Mr. Trewhella was an elderly Cornishman with a friendly manner and the sharp native wit of his people, but there was nothing sly about him. We liked each other from the moment we met.
He had three bedrooms and a large sitting room available. His wife had driven into St. Ives, and he assured me she was a good cook. Thumbwood could help with the household work and stay with the landlord and his wife. There was even an empty barn large enough to hold our car.
“And what would you be thinking of paying, zur?” Mr. Trewhella asked.
“I’ll leave that to you. I should tell you that the gentleman I’m preparing for his Oxford examination is a wealthy man. He’s a Japanese nobleman. As long as you can make us comfortable, I’m sure we shall come to an agreement.”
That had exactly the effect I wanted.
The landlord became much more talkative and showed me around his strange, sprawling old house. It was a wild and extraordinary place. He told me it had once been a haunt of smugglers and wreckers.
The backyard opened directly onto the short grass above the cliffs. The cliff edge was less than two hundred yards away. A stream ran past the inn and dropped in a series of little waterfalls into a tiny cove of deep green water. Two enormous cliffs rose on either side, their tops crowned with jagged rocks and sharp pinnacles.
Far below, a narrow curve of golden sand lay at the water’s edge.
It was a scene of savage beauty unlike anything I had seen in my travels.
As we stood looking down, I noticed something that seemed completely out of place.
A line of metal rails ran down the slope from a point about ten yards away. Wooden rollers had been placed between the rails at intervals. The track descended at a frightening angle and ended suddenly on level ground in front of a small corrugated-iron hut.
“What are those rails for?” I asked. “Surely you don’t haul the boats up there?”
I pointed to the two boats lying on the beach.
“They must be two hundred and fifty feet up!”
“Nigher three hundred, zur. No, they don’t haul the boats up. Them rails are for bringing machinery and stores up to Tregeraint Mine by Carne Zerran.”
“How do they get the machinery here?”
“They bring it by sea in a little steamboat. ‘Tis more convenient that way. There’s a small oil engine in that shed. It hauls the trucks up the rails.”
“And you own the land?”
“All of it down-along. I let the mining people use it, and they pay me ten pounds a year.”
We walked back toward the house, and Mr. Trewhella suggested that we have Cornish pasties and beer for lunch.
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “the gentleman who was staying here before us said he was a mining engineer.”
The landlord’s weather-beaten face broke into a broad grin. Then he began chuckling until he finally burst out laughing.
“Mr. Vargus!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Vargus! He thinks he’s a mining engineer, but he knows no more about it than my pig!”
“He certainly seems to know a lot about machinery.”
“That he does. I’ll give him that. He’s a clever gentleman and knows a thing or two about machines. But mining? Tin-mining?”
He shook his head with complete contempt.
“You see, I’m an old mine-captain myself. Born and bred to the business. Nobody’s going to fool me about a mine.”
He took another bite of his pasty.
“When I heard that some gentleman had come into Tregeraint Manor and taken over the old mine, saying he meant to work it, I laughed. I know every inch of Wheal Tregeraint. Fifty years ago it was a fine property.”
“And today?”
“Today those amateurs up there couldn’t get enough tin out of it to oxidize, let alone smelt.”
“Who are they, then, Mr. Trewhella?”
“That was exactly what everyone wanted to know when they first arrived. They came two or three at a time.”
“They’re gentlemen, zur. That’s what they are.”
“I see.”
“There’s Mr. Helzephron, a Cornishman himself, so you’d think he’d know better. Then there’s Mr. Vargus, as you’ve seen. Mr. Gascoigne, who’s a mad young devil if ever there was one. And nearly a dozen others.”
“They all live at Tregeraint?”
“They all live together in the big house on the cliff and work the mine themselves. Nobody else is allowed in. They cook their own food and look after themselves, just as though they were living in a mining camp in California.”
“No women? No servants?”
“Not an apron in the whole place.”
He laughed.
“My missus says they live like Popish monks. She saw monks when she travelled in Italy with a lady.”
“Do they really?”
“Not so, my tender dear,” I told her. “I never heard of Popish monks spending most of their evenings in the village inn with a bottle of Scotch whisky in front of every man, and almost all of it gone before closing time!”
“So they’re heavy drinkers?”
“Wonderful drinkers! And I’ll tell you something, zur. It’s good for business.”
He gave me a broad grin.
“Now that I’ve got used to them and their strange ways, I wish they’d stay forever.”
“From a business point of view, I suppose.”
“Exactly. But they’ll soon discover they’ve lost all their money and give the whole thing up.”
