The Treasure at Poldarrow Point (An Angela Marchmont Mystery)

by Benson, Clara

  ‘But I understood that Miss Trout and her nephew were the last surviving members of the Warrener family.’

  ‘Oh, are they part of the family too?’ said the solicitor. ‘I was not aware of that. They are certainly not the last, however. I know of at least two or three others. My client, Timothy Warrener, lived at Poldarrow Point for many years, until the upkeep became too onerous, then he sold the house and moved to Penzance. He did not wish to relinquish all rights over the property, however—after all, it had been in the family for many years and had many historical associations—so he retained the freehold for himself and sold the house with a lease attached. But as he grew old, the property became a burden to him, and when Mr. Smart turned up Mr. Warrener was only too pleased to accept his offer.’

  Angela’s frown of puzzlement was growing deeper by the minute.

  ‘Do you happen to know when the house was sold to Jeremiah Trout?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Penhaligon. ‘It was almost exactly thirty years ago, on the fifth of August, eighteen ninety-seven. The lease was a short one.’

  ‘Thirty years ago,’ said Angela, almost to herself. ‘I wonder what happened thirty years ago.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Angela. ‘I was just musing to myself. Do you happen to have the address of Mr. Smart? Miss Trout may wish to approach him.’

  Mr. Penhaligon scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. She thanked him and rose to depart.

  ‘Shall I tell Mr. Warrener you called?’ said the solicitor.

  Angela hesitated.

  ‘Better not,’ she said. ‘It would only complicate matters.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said. ‘I shall not mention it, then.’

  He hurried to open the door for her.

  I am only sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,’ he said as she went out.

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Angela. ‘You have been very helpful indeed.’

  THIRTY

  Angela caught the noon train back to Tregarrion and sat in the carriage, thinking furiously about what she had learned that morning. The story of the lease in particular was most confusing. Miss Trout had said that her parents had sold the freehold of Poldarrow Point fifty or sixty years ago, but according to Mr. Penhaligon, that was not true. Why, then, had she lied? And why had she mentioned nothing about the existence of Mr. Warrener in Penzance? In fact, not only had Miss Trout not mentioned him, she had said specifically that she and Clifford were the last descendants of Preacher Dick Warrener, and yet, given her dealings with Mr. Penhaligon over the lease, she must have known that that was not the case.

  Angela could make no sense of the mystery. The only thing she knew for certain was that Jeremiah Trout had come to Poldarrow Point thirty years ago and had lived there until his death, which had occurred not long after his sister’s arrival earlier that year. Whether he and Emily Trout really were part of the Warrener family Angela could not say. But what motive could Miss Trout possibly have had for lying about it? It looked as though the whole story of Marie Antoinette had been an invention, at any rate. According to the history books she had consulted that morning, there had never been any mystery about the fate of the necklace—it had been broken up and the diamonds taken to London for sale by the Comtesse de la Motte’s husband. The Warrener family legend—if indeed there were such a thing—must therefore be untrue. But in that case, what on earth were Miss Trout and Clifford and the Dorseys searching for? Something was evidently missing and had to be found urgently before the fifth of August, but what was it? And why bring Angela into the affair? Given all the hole-and-corner dealings of the past few days, presumably the missing thing—whatever it was—had to be kept secret, but Miss Trout had taken pains to make Angela’s acquaintance, invite her to Poldarrow Point and tell her the whole story.

  Angela shook her head in perplexity. What on earth was going on? And where did Edgar Valencourt fit into all this? Her theory of Clifford’s being Valencourt did not quite square with the new information she had, which suggested that both he and Miss Trout had been telling lies all along. Was Miss Trout his accomplice?

  She determined that she should tell the whole story to Mr. Simpson as soon as she got back to Tregarrion. He had the powers of Scotland Yard at his disposal, and with one telephone-call could set in motion an investigation into the residents of Poldarrow Point. Accordingly, as soon as the train drew into Tregarrion station, she jumped out and hurried as fast as she could back to the Hotel Splendide, where she asked to speak to Mr. Simpson.

