The Trojan Horse

CHAPTER FOUR

As soon as we left London we ran into sunshine. It was that bright, rather brittle sunshine that goes with February and an east wind. The sky was a light chilly blue and cloudless, and its colour was reflected in the water, which lay everywhere on the low ground. The fields, as they streamed past, looked sodden, but their green gave promise of a good early bite. As the sun went down, a dull mist spread over the landscape. By the time we ran through Salisbury, with the thin cathedral spire standing like a grey needle out of the gathering gloom, David was dozing in the seat opposite me, his heavy curved pipe lodged in the corner of his mouth. But the rhythmic beat of the wheels had filled me with a wild sense of excitement, and I did not feel like sleep.

Big stations, filled with the noise and bustle of travel, have always thrilled me. A car is a prosaic thing by comparison. Perhaps it is a matter of association. To me, a car is a method of conveying one to the beauties of the country. But a train spells travel. Go to Victoria, Waterloo, Euston — the Continent, the West Country and Scotland come instantly within your grasp. New scenery, adventure, fighting in some remote battle-ground, whatever your soul longs for, the cold ice of the north or the hot sun of the south, is there for the asking if you have money in your pocket. And the incessant clatter of the wheels! It’s the pulse of life, the rhythm of adventure. It’s the urge that makes children want to play trains. It’s the sound that lifts you out of the rut and sets you down in a new world for a week, a month, a lifetime maybe. It brings you to new friends, new loves. It takes you to your death. It takes you to the fear of death. But it is adventure. And listening to the rhythmic beat, the mood of depression that I had felt in David’s studio was gone, and I felt elated.

It was dark long before we reached Exeter, and we passed through Okehampton with the tors of Dartmoor etched black and clear against a full moon. It was past midnight before we glimpsed the sea at Marazion and saw St Michael’s Mount rearing its compact defences out of the silvered waters of the Bay. We went to earth for the night in a comfortable little hotel just opposite Penzance Station. My window looked out across the harbour to the moonlit bay. The outline of a destroyer and the complete absence of lights reminded me that the West Country, as well as London, was at war. I felt the presence of the sea, but everything was very still. I had a hot rum and tumbled into bed. But though I knew I was on the threshold of a big and dangerous task, I slept like a log.

I woke to a dismal sea mist and the mournful cry of a fog horn. ‘The Runnel Stone,’ David murmured, as he took the seat opposite me in the breakfast-room. ‘They may not mean it that way, but it sounds remarkably like a cow.’

‘Well, I hope to God we haven’t been leaping to conclusions,’ I said. The mist had damped my spirits.

‘I’ll be damned surprised if there’s more than one place in this country that could be described as the Cones of Runnel,’ he replied. And I had to admit the truth of that. It was an unusual name. And I fell to wondering what Freya would be like and what sort of trouble lay ahead of us.

This sense of trouble ahead persisted against all the arguments of logic. We had not been followed to Penzance — of that I was certain. We had both been followed on leaving our rooms on the previous day, but had both been able to report on meeting at Victoria that we had shaken our followers off. Even so, we had taken elaborate precautions against any possible hangers-on in getting across to Waterloo. But though I sensed trouble ahead, I was not fighting shy of it. There was merely a slight tautness of the nerves, a tautness which I had not experienced since my climbing days. Of one thing I was glad. I had lived soft during recent years, but I had sat loose in my comfort and the wrench of leaving the rut was not severe.

After breakfast we went in search of a car. David took charge of this expedition. He has a flair in these matters. I remember, at one of his parties, hearing a young fellow, who had been told by David where he could pick up a steam-pressure cooker cheap, say, ‘Anything you want, go and ask old David. He knows so many odd people that he can always tell you exactly where to find anything at a knockdown price.’ But David also had a sense of atmosphere. He turned down a perfectly good Austin, which was offered us at normal hire rates together with unlimited petrol. ‘What!’ he exclaimed, when I protested that all we wanted was a car to get us over about ten miles of country. ‘Turn up in an Austin? My dear Andrew, an Austin is essentially a family car. It’s not the right background for us at all. Besides, you never know.’ Well, he was right about that.