“You think so?”
“Of course. It isn’t reasonable to think they can carry on like that forever. They seem full of hope and confidence, but I know what’ll happen.”
He was clearly enjoying himself. I had shown just enough interest to encourage him, and he was giving me information worth far more than he could possibly imagine.
I wondered what he would have thought if he had known who I really was and why I had come there.
To him I was merely a quiet professor eating potato pasty.
Inside, I was burning with excitement.
Everything he had told me seemed to confirm our suspicions.
And yet, at the same time, I could see how brilliantly the whole scheme had been arranged.
Without the clue that Danjuro and I alone possessed, there was absolutely nothing to connect Helzephron and Tregeraint with the extraordinary events that had been disturbing two continents.
It would have been foolish to ask too many direct questions.
So I let Mr. Trewhella’s gossip continue naturally, adding an occasional remark to keep him talking.
I gave him one now.
“Fools and their money are soon parted.”
“You may say that, zur!”
He laughed.
“They’ve poured money into that place like water. Electric lights, all sorts of expensive new machinery, and they’ve made such a mystery of that silly old mine you’d think they had discovered a diamond seam.”
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, Mr. Trewhella.”
I rose from the table.
“But what you say about a dozen or more gentlemen drinking nearly a bottle of whisky each rather surprises me. I’m no enemy of honest enjoyment, but…”
I deliberately gave myself a slightly prim expression, appropriate to the character I was pretending to be.
The landlord nodded vigorously.
“’Tis so! And most unusual. They’re gentlemen, sure enough. But shall I tell you what I think?”
“What?”
“I think most of them have dropped out of ordinary life, so to speak.”
“How do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised if their families don’t want anything to do with them. And they’ve nowhere much else to go.”
“And Mr. Helzephron?”
“Oh, he knows exactly what he’s about.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s the reckless way they behave, especially the younger gentlemen. They don’t seem to care about ordinary things the way most people do.”
He shrugged.
“Well, I suppose this foolish tin-mining keeps them out of mischief.”
I wondered.
When I left the inn, I took a different route back.
Mr. Trewhella had told me that if I followed the coast for about a mile toward St. Ives, I would reach a moorland path leading to the little railway station at St. Erth. From there I could catch a train to Penzance.
My official reason for taking the route was simply that I wanted a different walk.
My real reason was very different.
The path would take me past Tregeraint Mine and give me a chance to see the Manor House.
“Not that you’ll see much,” Mr. Trewhella warned me. “And you won’t get close.”
“Why not?”
“I told you that Mr. Helzephron makes a mystery of his little mine.”
“He certainly seems to.”
“He goes much further than that. The mine buildings and the house are surrounded by two fences of barbed wire. The Manor itself has a high wall.”
“Anything else?”
“There are notice boards everywhere. They say trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.”
“I certainly have no intention of trespassing, Mr. Trewhella.”
The landlord laughed.
“Mine prospecting isn’t exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from a learned gentleman like yourself. Perhaps that’s just as well.”
“Why?”
“Mr. Helzephron has two dogs. He lets them loose at night, and they’re terrible ugly customers.”
“What kind of dogs?”
“Mr. Vargus told me they’re Tibetan mastiffs. Biggest dogs in the world, he says.”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“They look like sour-faced Newfoundlands with heavy ears. Only bigger.”
I set off from the Miners’ Arms.
I knew we were still only on the edge of the mystery, but my mind was made up.
Major Helzephron was the man the whole world was hunting.
Of that I had no longer the slightest doubt.
As I thought about him and the strange group of reckless men who obeyed him, the beautiful countryside seemed to change.
The darkness in my mind seemed to spread across the landscape.
Even the clean sea air seemed tainted.
The path I followed belonged to the coastguard service. I knew this from the whitewashed stones placed along it to guide men at night.
For most of the way, the path ran no more than two or three yards from the edge of the cliffs.
The cliffs dropped almost straight down for two hundred and fifty feet to the sea.
The Atlantic was on my left.
On my right, the great hill of Carne Zerran rose toward the sky, while the edge of the high moorland cut a dark line against the horizon.
Walking there, I felt as though I were at the bottom of a gigantic cup.
After about half a mile, the path suddenly moved away from the cliff and turned inland.
For several hundred yards, a semicircle of barbed wire blocked access to the cliff edge.
A notice warned that the area was extremely dangerous because of old mining operations.
The warning was certainly justified.
The cliff edge was broken and uneven.