  Mr. Simpson was not in, she was informed. Would Mrs. Marchmont like to leave a message? Angela scribbled a brief note which, in the tumult of her thoughts, probably communicated very little, and was about to leave when a thought occurred to her, and she asked whether there was a public telephone she might use. She was directed to a cabinet installed for the use of guests, and went in.

  ‘Put me through to Scotland Yard, please,’ she said to the operator, and waited for the call to be connected. A distant voice at last announced that she had been put through, and she asked to speak to Inspector Jameson.

  ‘Jameson speaking,’ said the inspector when he eventually came on the line.

  ‘Hallo, Inspector, it’s Angela Marchmont here,’ said Angela. ‘I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but I seem to have got mixed up in another mystery and I need your help.’

  ‘Hallo, Mrs. Marchmont,’ said the inspector. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Tregarrion,’ said Angela. ‘I don’t suppose you know it. It’s a little place near Penzance, in Cornwall.’

  ‘Tregarrion?’ said Jameson in surprise. ‘Why, yes, I do know of it as a matter of fact. What’s happened?’

  Jameson listened attentively as she gave him a brief account of the recent events at Poldarrow Point, ending with the revelations she had received that morning from Mr. Penhaligon the solicitor.

  ‘I’ve been working with your colleague, who has reason to believe that a thief named Edgar Valencourt is also plotting to get hold of the necklace—or whatever it is that they are looking for,’ she finished, ‘but I can’t find him, so thought that I had better call you instead, since time is of the essence, and I need someone to help me find out what exactly is going on at Poldarrow.’

  ‘Oh, so you know all about Edgar Valencourt, do you?’ said Jameson. ‘I might have guessed that you would be in on the thing. Yes, there have been rumours that he is in your area at present—that’s why I was surprised to hear that you were in Tregarrion. Our man has been spying out the land, but we were about to recall him since there’s been nothing doing up to now. And you say you think Valencourt is masquerading as a man called Clifford Maynard—what’s that, Willis? Just a second,’ he said to Angela. She heard the muffled sound of conversation as Jameson presumably consulted with his sergeant. After a moment or two he came back on the line, and this time there was a note of urgency in his voice that had not been there before.

  ‘Willis has just reminded me of something rather extraordinary. He has an excellent memory for these things and was a young constable at the time, so he may well be right. If he is, it could turn out to be the most enormous coup for us. When did you say old Mr. Trout came to live there?’

  ‘It was exactly thirty years ago,’ said Angela, ‘in eighteen ninety-seven.’

  Jameson turned away to say something to Willis, then came back on the line.

  ‘It sounds as though you may be on to something,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Marchmont, do you ever remember hearing about the Bampton case?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I do,’ she replied.

  ‘It was a great cause célèbre at the time, but perhaps you are too young to remember it. I was only a child myself,’ said Jameson. ‘Anyway, our story starts in eighteen ninety-seven at Bampton Park, home to the Duke of Bampton and his family. In February of that year, the Duke and Duchess held a ball to celebrate the birthday of their eldest daughter, Lady Alicia Coops-Fairley. It
was one of these grand society affairs, attended by all the local aristocrats, and a good number from London besides. For her birthday gift, Lady Alicia’s doting papa and mama were planning to present her with a glorious diamond necklace, which they had commissioned especially for the occasion, sparing no expense.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Angela, beginning to understand.

  ‘This necklace cost a king’s ransom, apparently,’ went on Jameson, ‘but as it was for their darling daughter and they had plenty of money, they thought nothing of it, and no doubt congratulated themselves at the thought of her pleasure when she saw it.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Angela.

  ‘But of course, as you will have already guessed, they never did find out whether Lady Alicia liked the necklace, because she never received it. On the evening of the ball, while everyone was distracted, a daring gang of burglars broke into the place and stole a number of valuable items—the most valuable of these being the necklace, which the Duke had unfortunately taken out of his safe and put in his desk drawer in preparation for the grand presentation.

