. For the rich and idle tourists who came from Europe and America to play golf and bask in the beauties of nature were gathered at the hotel on Housel Bay, eating the crab and lobster brought in by the local fishermen and drinking fine wines and champagne and seducing one another's wives.

More of these wealthy tourists were coming all the time, for nature had been generous in the variety of her beauties on the high plateau of the Lizard. To the west, magnificent cliffs stood like a bulwark against the brutal gales of the Atlantic, and wide beaches of sand gleamed like gold at low tide. To the east, toward the Helford River, the sheltered countryside was divided into irregular fields bounded by Cornish hedges and woodlands, the landscape brightly colored with exotic subtropical plants, the sky like blue silk. To the north of the village, across the center of the Lizard, ranged the bleak heathland and peat bogs of Goonhilly Down, pocked with Bronze Age barrows and hill forts and home to many rare species of plants and animals and birds. To the south flowed the waters of the Channel, guarded since the early 1600s by Lizard Light. And on the cliff above the Channel, the village was a picturesque cluster of thatched and whitewashed cottages arranged around a handsome green, their doors open to the sea air, their window ledges and tiny gardens bright with summer flowers.