A Rather Remarkable Homecoming

by C. A. Belmond

  On this page of the article there was a reproduction of an oil painting of Prescott Doyle, who looked dark and handsome, in a rugged, slightly defiant attitude, seeming more like a Welsh poet than the hard-nosed businessman he’d become.

  This was followed by a section where Paloma described how she carried the Scarlet Knot with her wherever she went, and she swore that it did indeed have protective powers. She claimed that on one occasion, for instance, while backstage, a hundred-pound sandbag was accidentally loosened from above, and fell within inches of her head. On another occasion, her horse-drawn coach lost a wheel, flipping the vehicle, and killing the driver. Yet Paloma emerged unscathed. Each of these times, Paloma attributed her survival to the “power of my lucky stone”.

  I stared at the final illustration in the magazine piece. Paloma had sketched the Scarlet Knot for the interviewer. It did indeed look like an engagement ring, with a single stone at the top, and decorative spiral engravings on the band.

  The article went on to describe how Prescott built his ship, La Paloma, as the ultimate enticement to convince her to marry him and sail away with him on such a dreamy honeymoon vessel. Prescott wrote to her from Genoa explaining his plan, and Paloma finally relented. Her note back to him from Paris said: I do, I shall, I am yours forever. So Prescott joyfully outfitted the ship with every luxury imaginable, and went aboard it for its fatal maiden voyage.

  “This tracks with everything the guy at the maritime museum in Cornwall told me,” Jeremy noted, craning his neck to read the next page.

  “Yes,” I said excitedly, “it says here that Paloma was finishing up her tour at the time, which explains why she wasn’t aboard the ship with Prescott. They arranged to meet at Cornwall. But then the ship wrecked in that awful storm.”

  In the final page of the interview, Paloma confirmed that this was why she returned to Madeira and never performed in public again—choosing, instead, to teach music to children—and she never married nor had any children of her own. Paloma explained that over the years she sought comfort from spiritualists, hoping to “connect” with Prescott, but she felt unsatisfied with these attempts.

  “In the late 1800s Paloma made a pilgrimage of some sort, to an archeological site on the eastern shores of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland known as La Tène,” Jeremy read aloud.

  I sidled over to get a view of the page that Jeremy was reading. “It’s an old Celtic site,” he explained. “In Paloma’s day, La Tène was a new find, with excavations and scientists still uncovering it. I’ve been there once, on a business trip,” he told me. “But it’s all very modern now—there’s conference centers and tennis courts nearby. All you can really see of La Tène is just this glass display case full of metalworks—arrowheads, shields, and swords-instones. Very touristy.”

  “Is it worth having a look, to see what this Celtic stuff is all about?” I asked.

  Jeremy shook his head. “You don’t have to go all the way to La Tène to see touristy Celtic swords stuck in stones,” he answered. “I know a place that’s much closer to Port St. Francis.”

  We heard a slight stir in the house, of voices below. Hurriedly, I took one last look at the final page of the printed interview, hastily trying to memorize it before Afonso came in to tell us that time was up.

  “Here’s what I’ve been looking for!” I exclaimed. “It says that Paloma went back to Cornwall one last time, in the 1920s, the year before this interview,” I noted, pointing to the reporter’s final question, in which she asked to see the Scarlet Knot. This was Paloma’s answer:

  I did not keep it. I could not but feel that the Scarlet Knot was sending me a message in the form of strange impulses that I wished to understand. And soon I learned why, for I felt that I was being haunted not by Prescott, but by the spirit of Prescott’s mother, who wanted me to restore the gift to its rightful place. And this I did. And that is how I found peace.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said aloud.

  “Dunno,” Jeremy said. “She isn’t really telling.”

  “Why would she return poor Prescott’s engagement ring?” I said, feeling sad. “What on earth did she do—bury it at his mother’s grave? That seems rather ghoulish.”

  “Guilt makes people do strange things,” Jeremy commented.

  Now Afonso hurried in, saying urgently, “Por favor! We must go now.”

  Quickly, we followed him back down the servants’ staircase, and out the side door to the parking area.