Altogether we wasted about an hour wandering round Penzance, but eventually we ran a big Bentley roadster to earth. We hired it from a back-street garage proprietor and found the owner in dingy lodgings down by the harbour. Neither of us had any doubt about the position. The man was the chauffeur and master was away. David was not scrupulous, however, and when the fellow suggested a pound a day, he said, ‘Ten bob — for yourself.’ The man took the hint, and we left Penzance in style.

The mist had lifted a bit and turned into a downpour, which hit the Bentley in a flurry of wind as soon as we reached open country. We kept to the Land’s End road as far as Lower Hendra, where David turned off to St Buryan. Penzance to Porthgwarra is not more than nine miles, but as soon as we were off the main road, the way became windy and the going slow. Barely two miles short of Land’s End, we turned sharp left into a narrow lane up which the Bentley shouldered its way between reeking hedgerows. We climbed steadily and, breasting a hill by a farm, we suddenly came upon moorland and looked through the driving curtain of rain to the dismal grey of the sea mottled with white-caps.

David slowed the car up as we bore round the shoulder of the hill and took the descent into Porthgwarra. And then simultaneously we cried out and pointed across the valley. Against the rain-drenched background of the hill opposite, the iron cones stood out, sombre and foreboding. They looked like a pair of giant pierrot’s hats, one red and the other a black check, set down carelessly upon the headland. And yet they seemed to have grown out of the ground like dragon’s teeth rather than to have been set down in that desolate spot.

The valley, into which we were descending, ran practically parallel to the coastline, snaking out into the natural inlet of Porthgwarra at the finish. The seaward side of the valley rose steep and bare to the coastguards’ houses and the Board of Trade look-out on the top. Beyond it were the cliffs. They presented an almost solid front stretching to Land’s End. These cliffs are regarded by those who know their Cornwall as the grimmest natural battlements in the country.

As we slid quietly round the bend and into the valley, we lost the wind and the sudden stillness was almost eerie. Porthgwarra had scarcely the right to be called a village. It is just a cluster of cottages huddled together for shelter close by the shore. David drew up at the local shop. We got out and stood for a moment, looking at the heaving mass of water that jostled in the inlet. Behind the regular beat and hiss of the waves on the foreshore we heard the dull roar of the Atlantic out beyond the headland. And behind all this cacophony of sound the mournful groan of the Runnel buoy was borne in on the howling wind.

I led the way into the shop. The sharp note of the bell over the door brought an elderly body from the back parlour. ‘I’m a solicitor,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a young lady who has recently come to live in these parts.’

‘Ar,’ she said, and looked me over. ‘What would ’er name be?’

I said, ‘Well, that’s the trouble. I’m not quite sure. She used to be a Mrs Freya Williams, but since she divorced her husband I believe she has returned to her maiden name.’ It was a gross libel on the girl, but I could think of no other satisfactory reason for not being able to give her name.

‘Ar, well now, there’s Miss Dassent over to Roskestal.’

‘When did she arrive?’

‘That’ll be two winters ago now.’

‘Then that’s not the one,’ I said. ‘The young lady I want to get in touch with must have arrived only a few months back.’

‘Ar, well then, it’ll be Miss Stephens down at the studio you’re wanting mebbe.’ She thought for a moment, and then turned to the back parlour and called out, ‘Joe!’ A grey-haired man with a dark weather-beaten face and a seaman’s jersey emerged. ‘There’s two gentlemen here looking for-’

‘Ar, I heard. It’ll be Miss Stephens arl right that you’ll be looking for,’ he said to me. ‘She came here with ’er boat at the end of the tourist season. She’s got the studio down afore the beach. Might you be a friend of hers?’

‘I have some business to discuss with her,’ I said.

‘Ar, but you’m a lawyer fellow, like?’ I nodded, and he spat accurately into the corner behind the counter. ‘Then it do look as though the Lord ’as sent you. The lass be over in the little cove with two naval men. They want to take her boat, and she’m mighty fond of that boat. You’ll mebbe know the rights of the matter. When I left them five minutes back they were still arguing it out and she were getting mighty sore.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll go down and see what I can do.’ When we were outside, I said, ‘Looks as though you were right, David, about the Cones of Runnel.’

‘What makes you so sure all of a sudden?’

I laughed. ‘Everything fits so snugly into place,’ I said, as we went down the road to the beach. ‘The tripper season ended about the time that Schmidt got that engine away from Llewellin’s works. And here is this Miss Stephens with a boat. Don’t you see — Swansea is on the coast. What better way of hiding a diesel engine than by putting it into a small yacht.’

