An Ensuing Evil and Others

THE SIREN OF SENNEN COVE

Of the many adventures and curious hazards that I have shared with my good friend Sherlock Holmes, the wellknown consulting detective, there is one that still brings an icy chill to my bones and a tingle to the hairs on the nape of my neck. I can still recall the apprehension-nay, the unutterable fear-that gripped me when I saw the pale specter of that naked, dancing woman who had lured so many seamen to their watery deaths-and she no more than ten yards away from where Holmes and I huddled in an open dinghy on the tempestuous seas off the rocky granite coast of Cornwall.

Lest Holmes rebuke me for starting my account at the end rather than at the beginning, let me remind those of my readers who have followed my record of his adventures that, in the spring of 1897, Dr. Moore Agar of Harley Street had prescribed to my friend a complete rest, should he wish to avoid a breakdown in his health. We had taken a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, near Mullion, on the Lizard Peninsula almost, but not quite, on the farthest extremity of Cornwall.

It was here that the ancient Cornish language had arrested Holmes’s attention and he received a consignment of books on philology and set himself to writing a monograph on what he perceived as Chaldean roots in that branch of the Celtic languages.

Our idyll was rudely interrupted when, taking tea at the local vicarage with its incumbent, Mr. Roundhay, we became involved with the strange case of Mortimer Tregennis, which I have recounted as “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot.” It was a stimulating exercise in deduction but, as Holmes remarked at the end of it, he was pleased to get back to the study of the Cornish language.

Only three days elapsed before we had a visitor who would send us helterskelter into a case that made the investigation of the death of Mortimer Tregennis seem a mere diversion in mental entertainment by comparison with the terrifying peril it presented.

It was just before noon. I was taking the sun in a garden chair outside our cottage, sipping a preprandial sherry. Although it was April, it was a warm day and not at all breezy. Holmes was enclosed in the room we had set aside as his study, poring over a newly acquired volume that had arrived by that morning’s mail. It was Some Observations on the Rev. R. Williams’ Preface to his Lexicon CornuBritannicum, written by no less a luminary than Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. That is why I recall it so well; the idea of one of the Bonaparte family becoming a philologist and an authority on the Cornish language was a matter which intrigued me.

Holmes had scooped up the book and disappeared into his study after breakfast, promising faithfully to appear for luncheon because our daily help, Mrs. Chirgwin, was preparing it, and she did not take kindly to her meals being missed.

I was, therefore, sitting, reading the Falmouth Packet when I heard the sound of a carriage rattling along the track that led to our cottage. I reluctantly placed my sherry and newspaper aside and stood up, waiting to receive the unexpected visitor with some curiosity. We were so isolated that visitors were an unusual phenomenon.

It took a moment for the carriage to appear from behind a clump of trees and come to a halt before the garden gate. It was a sturdily built carriage, one more often seen in the country than in town. But it was clearly the vehicle of some welltodo personage.

A tall, darkfaced coachman leaped down and opened the door. From the interior, a short, wellbuilt man alighted and glanced about him. He had a shock of white hair, a red face and was well dressed, bearing the hallmarks of a country squire. In fact, he seemed almost a caricature of one.

He saw me and hailed even as he opened the gate and came toward me. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am his colleague, Dr. Watson,” I replied. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”

The man frowned impatiently. “It is Mr. Holmes that I must see.”

“I am afraid that he is busy at the moment. May I take your name, sir, and I will see-?”

“It’s all right, Watson,” came Holmes’s voice from behind me. He was leaning out of his study window, which he had opened. “I heard the carriage arriving. What can I do for you?”

The whitehaired man examined him for a moment with intense blue eyes; a keen examination that seemed to miss nothing.

“A moment of your time is what I require, sir. Perhaps some advice at the end of it. My name is Sir Jelbart Trevossow. It is a name not unknown in these parts.”

Holmes stared at the man in amusement. “That’s as may be, sir, yet, unfortunately, it is a name unknown to me,” he replied amiably. “Nevertheless, I have a moment before luncheon. Watson, old fellow, bring Sir Jelbart into our little parlor, and I will be there directly.”

I smiled a little at the mortification on the country squire’s face. He was apparently unused to people not recognizing him nor having his wishes obeyed instantly. I gestured to the door with a slight bow.

His mouth tightened, but he moved inside to the room we had set aside as our common parlor. I followed him and closed the cottage door behind me.

“Now, sir,” I said, “may I offer you some refreshment? Something to keep out the chill? A whiskey or a sherry, perhaps?”

“I do not agree with strong spirits, Doctor,” Sir Jelbart snapped. “I am of the Wesleyan religion, sir. My views are firm on strong drink and tobacco….” He sniffed suspiciously, for Holmes’s noxious weed could be discerned all over our small cottage.

