To Perish in Penzance (16 page)

“What?”

“Nothing earth-shattering. Just—extremely disappointing. Look, I need some food, and so do you. Let's face this at breakfast.”

I held my tongue until we had a meal in front of us. “All right, I can't stand it anymore.”

“The case is being set aside.”

“
What
?”

He nodded gloomily, ate some toast, and continued. “They've completed the autopsy. Lexa died of PMA, as I suspected. But there were no signs of violence on her body at all, Dorothy. No indication that she was taken to the cave by force. No indications of anyone's presence in the cave except hers and ours.”

“But, Alan! Somebody had to have given her the drug! I tell you, she would never have taken it herself.”

“I believe you, Dorothy. I think Superintendent Cardinnis is inclined to the same way of thinking. But he has no evidence of murder. A policeman has to rely on evidence, especially when he has a lot of other cases on his plate and his superiors have told him to concentrate on those.”

“What cases?” I asked indignantly. “What's more important than Lexa's murder?”

“There was a big bank robbery last night. Barclay's in Market Jew Street. Several hundred thousand pounds.
And
—” He held up a finger as I opened my mouth to speak. “And—John Boleigh's granddaughter has gone missing.”

That flattened me. “Oh. And a missing child takes first priority.”

“Particularly the missing granddaughter of a wealthy, influential citizen.”

“Yes.” I pushed my plate away. Food had lost its appeal.

Alan pushed it back in front of me. “Eat.”

“I don't
want
to eat. I'm depressed. Why are you always trying to make me eat something?”

“Because we have work to do, and need our strength.” He piled his fork full of egg, bacon, and a triangle of fried bread, in that odd way of eating the English have, and conveyed it to his mouth. “Colin can't do much more with Lexa's case, at least not just now. That leaves it in our laps, doesn't it?”

I looked at him, mingled love and exasperation no doubt showing plainly on my mobile face. “Do you suppose I'll ever be able to get one jump ahead of you? Just when I think I've figured out what you're going to say or do next, you come up with a reaction I don't expect.”

“Good. A little mystery never hurt a marriage. Now finish that breakfast. We need, among other things, to call on the Reverend Mr. Polwhistle, and what better place to find him than at church on Sunday morning?”

As soon as we got back to the room, we looked up the schedule of services at St. Martha's and walked over just in time for Matins. The bells were coming back into rounds as we walked in the front door.

In Sherebury we always go to a communion service, but then Sherebury Cathedral is very High Church. Alan had explained to me that Cornwall was evangelical country, with the Anglican churches far outnumbered by other denominations, so a more Protestant feeling prevailed at St. Martha's. It was an attractive church, and the choir was good, but I missed the more formal liturgy of the cathedral.

It seemed appropriate, though, that the sermon dealt with Satan and the other dark angels. I concentrated rather closely on the rector's words, for it had suddenly occurred to me that he was an important person in Penzance. He could know a lot about the drug scene, could even give us some ideas, perhaps.

I was less sanguine about that possibility a few minutes into his discourse. The Reverend Mr. Polwhistle had a tendency to rant a bit. Maybe he'd caught it from his evangelical colleagues. At any rate, I thought I could discern, in his remarks, somewhat more interest in the devils of this world than was quite healthy.

Ah, well, many people from Milton on down have found Satan rather an attractive figure. Charming fellow, just a trifle misguided. Mr. Polwhistle didn't take quite that tack. He painted the devil in the blackest possible terms, but he lingered lovingly over descriptions of his wicked nature in a way that made me shiver.

When the service was over, I toyed with the idea of merging with the crowd and slipping out, so as to avoid shaking the rector's hand at the front door, but Alan headed quite purposefully to the line of parishioners making their conventional greetings and I had little choice but to follow.

“Fine sermon, Rector,” Alan said as we reached the head of the line.

“Ah, yes, you of all people would understand the works of the devil in the world.”

Well, I hoped that was meant as a reference to Alan's former line of work, not his character.