David added thoughtfully, ‘The reasoning is sound. But what about this requisitioning party? Don’t tell me that we’ve arrived just in the nick of time to save the heroine from having the secret engine stolen from her by her father’s enemies.’

‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a thriller mentality, David. But stranger coincidences happen in real life. What is more likely is that we have arrived just in time to see the boat requisitioned by the naval authorities. A lot of these small craft are being called in for patrol work just now.’

We had reached the beach, but there was no sign of the girl. The foreshore was narrow and the slope to it was paved. On this paved slope lay a few small boats. The studio itself backed on to the shore. The road curved round and finished against a shoulder of rock, and in this rock gaped the mouth of a cave with daylight visible at the other end. I went over to it and entered. It sloped sharply to another beach, and fishermen’s nets and other gear were stored against the walls of it.

We went down it and emerged on to the second and smaller beach. Here were more boats and among them, a motor-cruiser painted white with the name Sea Spray in black on the stern. She was a forty-footer, fast-looking, but broad enough in the beam to be handy in a seaway. From beyond the boat came the sound of voices raised in altercation.

We moved nearer. ‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry,’ came a man’s voice. ‘I’m not responsible for the requisition order I have. I’m merely acting on instructions.’

‘What if the boat isn’t mine?’ This was a woman’s voice, clear and firm.

‘That doesn’t make any difference. I’ve explained that. All I’m concerned about is the boat, not its ownership. Anyway, if the boat isn’t yours, what are you worrying about?’

‘Well, the boat is mine, but the engine isn’t. It’s a very costly kind of engine and the person who lent it to me would be most upset if it passed out of my hands with the boat. You’ll have to let your order stand over until I’ve had the engine removed.’

There was no doubt in my mind now. I nodded to David and we rounded the stern of the boat to find a young naval lieutenant in the act of clambering on to the yacht. ‘I’m afraid legally an engine is part of a boat,’ he was saying. ‘It wouldn’t be much good to us without one, anyway.’

He had two sailors with him and he motioned them on board. But it was the girl that riveted my attention. She was dressed in a blue corduroy suit, which, though it had obviously seen a great deal of hard wear, was well enough cut to look very smart with its navy shirt and red-striped tie. But though her figure was entrancingly neat and boyish, it was her head that inevitably held one’s gaze. I think it was the finest head I had ever seen on a woman. The face was oval to the point of the firm chin and framed in black hair brushed sleek to the nape of the neck. The mouth was clearly moulded and full enough to give promise of warmth. The nose was straight and small, with delicately chiselled nostrils, and the thin line of the eyebrows swept upwards over large dark eyes to a high forehead. It is difficult to describe her and at the same time give any idea of the extreme perfection of those features. It was a beauty that took your breath away when you first saw it. It was the nearest I have ever seen in life to the head of Nefertiti.

‘Well, you can’t take her out in this sea,’ she said. Two angry spots of colour were showing through the tan of her cheeks.

The lieutenant turned towards the sea and saw us. He was obviously extremely uncomfortable. Looking at the girl, I could appreciate his difficulty. ‘We’ll manage it all right,’ he said gruffly, and climbed on board.

‘Just a minute,’ I said, as he beckoned the two ratings to join him. He swung round, his face still flushed. ‘I’m a barrister. Perhaps you would let me have a look at your requisition order?’ I turned to the girl. ‘Miss Freya Schmidt?’ I asked quietly, and the look of surprise on her face was unmistakable. She did not deny the name. ‘My name is Kilmartin,’ I told her. ‘Your father asked me to come down here to discuss a little matter of business with you.’ Her large eyes suddenly seemed to dilate, and I knew that surprise had given place to fear. But I could do nothing to help her.

The lieutenant dropped down on to the beach at my side. He produced an order from the pocket of his greatcoat. As I had suspected, it was perfectly in order. ‘I’m sorry the lady is so upset about it, sir,’ he said, as I handed it back to him. ‘But it’s nothing to do with me. I’ll take every care of it, and if you can get the order rescinded, then it’ll be all right. But, however much she objects, I’m afraid I’ll have to take it now. Those are my orders.’ I think he was glad to have a man to deal with.