“Then be seated, sir,” I invited. “Perhaps Mrs. Chirgwin might be prevailed upon to make you some tea?”

“I will have nothing, thank ‘ee,” he replied firmly, sitting down. His attitude was somewhat pugnacious.

Holmes entered at that moment, and I was thankful for it, raising my eyes to the ceiling to indicate to him that our guest was of an awkward nature.

Holmes stretched himself at his ease in an armchair opposite our visitor and, undaunted by the look that would have sent others straight to the fires of hell, he took a pipe from his pocket and lit up.

“I do not agree with tobacco, sir,” snapped our guest.

Holmess goodnatured expression did not change. “Each to their own enjoyment, sir,” he replied indifferently. “Myself, I think best over a pipe or two of shag tobacco. The coarser, the better.”

Sir Jelbart eyed Holmes for a moment, and when he saw that he was dealing with someone of an equal steel will, he suddenly relented. Holmes would doubtless have pointed out that by giving way so easily on the matter, Sir Jelbart’s business must have been of considerable importance to him.

“Now, sir”-Holmes smiled-”perhaps we can discuss the reason for this visit, for I presume you have not come merely to pass the time of day with me on our respective likes and prejudices?”

Sir Jelbart Trevossow cleared his throat more in an expression of annoyance than to help him in his speech. “I am not one to waste time, Mr. Holmes. I have business interests, sir. I was a stockholder in the company which owned the barque Sophy Anderson. Ten years ago you investigated her loss, which could have bankrupted those who had financed her voyage. I was one of them.”

Holmes leaned back for a moment, his eyes closed as he recalled the case. “Exactly ten years ago,” he agreed. He turned to me. “It is not a case that you have as yet recorded, Watson, old fellow.”

“I did mention it in passing when I was relating the case of ‘The Five Orange Pips,’” I replied in defense. “I felt that it was too pedestrian a case to excite the temperament of readers of The Strand Magazine, Holmes. As I recall-”

Sir Jelbart cleared his throat again in annoyance.

Holmes smiled politely.

“Pray, proceed,” he said, waving a hand.

“I came to you, Mr. Holmes, knowing that you have some dealings with the mysteries of the sea.”

“A number of my cases have been concerned with the disappearance or foundering of ships. The cutter Alicia, for example, and the Friesland, on which Watson and I nearly lost our lives-”

“Mr. Holmes,” interrupted Sir Jelbart, “do you know how many ships-and I mean ships of some tonnage, not merely little coasters-have been lost on this coast alone during the last fifteen years?”

Holmes speculated. “A halfdozen, a dozen, perhaps?”

“One hundred and eight,” our guest informed us solemnly. “This, sir, is a wrecker’s coast, always has been. The people scavenge from the sea.”

Holmes pursed his lips. “If memory serves me well, three years ago the new Merchant Shipping Act, especially part nine on the law of salvage and wrecks, should now prevent any lucrative business being made out of wrecking.”

“Not at all, sir. My brother, Captain Silas Trevossow, is the local Excise Officer. He will tell you that wrecking is still as virile a business as ever it was.”

“Most interesting, Sir Jelbart, but I cannot yet see what has brought you to my door.”

“I come to you for assistance, Mr. Holmes. As soon as I learned that you were staying in the Duchy, I knew that you were the one man who could help.”

“I am still waiting for your explanation.”

“I live in Chy Trevescan, a house near Sennen Cove, at the far end of the Cornish peninsula. It is by Land’s End. The area is a gray granite place, and its village was once called the first and last on this island. It stands on an open, rocky tableland, and to the west the land ends in granite cliffs facing the sea.

“Sennen Cove is about one and a quarter miles from the village, and this is reached by a narrow road which drops down very steeply between the hills to the sea and then extends along the sea’s edge into a long sandy beach that curves along the margin of Whitesand Bay, a mile or so of sandy beach. The people in the area usually live by pilchard fishing or lifting lobsters. Whitesand Bay appears a hospitable shoreline, but the Brisons Rocks are a mile offshore, and in the distance is Cape Cornwall, where the seas can smash a great ship to matchwood if it is unlucky enough to founder there. There is another group of rocks to the south, the Tribbens, of which the largest is Cowloe.”

Sir Jelbart paused.

Holmes made no move, asked no question.

Our visitor decided to continue. “During the last two weeks, three vessels have foundered on the Tribbens.”

“Pray what is so singular about these three sinkings out of the hundred or so others you enumerate that causes you so much concern?” demanded Holmes.

Jelbart looked at him in surprise. “I have not as yet said that there was anything singular about them. How did you-?”

