Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
About the Author
REFERENCES
Death at Blenheim Palace
“Paige continues to provide some of the best historical mysteries. —The Best Reviews
Death in Hyde Park
“For those who take their mysteries with dashes of period drama, Death in Hyde Park should be on their list of must reads.” —BooksReviewIndex.com
Death at Glamis Castle
“Gypsy prophecies, sing-a-longs at the pub, a possible ghost or two: There’s something for everyone. And if you don’t fall in love with Glamis Castle, you haven’t a wee dram o’ romance in your soul.” —Kirkus Reviews
Death at Dartmoor
“A fantasia on themes from The Hound of the Baskervilles whose focus on the Sheridans shows an altogether more lighthearted side of the moors than Doyle ever revealed.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Death at Epsom Downs
“Enough danger and intrigue to keep readers turning the pages, which are filled with vivid historical detail.”
—Booklist
More praise for Robin Paige’s Mysteries
“If you like mysteries with real characters and historical settings, you will enjoy this series.” —The Stuart (FL) News
“I read it with enjoyment . . . I found myself burning for the injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.” —Anne Perry, author of Dark Assassin
“Wonderfully gothic . . . A bright and lively re-creation of late-Victorian society.”
—Sharan Newman, author of Heresy
“An original and intelligent sleuth . . . a vivid re-creation of Victorian England.”
—Jean Hager, author of Blooming Murder
“Robin Paige’s detectives do for turn-of-the-century technology and detection what Elizabeth Peter’s Peabody and Emerson have done for Victorian Egyptology.”
—Gothic Journal
The Victorian and Edwardian Mysteries by Robin Paige
DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP
DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN
DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY
DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE
DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN
DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL
DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS
DEATH AT DARTMOOR
DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE
DEATH IN HYDE PARK
DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE
DEATH ON THE LIZARD
China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert
THYME OF DEATH
WITCHES’ BANE
HANGMAN’S ROOT
ROSEMARY REMEMBERED
RUEFUL DEATH
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
CHILE DEATH
LAVENDER LIES
MISTLETOE MAN
BLOODROOT
INDIGO DYING
AN UNTHYMELY DEATH
A DILLY OF A DEATH
DEAD MAN’S BONES
BLEEDING HEARTS
SPANISH DAGGER
CHINA BAYLES’ BOOK OF DAYS
Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert
THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM
THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW
THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD
Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert
WRITING FROM LIFE
WORK OF HER OWN
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
DEATH ON THE LIZARD
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors
Copyright © 2006 by Susan Wittig Albert and Bill Albert.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN : 978-0-425-21039-0
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
Charles, Lord Sheridan, Baron Somersworth, amateur forensic detective and wireless enthusiast
Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan, Baroness Somersworth, author (under the pen name Beryl Bardwell) of numerous novels
*Guglielmo Marconi, Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company
Bradford Marsden, director, Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company
Miss Patsy Marsden, photographer, world traveler, and lecturer; sister to Bradford Marsden
*John Nevil Maskelyne, well-known magician and amateur wirele
ss inventor
Residents and Visitors: Mullion, Poldhu, Bass Point, and the West Lizard
Tom Deane, constable, Mullion Village, Helston Bureau, Devon-Cornwall Constabulary
Daniel Gerard, chief assistant, Poldhu Wireless Station
Dick Corey, second assistant, Poldhu Wireless Station
Jack Gordon, operator, Bass Point Wireless Station
Edward Worster, operator, Bass Point Wireless Station
Bryan Fisher, American golf enthusiast
Major Robert Fitz-Bascombe, secretary, Lizard Peninsula Preservation Committee
Mrs. Claudia Fitz-Bascombe, member, Lizard Peninsula Preservation Committee
Miss Agatha Truebody, member, Lizard Peninsula Preservation Committee