  ‘Naturally, when the crime was discovered, the Duke kicked up an awful stink, and spent a week or two giving interviews to the press and asking questions in Parliament as to why the police allowed such a dangerous gang to roam at large—none of which did anything to increase public confidence, I might add.

  ‘With the spotlight on it, Scotland Yard redoubled its efforts to find the gang, and especially its leader—one Wally Hopper, who had been well-known to them for many years. After some weeks, they succeeded in tracking down the Hopper gang to its head-quarters, and caught a number of them red-handed in possession of the stolen goods—all except for the necklace, which was missing, along with the gang’s ringleader. The other gang members all insisted that Hopper had double-crossed them and escaped with the loot, and there was nothing we could do to shake their story. They were tried and imprisoned, while others were released owing to a lack of evidence. The police kept them under observation, but it seemed that the story was true: Wally Hopper had indeed made away with the necklace and left the rest of them to take what was coming to them. We kept a particularly close eye on Wally’s wife, Rosie. We had nothing on her so couldn’t arrest her, but we thought she most likely knew where Wally was and would go to join him when the hue and cry died down. However, we were wrong. ‘Ma’ Rosie soon afterwards settled down alone, and appears to have lived a perfectly blameless life from then on with her son from a first marriage, who was about fifteen at the time of the robbery.’

  ‘Would this son of hers happen to have been called Clifford?’ said Angela.

  ‘How sharp you are,’ said Jameson. ‘Yes, that was his name. At any rate, as far as we know, Ma Rosie kept on the straight and narrow for thirty years afterwards, and never did go to her husband.’

  ‘Until now,’ said Angela.

  ‘As you say, until now,’ agreed the inspector. ‘It looks as though she may have found him at last—too late, though, as he’s dead now and can never tell where he hid the necklace.’

  Angela fell silent for a moment, digesting all that she had just heard. So it had all been a lie! The Trouts were not part of the Warrener family at all—in fact, Jeremiah Trout was really Wally Hopper, the ringleader of a criminal gang who had cheated his accomplices of their booty and escaped to Cornwall thirty years ago. There, he had presumably renounced his former life of crime and gone straight, since there was no suggestion that he had done anything dishonest during his life in Tregarrion. Miss Emily Trout was in reality ‘Ma’ Rosie Hopper, Wally’s wife, who, it seemed, had tracked down her husband after thirty years and followed him to Cornwall, presumably in an attempt to persuade or threaten him into giving up the necklace.

  Everything now began to fall into place in Angela’s mind. Wally had died before Rosie could induce him to tell her the whereabouts of the necklace, and with time running short and the lease about to expire, she and Clifford had needed to work fast before the house was returned to its owner. But why had they asked Angela to help in the search?

  Angela thought back to the day she had met Miss Trout and Clifford for the first time. The old lady had definitely been the one to pursue the acquaintance—yes, Angela remembered now: Miss Trout had mentioned that she knew Mrs. Uppingham very well, and yet Angela had later received a letter from Mrs. Uppingham in which she mentioned that she had never met Miss Trout. Had Miss Trout recognized Angela from the newspapers and lied about knowing the owner of Kittiwake Cottage in order to scrape up a friendship? Angela remembered Clifford’s surprised reaction when he heard her name for the first time, so it had not been a deliberate plan on his part.

  It all made sense now: Miss Trout suspected Clifford of double-dealing, but for obvious reasons could not report her suspicions to the police, so she had cleverly appealed for protection to a woman who was known to the public as being a talented amateur detective. In that way she could kill two birds with one stone: first, Angela’s involvement provided Miss Trout with a certain amount of protection from her nephew—her son, rather—since Clifford would be wary of making any precipitate moves against his mother in the presence of a woman with close connections to Scotland Yard; and second, Angela and Barbara could help with the search on Miss Trout’s behalf, and save Miss Trout the exertion—no small matter, given her age and frailty. There never had been any intention to sell the necklace in order to secure Poldarrow Point, then. Presumably, once it had been found, Ma Rosie and her son would have disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again, leaving the old house to rot and eventually fall into the sea.

