The Bluebeard Room Read online

  “And is there?”

  “Is there ever! Back in the early 1700’s during the witch trials, the mistress of Penvellyn Castle was a Lady Phoebe Penvellyn. Somehow she got herself accused by the official witch-hunters.”

  Nancy’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

  “They tortured her into confessing that she was the leader of a witch coven here in Polpenny. And before she died, she incriminated several villagers—who were later burned at the stake.”

  “How horrible!” Nancy shuddered. She was hearing again the strange unearthly voice that had come from Ethel Bosinny’s lips during her trance.

  “I’m not sure whether all that helps you any.” Alan studied her face. “I mean, you are trying to unravel some sort of mystery, aren’t you?”

  Nancy nodded. “Yes, and if I succeed, I’ll tell you as much as I’m allowed to, Alan.” Then she described what she had seen from the castle window during the night without mentioning Lisa’s sleepwalking. “Are you any good at boating?” she added.

  The reporter chuckled. “My dear girl! My old dad skippered a fishing trawler—and you ask me that? Don’t you know that Drake, Hawkins and all the great English seadogs were West Countrymen!”

  “Then let’s rent a boat and see if we can find out what that boat I glimpsed last night was up to.”

  “On one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “That you’ll come out with me this evening.”

  “Agreed, Mr. Trevor!”

  Within half an hour they were sailing windward out of the harbor in a small dinghy. Alan, at the tiller, steered them skillfully between the two stone breakwaters. Later, as they neared the jutting headland, he lowered the sail and unshipped the oars to row them closer inshore.

  “Can you remember the boat’s exact course?”

  Nancy shaded her eyes and gazed up at Castle Penvellyn to locate her bedroom window. Then she pointed precisely. “It was in that direction!”

  Even with the sea so blue and relatively calm, the gentle waves flung up foam and spray as they splashed against the jagged rocks. Alan approached the rocks with great caution. “They’re like deadly fangs,” he remarked. “They can devour a boat like matchwood, or even a large ship, if the wind’s up enough!”

  “Look, Alan!” Nancy cried. “See that shelving outcrop about ten feet above the water?”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you see an opening just below it?”

  The reporter squinted intently. The dazzling sunshine and the shadow of the outcrop made it difficult to discern the details of the rock formation, but his face suddenly reflected her own excitement. “You’re right! There is an opening!”

  He maneuvered as close to the rocks as he dared, then dropped a hemp fender-guard over the side and anchored the boat in place by wrapping some rope around a granite spur that stuck out above the water.

  “Think you can make it from here?” Alan inquired.

  “I’ll try if you will!”

  While he held their craft steady with a boathook, Nancy scrambled nimbly ashore over the rocks slippery with seaweed. Alan followed.

  Though wet from flying spray, both were exhilarated. Having made it safely this far, the rest of the way seemed easy by comparison. The jagged cliff face offered ample footing as they clawed their way toward the opening.

  Alan entered first, then reached out a hand for Nancy. She switched on her penlight, which she had brought from her shoulder bag, and shone it around.

  They gasped at the sight it revealed. They were in a dank cavern littered with pieces of nautical gear: several large empty casks, coils of rope, a pair of rotting oars, moldy canvas, a rusty cutlass and equally rusty tools that might have belonged to an old-time ship’s carpenter, and a brassbound sea chest stenciled with the name Undine.

  “Must be the ship it came off,” said Alan.

  “But how did it get up here?”

  “Wreckers’ work, I imagine.”

  Nancy threw him a puzzled glance. “Say that again?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of the old Cornish wreckers?” When she shook her head, he went on. “They were land pirates, back in the days of sailing ships. In bad weather they’d light fake beacon fires to lure ships close inshore. Then when the vessels piled up on the rocks, they’d loot the wreckage.”

  Nancy shivered. “Sounds inhuman!”

  “Those were cruel times. Back then, wrecking and smuggling were major Cornish industries.”

  “What about that?” Nancy aimed her flashlight at a strange marking on the grotto wall. It looked like the head of a pig.

  Alan stared at it, half amused, half puzzled. “Beats me. . . . Maybe that represented the contemporary image of His Majesty’s Coast Guards.”

  Nancy chuckled but could not help feeling that the odd drawing might be significant. The cavern appeared not to extend very deeply into the cliffside, and they could find no further clue to whatever last night’s visitor—or visitors—might have been after.

  Nevertheless, Nancy’s thoughts were busy as they sailed back into the harbor. Alan’s mention of smuggling had given her a possible new lead to the mystery. Before returning to the castle, she stopped in to see Constable Kenyon again.

  “Could you tell me if Ian Purcell was ever in trouble with the law over drugs?” she inquired.

  “Not here he wasn’t. I’d have to check with Central Records at Scotland Yard to know for sure.”

  “If you would, I’d appreciate it,” said Nancy.

  Constable Kenyon was too young not to respond to a pretty face. Besides, this American girl, by all accounts, had quite a record at cracking difficult criminal cases. She might be onto something big. “I’ll see what I can find out, Miss Drew,” he promised.