Mr. Polwhistle kept his grip on Alan's hand and became very earnest. “He's abroad here in Penzance! We must seek out his servants and destroy them, before they destroy us!”

“Yes, indeed,” murmured Alan, and managed to free himself. “Keep up the good work, sir.”

And at last we were able to get ourselves down the steps and into the pleasant garden at the front of the church.

“Is he quite all there, do you think?” I asked when we were well away.

“You may well ask! I don't remember quite so much hellfire in his sermons thirty-odd years ago. It's true he was only the curate then, and I suppose more or less under Mr. Trelawney's thumb.”

“Well, he certainly seemed to be teetering close to the edge today.”

“He's upset, of course. Careful, it's rather steep.”

I held tightly to the railing of the steps leading down from St. Martha's churchyard to the street below. “I should say he's upset! And that's odd, in a way. I suppose he's fretting over a murder in his community, but how would he know it
is
a murder? We think it is, because we know of the connection to Lexa's mother's death, but I wouldn't think the police have publicized that aspect.”

Alan considered carefully before he answered, half a block later. “Well, there are two possibilities. Offhand, I'd say he's the sort of chap to look on the darkest side of anything, and to leap to conclusions. A woman has died. Another woman died in exactly the same spot, many years ago. The rector would remember that, of course, and would remember that there were drugs involved then, because the newspapers made much of it at the time, along with a good deal of moaning about moral degeneration and the like. Meat and drink to the Polwhistles of this world. Given his preoccupation with drugs now, he'd be likely to assume that drugs were involved in this death, as well. Poor chap! I wonder if there's some personal tragedy behind his crusade?”

“Any sensible person deplores illegal drugs, Alan,” I reminded him rather primly.

“You won't get a policeman to argue with you about that. Still, you and I don't go about preaching on the subject and invoking the name of the devil. All right, all right, we're not preachers by trade. I know.”

“You said,” I reminded him almost unwillingly, “that there might be two possibilities. Reasons he'd think Lexa's death was murder.”

“Yes.”

He looked at me. I nodded grimly. “I hoped that wasn't what you meant. He's certainly an important figure in Penzance, isn't he? And old enough to be the man at the rave club. If religious mania predisposes a man to murder—oh, mercy, Alan! I just thought of something else! Suppose a
clergyman
had an illegitimate child. Suppose drugs were involved. Suppose, thirty-odd years later, after he'd thought he'd covered it all up successfully and was safe from exposure, the child came to town, a conservative, evangelical town like Penzance …”

I stopped and looked at him suspiciously. “Had you already thought of all this? Is that why you stayed to talk to him?”

“You know my methods, Watson,” said Alan lightly. “Really, you know, I think it's most unlikely. A possibility, but unlikely.”

“You said there might be a personal tragedy behind his attitudes.”

“I did. But the tragedy might well be growing up in a household with no sense of humor about religion.”

He tilted his head to one side and looked at me consideringly. “Look, how would you feel if I suggested we take the rest of the day off? I have the feeling we've got to the stage of seeing bogeymen around every corner. We need a little perspective, especially if we have to go to that blasted rave club tonight.”

“The rave club! But you said—”

“That was before the police parked the case. I think someone needs to talk to those people, and the sooner the better. We're a poor pair to do it, but better poor than none. We'll work out an approach. I leave that to you. I can occasionally invent a good lie, but you're the true virtuoso in that department. Now, what about an afternoon in Mousehole? The place will be crawling with tourists, of course, but it'll be a splendid antidote to the dubious Mr. Polwhistle.”

“All right, you talked me into it. Should we wait until after lunch, or will there be someplace to eat there?”

“My dear, there are enough Cornish pasties in Mousehole to sink a battleship.”

“Then let's go!”

W
E
stopped at the hotel and changed our church clothes for something more suitable. I looked in on Eleanor for a minute, but she was asleep and looked comfortable. With a clear conscience, then, I slathered sunscreen over exposed skin, clapped on a sensible wide-brimmed straw hat, and we set out.

Alan, on the way through Newlyn, detoured to show me his old house. “Just a fisherman's cottage.”