‘Who took out the order, do you know?’ I asked.

‘Well, the naval authorities at Falmouth made out the order,’ he said, indicating the signature. ‘Who actually discovered the boat, I don’t know. You see, we’ve got quite a number of scouts out along the coasts, picking out likely vessels for patrol work. And this is just the sort of craft we want.’

‘Where are you taking her?’ I asked. ‘I shall want to know where to find her if I can get this order rescinded.’

‘I doubt whether you’ll get it rescinded, sir,’ he said. ‘She’s a good boat for light patrol work.’

‘Well, just in case, I’d like to know where I can find her.’

‘I’m taking her up to the Thames Estuary.’

‘Whereabouts?’

He glanced at the order again. ‘Calboyd Diesel Power Boat Yards, Tilbury,’ he said. He glanced at the graceful lines of the boat. ‘Maybe they’re going to put a powerful engine in her and convert her into a torpedo boat. She’s got the lines for it. Have you any objections if I get on with the job now?’

I shrugged my shoulders and looked across at Schmidt’s daughter. There was nothing I could do. These were not Calboyds’ people. They were naval men. Out of the tail of my eyes I had caught sight of a drifter lying off the inlet, her bows headed into the wind. As no one made any comment, the lieutenant turned and climbed on board the boat.

The girl watched him with large sombre eyes. I felt she was very near to tears. ‘This is Evan Llewellin’s boat, isn’t it?’ I asked her.

She nodded.

‘And it’s fitted with your father’s engine?’

Her eyes met mine, and again I noticed that sudden flicker of fear. ‘What do you know about us?’ she asked. ‘Do you know where my father is?’

For answer I took out her father’s letter from my pocket and handed it to her. She looked at the writing for a long time, as though trying to pluck up the courage to open it. Then suddenly she made up her mind and ran her finger down the fold of the envelope. She read it through slowly, as though bewildered by it. Then she looked up at me. I saw the tears gathering in her eyes. ‘Is — he’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

Her long finely-shaped hands were clutched so tight that the nails bit into the flesh. ‘Pray God he’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, God, don’t let them torture him.’ Then suddenly she became aware again of the two of us, standing there. ‘He has suffered so much and he was such a brilliant man,’ she explained. She had control of herself now. ‘Will you come up to the studio? We can talk there.’

‘This is a friend of mine — Mr David Shiel,’ I said. She nodded to David. I think it was the first time she had really become aware of him. ‘I’ll explain how he comes into it with the rest,’ I said.

She led the way back to the studio. She did not speak, and I left the silence unbroken. She seemed to have withdrawn into herself, as though she wished to be alone with her thoughts. I could do nothing to comfort her.

The studio was a small brick building that did service as a bed-sitting-room cum workshop. There was a friendly coal fire blazing in the grate and a divan bed in the corner. There was a sink near the window and a big serviceable bench littered with tools. The easel and canvases of the owner were stacked behind the door. A kettle was singing in front of the fire and, like a person in a dream, she began to make tea. When this was served, she squatted down on the floor in front of the fire and we drew up two wooden chairs.

Then I told her the story, omitting nothing. She did not once interrupt, and when I had finished she sat silent, seemingly lost in thought. At last she looked up and her eyes travelled from me to David. ‘You have been very kind, both of you,’ she said. ‘It must have been a fantastic story and it was kind of you to take my father at his word.’ She hesitated. Then she said, ‘Franzie didn’t kill Evan Llewellin. He was incapable of hurting anyone. Besides, Evan was the best friend we ever had. It’s on his money that I’m living down here.’

‘Can you add anything to what your father wrote on that first page of the code message?’ I asked.

But she shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘In fact, what he wrote there is largely new to me. I was bundled off in the yacht shortly after war broke out. The engine had been installed in it in July. I knew people were after it, and I presumed that it was Calboyds. But I knew nothing about the company being under Nazi control. I don’t think my father knew it then. Evan and I brought her here on our own, and then he went back to Swansea. My instructions were to lie low. I got very little news. Every fortnight there was a message from my father in the personal column of the Daily Telegraph under Olwyn, my mother’s name — that was all. The day after I read about Evan’s death there was a little message from my father to say that he was all right and that I was to sit tight here until I heard from him. That was three weeks ago, and not a word since. It’s been horrible just sitting here, waiting.’

