Murder on the Cliffs

by Joanna Challis

  To my chagrin, he grinned. “I like the way ‘Thomas’ sounds on your lips . . . want to take the wheel later?”

  He did enjoy vexing me, didn’t he?

  “Unless, of course, you can’t drive.”

  “I can so!”

  “Excellent. I knew I was correct in that assumption.”

  I endured thirty more minutes of his assumptions regarding my character. By the time we reached the village, I was ravenous. Promising the best Cornish pasties and strong coffee, the major guided me inside the humble wayside inn, conveniently isolated, I noticed on arrival.

  “Don’t worry,” he smirked. “If I planned a rakish abduction, I’d have chosen a better location to conduct the affair. I do have singular knowledge in that department, you know.”

  “I’m sure you do.” While we waited for breakfast, served by a gracious, plump farmer’s wife, I upbraided him for sending me into Padthaway alone. “I am lucky. Lord David could have killed me, too.”

  “That’s unlikely.” He refused to look even slightly remorseful. “Besides, you’re a resourceful girl. You would have found a way to escape.”

  “You are no gentleman,” I retorted.

  The rain started two minutes after we climbed back into the car and arrived at the next crossroad.

  “Cornwall,” the major chuckled, “and its changeable weather.”

  Cornwall and its changeable weather. Padthaway, the house of a thousand mysteries, its changeable seasons.

  “Dreaming up another story?”

  “Just a headache. Are we nearly there yet?”

  “Almost .”

  As we entered the thriving city, a bustling town once alive with pirates, thieves, and smugglers, the rain began to subside. The air outside the car was cool and I shivered.

  Taking off the sweater under his jacket, the major wrapped it firmly around my shoulders and drew me into the nearest pub, where an open fire called my querulous, shaky limbs.

  “You sit down. I’ll make the inquiries,” the major directed.

  I smiled my thanks, attuned to the plethora of noise surrounding me.

  “Aw, ye’re in luck today, Mister. Mister Brown, was it? Casper, I am, and used to live right above that fancy doctor. He had rooms— all private ones. I had to use the back steps.”

  “Do you remember the street name, Casper?”

  “Aw, call me Casp. Me friends do and I’ll take ye there if ye like. It’s only a few blocks away.”

  Walking down seemingly endless lanes of slimy, treacherous cobbles, we arrived at the site of a building.

  A demolished building.

  Casper cursed. “I don’t believe me eyes! It’s gone . . .”

  Detecting a black- caped man strolling across the street, the major left us to gape at the dirt mound.

  “No joy there,” he called back, betraying a little glumness. “Any ideas, Daphne? Casper?”

  Wracking his half head of hair, Casper’s foul breath exploded. “I know! Mrs. Tremayne! If ever a snoop. She knows everybody’s business. Been here for centuries.”

  It was only a mild exaggeration. Mrs. Martine Tremayne lived across the street, at number fifty- nine. Sprightly for a seventy- two-year- old, and sharper than a thistle, the wizened eyes made a quick summary of our likely trio. Gripping her broom like a weapon, she listened to the reason for our call.

  “Castlemaine, eh? Ye’d best come in . . . No, not you, Casper Polwarren. Get ye back to the pub.”

  Casper Polwarren, suddenly the proud owner of a five- pound note slipped to him by the major, was more than happy to comply.

  Mrs. Tremayne’s ground floor, mercifully, failed to exhibit that old smell. The other usual relics existed, several tiny tables, dusted lace curtains, photo frames, last decade’s cushions, worn but well tended furniture.

  Invited to sit down, she sped off to fetch a newspaper clipping of some sort. The major and I shared a look of amusement. Ewe Sinclaire had a soul mate.

  “Here, read this.”

  Huddled together on Mrs. Tremayne’s couch, we examined the black-and-white face of a European man, bald and slim, and the title below it.

  DOCTOR EXPOSED

  Since the burning down of his building,

  further details have emerged regarding

  the doctor’s secret clients . . .

  “He’d take them in,” Mrs. Tremayne huffed. “Fancy types wan-tin’ to get rid of their babes. They paid well, ye see. We plain folk with our sniveling noses don’t even tinkle to the likes of him . . . snooty pig he were.”