  “Did you find it helpful?” Afonso asked hopefully.

  “Oh, yes,” I said gratefully. “Thank you so very much!” He smiled warmly at me, and shook hands with Jeremy, then hurried back to the quinta.

  It wasn’t until we drove past the front gate that I remembered to ask Jeremy, “So what’s all this stuff about some Celtic place in Cornwall with swords in stones?”

  “Tintagel,” Jeremy said. “The birthplace of King Arthur.”

  “Of course! He was a Celt too, wasn’t he?” I queried.

  “Yes, he was a legendary king,” Jeremy said. “But the Celts were a very mysterious crowd, and they go back even farther than King Arthur. They came from the European continent and migrated all over Cornwall and Wales and Ireland.”

  “Tintagel,” I repeated, remembering all the signs I’d seen for it on the drive through Cornwall. “That’s a hot spot on the tourist trail, isn’t it?”

  “Yep,” Jeremy said. “Big ruined castle on a rock. Saw it when I was a kid. It’s practically a stone’s throw away from Port St. Francis.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I must say that when we drove through the village of Tintagel I was utterly horrified. Of course, it was high tourist season now in perhaps the most touristy town on the coast. Throngs of day-trippers who’d been disgorged by buses were walking six abreast, flapping around in flip-flops, all with a vague, distracted look in their eyes as they sought the next attraction while holding bags of cheap souvenirs, and eating candy, fudge, sausages—and large hamburgers from a cart that advertised them as “Excaliburgers”.

  Jeremy had to stop the car abruptly to let some of these pushcarts cross the street.

  “Excali-burgers?” I asked. “Is that a pun?”

  “King Arthur’s sword was called Excalibur,” Jeremy reminded me with a wry look. “And you’d probably need a magic sword to cut one of those huge burgers.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember. Didn’t the young Arthur have to pull a magic sword out of a stone to prove that he was the rightful heir to the throne?” I asked.

  “Either that, or he got the sword later, from the mysterious Lady of the Lake,” Jeremy said.

  I recalled that Jeremy, in his boyhood, had been fairly obsessed with such adventure stories. He went on, “The stories of King Arthur evolved down through the ages by Irish, French and English troubadours. According to Tennyson, King Arthur was fair-minded and brave, trying to create a perfect kingdom that performed only noble deeds. You know, the Knights of the Round Table, where everyone was equal, and chivalry reigned,” Jeremy explained.

  He parked the car and we got out, weaving our way through the crush of people who’d emerged from guest houses and bungalows carrying Styrofoam surfboards and beach balls. Many of them were brandishing plastic Arthurian swords, and they seemed to be heading in the same direction.

  “Where are they going?” I asked.

  “To see the castle, of course,” answered Jeremy. “The home of King Arthur. Hope you’re wearing good walking shoes. Follow me, milady,” he commanded, leading me past several signs that pointed in the direction of a looming, isolated island just outside of town. But Jeremy knew an off-the-beaten-path way of getting to the castle via a coastal trail, so we bypassed the hordes of tour groups waiting outside a nearby Camelot-themed hotel.

  From afar, Tintagel Castle looked dark and foreboding, like a blackened, lost kingdom atop a rocky island; and in fact, as Jeremy explained to me, it had been abandoned for a long time, having nearly washed into t
he sea by the sixteenth century. Nowadays it was connected to the mainland by a narrow bridge.

  “This way,” Jeremy said. “Watch your footing.”

  Once we were on the island, the castle itself was reached by a series of formidable stone and wooden staircases, and wooden platform-bridges with high railings, all erected for modern-day visitors. As we climbed, I avoided looking down, for it felt as if one false step would indeed send us tumbling to our deaths.

  When we finally reached the top, and stood there with the wind tearing at our hair and clothes, Tintagel truly did seem to be a nearly impregnable site. On one side, the castle reigned over a sheer, steep drop to deep, rocky gorges. On the other side, the castle towered above the churning sea that was violently crashing far, far below.

  “Boy,” I said, panting with exertion, “this place would give any marauding Viking or Vandal a pause before trying to breach it.”