“Elementary,” Holmes replied wearily. “You would not come here, bear to sit in the proximity of my pipe, and refer to these three specific vessels out of the hundreds of sinkings if they were but simple additional statistics. Something must have caused you some great concern. Pray elucidate.”

Sir Jelbart leaned forward. “There were several survivors from the wrecks. They all recount a singular manifestation that was the cause of their ships foundering on the rocks.”

“Which is?”

“They claim the ships were lured ashore by a siren.”

“A siren?” Holmes smiled quickly. “I presume that you do not mean a signal device like a horn?”

“No sir, I do not!” spluttered our guest indignantly. “I mean a spirit, a seductress, an enchantress.”

I could not control my amusement, but Holmes calmly began to refill his pipe. “I think that you had better clarify your statement, Sir Jelbart.”

“These ships were heading for the Port of St. Ives. Coasters, they were. Many local captains cut across the mouth of Whitesand Bay instead of standing out to sea. They steer a course between the Cam Bras Longships, rocky islands to the west, and the inshore rocks in order to make up sea time. The wrecks have happened at night. Usually there are no problems for local skippers on this course, for there are lights at strategic points, and the captains of these vessels know the waters well. All three captains of the wrecked coasters had run this course many times.”

“How did this enchantress manifest herself?” I ventured.

“Each survivor says that she was a specter that appeared to the crew dancing on the rocks.”

So serious was the man that I could not suppress a chuckle. “But Holmes…,” I began when I saw him silencing me with a disdainful glance.

“In what form did this specter manifest itself?” he repeated my question. “Some specifics, please.”

“A woman. Gad sir, a naked woman, dancing on one of the rocks. But the figure was large and shimmered white. Indeed, many of the survivors said that they could see right through her.”

“Did anyone hear anything?”

“Not at the time of the sinking, but in the nights following, some locals report that they have heard a heavy breathing from the direction of the rocks. So loud was it that it was heard ashore when the wind was in the right direction. A sound of hissing breath like some giant was hiding behind the rocks. The locals are in fear of the Tribbens, even though it was a favorite spot to lift lobsters.”

“No music? No panpipes?” I smiled sarcastically.

Before the man could answer, Holmes had cut in. “Nothing else was seen around these rocks? Has anyone ventured to examine them?”

“No, sir. The survivors were scared out of their wits, sailors being so superstitious. The fear at the sight of the specter caused the crews to panic, the captains to lose control. It takes only a moments distraction to put a vessel on those rocks. Some seventyfive men have perished, sir, and the news is abroad about the siren of Sennen Cove luring the men to their deaths.”

“And you have come to me. Why?”

“Because, in spite of the merriment of your colleague”-he glanced dourly at me-”I do not believe in ghosts, sir. I am a Methodist. A plain man raised in a plain religion. A man who believes in rationality. I think there is some mischief afoot, but I cannot find an explanation.”

Holmes laid down his pipe for a moment, leaning back in his chair and placing his hands fingertips together, and gave Sir Jelbart a careful scrutiny. “I am sure that you have some explanation, Sir Jelbart. Some theory to propose to me?”

“I have made a study of shipwrecks along this coast, Mr. Holmes. That is why I know the statistics. I believe that wreckers are at work.”

“From what you say, this Sennen Cove is not so far removed from civilization that a gang of wreckers could work with impunity,” I intervened. “Unless it is a conspiracy of the entire local populace.”

“On the contrary, Doctor,” Sir Jelbart said, “the coastline is not the easiest place to police.”

“But three vessels, sir… if what you say is correct… that would cause a more careful watch to be kept?”

“No, indeed. That’s the confounded point of the matter. The stories of the specter have scared off local people. Imagine, sir, tales of this siren, this seductress dancing naked on a rock whose sides are so sheer that no one could land on it, let alone find a shelf on which to balance. And the size of her… they say the figure is at least twelve feet tall. No one in those parts will venture even to the shore after dark, not even Mr. Neal, our minister. He now goes around warning people to stay clear of the area unless they wish to see the enchantress and suffer the fate of Lot’s wife when she turned back to look upon Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Does he now?” mused Holmes. “You say that your brother is in the Excise? Have you made your views known to him?”

“I have.”

“And what does he say?”

“He does not share them.”

“Why?”

“Because the ships founder and sink. Little wreckage, if any, is swept ashore. He argues that if wreckers are the cause, what happens to their spoils? They go straight to the bottom. There seems nothing to profit from. He believes, therefore, that we can rule wrecking out.”

“It is a sound, logical deduction,” agreed Holmes.

“Nevertheless, the alternative is preposterous. I must believe that the matter has a rational explanation. I refuse to believe that it is a siren luring passing ships onto the rocks. A specter? A ghost? This is why I have come to you, Mr. Holmes. You, I am sure, cannot believe in the supernatural.”