  “Look here”—I showed the major—“they’ve printed his entire appointment book, listing all the names.”

  “That’s why I kept the clippin’,” a proud Mrs. Tremayne declared. “Ye don’t throw away things like that. A copper found it on the street, half burn out it were, but still readable. He got greedy. Sold it to the papers and lost his job, but I’m sure he got a goodly sum for it.”

  I’m sure he did, too, recognizing one or two of the names. Some were skillful abbreviations or alterations to conceal identities, but the shrewd Dr. Castlemaine had noted the true names in a small column to the side, directly under the monetary amount.

  Balking at the exorbitant sums, the major lifted a brow. “I am obviously in the wrong industry.”

  A lucrative clinic of scandalous proportions. “What ever happened to the doctor?”

  “Ha! Lost his mind, he did, and there were never a more fittin’ punishment for the likes of him. Thinkin’ himself so smart. You’ll find him at Doreen’s nursin’ home up yonder, but it’s really a nut house for droolin’ nutters.”

  Drooling nutters. Smiling at the colloquial phrase, I ran my finger down the names and dates until a name flashed before me, a curious name. “Hearn!”

  Hearn for Trehearn? I quickly looked to the side notation. 300 pounds, Jenny Pollock, took dead child.

  I must have half choked for the major thumped my back.

  “Know her, do ye?” Mrs. Tremayne sniggered.

  “Yes, she’s a nurse in a house hold where I’ve stayed.”

  “Humph! She won’t have been the first. Caught the eye of the lord, did she? Sent off here to squash the scandal?”

  The clipping fell to my lap. Jenny Pollock, the pretty nursery maid with the children . . . Jenny and Lord Hartley. Like a diamond shower, everything sprinkled into place. I suddenly remembered her defense of him: He weren’t mad, or if he were, it was she that sent him that way.

  What had Lady Hartley said of their discreet arrangement? She had her affairs and her husband had his, extending among the house hold staff, as was often the case in large house holds. She must have turned a blind eye to it until Jenny became pregnant!

  A pregnant nursery maid must have been a source of irritation to the lady of the house, especially if her husband loved Jenny. Was that a possibility?

  “A simple carte blanche, of sorts,” the major decreed, dismissing my theory. “The problem solved with the hasty removal of the goods.”

  I sent him a look of reproach.

  “Well, it’s true.” He failed to display adequate repentance. “You can’t have the illegitimate playing with the legitimate, can you?”

  A good point, a point I found very disturbing. “We have to get back to Padthaway.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY- EIGHT

  The long, winding drive to Padthaway, the silent mansion, filled me with a sense of dread.

  Shaken of now another secret, a secret the house wished to reveal to me, I absorbed the warnings of the gusty wind, the naked branches strewn of their leaves, their skeletal fingers encroaching upon the drive.

  Then a burst of beauty. Padthaway, gracing the grassland. My Padthaway, standing proud, ready to receive me.

  “Do you want me to drop you here?” the major asked.

  “Yes, I must talk to Jenny alone. You keep Lianne occupied.”

  He grinned. “A pleasant occupation . . . are you sure you can handle this?”

 
“Oh, please.” I exited the car with a huff and hurried up to the house.

  Going around the back way, I spotted Annie in the hallway and asked for Jenny’s whereabouts.

  “Oh, Miss D, she’s in her garden last time I saw her.”

  “Thank you, Annie.”

  Watching her go, I thought it would take the servants a long time to grow used to the place without Lord David.

  None more so than Jenny.

  I feared her reaction.

  Putting aside her garden spade, she wiped her hands on her apron. “Different now Trehearn’s not here. Lady Muck’s interviewin’ butlers now. Got a new cook, too. Mrs. Lockley. We all like her.”

  “That’s good,” I said, drawing out one of her garden chairs. Heeding the major’s warning, I acted normal on arrival, chatting, mentioning my recent drive with the major.

  “Oh, where’d ye go?”

  “Penzance.”

  She dropped the spade. “Oh, and what were ye reason for going there?”

  She was nervous.

  “Jenny, don’t be afraid. I know about the baby, your baby. The one Dr. Castlemaine took from you.”

