Death on the Lizard (12 page)

“I thought that likely,” Charles said dryly. “Can you tell me what sorts of objections have been raised against them?”

“The usual sort,” the constable said, sipping his tea. “They don't hire local people, except for construction work. And when they're transmitting, their apparatus makes an ungodly racket. The discharge sounds like volleys of gunfire, and if you know Morse code, you can decipher the message by listening to the dots and dashes.” He grinned crookedly. “And it seems they can't transmit to America during the daytime, when folks are awake and going about their business. It's got to be at night, when everybody'd like to get their sleep. Something to do with the ether, apparently.”

“I can see,” Charles said, “why some might object.”

The constable put down his cup, took a cigarette from a crumpled pack of Players, and lit it. “And, of course, there are some who worry about these mysterious waves Marconi is generating—electromagnetic waves, or whatever they're called. People can't see them, can't hear them, can't feel them, but they've been told they're there, flying through the air. Some folk have the idea that they're a kind of secret weapon. Some are afraid they're harming the animals and birds—there's quite a lot of rare fauna on the Lizard, and people worry.” He pulled on his cigarette. “Might even harm humans, for all anybody knows.” His glance fell on the terrier. “And dogs. Mike, here, runs to hide when they start transmitting. Worse than thunder, far as he's concerned.”

Charles studied the constable. He had the feeling that Deane was the sort of even-handed, conscientious peace officer who would know every inhabitant of his district by name and be respected by all. No doubt the Lizard folk kept him informed about what was going on in the far-flung corners of his district—although, of course, it was not that large. Only four miles up to Helston, and seven over to the Helford River, and six down to Lizard Point. Small enough to be wholly known, even the out-of-the-way nooks and crannies.

“I wonder,” he said, “whether you've noticed many strangers hanging about lately.”

“It's summer,” Deane replied with a shrug, “and there are the usual tourists and trippers. And the ferrets, of course.”

“Ferrets?”

“People from the newspapers, y'know, from the cable telegraph companies, even a few wireless inventors. They come to find out what Marconi is doing out here, and they don't care who they annoy.” He raised an interrogative eyebrow. “Why, just yesterday, somebody drove through the village in a motor car.”

Charles drained his cup and set it down. “I've parked it,” he said with a grin.

Deane nodded. “That's wise. A pony cart will get you less notice.” He paused. “You think it wasn't an accident, eh? Gerard's electrocution, I mean.”

“I prefer to keep an open mind on the subject,” Charles replied, “for the time being, at least.” He pulled on his pipe. “Are any of these ferrets on the Lizard at the moment? Present company excepted, of course.”

The constable considered. “Some of them aren't the Lizard at all, properly speaking. There's an aerial across Mount's Bay, where the cable comes in from India. It's said to've been built by the Eastern Telegraph Company, to spy on Marconi, but it may have other purposes. For all I know, they may be sending wireless messages themselves.”

“Ah,” Charles said. Yes, of course. The eastern cable came in at Porthcurno. The cable companies themselves must have a great deal of interest in the goings-on at the Marconi station. They would naturally feel threatened by the recent successes of wireless. “And ferrets on the Lizard?”

“You might have a look-in at the Housel Bay Hotel, down at Lizard Point. A man there says he's come all the way from America to play golf, although he's spending most of his time nosing about the village. And I've been told of a man calling himself a bird-watcher, lounging with his field glasses in places where there aren't many birds worth watching. He keeps over on the east side of the Lizard, though.” Deane paused, reflecting. “And a foreign sort of chap with a sailing yacht who comes and goes between Mullion Cove and the Helford River. I've seen him in the pubs here.”

“And that's the lot?”

“That's the lot, so far as I'm aware.”

Charles stood. “I'm at the Poldhu Hotel. I'd appreciate it if you'd get in touch if there's anything you think I should know.”

The constable nodded. “And if there's any more word of that Royal visit . . .”

“Right,” Charles said. “I'll do my best to see that you're kept informed.” He went to the door. “I'll see you at the inquest.”

CHAPTER TEN

 
 
 
Alice lived with her grandmother, who was a laundress, in a small thatched cottage on the Penhallow estate, not far from the manor house itself. She was old enough now to help with the chores around the cottage—sweeping the floor, feeding the chickens, tending the cottage garden, and every morning, milking the cow which she and her grandmother shared with the head gardener's family, who lived nearby. During the school term, Alice went to school to Miss Stewart in Helford Village, walking the little distance, only a mile or so, with Harriet and the gardener's youngest boy, or riding in the pony cart if Mr. Snood had an errand in that direction. After school, there might be a few chores to do in the cottage, but most afternoons she was free to play games with Harriet or to roam in the woods, or the two of them read out loud from Harriet's books until it was teatime. Now it was summer, and there was more time for games and roaming through the woods. But Harriet was dead, and Alice was left, alone and lonely, to her own imaginative dreams and devices.

Earlier that morning, she had been a pirate's lookout and Jim Hawkins; now, an hour or so later, she was Tom the grimy little chimney sweep, from
The Water Babies,
playing leapfrog over the posts (as Tom did before he became a water baby) because she had decided that she could not climb the fireplace flue (as Tom did when he was still a sweep) without knocking soot onto the fender and tracking it all over the floor and making her grandmother very angry. Alice was leapfrogging down the lane when she happened to turn and look behind her and saw, coming in her direction, one of the ladies who had come to the churchyard that morning with Harriet's mother. She was the tall lady with the auburn hair, who wore a green shawl and carried herself like a queen. She was holding a letter in her hand, and Alice deduced—a word she had recently learned—that she was on her way to the post office in Helford.