‘And what now?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice sounded weary and very dejected. ‘The police must be informed. Oh, God!’ she cried, ‘if I only knew what had happened to him.’

‘There’s more to it than that,’ I said. ‘You understand the implication of that part of his message we did decode? Tell me, just how good is that engine?’

A far-away look came into her eyes. ‘Franzie was a genius,’ she said. ‘And that engine is the fruits of his genius.’ She looked up at me and her voice became suddenly matter-of-fact. ‘I won’t bore you with technical details, but I’m a fairly good engineer, and that engine is something far in advance of anything that has yet been designed. It’s not a marine engine, though, geared down as it is in the Sea Spray, it gives a pretty amazing performance. It’s an aero engine. Do you know anything about the principles of aeronautics? Well, I think you’ll understand this. The production of an aero engine that gives a higher speed isn’t just a question of increasing the revs. If the propeller goes too fast, it creates a vacuum. You don’t necessarily need a high-revving engine. What you need is an engine that is light and yet gives tremendous power behind the swing of the propeller, so that it bites into the air. You follow?’ I nodded. ‘The diesel engine is, of course, the ideal type of engine for aircraft because it develops great power at relatively slow speeds. The drawback to the diesel so far has been its weight. The cylinders have to be extremely strong to stand the pressure. So far this has required a heavy weight of metal by comparison with the petrol engine. My father, as he told you, was a specialist in metal alloys. His chief discovery was a new lightweight alloy of unusual strength. The secret of this alloy is still his. Realising where its possibilities lay, he then set to work to modify the diesel design. Eventually he produced the engine that is now in the Sea Spray’

‘Won’t those naval boys realise they’ve got hold of something unusual when they take her out?’ David asked.

‘No. Whilst I’ve been here, I have incorporated a little switch valve of which I have the key. The valve, which is now regulating the fuel supply, will keep the engine down to a performance very little different from that of an ordinary diesel. But a firm like Calboyds will soon discover what is checking the performance and put in a new valve.’

‘How long will that take?’ I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders and poured out some more tea. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘A day — perhaps more.’

‘And how long to analyse the alloy?’

She looked up quickly and there was something in her eyes that I did not for the moment understand. ‘Ah, I see what it is,’ she said. ‘You are thinking of your country.’

‘And yours, too,’ I said. ‘You were born before the 1915 Act.’

‘Yes, mine, too,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I always think of myself as an Austrian. But now — They might take a week or a month to analyse it — who knows. But if I were in their position, I should take a piece of metal from the engine for analysis, make rough drawings of the design and then try and smuggle the engine itself through to Germany. It would be surprising if both methods failed.’

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘I think that’s what they’ll try to do. And that is what we’ve got to prevent at all costs.’

‘How?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘The police must be told everything,’ she said, after a moment’s pause. ‘Do you know anyone in the police force?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘But it would be folly to try and tell the police at this stage that one of the biggest industrial firms in the country is under Nazi control. Calboyd is a public figure — philanthropist and all that. The police would just laugh at us.’

‘I don’t mind. I must find Franzie. Don’t you understand,’ she cried, turning her big eyes on me appealingly, ‘these men are fiends. They may be torturing him. Literally torturing him, I mean. You English never can be made to understand that on the Continent people are tortured.’

I leaned forward, looking down into her eyes. ‘Don’t you understand, Freya, that you’re putting the life of one man before the lives of thousands? If Calboyds are not exposed and this engine gets to Germany, then we lose our superiority in quality as well as in numbers, and if we do that, we lose the war. Will you risk that, even to save your father from torture? He wouldn’t. He knew the danger he faced, but he was not prepared to yield that engine, though the offers made him were reasonably good considering the probable alternative.’

She put her hands to her eyes. ‘I can’t bear it,’ she said. ‘I love him. He’s all I’ve got. Oh, why should I have been given such a choice?’ She spoke quietly, as though dulled by the uncertainty.

‘There is no choice,’ I said. ‘You know that. Would you set the police to hunt down your father before you’ve fashioned the means to prove him innocent? Do you want him to hang?’ It was a brutal argument, but it was no time for gentle persuasion.

She took it as though it were a challenge, for she raised her head and said, ‘Yes, of course, you’re right. But what can we do? You can’t stop them taking the boat, can you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s where Calboyds have the advantage of us. Until we have sufficient evidence they have the law on their side. And at the same time, their agents will not hesitate, I fancy, to go outside the law.’