“On the contrary,” Holmes replied seriously. “What is the supernatural but nature which has not yet been explained? Tell me, Sir Jelbart, in what condition was the weather when these ships foundered?”

“The weather?”

“Yes, was it a tempestuous night, was there a sea fog, were high seas running?”

Sir Jelbart shook his head. “On the contrary. The wrecks occurred on fine nights. Good visibility and calm seas. That is why the captains of these doomed vessels took the passage so close to the Tribbens Rocks. In bad weather, a good seaman would have stood out to sea and given his ship plenty of sea room.”

“Has your brother, Captain Trevossow, made an investigation of the area?”

“He intends to do so this very night. That is why I have been encouraged to come to you, for I fear for his life. The Torrington Lass is sailing from Penzance overnight around the coast to St. Ives. She should pass the Tribbens at midnight. My brother intends to be aboard to inspect the rocks as they sail by.”

“Isn’t that dangerous in view of what has transpired to the previous ships?” I asked.

“It will be a clear night tonight with calm weather,” he replied. “In normal circumstances, there should be no danger. However…” He ended with an eloquent shrug.

“Surely, your brother is a practical man,” Holmes said, “and would be prepared for any unusual occurrence?”

“He is not the skipper and crew,” pointed out Sir Jelbart.

“You have piqued my curiosity, Sir Jelbart,” Holmes said thoughtfully.

Just then Mrs. Chirgwin put her head around the parlor door and announced that the midday meal was ready and she would not be blamed if it was to get cold, gentleman caller or no.

Holmes arose, smiling. “Pray, stay to lunch with us, Sir Jelbart, and, afterward we will accompany you back to this Sennen Cove. We will stay overnight if you can accommodate us. By the way, do you have access to a rowing boat and a competent seaman who would be prepared to row us out to these haunted rocks?”

Sir Jelbart rose and held out his hand. “I do, indeed, sir. I am glad the instinct that brought me hither has been proved a good one.”

The journey from Poldhu Bay around the great stretch of Mounts Bay, through the town of Penzance, along the inhospitable inland road, passing such strange un-English-sounding places as Buryas, Trenuggo, CrowsanWra, Treave, and Carn Towan, before reaching the village of Sennen, was longer than I had expected. We finally arrived at Sir Jelbart’s house of Chy Trevescan in the early evening. It was this journey, through the desolate landscape, with standing stones and ancient crosses that illustrated, for me at least, that Cornwall was, indeed, “the land beyond England.” A strange, ancient place, lost in time.

The sun was low in the sky, almost directly in our eyes, as we came along the road above Whitesand Bay heading south to Sennen. I saw a spectacular stretch of sandy beach about a mile long and curving. Sir Jelbart was full of local folklore. It was here, apparently, that the Saxon King Athelstan landed during his attempt to conquer the Celts of Cornwall. It was here that the Pretender Perkin Warbeck came ashore from Ireland in his vain attempt to seize the English Crown. The sea was calm now, but our guide told us that it usually came rolling shoreward in long breakers.

“There is a small craft out there by that point,” observed Holmes. “It seems to have a curious engine fitted on its stern.”

Sir Jelbart glanced toward it. It was anchored at the north end of the bay, the opposite end of the large bay to the location of Sennen Cove.

“That’s Aires Point.” He screwed up his eyes to focus on the point. “Ah, that is young Harry Penwarne’s boat.”

“What’s he doing?”

“No idea. He’s a bit of an inventor. Amateur, of course. He once explained it all to me. The Penwarne place is just by Aire’s Point at Tregrifnan. Sad history.”

“Why so?” asked Holmes.

“The Penwarnes are one of the old families in these parts, but young Harry’s father was a gambler. He lost most of the family fortune. Shot himself while young Harry was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris about ten years ago. Harry returned here and has tried to keep Tregrifnan House going. Inventive young man. Full of all these modern technological ideas, but he worries too much. Frequently seen him with bloodshot eyes. Burning the midnight oil, what?”

Chy Trevescan was certainly a large house in anyone’s estimation. But it was an ugly house. Squat and brooding, thickset, just like the granite countryside. As we drove up to the main door, we noticed that a small pony and trap stood outside. It was a single horse, twowheeled affair. Standing on the step was a solemnfaced man whose black broadcloth proclaimed him as a minister.

“Sir Jelbart,” the man greeted him even before he descended, “I do not approve of this enterprise. I have heard that your brother is sailing on the Torrington Lass tonight, and I do not approve.”

“Our local minister, Mr. Neal,” explained Sir Jelbart under his breath. Then aloud: “I fail to see what business it is of yours, sir. You have abrogated your responsibility to your flock by not demonstrating that what is happening on the Tribbens Rocks is not the Devil’s work. Now my brother and I must take matters into our own hands.”

