A Rather Remarkable Homecoming

by C. A. Belmond

  And just as Jeremy and I were crossing the field to meet Barbara, I saw another figure emerge on the other side of the low wall, and he leaned across to speak to Barbara. I recognized the newcomer instantly.

  “Jeremy!” I whispered. “That’s the earl!”

  We drew closer, and as Peter made his introductions, I couldn’t take my eyes off the earl, for his face, up close, was more weather-beaten than I expected; and his eyes were a bright, lively green. He had shaved this morning, though, and he removed his hat when he spoke to Barbara. I saw that the earl was younger than he first appeared; somewhere in his thirties, just as Harriet had told me.

  “But s-s-surely those arrowheads d-d-didn’t w-w-walk over h-here on their own!” he exclaimed.

  Barbara shook her head, then glanced up at us, and Peter said, “Barb, can you bring Penny and Jeremy up to speed on this?”

  Barbara was what you might call a handsome woman, with light brown hair, a squarish jaw, and a high, intelligent forehead. She was dressed in a safari shirt and khaki shorts. “Well, the long and the short of it is this,” she said in a clear, strong voice. “Peter’s team thought they found some ancient arrowheads on this property this morning, which is why I was called in.”

  I felt ready to whoop with delight, but the expression on her face stopped me.

  “However,” she said, and that one word made my high spirits immediately plummet, “I can say with certainty that these arrowheads are neither Roman, nor Celtic, nor Anglo-Saxon nor Norman. They are not even Germanic or Iberian. What they are, are Chinese.”

  This gave me a pause. “Furthermore,” Barbara said, rather severely now, “they are made of a hard-grain plastic meant to mimic bronze. See the dye marks and seams? Authentic bronze from antiquity don’t have these imperfections. These arrowheads are fakes.”

  “Fakes!” I exclaimed. Then I wished I hadn’t spoken. Because Barbara was looking at everyone as if we were all in a police line-up.

  “Right,” she said, studying me closely. “Which means somebody planted them here. That’s not lawful. That’s not good.”

  Peter looked at Jeremy and said, “Any idea who might have done this?”

  “No,” Jeremy said shortly. The earl simply turned away abruptly and retreated into the thickets of his private property.

  But Harriet and Colin had edged closer to us now, and Colin was so red-faced, looking quite ashamed, that it was very clear who the culprit was.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Harriet said in a wounded voice.

  “It wasn’t Mum,” Colin said shortly. “She knew nothing about it. Nobody else is to blame.” But he could not resist adding, “Except the asshole who sold me the arrowheads.”

  “You bought them,” Peter said. “That makes you the . . .” He didn’t have to finish.

  Barbara glanced around the group, her attitude softening a bit at all the disappointed, stricken faces. “This is not the way to protect a property,” she said crisply.

  “It was all in a good cause, truly,” Harriet said in a small voice.

  I glanced up and saw that Jeremy had a grim look as he gazed off toward the road, where a thuggy-looking man in a black suit and sunglasses was standing, with his arms deliberately folded across his chest, in a mute but unmistakably threatening manner.

  “The Mosleys’ man,” Harriet muttered. “He’s acting as if the property is already theirs. Won’t be long now before they make the final coup de grace.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The phone was already ringing when we got back to the cottage. It was Simon.

  “Tonight’s the night!” he exclaimed, sounding really juiced up.

  It took me several moments to remember what he was talking about. Then I realized that it was the Shakespeare fête; that performance at the old theatre by the residents of the Actors’ Home to raise money for the hospital.

  “Be there with bells on!” Simon was saying. “And don’t be late! Trevor got his friends from the BBC to cover it!”

  “We have to go,” I told Jeremy when I hung up the phone. “We’ve got to dress nice, too. This is a big deal.”

  “Fine, fine,” Jeremy said absently, heading for the shower. “It’s the least we can do, considering that this case is rapidly going south.”

