by Paul Somers
I followed them slowly. I didn’t much like the look of the water I was getting into—it was very shallow, and I could see the dark outlines of underwater rocks not far below the surface. But I wanted to keep them in view as long as I could. I stood out a little, and put the gear into neutral, and watched the two bubble lines turn in towards the shore.
Suddenly they surfaced again, almost at the tip of the promontory that divided Curlew Cove from the next one. This time there was no doubt about their intentions. They threw off their aqualungs and shed their masks and flippers and clambered quickly ashore over the low-tide rocks. I put the engine to full ahead and turned Curlew in to the beach and in a few seconds she ran aground in three or four feet of water.
I needed a weapon badly, now, but I couldn’t stop to search the boat for Thornton’s automatic and I doubted if Mellor would tell me where it was without more physical persuasion than I was prepared to use. For lack of anything better, I grabbed the second harpoon gun from the bunk in the saloon. Then I dropped overboard and scrambled ashore.
The two men were already out of sight. I loaded the gun, and set off after them over the rocks. It was tricky going, even where the ground was dry, and when I was forced down below high-water mark by steep, encroaching cliffs it became even more treacherous. I had to pick my way over slippery, weed-covered boulders, watching every step. I was constantly worried, too, by the possibility that Thornton and Blake might be lying in wait for me behind some pile of granite. In the open, they would hardly dare come nearer to the gun than forty or fifty feet, but there were splendid opportunities for ambush and the harpoon gun wasn’t exactly a handy weapon. I decided to play it safe and moved forward slowly, making quite sure that my flank was cleared before each fresh advance.
The promontory was a wide one, and it took me a full quarter of an hour of rough going before I had a clear view across the mouth of the next cove. I quite expected to see the two men already across it and negotiating the horn on the farther side, but there was no sign of them. Indeed, judging by the way the sea was surging against the base of the cliffs there, there was no way round short of swimming—and I doubted if they’d have wanted to swim again if they could help it. It seemed more likely that they’d turned up into the cove.
I was on better rock now, and making much faster progress. The boulders were smaller, with no cover, and I didn’t have to worry any more about ambushes, or the possibility that the men might have doubled back. Steadily I made my way round the foot of the cliff into the cove. Then I saw them, close under the rock at the head of the beach. And I saw something else. As I gazed up at the towering walls, I suddenly realised that this was the place Mollie and I had looked down on from above. It was Hell’s Mouth—the cove without an exit. Thornton and Blake, without realising it, had walked into a trap.
I stopped and watched them. By now, they seemed well aware of their danger. Blake was pointing up a one bit of the two-hundred-foot cliff; Thornton at another. They were obviously seeking a track. I moved a little closer in, and stopped again. I didn’t want to force things. They must know by now that I hadn’t got the automatic, I wouldn’t have burdened myself with the harpoon gun. If I went near enough to them to shoot, they’d rush me, and one of them at least would get away. If I stayed where I was, I thought they’d be very reluctant to come within range of the harpoon.
And so, clearly, they were. They kept looking up at the cliff, and back at the sea, seeking some way out. I thought they might split up and try to make a dash past me to the water, but the cove was very narrow; with little room for manoeuvre, and the harpoon evidently deterred them. In the end, they chose the cliff. There must have been some track that I couldn’t see, for suddenly Thornton was a dozen feet up and Blake was right on his heels. They were going fast, too. I closed in quickly, but by the time I’d crossed the rough debris at the foot of the cliff they were at extreme range. I hesitated whether to loose a harpoon at Blake on the off-chance of a hit, and decided not to. As I gazed up at the forbidding rock face, serrated enough at the bottom but smoothing out almost immediately above the climbers’ heads, it seemed to me that they’d soon be in quite enough trouble without my intervention. For one thing, they were barefoot, which would put a terrific strain on the muscles of their feet; for another, they must already be very tired after their long underwater swim. And Blake had scarcely the build for climbing. In fact, I simply didn’t believe they would get far. Better, I thought, to keep the harpoon for when they changed their minds and came down again! I sat down on a boulder, and watched them.