  But time itself had overtaken the castle, for now only its broken remains stuck up out of the mossy, flat-topped peak. Fragments of its high stone walls stood in bleak relief against the skyline; and cracked sections of centuries-old stone flooring lay open to the elements. Although it all looked so tumbledown, like an estate that’s perished after fire and flood, I could still make out the shape of castle towers, battlements and other signs of a longago fortress.

  Walking around these impressive ruins, I felt awed but still a bit confused. “This looks medieval, like it’s from the thirteenth century,” I observed.

  “It is,” Jeremy replied.

  “But, King Arthur would be much earlier,” I objected. “Isn’t Arthur a fifth-century Celtic king?”

  “That’s the prevailing wisdom,” Jeremy agreed. “See, the bits we’re looking at are indeed from a medieval castle—but this was built atop the ruins of something much older. Nobody knows for sure what the underlying, original structure was; there’s a theory that it could have been a Celtic monastery from the fifth century.”

  “Or else it was an ancient ‘Homecoming Inn’ for bygone tourists,” I teased him. “Can’t beat this view!”

  Jeremy grinned. “Let’s go back down. There’s something else you’ll want to see.”

  We began our descent, and once we reached sea level, he led me to a viewing area where I could glimpse a stunning sight that lay at the foot of the castle. Tucked into the cliffs was a dark, mysterious cave that looked like a great black hole impossibly carved out by glaciers many eons ago. The roiling, swirling sea seemed to rush in and out of the rocky grotto with formidable power.

  “That’s Merlin’s cave,” Jeremy said. “Legend has it that he was a magician who transported the stones of Stonehenge all the way from Ireland, in order to create a sacred place to properly bury Celtic heroes who’d died in battle.”

  “So that’s how those strange big rocks got to Stonehenge,” I joked. “I always heard that it was built by aliens from another planet.”

  Jeremy ignored this. “They say that when King Arthur was an infant, he was put in Merlin’s care, for safety,” he continued, just like a kid who wants to tell you a story he read at summer camp. “And when the boy Arthur pulled the sword out of the stone, it was Merlin who proclaimed him king. In some stories, Merlin actually became a member of the court of King Arthur, where his job was to protect the kingdom by fighting off the bad spells of evil witches.”

  “But poor Merlin lived down there in that cave?” I asked. “Geez, you’d think that Arthur would have given him a proper room in the castle.”

  Yet for all my teasing, and despite the touristy nonsense, I must admit that there was something compelling about this windswept island that made it all seem believable and real—the great and noble King Arthur, the good Knights of the Round Table, the gifted Merlin and the magical sword.

  But later, as we came away from the quiet, moody place, and walked back to our car, I admitted, “I don’t think this helps us much with Paloma, though.” It had been my idea to come here, and now it was looking like a dead end.

  “Well, at least you can say you’ve seen the birthplace of Camelot,” Jeremy said philosophically.

  “Hey, lady,” said a vendor with a pushcart that was blocking our path to the parking lot. “Wanna buy a sugar-coated magic wand?”

  “Nope,” I said wearily.

  Undaunted, the guy said, “How ’bout a crystal ball, luv?”

  “I can already tell you what’s in your future if you don’t step out of our way,” Jeremy said in a light but firm tone. The man shrugged, moved on and turned his attention to other potential customers.

  As soon as I entered the car, my mobile buzzed in my purse. I picked it up and squinted at it.

  “What’s up?” Jeremy asked.

  “E-mail from Rollo,” I said, showing it to him: Hullo Pen, Dogged out something rather amazing. Could have important implications for The Case. Essential that you and Jer meet me back at the cottage ASAP. Yours, Rollo.

  “Wonder what he’s been up to while we’ve been away,” Jeremy muttered suspiciously.

  “With Rollo’s bar-room acquaintances, you never can tell,” I said. “He just might be on to something. Let’s go!”

  Part Seven

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Just when I hoped we might make some progress on this case, fate threw us a curve ball. Well, maybe not fate. As my old friend Will Shakespeare said, The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves.