Mr. NeaFs face was distorted in anger. “As your minister, I forbid it. You have no right to interfere with matters of the otherworld. It is God’s wish that these vessels be stricken down, for their crews must be debauched. They are being punished for their sins; otherwise God would intervene and save them from their doom! I tell you, it is God who drives those ships on the Tribbens Rocks! Their vines are vines of Sodom, grown on the terraces of Gomorrah; their grapes are poisonous, the clusters bitter to the taste….”

“Deuteronomy!” snapped Holmes suddenly, the sharpness of his voice causing the minister to stop, blinking. “But hardly appropriate. God would surely not waste his time organizing shipwrecks, Mr. Neal, in order to punish those souls who have met their fate on those rocks.”

“I warn you, sir,” cried the minister, “do not attempt to interfere or you, too, will be doomed-the way of the wicked is doomed….”

“But the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,” replied Holmes solemnly, quoting from the same psalm.

The minister turned toward his governess’s cart. “You have been warned!” he cried as he climbed into his pony and trap and disappeared down the driveway.

Sir Jelbart bade us come inside for refreshment while he sent for the local fisherman whom he trusted. Holmes suggested that only he and myself, together with the boatman, need set out on the expedition to examine the rocks. The boatman’s name was Noall Tresawna, a simple, thickset man. Holmes explained what he wanted, and the man made no demur. When Holmes asked him if he had heard about the supernatural phenomenon, Tresawna nodded.

“Are you not a little apprehensive, my friend?” asked Holmes. “We must rely on your nerve and experience in a little boat out there among’the rocks.”

“I do be a Godfearing man, master,” Tresawna replied. “I say my prayers and keep the commandments, and I place my fate in God’s hands. For it is written in the Good Book:

Happy is the man

who does not take the wicked for his guide

nor walk the road that sinners tread

nor take his seat among the scornful…

Holmes broke in:

… the law of the Lord is his delight

the law his meditation night and day.

Tresawna looked impressed. “Aye, master, that do be so, and thus I be not afear’d of specters.”

Toward midnight, Tresawna met us at the kitchen door of the house and led us by the light of a storm lantern across fields to a cliff top, which was a point overlooking the Tribbens. The point was called Pednmendu, which Holmes afterward told me meant “the head of black stone.” A dangerous stairlike path descended to where he had moored his boat. The night was a dark blue velvet. Bright white stars winked in the sky, and the moon was only in its first quarter and thus shedding little illumination.

Once inside the boat, Tresawna extinguished the lantern, for he knew the seas around the coast better in what little natural light there was than by artificial means.

Holmes bent close to me as we sat in the stern. “Have you brought your revolver as I requested, Watson?”

“I have. But do you expect me to shoot at a twelvefoothigh naked dancer?” I inquired sarcastically.

“Not quite, old fellow. I expect a more tangible, fleshandblood target to present itself.”

The little boat rocked its way through the calm, dark seas along the tower cliffs of Pednmendu, out to a point where we could see the line of white surf breaking along the stretch of Whitesand Bay.

“There be the Tribbens now, sir,” called our boatman, pointing toward the black shadows that were looming up ahead of us. We could hear the whispering seas sighing and crashing gently against them.

“They don’t look so menacing,” I ventured.

“Not to us in this small boat, sir,” Noall Tresawna agreed. “But a large vessel with a lower keel could be ripped open by the hidden jagged rocks that be just a few feet below us.”

“Is that what happened to the vessels that have been sunk here?” asked Holmes.

“That’s about it, sir. A good skipper can take his vessel up between Talymen and Kettle’s Bottom to the west or between Kettle’s Bottom and the Peal on the east. After that, it is a straight run between Shark’s Fin and the Tribbens and out across the bay. But I hear tell from those who have survived that the curiosity to see the dancing lady caused them to steer too close to the rocks on their starboard and before they knew it, the ship’s keels were sheared away, like a knife going through butter.”

“Is it a deep bottom here?”

“Not too deep as happens, but deep enough.”

“What do you think is the cause of these vessels foundering? Do you think it is wreckers?”

“Not for me to say, sir. I wouldn’t say so. If it were wreckers, why choose a place where the ships aren’t driven ashore so that you could pick up the cargoes? That’s what they did in the old days. But here, the ships go down and lay on the bottom. There’s no currents to bring anything ashore.”

The rocks were now closer. The one closest to the cliffs was almost an island in its size, and this, Tresawna told us, was called Cowloe. Beyond these rocks were two other large pinnacles jutting from the sea.

Holmes glanced at his pocket watch. “Nearly midnight. The Torrington Lass should be approaching here soon, if Sir Jelbart’s timing of her sailing is correct.”