  ‘Hallo?’ said the inspector’s voice. Angela roused herself.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said. ‘I was just trying to absorb what you have said. It’s all most strange!’ A thought struck her. ‘By the way, there is a further complication in this matter. It looks very much as though Clifford is trying to double-cross his mother by finding the necklace before her, with the help of some friends of his—Lionel and Harriet Dorsey. Yesterday Harriet Dorsey offered me a bribe to hand the goods over to them instead of Miss Trout. Do you know of them at all?’

  ‘Dorsey was the name of one of the members of the Hopper gang, who took part in the original burglary,’ said Jameson. ‘He died some years ago, but perhaps Lionel is his son. The presence of these Dorseys makes me more certain than ever now that there is some funny business going on down there. Perhaps the mystery of the Bampton jewels is about to be cleared up at last!’

  ‘Let us hope so. I am certainly less in the dark than I was this morning, at least,’ said Angela, ‘but what am I to do now? Ought I to go to the police here in Tregarrion?’

  ‘I shall call them myself,’ said Jameson. ‘We’ve been looking for this necklace for thirty years, and I don’t want them tramping all over the place and warning the gang that we know about their plans.’

  ‘What exactly do you intend to do?’ said Angela. ‘After all, as far as we know, they haven’t done anything illegal yet. They certainly haven’t found the necklace.’

  ‘True,’ admitted the inspector. ‘If they had they’d have been away like a shot. But I want to talk to them, and find out what they know.’

  ‘Barbara!’ exclaimed Angela suddenly.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Angela. ‘I have just remembered that my god-daughter has run away with Miss Trout.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes. She is under the romantic impression that Miss Trout is a put-upon innocent, who is being duped by her nephew, and whom she is bound to protect. She is going to be dreadfully disappointed when she finds out the truth. I should imagine they have gone to your man at the hotel.’

  ‘All the better. Go and find him now, and tell him what is happening—discreetly, of course,’ said Jameson. ‘We don’t want Ma Rosie getting wind of our suspicions.’

  They spoke for a few minutes more, then Jameson said he must go as he wanted to speak to the Tregarrion police. A
ngela replaced the receiver and stared at the wall of the telephone-cabinet. She was evidently in the grip of some strong emotion, but whether it was anger or sadness was impossible to tell from her expression—perhaps a mixture of both.

  She roused herself from her reverie and was about to leave the cabinet when a thought struck her. She lifted the receiver again and asked to put through another telephone-call.

  THIRTY-ONE

  At a quarter past eight on Monday morning, a few minutes after Angela had inquired unsuccessfully after her at the desk, Barbara crept out of room 402 of the Hotel Splendide and set off in search of Mr. Simpson. Jeremiah Trout was still asleep, so she took the key and locked him in as she did not want him waking up and wandering around the hotel without her. She had passed an uncomfortable night in the chair, stirring frequently, and had no desire to spend any more time in the cramped room than was absolutely necessary.

  She ran into the bathroom, threw some water hastily over her face and smoothed her hair, then walked down the stairs, trying to look as though she were just any paying guest—although her dirty frock rather gave the lie to that. After ascertaining that the man at the desk was not the same one as last night, she walked boldly up to him and inquired after Mr. Simpson. She was rewarded with a doubtful look and was just about to launch into a hastily-invented and colourful tale, when Mr. Simpson himself emerged from the dining-room, having evidently just finished breakfast. He greeted her in his usual friendly manner.

  ‘Mr. Simpson!’ exclaimed Barbara. ‘You’ve no idea how glad I am! I simply must speak to you in secret. It’s dreadfully important.’ She grabbed his arm and pulled him outside, somewhat to his surprise.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, once they were out of earshot. ‘Has something happened to Angela?’

  ‘Angela? No, I expect she’s still lolling in bed,’ said Barbara uncharitably. ‘No, this is far more important.’ She looked around, then hissed, ‘I’ve rescued Jeremiah Trout!’