  Turning red at the name, she drifted to the chair opposite me.

  “Please talk to me,” I implored. “I’m your friend. I’m here to listen to you and your side of the story.”

  “Does the major know about it?”

  I couldn’t lie to her. “Yes, he does. I asked him if I could see you first.”

  She nodded, grimly accepting she now had to divulge the story she’d kept hidden for so many years.

  “I were thirteen when I came to his house,” she began, “young, full of silly dreams. I came to nurse little baby David.” A fond smile tempered her lips. “What a sweet thing he were . . . he took to me and I to him. We were two little happy peas, livin’ in our own world. Oh, I had to answer to the head nurse and all, but most of the time, me and baby David were alone. The mother didn’t want ’im. She’d only poke her head in every now and then, hear the progress report, and go back to her parties. She never wanted to hold him.”

  “But the baby didn’t suffer,” I said softly. “You gave him plenty of love.”

  Her face softened. “Aye, I did. Me whole heart.”

  “I can see you both,” I smiled, “little David, perfect, and you, Jenny, pretty Jenny with the golden hair and blue eyes. I can see why Lord Hartley fell in love with you.”

  Her eyes froze at the mention of his name.

  “Tell me about him, Jenny. Did he treat you kindly?”

  Silently walking further down that closed tunnel, she eventually responded. “He were a strange one, his lordship, but he loved visi-tin’ the nursery. He’d pick up the child, nurse ’im, and the babe adored him. He were unhappy . . . unhappy with her. Outside, he were different, but in the nursery, he were meek as a lamb.”

  “He started to come more regularly,” I proceeded, “you and he . . . in the secret garden . . . a happy little family.”

  A capricious smile touched her lips. “Aye, it were like that, I s’pose. A play family for him.”

  “But you didn’t mind. You loved him and he was good to you.”

  She nodded. “Passionate lover he were, but gentle, ever so gentle. Never once did he lay a finger on me or speak nasty.”

  “But outside he behaved differently.”

  Forced to nod again, she succumbed to the beauty of her memories, the love, the kindness, the happiness.

  “When did Lady Hartley find out, Jenny?”

  Startled out of her trance, she shivered. “We hid it from her. Terry said we must be careful of her and we were . . . for years. Mrs. T and the head nurse, they knew. Went to Mrs. T for me herbs . . .”

  “But then you fell pregnant, even on Mrs. T’s herbs.”

  “Aye. When her ladyship carried Miss Lianne, I found out I were expectin’, too, to me horror. After all these years . . .”

  “How did Terry react?”

  “She said he had to give me up. She’d not have his bastard in the house. But Terry didn’t want to give me up. He started to go a little crazy. He always did when he were confused. He hurt people.”

  “But never you, Jenny. Never you.”

  A tear rolled down her face. “I never got to say good- bye to him. They drove him to shoot himself. I just wish they’d let me say good- bye . . .”

  “But they didn’t. Just as they didn’t let you keep your child. They packed you off to Penzance.”

  The horror of the locked memory opened with force. “I did it . . . to keep me job. And if it weren’t for Lee Lee, bless her heart, madam would’ve sent me packin’. But she couldn’t stomach the screamin’ child. Nobody could. She were left to me . . . I calmed her. Only me.”

  Which explained her deep bond with Lianne. “What happened to your baby, Jenny? The baby you took from Dr. Castle-maine’s?”

  Crazed eyes greeted me again, followed by a curiously slow smile, ominous in nature, eerie, unlike the Jenny I knew. “I wanted to keep her. I tried to, but it were too late. He killed her and I took my little girl with me. I placed her in a safe place. . . .” Her gaze slowly turned to the herb garden.

  I shuddered. “It must have been very hard. How you must have hated Mrs. T and Lady H for what they’d done to you . . . you had David and Lianne, but you couldn’t forget what they’d done, could you, Jenny?”

  “No!” Flying out of her chair, Jenny’s hands seized my neck. “Just as I can’t forgive you for hurtin’ my Davie boy. He’ll die, die, die, because of you!”