Chapter Twenty
As they moved steadily up towards the half-way mark, to began to dawn on me that I’d seriously underrated them. I’d expected them to become increasingly worried by the height, as almost any novice would be; to show signs of getting stuck at the first difficult pitch. But they didn’t. In fact they gave every indication of being pretty skilful rock climbers—especially Thornton. He was still in the lead, climbing with a nice flowing motion, stopping only to reconnoitre for the next footholds and handholds before he moved on. Blake, not far below, was using the same holds and going well. Their progress amazed me. I’d done quite a lot of climbing myself, but this ascent was something I wouldn’t have dreamed of tackling without nailed boots and a rope. I could only suppose that like many climbs, it offered more at close quarters than it appeared to do from a distance. From where I sat, some of the pitches above Thornton looked absolutely bare of holds. Yet both men seemed confident.
I began to wonder if I’d been wise to stay on in the cove. At the rate they were going, they’d reach the top long before the police could get to the cliff. What they’d do then, with no clothes but the swimming trunks they were wearing, and no money, was anybody’s guess, but they’d never lacked initiative and they were desperate. They might cause a great deal of trouble before they were caught. They might even kill again to get what they needed. I ought to have retraced my steps when they‘d started to climb, I told myself, and gone round to the clifftop so that I could intercept them. But it was too late now. The trip back over the weedy rocks to Curlew Cove would take so long that before I could gain the top of Hell’s. Mouth they’d either have succeeded or failed—got clear away, or become hopelessly stuck. I might just as well stay where I was.
I continued to watch them. Thornton was already, three-quarters of the way up, and by now I felt certain they’d make it. Another five or ten minutes would see them at the top … Then, little by little, the picture changed. Thornton had slowed down quite a bit. Once I saw him lower his left foot and wiggle his toes in the air as though he was trying to ease a touch of cramp. He took another step, and then he stopped again. There was a patch of lighter rock ahead of him, which from the ground had a shaly appearance. I saw him staring up at it, examining it carefully. Then he looked to his right and left. He didn’t seem very happy about things. After a moment he abandoned the straight ascent and began a hand traverse to his left.
Blake was three or four yards below him, now, and going even more slowly. He seemed to be worried by his feet too. Once he hung by his hands for a full minute, letting his legs dangle. When he resumed the climb he looked much less confident. Thornton had left him too far behind which meant that from now on he’d got to find his own holds. Gradually, his route diverged from Thornton’s. He moved up a few more feet. Suddenly a piece of rock came clattering to the ground in a shower of small stones, as one of his footholds gave way. He recovered himself all right, but his nerve seemed shaken. He no longer had the appearance of an expert, and I began to have serious doubts about him. He was directly below what looked to me like a slight overhang, and he didn’t seem to know how to negotiate it. He looked to the right and the left, as Thornton had done under the shale. He tried for a hold with his right foot, and drew back. He tried for another with his left, but he couldn’t quite reach it. Then he took a step that made me draw my breath in sharply. He’d done a thing that no climber should ever do. He’d crossed his
legs!
I’ll never forget the tense horror of those next few minutes. Whatever was coming to Blake was no more, I supposed, than his deserts, yet I’d done enough climbing not to wish any man in a predicament like this. For now he seemed paralysed. His right arm was fully extended above his head in a position that he couldn’t possibly maintain for long. His left hand had no more than a steadying hold. His feet were hopelessly tangled. If he could have raised himself a little he might have got free, but presumably his right hand-hold wasn’t good enough. Anyway, he didn’t do it. He just clung there. Presently he gave a shout—an agonised “Help!” that echoed among the rocks and set the gulls wheeling around him. Thornton, who had finished his traverse, glanced down. Blake shouted again. Thornton took in the situation—and continued his climb. Not that there was anything Thornton could have done for his companion—the only thing that could help Blake now was a rope from above and a rescuer.