  “What a doofus thing Colin did,” I said. “Poor guy. I guess he’s been crazed with worry, seeing that his mum is so desperate.”

  “Well, he’s set us back considerably, and he may have even given the Mosleys plenty of ammo against our whole case,” Jeremy said shortly. “Do one dishonest thing, and every thing’s up for grabs.”

  This thought depressed me. But for Simon’s sake, I put on my best summer dress and my best smile.

  And actually, it was all very exciting, because when we arrived in front of the theatre, the streets around it were jammed with cars and TV trucks. Not only was the BBC there, but also the local news and, I suspected, some newspaper reporters from London, judging by their slightly imperious attitude as they fired off questions at Trevor, who clearly enjoyed the spotlight and was more than up to the task of master-of-ceremonies.

  “Some of the very finest names in theatre, film and television will be on that stage tonight AND in our audience!” he proclaimed as he stood before the microphones that had been arranged in front of the theatre. A new red carpet had been rolled out on the entrance path. Trevor looked especially spiffy tonight in his elegant tuxedo, and his face had that wonderful, highly animated quality, which good actors always manage to summon in the teeth of an important night.

  “We sold out this morning!” said Harriet’s Legacy Society friend with the tortoise-shell framed eyeglasses.

  “They’re even scalping some of the tickets,” said a young man who at first I did not even recognize. It was Colin, in a rented dinner jacket. His spiky hair had been slicked down. Harriet was wearing a bright red dress and lipstick, totally uncharacteristic of her. Shannon and Geoff were right behind them, and Shannon was wearing the most beautiful embroidered silk floor-length dress I’d ever seen.

  “She made it herself,” Geoff told me, looking distinguished in a purple dinner jacket.

  Toby Taylor showed up next with his entourage from the restaurant, which included a few fashion models and sports figures. “Oh, yeah, it’s been really great working with the locals and getting our supplies straight from the land and sea,” Toby was telling a reporter.

  “And a warehouse,” Jeremy muttered to me. “Probably got his fish from New Zealand.”

  Meanwhile, as Trevor fielded questions from the press, he was periodically interrupted whenever a celebrity’s fancy car rolled up to the red carpet and somebody important got out. Jeremy and I stood with all the other gawkers to watch the parade of politicians, film actors, and other worthies who’d been spending their summer vacation in Cornwall, and were now making a big show of arriving to claim coveted seats for what was shaping up to be The Event of the season.

  A popular young actress who’d played a girl ghost-hunter in a successful movie series now alighted from her limo in a long gown and high heels, and obligingly posed on the red carpet with her trademark toothy grin for the photographers and fans who screamed out her name. Another limo pulled up, and out stepped a young actor with long blond hair who was a heart-throb from a recent blockbuster action movie. And then came the older, more venerable actress who’d recently picked up an Oscar award for her stunning portrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots.

  “How on earth did Trevor assemble this cavalcade of stars?” I asked Jeremy in a whisper.

  But just then, the car-to-beat-all-cars arrived bearing the guestto-beat-all-guests. I didn’t recognize the auto, but the press certainly did, and they abandoned the other celebs and flocked to the curb there. The driver parked and moved hurriedly to open the back door for the guest of honor.

  A male passenger stepped out. He wore a bemused expression, and he seemed completely unruffled when the cameras and lights were all suddenly turned on h
im with a force that would have stunned any mere mortal.

  “It’s Prince Charles!” I breathed to Jeremy.

  “There’s your answer about Trevor’s roster of luminaries,” Jeremy said wryly. “They all heard that the Prince was coming tonight.”

  Everyone pushed forward as the rest of the royal entourage emerged from their cars and followed H.R.H. up the red carpet. Prince Charles acted as if he had all the time in the world, even while he and his group kept moving quickly and smoothly forward. From time to time he paused momentarily to shake someone’s hand or say a quick word; and I just stood there, drinking it all in.