  Her crazed eyes obstructing my vision, I desperately tried to loosen her grip on my throat. I couldn’t breathe . . . and felt nauseous, faint . . . dizzy . . .

  Then relief. The major’s strong arms enclosing me, Lianne restraining the frenzied Jenny.

  “It’s all right, Jenny,” Lianne soothed. “Daphne did the right thing. You always told me to do the right thing, and it was Davie that gave himself up. You lost your baby, but you have me. Your Lee Lee, always.”

  Jenny nodded, and as I watched Lianne hold and rock her, I came to appreciate the close bond they shared and the full reason for Lianne’s nightmares. Seeing her father shoot himself and die before her eyes, and later, to see David, the brother she adored, the brother she would do anything to protect, convicted of murder.

  “Forgive me.” Jenny gazed at me, getting up, a little embarrassed over her behavior. “I don’t usually . . .”

  “I know.” I pressed her hand.

  She nodded and disappeared inside for a moment or two.

  Upon her return, she dangled something before the major. “I s’pose I don’t need to hide these now, do I?”

  Clutched in her hand were the sandy bottoms of a pair of shoes.

  Victoria’s shoes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY- NINE

  “Jenny knew. Lianne had seen David do it. She had followed her brother out to the cliffs that night. Jenny protected them both by hiding the shoes in her room.”

  “A fitting end,” Ewe declared. “I always knew one of ’em Hartleys did it. Just didn’t know which one.”

  “We have Miss du Maurier to thank for Jenny and the clue of the shoes,” the major said, tipping his hat to me. “Nobody would think twice about it, but our Miss Sleuth remembered the shoes . . . and that conversation on the cliff whilst picnicking with Jenny and Lianne.”

  “She’s a bright lass.” Ewe smiled at me fondly. “Even if she does scuttle off when she’s supposed to stay with me!”

  “And the other clues,” I prompted the major. “Admit it, you and Sir Edward were lost. You needed me.”

  “We did.”

  It was a simple and genuine praise, without mocking, and I confess I felt rather proud, too.

  LONDON HOUSE, SOME MONTHS LATER

  The gloomy pathway beckoned. She paid no attention

  to its dilapidated state, neither seeing nor hearing the

  windstorm brewing around her. Such was her state

  of
mind as she progressed toward her destination,

  knowing this was the last time—

  “Daphne!”

  Jostled out of my chair, I typed the last sentence. My finger still poised on the full stop, I ripped out the page and gleefully reviewed those last beaming words.

  “Daphne! Are you ready? We’re late.”

  Jeanne and Angela were groaning in the hallway. Unconcerned with their panicky prompting, I dressed, taking one last look at the bleakness of the day outside. Hamstead in London failed to compare with my beloved Cornwall. I missed seeing the water, feeling the fresh sea air on my face. I missed the boats gracing the harbor and most of all, I missed those frightful days at Padthaway.

  “You cannot wear that to a luncheon with Winston Churchill.”

  I smiled at Angela’s deadpan face. “I certainly can and I will. In any case, nobody shall notice me.”

  “Doing the usual, are we? Sitting in a dark corner, taking notes about everybody.”

  “At least she does it mentally these days,” Jeanne cried behind her, ever cheerful. “Here’s your hat, Daph.”

  Our parents waited for us outside. Father, presenting his usual dashing image, and Mother, graceful, conscious of the time, and frowning over my hasty appearance.

  “Daphne, dearest, you ought to take more care. I know there are no obscure Lord Davids to tempt you at political luncheons.”

  “You never know,” Angela grinned, delighted at the thought of making new influential connections. “Perhaps your Major Browning will show up. He seems to have friends in high places.”

  “Oh, I believe he’s away at sea,” my mother echoed, lowering her voice to a modest whisper, “and after that one call in Fowey, we never heard from him, did we, Daphne dearest?”

  I wished she would stop preempting the major’s lack of interest. That one call, a mere friendly follow- up one, obligatory after those horror-filled days at Padthaway, had spurred her to think of him as a possible future husband for me.

  “Better watch out,” Angela warned. “I might take an interest in the dashing major if you don’t.”

  “The major’s promised to take me sailing when he comes back,” Jeanne piped in, full of faith.