Residents and Visitors: Penhallow, Helford Village, and the East Lizard
Lady Jenna Tyrrill Loveday, mistress of Penhallow
Harriet Loveday, deceased child of Lady Loveday
1Sir Oliver Lodge, physicist and physic investigator
Niels Andersson, sailor and adventurer
Alice, Harriet’s friend
Andrew Kirk-Smythe, major, Military Intelligence; a.k.a John Northrup
Dedicated to all the wireless operators in our family:
Charles P. Albert, Robert R. Wittig,
Robert L. Wittig, Robert K. Wittig, and Michael Wittig
PROLOGUE
Saturday, 20 June, 1903
Lizard Village, Cornwall
They came through the blustery night carrying lanterns, the men of the wide Lizard downs. They came to the Drowned Boy from the farms scattered across the moor like peas spilled across a barn floor, and from Church Cove, and from the coastguard station. They came from up Chapel Lane and down Housel Bay and across Gwendreath Quarry. They walked, most of them, or clattered into the cobbled pub yard on shaggy ponies, or in wagons and carts. They were men who made their living with their hands—farmers and shepherds and miners and fishermen and stone turners. For the rich and idle tourists who came from Europe and America to play golf and bask in the beauties of nature were gathered at the hotel on Housel Bay, eating the crab and lobster brought in by the local fishermen and drinking fine wines and champagne and seducing one another’s wives.
More of these wealthy tourists were coming all the time, for nature had been generous in the variety of her beauties on the high plateau of the Lizard. To the west, magnificent cliffs stood like a bulwark against the brutal gales of the Atlantic, and wide beaches of sand gleamed like gold at low tide. To the east, toward the Helford River, the sheltered countryside was divided into irregular fields bounded by Cornish hedges and woodlands, the landscape brightly colored with exotic subtropical plants, the sky like blue silk. To the north of the village, across the center of the Lizard, ranged the bleak heathland and peat bogs of Goonhilly Down, pocked with Bronze Age barrows and hill forts and home to many rare species of plants and animals and birds. To the south flowed the waters of the Channel, guarded since the early 1600s by Lizard Light. And on the cliff above the Channel, the village was a picturesque cluster of thatched and whitewashed cottages arranged around a handsome green, their doors open to the sea air, their window ledges and tiny gardens bright with summer flowers.
It was not just these natural beauties which brought people to the most southern point of England. Over the centuries, drawn by its resources, men had come to mine the tin and copper and china clay; to fish the rich waters of the Channel and build boats for the fishing fleet; to raise cattle and sheep and build and run the railways which took the meat and fleece to market. As wreckers, they had plundered the ships which had come to grief on the treacherous coastal rocks. As privateers and pirates, they had robbed Channel shipping and raided the towns along the Channel coast. And now, some men had come to the Lizard for a new reason. They were employed by the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company. They had come to send wireless messages across the Atlantic.
Jack Gordon—that was the name he went by—was one of those wireless telegraphers. With two other operators, he was responsible for the wireless station at Bass Point, just to the east of Lizard Village. Tonight, he had joined the revelers in the main room of the Drowned Boy, but not in a spirit of comradeship. A small, wary-looking man in his forties, he sat alone in a far corner, biting his nails and brooding over a mug of ale, the candle on the table casting flickering shadows over his darkly bearded face.
After a time he was joined by a younger man with blond hair and a fresh complexion, dressed in a rough Cornish jerkin, who stopped by the table and casually pinched out the candle flame as he sat down. In the darkened corner, the two of them fell into a murmured conversation, the younger man doing most of the talking, Jack answering only briefly. Their conversation, however, became contentious, and as it went on, Jack’s brows lowered belligerently, his mouth set in an increasingly stubborn line, and he shook his head to every question. The evening’s merriment flowed around them, cries of laughter and shouted stories, clouds of tobacco smoke and clinking of glasses, but for all the attention they paid, the pair in the dark corner might have been alone in an empty room.