Tresawna rested on his oars. Everything was silent except for the incessant whispering of the sea.

Then suddenly a curious white light seemed to illuminate the waters between the rocks.

A cold fear seized me such as I had never known.

I have been in some pretty tight spots, I can tell you. Not even when I received my wound at the battle of Maiwand, facing the hordes of Afghan tribesmen, thinking that I was about to breathe my last, did I feel such fear.

I gripped Holmes’s arm in a vise.

“God, Holmes! Look there! Tell me that it is an illusion! Tell me that you don’t see it?”

On the farthest rock, a cold white light bathed.

And in that white ethereal light stood the figure of a giant woman, nearly twelve feet high. It was a strange flickering; one which had a transparent quality, for I could see the rock through the image. The figure was that of an attractive woman. Quite beautiful. She was naked. She moved in voluptuous contortions, dancing in such provocative poses that I have never seen before; seductive, alluring, moving as an enchantress to ensnare weak souls.

The hairs on the nape of my neck rose. I could not draw my attention away from the figure. I felt like a rabbit before a snake.

“Fascinating!” muttered Holmes at my side.

From a distance there came a sound of a ship’s horn.

“Come, Watson, old fellow, get a grip of yourself.” Holmes nudged me. “That’s the Torrington Lass approaching.”

I stared at him in bewilderment. “But, Holmes, don’t you see her… God help us, it is a phantom!..”

Holmes had turned sharply to Tresawna. “Have you brought the rockets ready, as I asked?”

“I have, Mr. Holmes.” The man had kept his gaze averted from the rocks while muttering some prayer.

“Then we must send them up at once. There is no time to get nearer the rocks before the Torrington Lass will be down upon them.”

Tresawna had three rockets of the sort carried by ships as distress signals. He placed one in the bow and struck a match. Within moments it took off into the night sky.

About half a mile away, we could see the lights of the steam packet heading in our direction.

Tresawna set off the remaining two rockets and eventually we saw the ship turn westward and move on its northerly course.

“Now,” cried Holmes triumphantly, “make for the rocks.”

Even as we turned and Tresawna began to row with all his might toward the rocks, there came a crack much like a rifle shot. The ethereal white light suddenly vanished, and all was dark and quiet.

“ “Vast rowing,” snapped Holmes.

We sat in silence. There was no sound except the whispering sea again.

Holmes gave a deep sigh. “I don’t think there will be anything more we can do until daylight. We won’t see anything more tonight. Best take us back to Chy Trevescan and meet us there again tomorrow as soon as it is light.”

Holmes was in one of his infuriating moods, not answering any questions, not even when our host, Sir Jelbart, demanded to know what adventure had befallen us.

The next morning we had just finished breakfast when a tall naval officer arrived and was greeted familiarly by Sir Jelbart. He introduced the man as his brother Captain Silas Trevossow. The Captain had ridden over from St. Ives that morning. Holmes admitted responsibility for sending up the rockets to prevent the Torrington Lass being lured onto the rocks.

“Thank God you did. The skipper and his crew were petrified. They froze like ice as a fear gripped the ship. Only when we saw your danger signals was the skipper brought back to his senses, and he seized the wheel to alter course.”

“You are in time to come with us, Captain,” Holmes invited. “I think you might find this interesting, and I assure you, by this evening you will have apprehended the person behind these sinkings. A most evil genius.”

An hour later found Holmes, Captain Trevossow, Noall Tresawna and myself out by the rocks again, though they seemed less menacing in daylight.

“That is the rock on which we saw the dancing woman,” Holmes pointed. “Make for that.”

We came close to the rock on which the giant woman had been dancing.

“Look!” I cried. “Look at the angle of the face of this rock. No physical entity could stand on it, much less dance. It is almost a forty-five-degree-sheer angle.”

“Close to sixty degrees, Watson,” replied Holmes unmoved. “As smooth a rock face as ever you would see, and look at the covering on it.”

I frowned, examining it.

“Covering? That is only guano.”

“Exactly, my medical friend. The longaccumulated dung of sea fowl, a yellow white substance as if the rock, that flat, almost vertical surface, has been whitewashed.”

“I don’t see how that concerns us.”

Holmes merely shook his head sadly and glanced around. “Now, Tresawna, head for that other rock there.”

He indicated a large pinnacle raising itself above the water some fifteen yards away. This was easy to land on as the waves were not at all rough, and Holmes insisted on climbing onto it while we held the boat steady. He took with him a small canvas bag, which he had brought from Sir Jelbarts house. He spent some time examining a particular area, all the while glancing back to the first guanocovered rock as if taking measurements or alignments.

Eventually he turned to a third rock at an angle to both of these. He seemed to measure the distance to it. It was about another fifteen yards away, rising higher than the others and larger. Holmes scrambled back into the boat.