  The first sign of trouble was the outside of the cottage. It was splattered with a series of concentrated pink and orange blobs of paint that looked as if they had been hurled like water balloons against the house.

  “We’ve been paintballed,” Jeremy said, steering away from where he would normally park, because the driveway also had puddles of the pink and orange paint.

  “Who did this?” I said indignantly. Jeremy shook his head.

  Once inside the cottage, we noticed that Harriet had delivered the items from Grandmother Beryl’s house that we had asked for: the rocking-horse, the croquet set, the teak credenza and the beaux arts lamps.

  “But what on earth happened to that rocking-horse?” I asked incredulously. One handle was broken off and lying on the floor; and the back ends of both its wooden runners were cracked and splintered.

  “It looks as if some grown-up fat-ass sat on it,” Jeremy said. We just gazed at each other.

  “Rollo,” I said.

  “So where the hell is he?” Jeremy asked.

  I didn’t have an answer to that. But a short while later, you might say that the other shoe dropped. It arrived on our doorstep in the form of a white envelope, mysteriously unmarked. No address on it, no postmark, no sign of having been delivered by the mailman or any other courier. No noise, either, so I can’t even say when it arrived.

  As I picked up the envelope lying at my feet, I got a queer feeling of foreboding in my stomach. Nobody sent us mail here. People who knew us either phoned or e-mailed.

  “What’s that?” Jeremy asked, observing my wary expression as I handed it to him. There was only one sheet of paper inside, and the message was made of cut-up newspaper letters, which I thought people only did in movies. It spelled out, plain and simple:Your cousin Rollo for a million pounds. Fair trade?

  What a question.

  “This must be a hoax, right?” I said nervously, handing it to Jeremy. Before he could answer, the cottage telephone rang. Jeremy picked it up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” he said. Then he held the receiver out so I could hear, too.

  “Jeremy?” It was Rollo. He initially sounded relieved to hear Jeremy’s voice, but then he went on, in the most sober, scared tone I’ve ever heard poor Rollo use, with a message that sounded rehearsed:

  “Jeremy, old boy, did you get the ransom letter? Well, they want me to tell you it’s no joke. Listen carefully. You will receive further instructions shortly. Do not involve the police or I’m a dead man. Please talk to my mum and make her get the million pounds together for you in small bi
lls. I assure you, these fellows mean business. You will hear from them when you hang a red kerchief on your car door handle and park it in town, to signal that you got the money. Please don’t wait to do this. There simply isn’t going to be any time to waffle about it.”

  This last bit sounded pleading and desperate, and touchingly frightened. A second later, the phone went dead.

  “Damn it,” Jeremy said, looking both concerned and exasperated now.

  Worried as I was, I can tell you that the mind does funny things when you’re in a situation like this. While Jeremy was talking about what to do next, some part of my brain was wondering where on earth I was going to get a red kerchief on such short notice to signal the kidnappers.

  “Who would want to kidnap poor old Rollo?” I wondered.

  “Could be the same weasels who’ve been threatening us out here in Cornwall. Or, it could just be some gangster in London that Rollo has a gambling debt with. Doesn’t matter,” Jeremy said shortly. “We still have to deal with whoever’s got him. I can get some police advice from Denby in London, before we go back to the local coppers. Denby might know somebody out here who can be trusted to keep it quiet.”

  “Rollo said not to involve the police,” I reminded him.

  “Just for advice, quietly. But in any case, we’re going to have to get some money together, and at least appear to do what the kidnappers want,” Jeremy said. “It’s quite possible that we can successfully make an exchange. But that means we’re going to have to go to London today and pay a little call on Great-Aunt Dorothy. She won’t believe it unless she hears it from us in person.”

  At the thought of visiting Great-Aunt Dorothy, I felt even more trepidation than facing down kidnappers. “God, no,” I said. “Not that.”

  “You want to tell her we’re coming?” Jeremy said, scrolling his mobile for the number.

  “If we call her, she’ll duck us,” I warned. “I say we just land on her. The element of surprise is essential.”