  But I certainly did not expect what happened next. A man accompanying the Prince—no doubt a palace associate—whispered something in his ear, causing His Nibs to pause, then glance up straight at me and Jeremy. With a more intense look, Prince Charles just gave us one brief but significant nod. Then the whole group continued on.

  “Good God,” I heard Jeremy mutter behind me.

  “At least he doesn’t seem to hate us,” I said weakly.

  Now a long black limousine shaped like a barracuda pulled up to the curb, but the crowd scarcely noticed it, still enthralled with the passing parade of royalty. And so the Mosley brothers, upon making their big entrance, were at first completely ignored. No reporter, no gawker approached or noticed them. But I sure did.

  “What are they doing here?” I hissed indignantly to Jeremy.

  “Show of support for the community,” Jeremy said dryly.

  “As if!” I responded.

  But now everyone was rapidly hurrying to get through the lobby, and soon we were all directed by young usherettes to take our seats. Jeremy and I got nice box seats upstairs, to the left of the stage.

  Glancing below, I saw that most of the bigwigs were led to the front rows. And, some residents from the Actors’ Home who, like Simon, were wheelchair-bound, were also given special seating in the orchestra section. In the orchestra pit, a local group of musicians were tuning up. In the balconies directly across from the stage, there were lots of younger people who had come to see their friends that were performing with the elder thespians tonight.

  Suddenly, the chandelier lights dimmed. The chattering dropped to a murmur, then stopped completely as the crimson curtain with the gold Tragedy and Comedy masks on it rose slowly. From deep in the orchestra pit, a lone trumpet sounded. Then an elderly actor entered the stage. The spotlight made his whitened face look eerily compelling. In a rich, well-modulated voice, he spoke:“Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

  Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

  Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

  More free from peril than the envious court?”

  These, I noticed, were timeless words for an environmentallyconscious crowd. The actor boomed his lines out across the stage, with perfect pitch and control, and the audience was raptly attentive.

  As more players joined him, I could not help feeling real pride at the sight of all those old troupers, now coming to incredible life onstage. The faces were painted, the expressions highly dramatic, but I could recognize, here and there, the very same folks I’d passed in the hallways of the Actors’ Home, or seen lying in their beds, or eating quietly in the Priory dining room, or nodding in lawn chairs on the terrace.

  But tonight each of them had special power and grace; they seemed to glow from within, and even when they occasionally stumbled on a line or made a slightly wrong exit, they were still amazing to behold. The young actors moved with less confidence but more vigor and excitement, so there was a nice symmetry in the way that old and young performed their vignettes from various scenes of Shakespeare.

  One verse hovered in my mind long after I heard it:And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

  Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,

  Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

  I would not change it.

  It seemed to sum up all that was good about the Cornish countryside. I wondered if Trevor had deliberately selected this passage to resonate with his struggle to protect Port St. Francis. I sighed contentedly, allowing myself to get lost in the drama of it all.

  But about forty-five minutes into the show, out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure directly across the theatre, coming through the door at the back of the special box where the Mosley brothers were seated. It was that thuggy guy who’d shown up at Grandmother Beryl’s place today; the one who stood in the road with folded arms and a menacing attitude. Tonight he’d managed to enter the theatre quietly and unnoticed, for the lights were low and the audience was gazing steadily at the stage.

  I watched as the thuggy guy bent over to whisper into the ear of the taller of the Mosley brothers, who inclined his head without turning it. Even in the dim light, I could see his expression change, only slightly but significantly.

  I nudged Jeremy and whispered, “Look! Something’s up with the Mosleys!”

  Jeremy watched closely as the shorter brother checked his flashy wristwatch, which set off a sharp gleam in the dark theatre. Then the thuggy guy retreated behind the curtains at the rear of the box; and in the next moment, the two Mosley brothers rose quietly, and stealthily stole out of their box.

  There had been something urgent and sneaky in the way the Mosley brothers slithered away, despite their deliberate attempt to appear unmoved and casual.

  “They’re up to no good, I just know it,” I whispered.