Perhaps that was what he hoped for—but he hadn’t a chance. No rescuer could have got down in time, even if there’d been one around. His shouts grew wilder. I guessed that his arm was growing cramped and that he knew he couldn’t hold on. I retreated from under the cliff face, sick with suspense.
The end came suddenly. Blake’s right arm relaxed its grip and his hand slithered down the rock, scrabbling for a fresh hold. It didn’t find any. He glanced, down, swayed away from the cliff, and gave a hideous yell. The next moment his pink body came hurtling down to the boulders a hundred feet below. He hit the ground with a dull smack, writhed once or twice, and lay still in a twisted heap. I went over to him, but there was nothing I could do. His skull was crushed in, and he was quite dead.
The sight must have shaken Thornton, for momentarily he had stopped climbing. He still had about twenty feet to go to the top, and it wasn’t an easy pitch. I stepped back again, well clear of the cliff’s base, in case he didn’t make it. Then, as I looked up, I suddenly saw something move above him. There was someone on the clifftop. I backed towards the sea, to widen the angle and show myself, and a man turned a pair of glasses on me and then waved. I waved back—it was a policeman in a flat cap. Then Mollie appeared beside him, and another man. I kept pointing to the face of the rock, and cupped my hands and shouted that Thornton was climbing. I doubted if they could hear but someone got the right idea because one of the men lay down at the edge of the precipice and peered over. As he did so, Thornton looked up, and stopped.
I hardly needed telling what would happen next. Thornton had three deaths on what, with any other man, would have been his conscience. He had personally committed two cold-blooded murders. There’d be no mercy for him—he hadn’t a hope. Seeing the police above him, he must know he hadn’t a hope. There was only one reasonable thing he could do—let go!
I waited for it. I was glad I couldn’t see his face. I got as far away from the cliff as I could because I didn’t want to hear that ghastly crunch again. I saw him lean away from the cliff and look down, once. I braced myself.
Then he continued to climb! He climbed steadily up the last fifteen feet and into the arms of the waiting police. He had plenty of nerve for killing, but not enough for dying. I guess you can never tell with people, till the moment comes.
Chapter Twenty One
Mollie and I didn’t hear the full story of the conspiracy until much later that day, after the police had grilled Thornton and Mellor. When we did, this was how it went.
The four men had met during World War II. Thornton and Blake, then in their early twenties and ready for any adventure, had belonged to one of those small, hush-hush units whose job it was to land secretly on enemy coasts, dispose of guards and sentries without fuss, and carry out high-speed demolition work. Cliff climbing and underwater swimming had been part of their training. Mellor and Harris had both been in the Navy, operating small, fast boats, and they’d run into the other two when they’d carried a party across the Channel on a particularly hazardous mission. After the war, contact had been maintained.
The plot had originated with Thornton, who—in partnership with Blake—was already living by his wits under cover of a phoney import-export business that he’d started. The idea had first occurred to him when he’d seen an advertisement for a new captain for Bruce Attwood’s yacht. He’d worked out a rough plan for raiding the yacht and grabbing Chairman Attwood’s much-publicised jewels, which depended only on Harris getting the job. He’d managed to sell the idea to Harris, with Mellor’s persuasive help, and Harris—who had already captained several large private yachts—had applied for the job and got it. Once that key position had been won, the rest had been comparatively straightforward.
Thornton had realised, early on, that whatever boat was used for the raid would have to be described to the police afterwards by Harris, so it was essential that they should use one that didn’t implicate any of them. The idea of stealing one locally had been turned down on the obvious ground that it might not be in suitable condition. The alternative was to appear to steal one, from a member of the gang who would have no other role than to seem its innocent owner. Mellor had been cast for that role, and immediately after Harris’s appointment to Wanderer he’d bought Mary Ann and begun to prepare her for the raid. From that moment, he’d avoided any open association with the others. At about the same time, Thornton and Blake had bought Curlew, so that when the time came they would have a legitimate reason for hanging about in Wanderer’s neighbourhood. Mellor, who might well come under some slight suspicion at first, was to arrange a trip to the Continent to cover the period of the raid.