“Oh, m'lady,” Alice said eagerly, abandoning her leapfrogging and running out into the lane, “I'll take your letter to the post, if you'd like!” Tom the sweep ran errands for people, and occasionally earned sixpence.

“Would you?” the lady asked, looking down at her with a smile. “I'm sure you could do that, and do it very well. I would rather have the walk, though—it's such a lovely morning.” She paused. “Do you think you might come along and show me the way? I'm a stranger here, you see, and all the lanes do look rather alike. Perhaps we might find a tea-shop in the village, when we get there, and have something to tide us over until lunch.”

Alice nodded, forgetting that she was Tom the chimney sweep and much too dirty to go anywhere in polite company. “That would be Mrs. Skewe's tea-shop,” she said authoritatively. “Mrs. Skewe makes splendid apple muffins.”

“Apple muffins are
exactly
what I had in mind.” The lady smiled again, and put out her hand. “I am Lady Sheridan Sheridan. What is your name?”

“Alice,” Alice said, shaking the lady's hand and wondering if she should curtsey, too. But Tom wouldn't have curtsied, so she didn't. “Come on, then. We can go by the lane if you'd rather, but I know a shorter way, across the creek and through the meadow.”

So it was that Kate Sheridan and the small girl—she must be nine or ten, Kate thought, with ginger-colored hair plaited in two thick braids, and ginger freckles plastered all over her plain face, and blue eyes which lit the narrow face with such a shining intelligence that its plainness was utterly transformed—went together through the meadow, and across Frenchman's Creek at a place where it became very narrow and shallow and could be crossed on flat, dry stones.

Alice, Kate decided, was the girl she had seen the afternoon before, watching from the woodland as Jenna went about her work on the terrace. She proved to be quite a remarkable child, for she knew the names of trees and flowers and plants, and pointed out spiders and lizards and birds as they went. And then, when they reached the lane (which had curled around in a great loop, and would indeed have taken them quite a distance out of their way), she pointed out the farmhouses and whitewashed cottages, and named the people who lived in them, until they were looking down from the brim of the hill at the village, which lay quiet and peaceful under the late-morning sun beside the wide Helford River, with boats pulled up on the shingle and men fishing along the shore, and not far to the south, the great, gray Channel.

In the village, Kate posted the letter she had written to Charles at the Poldhu Hotel, telling him about meeting Kirk-Smythe earlier that morning. And then she and Alice went along Orchard Lane (she took special notice of the Oysterman's Arms, where Andrew had said he was staying) and across a wooden footbridge to Mrs. Skewe's tea-shop, in the sitting room of a tiny cottage overlooking a garden full of roses and the river beyond, with just enough space for two tables and four chairs. She ordered two cups of tea and two muffins with strawberry jam, and she and Alice had a feast. And when they were finished, and Alice had licked all the strawberry jam off her fingers, Kate asked the girl if they could go to see the village school.

They walked around the schoolyard and peered through the windows into the empty schoolroom, where rows of wooden desks paraded in neat ranks in front of a chalk board. There was a piano in one corner of the room, and a shelf for books and supplies.

“This is where Harriet and I sit,” Alice said, pointing. Her mouth turned down at the corners and she corrected herself. “Sat, I mean. Before.”

“I see,” Kate said gently. “You were a friend of Harriet's, then?”

Alice nodded and jumped down from the window, scattering a flock of sparrows.

“I was sad to hear that she drowned,” Kate said. “Were you very good friends?”

“Sometimes.” Alice's voice was muffled. “Most of the time. She—”

She pushed her fists into the pockets of her pinafore and kicked at a stone, and her voice became flat and hard.

“But it doesn't matter, does it? She's dead, isn't she? It was . . . it was an
accident
.”

Accident
. Kate heard a world of pain and loss and denial in that word, and wondered at it. She remembered, as well, the sound of Jenna Loveday's voice that morning, remembered the mother's self-reproach: “I wish I knew what happened! What was she doing there? How did she die?” And she was pulled back to something so painful to think about that she had avoided it for over twenty years, not wanting to be reminded, not wanting to remember. But she had recalled it that morning, and she recalled it again now. Perhaps it was time.

“I had a friend who died once,” she said quietly. They left the schoolyard and started back up the winding lane toward the top of the hill. “I saw it happen. It was an accident, too.”

There was a silence. Alice darted a look at her, then reached over a fence and yanked the blossom off a daisy. “What sort of accident?”

“We were playing,” Kate said. “In a park. We weren't supposed to go there, because my friend's mother and my aunt thought it was dangerous. We were walking along the top of a stone wall.”

“What happened?”

“She slipped.” Kate was surprised at the sharpness of the pain, after so many years. “She fell in front of a trolley.”

Alice pulled a petal out of the daisy. “What did you do?”

“The trolley stopped. A policeman came right away, and lots of grown-ups. They were all taking care of her.”

Head tilted to one side, eyes narrowed, Alice regarded her. “But what did
you
do?”

It was, Kate thought, a question with remarkable moral force, a question she had lived with for almost two decades. “I did nothing.” She bit her lip, remembering the helpless horror which had shrieked inside her. “I thought there was nothing I could do. Except feel responsible. And afraid, and sad.”

“Well,” Alice said, in a comforting tone, “It wasn't your fault.” Another petal out of the daisy, another darting look. “That she fell, I mean. Unless you pushed her. You didn't, did you?”

“No. But it was because of me that she was there. Or at least, that's what I thought, then. Both of us liked the park, though—it was her idea as much as mine.” It had sounded like an excuse then. It still did.

A third petal, and a fourth. “But you didn't do anything to help her.”