I could see that it extended outward into a strange headland—a narrow wall of rock with a razor-thin path along its top.
Farther on, it curved back and ran parallel to the cliff where I stood.
Between the two cliffs was a huge chasm.
The cries of countless seabirds rose from its depths.
There was a narrow opening toward the sea, and another headland projected outward to form a cove similar to the one behind the inn.
But this cove was very different.
There was no winding canyon at the end of the inn’s cove.
I moved carefully toward the beginning of the fence.
Then I lay flat on the ground, put one arm around the first fence post, and looked over the edge.
It was a dreadful place.
The rock projected outward for hundreds of yards, so far that I could not see the bottom.
Across the canyon, however, I had a clear view of a huge wall of black rock where sea hawks nested.
No ordinary climber could have reached it.
To my right, the cove looked fairly large from one rocky horn to the other.
But it was nothing like the quiet little cove behind the inn.
Even on that calm day, the Atlantic swell rushed into it with tremendous force.
The water exploded into whirlpools and fountains of spray as it struck the jagged rocks just below the surface.
The smallest boat could not have entered Tregeraint Cove and survived for even a moment.
For some reason, the place filled me with a deep sense of uneasiness.
I shuddered slightly as I moved away and followed the fence around the dangerous section.
Once I had passed it, the path turned sharply inland.
And then I saw it.
Perhaps a quarter of a mile away stood the House of Helzephron.
It occupied the eastern slope of Carne Zerran.
It was an old granite house, long and low, grim-looking and surprisingly large.
A few stunted trees stood around it.
Beyond them was what appeared to be an extensive garden or private estate enclosed by a high wall.
I raised my prism glasses.
The top of the wall was lined with iron spikes.
The house stood exposed on the slope, and from where I was I had a clear view of it.
Higher up, behind the house, I could see the mine.
There was a derrick, an engine house, several sheds, heaps of waste material, and other buildings scattered around the site.
I soon realized that the barbed-wire fences surrounded the entire property.
Yet the whole place remained visible from outside.
Once I had passed it and climbed onto the flat moorland above, I realized that anyone standing there would have an even better view.
The entire property was spread out below like a map.
One thing was immediately obvious.
There was no hangar.
There wasn’t a single building large enough to shelter even an ordinary four- or five-seat biplane, let alone an air cruiser.
I wasn’t disappointed.
I had never expected to find one.
You will remember that the pirate ship was like the other great long-distance aircraft—a combination of what people in the old days called a seaplane and a flying boat.
Some of our wartime aircraft had been fitted with floats that could be raised, while still carrying wheels for use on land.
The pirate might have had the same arrangement.
But there was no possibility that a man as intelligent as Helzephron would keep his extraordinary aircraft somewhere my police could investigate simply by showing their badges.
The land police and coastguards had already reported on every hangar and aerodrome in Britain.
If Helzephron was really the man I believed him to be, then I knew perfectly well that we had only reached the opening move of the duel.
I climbed higher, passing the wire fences and the mine.
I didn’t dare use my glasses while I was near the property. In the distance, I could see one or two men walking near the engine house and derrick.
At last I reached the heather-covered top of the moor.
I lay down and took a long, careful look at the buildings.
Then I drew a detailed map in my pocketbook.
It might prove extremely useful later.
I waited for half an hour at the little station of St. Erth.
Then I caught a train to Penzance.
I reached the hotel around tea-time.
After washing and changing myself, I went into the lounge.
Danjuro was sitting alone in one corner.
A pile of newspapers lay around him.
I could see that the London newspapers had arrived.
He handed one to me as I sat down.
A paragraph in the police news had been marked in pencil.
It reported that Major Helzephron had been taken to Vine Street Police Station and held there overnight.
He had been charged with assaulting Mr. Wag Ashton at the Mille Colonnes Restaurant.
The charge was supported by the evidence of M. Nicholas and the head waiter.
A doctor had appeared in court on behalf of the prosecution and stated that Mr. Ashton was too unwell to attend until the following day.
After Ashton promised to appear in court the next day, Major Helzephron was released on bail.
Danjuro folded the newspaper.
“That gives us nearly two clear days,” he said.
“When Ashton appears, he won’t press the case. He’ll admit that he provoked Helzephron.”
“So Helzephron will escape?”
“He’ll probably be fined, or perhaps let off altogether.”
Danjuro tapped the newspaper with one finger.
“I see that Honourable Ashton gave him quite a beating himself.”
He looked up at me.
“And now, Sir John, if you please—tell me what you discovered.”