  “Right. I’ve had it with those bastards,” Jeremy replied in a low voice. “I’m going out to see what they’re on about.”

  “I’m going with you,” I said.

  “No way,” he said.

  “Yes, ‘way’,” I said, “or else,” I added dramatically, “I’ll scream this place down.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Jeremy said. “Let’s go.”

  Part Nine

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Mosley brothers and their thuggy driver got into the limo and sped out of town. Jeremy and I were very careful to follow at a distance. Luckily, a farm truck got in between us, so the Mosleys weren’t seeing our car directly behind them.

  When they turned onto the country road that led to Grandmother Beryl’s house, I said suspiciously, “Where are they going?”

  The answer was soon apparent, for as the road curved away toward farmland, the Mosley limo instead pulled right into Grandmother’s driveway and stopped; whereupon the Mosley brothers and their driver got out on foot and headed toward the house. The farm truck continued on the road that climbed up along the farms and meadows, and Jeremy followed it, bypassing Grandmother’s house.

  “Where are you going?” I exclaimed.

  “Just parking farther away,” Jeremy said as he maneuvered into a small, dirt area off the road. He turned off the headlights and cut the engine.

  “We’ll have to go out on foot if we want to see what they’re up to,” he explained. “You’d better stay with me. I don’t think you’d be any safer sitting in this car alone. We’ll cut across the meadow and come down by the earl’s stone wall. From behind Grandfather Nigel’s garage, we should get a decent view.”

  It was a good plan. When we reached Grandfather’s garage, we sidled up along the wall near the earl’s property line, until we came to the back of the garage, where we were able to crouch in the overgrown shrubbery. From that vantage point, we could see quite clearly that the Mosley brothers were standing at the far edge of Grandfather Nigel’s garden, peering over the stone staircase to the little cove below. The thuggy driver was already making his way down the staircase, carrying a flashlight.

  The Mosleys remained above, smoking cigarettes. I could see the red dots of the ends of their cigarettes, and from time to time, when the clouds passed away from the moon, I could make out the two pairs of Mosley eyes momentarily glinting in the moonlight.

  Jeremy nudged me and nodded toward the horizon line, where a boat had suddenly appeared. As it came cl
oser, it looked like any other yacht that might have been heading for the Port St. Francis harbor. Except that this one stopped here, parallel to Grandmother Beryl’s cove, beyond the rocks, and anchored. Then it did something very odd indeed—it turned out all its lights.

  A moment later, one strong signal light could be seen flashing on-off, on-off, on-off.

  I watched as, from the cove, the Mosley driver raised his flashlight and echoed the message: on-off, on-off, on-off.

  A dinghy must have been lowered from the yacht; for when the moon shone briefly again through the moving clouds, I could see that a little boat was now coming away from the big boat and moving straight toward the shore of Grandmother Beryl’s cove. Two men were in it. They brought their little boat right up on the shore, and beached it there.

  “Boy, these look like bad men,” I whispered to Jeremy. Then we both realized we’d heard somebody say this before.

  Jeremy murmured, “That’s what Basil told us! He wasn’t raving about Blackstrap Doyle or some smuggler from years ago. He was talking about the Mosleys in the here and now!”

  While the Mosley brothers looked on, their driver stepped forward and examined the cargo on the small boat. This appeared to be a stack of packages that looked like large, flat white bricks.

  “What are they doing?” I whispered.

  “Smuggling drugs, from the look of it,” Jeremy said in a low voice. “I’ll bet that’s another reason why they want to control all this property out here.”

  He reached for his mobile, then swore under his breath. “No signal,” he said. “We’ve got to get out on the road and call Alfred. Fast!”

  But it was already too late. Because now a truck had pulled into Grandmother Beryl’s driveway. Before we had time to realize what was happening, two more tough-looking guys had popped out of the truck, and were heading toward the garden. They had guns in holsters visible under their open jackets. Meanwhile, the men from the beach were already making their way up the stone staircase with their contraband cargo.