David laughed. ‘It seems we get the worst of both worlds,’ he said. ‘What do we do about the boat?’

I rose to my feet. Freya’s talk of the police had given me an idea. ‘Where can I phone?’ I asked.

‘There’s a phone over at the shop,’ Freya said.

‘Good! I’ll ring Crisham at the Yard and tell him to hold the boat when it arrives at Calboyds’ yard.’

‘But will he?’ Freya asked.

‘I think so,’ I said, ‘when he hears whose boat it is. I’ll also tell him about the engine and Calboyds. He won’t believe it, of course, but it’ll give him something to chew over.’ I let myself out and went over to the shop.

The telephone was in the back parlour. I lifted the receiver and waited. But there was no sound from the exchange. I joggled the rest up and down, but the line was completely dead. ‘Your telephone seems out of order,’ I told them.

‘That it can’t be,’ replied the old man. ‘I were only using it this morning to ring to Penzance to get the doctor to Mrs Teale. She’s near ’er time, she is.’ Then he tried, but he got no answer. In the end I went up the road to a little house owned by a young writer, but his phone was also out of order.

I went back to the studio in a very thoughtful frame of mind. And as I walked down the road, the soft chugging of an engine sounded through the noise of the gale, and the Sea Spray came into view, battling her way out of the inlet, the naval dinghy trailing at her stern. I could not help admiring the way in which the young lieutenant handled her, for the sea was running very high and he had to take her close in to the rocks. And as she passed out of sight round the eastern headland, I wondered whether or not we should ever see her again. It seemed strange that that little craft should mean so much to two countries in the throes of war. And then I fell to wondering about the phone again. It seemed curious that the line should go out of order just as the boat had been requisitioned.

David turned as I entered the studio. ‘Did you get him?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, and explained to them what had happened.

‘Funny,’ said David. He lit a pipe and tossed the match into the fire with a frown on his face. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘if I were on the other side, it might occur to me that the person from whom the boat was requisitioned would make some such move.’

‘Yes, but we could go into another village,’ I pointed out.

‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘I could walk up to Roskestal or along the cliffs,’ Freya pointed out.

‘The way I look at it is this,’ David said. ‘Bona fide naval scouts may have seen the boat and may have got her requisitioned just as they would any other fast craft along the coast, in that case, we have little to fear. On the other hand, the people who want this engine may suddenly have woken up to the fact that Llewellin owned a boat at Swansea and that it was no longer there. They’d have been some time working round the coast, looking for her. When they did find her, what better way of getting her away quietly than by giving the navy the job. And I think the last of these two possibilities is the right one.’

‘in which case,’ I asked, ‘what would you do if you were in their shoes?’

‘I should see that the one person who knew the truth about the boat was safely disposed of,’ was his prompt reply.

‘So you’d cut the phone and watch the road to see that she didn’t get a word to anyone?’

‘Precisely.’

‘But, don’t you see, I could walk over to St Levan or to Portcurno along the cliffs,’ Freya pointed out again.

‘Yes, but would you arrive?’ David asked. ‘I suggest we stick to the Bentley and make a dash for it.’

‘But look, this is silly,’ Freya persisted. ‘They can’t isolate a whole village. Suppose we split up and all go different ways? Anyway, you don’t know the phone isn’t just an accident. There’s quite a gale blowing and the wires may be down somewhere. It has happened before. As for the requisitioning, lots of boats are being requisitioned. It’s one of the things I’ve been dreading. That’s why I made that switch valve.’

Her point was reasonable. We hadn’t been followed from London and it would take them a long time to work out that code and discover that the key-letters CONESFRUL stood for Cones of Runnel. ‘I think Freya is right,’ I said. ‘We’re just jumping to conclusions. I suggest we drive into Sennen and I’ll phone Crisham from there. If you’ll bring a few things with you,’ I said to Freya, ‘we can decide on our next move as we go along.’

‘That seems sensible,’ she said.

David shrugged his shoulders and relit his pipe. I noticed that his eyes followed Freya as she pulled a little suitcase from beneath the bed and began packing a few things into it. When she had finally closed it, she put on a tight-fitting little cloth cap and a heavy gabardine cape.