“What did you find, Mr. Holmes?” asked Captain Trevossow, for Holmes had put several items into the canvas bag. He handed it to the captain, who glanced into it.

“Be careful,” Holmes admonished. “They are sharp.”

“Why, they are only fragments of glass.”

“Only?” Holmes raised an eyebrow. “In fact, they are more than glass. They are fragments of a shattered concave mirror.”

He answered no more questions but instructed Tresawna to row toward the third rock that he had indicated.

This pinnacle had a natural sea pool at the foot of it, making an excellent landing place, and we could all climb out and follow a little circular path that went around the islandlike rock to a small cave. It was no higher than four feet at its entrance.

Holmes gave a cry of elation as he beheld it. He immediately bent down and entered. There was only room for himself in the cave, but we heard, almost at once, a further cry of exaltation. He reemerged pushing a large square glass container with some metal pieces in it, zinc and some other substance. This seemed to have been discarded at the back of the cave. Holmes brought it forward. There was a chemical smell to it which I hazarded was ammonium chloride.

“What do you make of that?” he announced.

Captain Trevossow and I exchanged a bewildered glance and shrugged.

Holmes sighed impatiently. “This is a Leclanche cell, and a pretty strong one,” he said irritably when he saw we were lost.

“An electric battery?” Captain Trevossow frowned. “What’s that doing on this godforsaken rock?”

Holmes gave him one of his enigmatic looks. “I am sure that we will be able to find the answer very soon.”

He suddenly took his magnifying glass from his pocket and examined a flattopped rock that was in the center of the entrance. He went down on his hands and knees and seemed to take a sighting from the rock, gazing straight out across the sea to the smaller pinnacle on which he had found the mirror fragments.

“You’ll notice the grooves here and the scraping of metal on this rock,” he inquired of us.

We both nodded, still confused.

Holmes stood up with a smile of satisfaction. “Excellent. I think that we will now pay a visit on Mr. Harry Penwarne at Tregriffian House.”

It took some time to row back to the shore and collect Sir Jelbart from Chy Trevescan. Leaving Noall Tresawna to attend to his boat, Sir Jelbart and his brother, Holmes and myself, climbed into the carriage and made the journey through Sennen along the road above Whitesand Bay to Tregriffian House.

Harry Penwarne was no more than thirtyfive. A young man whose boyish looks seemed to have a hardness to them. He smiled only with a movement of his facial muscles, but he bade us welcome to his house. I thought his eyes held a suspicious look in them. Then I realized that they were quite bloodshot. His manservant was a muscular man also with dour looks, who appeared less like a servant and more like a soldier or sailor. He spoke little, but I detected a French accent when he did.

“What can I do for you, Sir Jelbart?” he inquired. “What brings you and your friends to my house?”

Holmes intervened immediately. “You’ll forgive me,” he said, “but when I saw your diving experiments the other day, I just had to come and meet you.”

Penwarne’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at Sir Jelbart, who was looking in astonishment at Holmes.

“I didn’t know it was generally known that I was making such experiments.”

Holmes smiled. “My dear sir, I have been reading Kleingert of Breslau’s experimentations with diving equipment, and it seemed obvious you were using a machine to send compressed air to the diver.”

Harry Penwarne frowned. “Are you involved in deepsea diving, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have a little knowledge,” confessed Holmes. “Though I confess to being a mere amateur. I know that there are some new French inventions which have extended the time divers can remain underwater.”

“You mean the new compressor modification by Laplace of the Sorbonne?” inquired Penwarne.

“Exactly so. I understand that you, also, were a student at the Sorbonne?”

“I graduated from there ten years ago.”

“Pray what were you studying?”

“Marine engineering, of course.”

“I think, at that time, Dr. Marey was experimenting at the Sorbonne with his new invention, wasn’t he?”

“Dr. Marey? I do not know the gentleman.” Penwarne shook his head. “I am not a medical man, Mr. Holmes.”

Holmes looked at him sharply. “I did not say that he was a doctor of medicine.”

Penwarne’s mouth tightened.

“However, you are right. He was a physician, but his experiments were concerned with another discipline. Ten years ago, he invented the first motion pictures using a single camera.”

“Is that supposed to be of interest to me?” asked Penwarne defensively. “My study is marine engineering, sir.”

“You are possessed of a bright mind, Mr. Penwarne. You saw the potential of Marey’s camera and started your own development of it. But two years ago, Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented their cinematograph in Paris. They produced a combined camera and projector operating at sixteen frames a second. You were devastated. You were working on a similar system, but they were first with the patent. Therefore, I believe that you have turned your invention to a more dreadful use.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” protested Penwarne. His face was white now. His nervousness was selfevident. For the first time, I began to see the direction in which Holmes was leading.