After a while, their discussion came to an end, and they sat in silence. Then the younger man gave a careless shrug of his broad shoulders, as if saying “Enough, I’m done with you,” and got up and left the pub. Jack fetched another half-pint from the bar, returned to his corner to drink it alone, and then left too, a bit unsteady on his feet. The table was immediately seized by three men with a deck of cards, a match was put to the candle, and a rowdy game got underway.
Once outside, Jack took his lantern from among those lined up on a shelf, and hesitated. It was past ten and a full moon had risen, silvering the Cornish heath. The rocky path gleamed whitely, like the Milky Way. He was only a little drunk, and he’d walked the path along the sea cliffs of Housel Bay a good many times in the eight or nine months he’d lived and worked at the Bass Point wireless station. No need to light the lantern.
Head bent, shoulders hunched against the wind which buffeted the Lizard, Jack trudged along the clifftop path, thinking angrily about the demands Wolf had made. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t right, that’s what it was. He’d already given them more than he’d signed on for. In the circumstance—and a bloody difficult circumstance it was, too—anything more would call attention to him, which would make the situation difficult, dangerous, even. And Wolf hadn’t mentioned paying him any more, had he?
Jack grunted scornfully. Of course he hadn’t. This one was just like the other one they’d sent, wanting something for nothing, playing on his patriotism. It was all a load of rubbish, that’s what it was. He wasn’t in this business because of loyalty to his native country, or his family, or any of that fancy stuff. He was in it for himself, pure and simple, and it was time they recognized his value and paid him what he was worth.
And what was more, there was no way to get his hands on the bloody thing. Even when Gerard brought it to Bass Point for testing, he never let it out of his sight. And as soon as the test was completed, into the box it went and back to Poldhu. You’d think it was a pot of gold.
Well, that was that, and an end of the bloody business. Within the fortnight, he’d be gone on holiday, and well out of it. This place was beginning to get on his nerves. End of the earth, the local folk called it, and by damn, they were right. He paused to look down at the silver surf pounding on the glittering black rocks at the foot of the cliff, far below. End of the earth, that’s what it was. Nothing beyond the toe of the Lizard but a great lot of water, and America somewhere out there beyond the western horizon. Standing there on the edge of the cliff, facing the silver sea, he might have been the last man in the world.
But he wasn’t.
Some fifty yards behind, a man in a dark jacket and hat was picking his way along the same cliff path. He went gingerly, for the moon’s quicksilver light was pure trickery and the rock-strewn path was brushed with deceptive sha
dows. A shorter distance ahead of him, along the headland path, a man in a Cornish jerkin watched as well, the tip of his cigarette glowing briefly in the shadow, then vanishing, ground underfoot. If either of them saw what accident befell the wireless operator, no one else knew. If either of them—or someone else—was involved in the accident, no one else knew that either.
All that was known was what was discovered by a fisherman the following morning: A lantern abandoned in the path, and a man’s broken body sprawled face-down on the rocks at the foot of the cliff, just out of reach of the greedy sea.
CHAPTER ONE
Tuesday, 30 June, 1903 Chelmsford, Essex
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days . . .
James Russell Lowell
The electric spark is the true Promethean fire which is to kindle human hearts.
The Victorian Internet
Tom Standage
Charles Sheridan was whistling as he left Bishop’s Keep and drove his Panhard down the narrow lanes and through the hamlets which lay between the village of Dedham and the town of Chelmsford. On this last day of June, he felt himself to be a happy man. The sky was clear and blue, the sun was bright and the temperature mild, the road’s grassy verges were lavished with purple thistle and foxgloves and wild mignonette. His life was rich and enormously full. He had been born to a station which provided a splendid living with no effort at all on his part, a circumstance which (though no fault of his own) still cost him occasional pangs of guilt. He loved a beautiful and talented woman who returned his love without reservation and who, after nearly eight years of marriage, responded to him just as eagerly as she had in the beginning. He patiently (more or less) fulfilled the obligations of his seat in the House of Lords, and did what he could to effect changes in government policies—not an easy or comfortable effort, since most of the other Lords did not agree with him on any point.