Harris had kept the others informed by telephone of Attwood’s plans, so far as he knew them, and when Wanderer had moved to Falmouth for the start of her Mediterranean cruise, Mellor had given out that he planned a trip to the Scillies and had taken Mary Ann to Cornwall as a first step. Mellor had been something of an artist in building up his front, omitting no corroborative detail, even to his exchanges with his bank. His expressed intention of taking a girl with him had been part of the front, aimed at strengthening the impression of a purely holiday trip. In the event, Gloria Drage had been the least satisfactory part of the façade. She was just one of his casual telephone numbers, and he’d had to make do with her in spite of her glaring deficiencies as a sailing companion because the trip had had to be announced rather hurriedly and none of his other girl friends had been free.
Mellor, while neglecting no outward preparation, had never expected to get as involved over the Scillies trip as he had. The plan had been that Thornton and Blake should return Mary Ann to her anchorage in Gillan Creek after the said. The police, it was assumed, would find her almost at once; a letter about insurance, purposely left aboard, would give them the owner’s name and address; they would try to get in touch with Mellor and learn that he was in Belgium; and in the end it would be they who would tell him about the theft of his boat. They would hear about the holiday he’d planned, and everything would seem perfectly above hoard. Since Mary Ann would be important evidence in the case, Mellor would be unable to carry out his projected trip, and would merely ring Gloria and call it off. That had been the plan.
A day or two before the raid, Thornton and Blake had moored Curlew in the Falmouth anchorage—close to Wanderer, but not too close. They had carefully avoided all contact with the ship and its crew; the necessary information about her, we now discovered, had been conveyed to them in a way so simple that it had never occurred to us. Harris, it appeared, had written his messages on the inside of an empty cigarette packet, which he’d then tossed overboard to float away on the tide at a moment when he saw that Thornton and Blake were observing him. In due course, one of the two men had rowed off in their dinghy and quietly scooped it up. As occasion offered, they’d communicated with Harris in the same way. Actually, I remembered now that I’d been present when Harris had thrown a packet overboard, but naturally I’d thought nothing of it at the time. The method had worked perfectly, and Thornton had been primed, an hour before Wander
er’s departure, with all details of her sailing time, course and speed. The facts about her cabin arrangement and lay-out had largely been given by Harris earlier, in a letter to Thornton.
The moment Thornton and Blake had received their sailing directions, they’d rowed ashore and left by car for Gillan Creek. They’d parked the car in the bushes, paddled out in Mellor’s dinghy to Mary Ann, anchored the dinghy, broken into the cabin to give the impression of theft, and at once sailed for the agreed interception point.
No flare had been used, nor had any been necessary. With both ships on the look-out for each other, contact had been made without the slightest difficulty. Harris had reported a flare simply because he had to have some excuse for stopping. The presence of the Northern Trader in the vicinity had been an unforeseen factor. Harris had appreciated the danger that the cargo ship might report that she’d seen no flare, but he’d decided that that particular risk must be accepted, since any last-minute change of plan would have involved Wanderer in manoeuvres that would have taken a lot of explaining to Quigley, if he’d happened to be awake.
After the interception, everything had gone according to plan—for a while. Thornton and Blake had boarded Wanderer with blackened faces. Harris had made a show of resistance, for Quigley’s benefit, and received a measured blow on the cheek. Rope for the tying-up was handy. The raiders had then smashed the radio transmitter, shut off the forecastle, and gone below. They’d quickly jammed up the cabin doors with the wedges they’d brought with them, and Blake had gone into Charmian Attwood’s cabin to get the jewel case. He’d glanced inside it to make sure the jewels were there, but, as it turned out afterwards, he hadn’t shut it up properly. His silence had been no more than an ordinary precaution in case his path and Charmian’s should ever cross again.