“Your father was impecunious. You needed desperately to restore the family fortune; otherwise, you were faced with selling Tregriffian House to pay his debts. So a new plan came to your mind, one that would make you a mass murderer but rich. Using your projector, and a piece of film, you lured three ships to their doom. You went into the wrecking business as many folks in these parts used to do over a hundred years ago.”

“How do you claim that I managed to lure them?”

“With a film of some dancer that you probably made in Paris. Because of the angles involved to ensure the ships saw the image, you had to reflect your image via a third means. A concave mirror would bounce the image, which your projector shone onto it, across to the large rock covered with guano. That almost whitewash substance made a suitable screen on which to project it.”

“Rubbish,” snorted the now trembling Harry Penwarne. “The ships went down off the rocks. If I were able to do such a thing, how could I have collected the salvage from those wrecks?”

“You went diving there at night, with your assistant. People heard the whining and gasping of your compressed air apparatus, but being anchored behind the rocks, they did not see your boat. I presume that you went down looking only for the ship’s safe and taking cash and jewels. Perhaps you planned to lift some of the less easily negotiable materials at a later day….”

Harry Penwarne half rose from his chair, but his pale face and dark staring eyes were not on Holmes. They were staring past him.

“JeanClaude!” he cried in French. “We can bluff it out. Don’t give the game away!..”

I turned at once and saw Penwarne’s manservant leveling a revolver at Holmes.

I confess that I was considered something of a crack shot when I was serving in the Northumberland Fusiliers, but until that instant I had never shot so well. I did so from my lap, for thus far only could I draw my revolver and let off a shot that impacted on the hand of JeanClaude. He cried out in pain. The gun fell from his hand. Captain Trevossow leaped forward and scooped it up to cover the manservant.

I was now covering Harry Penwarne, but the shock of the discovery of his nefarious crimes sent the young man into a state of incapability. He collapsed back in his chair.

“I cannot believe it!” cried the astounded Sir Jelbart. “What made you suspect young Harry?”

“When I realized that he was using a compressed air machine on his boat, as I said. Also, when you told me about noticing his bloodshot eyes. It’s a condition caused by breaking blood vessels in the eye, a hazard of deepsea diving that has not been overcome yet.”

Sir Jelbart shook his head. “Astounding,” he muttered.

“You were absolutely right in your theory, Sir Jelbart. The only problem I had was to discover how it was done. A search of the house will probably supply the evidence,” Holmes said airily. “You will find cameras, projectors, the electrical batteries he ferried out to the cave to work the projector, and above all, the film of the young woman dancing.”

“What was the meaning of the broken glass, Mr. Holmes?” asked Captain Trevossow. “Why was it broken?”

“Previously, no one had noticed the mirror that Penwarne had erected to reflect the image where it was needed, so that it could be seen from the ships. He was able to row to the rock and retrieve it at his leisure. Last night, however, he realized someone was near the rocks investigating. Our rockets gave us away. To destroy the evidence of the concave mirror, he used a rifle or pistol to shatter it to save time in rowing across from where he had the camera. He switched off his projector, dismantled it, and hurried home in his boat with his accomplice, JeanClaude. In his rush, he forgot to take the used Leclanche battery.”

As Holmes predicted, in a cellar of the old house, an entire laboratory was discovered with Penwarne’s experiments and models of cameras and projectors and various pieces of film he had shot.

Holmes spent a long time examining them with intense interest.

“In many ways, our friend Penwarne’s development of the camera, projector, and the film he used seems more advanced than Lumiere’s. The coated celluloid is inspirational. In other circumstances, Penwarne might have been a genius and pioneer of this new cinematography and made his fortune. Instead, like all twisted genius, he resorted to crime. Doubtless, he and his accomplice will make that early morning walk to meet the end of a hemp rope at Bodmin Moor. When all is said and done, he was stupid.”

I frowned. “Why stupid, Holmes?”

“Because the most successful criminal is one who does not draw attention to himself or his crime. A naked siren dancing on a rock-why, that is enough to bring all manner of interested persons rushing to this isolated part of Cornwall. The supernatural always entices people like moths are enticed to a candle. Sooner or later, he would have been discovered.”

“But you discovered him the sooner, Holmes,” I pointed out.

“It required no great mental effort on my part, dear fellow. I fear that people will think the less of my powers of deduction if they perceive this as a case of which I am proud. Therefore, I entreat you not to publish any account of it until after I have shuffled off this mortal coil.”

He gave a deep sigh.

“Now, I hope, we can return to our cottage and suffer no more interruptions. After all, I am down here to rest from such activities. Once again, my dear Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind, and go back with a clear conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots that are surely to be traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic speech.”