It was attractive, though small, a solid structure of stuccoed stone painted a dazzling white, with window boxes and a bright-blue front door. Someday I would ask Alan how a Cornish girl happened to meet a Kentish hop farmer, but not now. Now I wanted to reconnect with the comfortable present.

“I think this is as near as we're likely to get,” he said a few minutes later, pulling up to the curb and parking opposite a row of houses. He pointed to the sign saying “Mousehole.” “It's a fair walk from here, but in a few yards there are steps down to the beach, where it'll be a bit cooler.”

The concrete stairs were broad and well maintained, with a firm steel-pipe handrail. They weren't steep, either. I made it down with no more than a mild twinge or two from my knees.

“They look after tourists well in these parts.”

“They know on which side their bread is buttered.” Alan gestured ahead to the beach, which, sure enough, was full of activity. Families with small children waded in an inch or two of water at the edge of the sand, the toddlers squealing every time a wave broke over their toes. Two or three older children were building an elaborate sand castle, which necessitated endless trips to fetch water in plastic buckets.

I smiled at Alan. “They were tin when I was a little girl, the buckets, I mean. Sturdier for hauling water and wet sand. But I wasn't as good an architect as that crew.”

“I thought you said you never saw the sea as a child.”

“I didn't, but my parents had friends with a cottage on Lake Michigan. We'd go up there every summer for a week or so, and I adored it. It's so big it's basically an inland sea, except that the water's fresh. And it has huge sand dunes in some places. There was one called Tower Hill—goodness, I wonder if it's there still. Sands shift around so. Anyway, the thing to do was to climb up to the top, which is no mean trick in soft sand that slides out from under every step. Then, when you got to the top, you tucked yourself into a ball and rolled down, screaming all the way. Such fun!”

I saw on Alan's face the same look I'd felt on my own at Newlyn: regret for a past we hadn't shared and could never really communicate.

I tucked my hand under his arm, sighed, and then grinned. He quirked one eyebrow and grinned back. No use regretting what couldn't be helped.

If the beach had seemed crowded, Mousehole proper, when we reached it, was packed. I was beginning to think about lunch, so we found the nearest pasty shop, stood in line, and came away with two huge half-moon-shaped pies, hot and smelling wonderful, and a couple of soft drinks.

“Here, quick,” said Alan, sprinting for a low wall overlooking the tiny harbor. Two women had just vacated their seats on the crowded wall; Alan seized the places for us.

We settled there in the sun, our legs dangling over the far edge, where the wall stretched ten or twelve feet down to the sands. Deserted by the tide, the harbor lay half empty of water; fishing boats painted in bright colors lay canted over forlornly, waiting for water to float them again. Dotted here and there, both on the sands and up on our level, were easels. Artists sat capturing the scene in oils or watercolor, oblivious to the curious stares of passersby. Tourists moved purposefully in and out of souvenir shops or stood, cameras raised, recording the day in their own more mechanical way. And everywhere the gulls strutted and swooped, raucously begging crumbs.

I took a bite of my pasty. It was incredibly good, like a sort of gravyless stew wrapped in flaky pastry. “Mmmm! I've had pasties before, but not like this. What's in them?”

“Beef, in these, though mutton's traditional. And the usual potatoes, turnips, onions. You can get all sorts now—chicken and broccoli, bacon and Stilton—anything. Your true Cornishman despises the modern versions. Won't even allow carrot in them, though women seem to like it.”

“Well, I'm not Cornish, and I think they all sound delicious. I suppose the pastry's made with lard.”

“What else?”

“What else, indeed?” I kept thoughts of cholesterol to myself. We eat sensibly most of the time; holidays are for breaking out of the mold. I resolved, though, to find a recipe for pasties and see if I couldn't modify it to be somewhat less lethal.

“We should come here at Christmas sometime and have some star-gazy pie.”

“What on earth is that?”

So we sat there in the sun on the harbor wall and finished our pasties, and Alan told me the legend of the Mousehole cat and the great storm.