  When she arrived back at Penvellyn Castle, Nancy made a phone call to Huntley & Dawlish, the law firm her father had mentioned with offices at Lincoln’s Inn, one of London’s famous Inns of Court.

  Mr. Dawlish answered promptly. “It’s a pleasure to hear from the daughter of such a distinguished American colleague. How can I help you, Miss Drew?”

  Nancy described what she and Alan had seen in the cliffside cavern. “Am I right in thinking that Lloyd’s of London keeps a record of all British shipwrecks?”

  “They do, indeed. At any rate, of ships that they themselves have insured.”

  “Could you possibly find out if they’ve any record of an old-time sailing ship called Undine?”

  “I’ve friends at Lloyd’s,” said the barrister. “If they do, I’m sure there’ll be no difficulty in digging up a full report.”

  Nancy thanked him and hung up.

  Lisa was intrigued to hear about Nancy’s date that evening. Late that afternoon as Nancy was preparing for a refreshing bath, she was called to the phone. It was Constable Kenyon.

  “I’ve just learned from Scotland Yard, Miss, that Ian Purcell does have a record. He was arrested last year for drug-pushing, but was released for lack of evidence.”

  Nancy was thoughtful as she bathed and dressed. When Alan Trevor called to pick her up, he gazed at her in obvious admiration.

  She smiled at him as she got into the car. “Where are we going?”

  Her heart skipped a beat as he replied, “To watch the Crowned Heads perform at Porthcurno.”

  16

  The Grotto Symbol

  Nancy stared distractedly at her escort. “What’s this all about, Alan? Are you just after another news story? Is that why you asked me out?”

  He reached out impulsively for her hand. “No! Believe me, Nancy! I do have a reason for taking you to the concert, but I—I’d rather not say why just yet. Will you trust me?”

  Nancy swallowed hard. “All right, if that’s what you want. . . . After all, we did make a bargain.”

  “Good!” Shifting into gear, he drove out of the courtyard.

  In addition to all its other features, Cornwall was also a land of flowers, Nancy had noticed. Their scent filled
the soft night air. But as she and Alan rode through the darkness, her thoughts were in a turmoil. She suddenly realized that she had come to like this friendly young Brit reporter very much . . . but was he, too, using her for his own selfish ends, just as Lance Warrick had?

  She bit her lip as the rock star’s face rose in her mind. The thought of him made her blood race, throwing her emotions into even greater confusion.

  Whom did she really want to be with tonight? Alan Trevor? . . . or Lance? Miserably, Nancy found she couldn’t answer her own question.

  The Minack Theater, where the concert was to take place, caught Nancy by surprise. It was an open-air amphitheater carved from a rocky cliff that sloped down to Porthcurno Bay, not far from Land’s End, the westernmost tip of England. Under the stars, with the murmuring, dark purple sea for a backdrop, if offered a breathtaking spectacle.

  Eager rock fans were already overflowing the theater’s capacity and lining the clifftops. Alan led Nancy down a secluded path to the narrow beach, which was less crowded, and managed to rent folding chairs near the performers’ dressing room.

  A roar of applause went up as the Crowned Heads emerged in costume into the brilliantly lit stage area. But Lance suddenly stopped short. He had just caught sight of Nancy with Alan Trevor.

  Nancy sensed that he was already keyed up for the night’s show, and seeing her with a rival had evidently triggered a flare of emotion. Lance strode toward them, his jaw jutting angrily.

  “What the devil are you doing with my bird?!”

  Alan rose swiftly to face him. “Cool it, mate!”

  Stagehands and the rest of the group moved between them fast before a fight could erupt.

  “Sorry about that,” Alan whispered to Nancy as he took his seat again. “Want to leave?”

  Fortunately all spotlights were on the stage now, leaving them in darkness which hid her confusion and embarrassment. “No, of course not.”

  Alan squeezed her hand. “Good girl!”

  The Crowned Heads’ performance was every bit as exciting here as it had been in New York. Lance, if anything, seemed to project himself across the footlights with even more violent intensity.

  But later, as she and Alan drove back to Polpenny, Nancy found she could remember very little of the show. The pounding beat of the music, the colorful costumes and psychedelic lights—above all, her own turbulent emotions—had left her with only a blur of wild images.

  When he stopped his car in the castle courtyard, Alan slipped an arm around Nancy’s shoulders. “You’re still wondering why I took you to the concert tonight?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I reckon I wanted to see with my own eyes how you feel about Lance Warrick.”

  “And what did you learn?”

  The young reporter shrugged helplessly. “I still don’t know. All I know is that I—I’m mad about you, Nancy!”

  He drew her close and kissed her. Nancy resisted at first, then found herself yielding willingly to his embrace.

  When they said good night moments later, she was less sure than ever which of the two she found more attractive, Lance or Alan.

  Next morning, partly to divert her unruly thoughts, Nancy went to visit the Roscoes. Lisa had given her directions, and their beautiful Tudor-style manor house, within sight of the village, was impossible to miss.

  Ivor Roscoe, whose business schedule seemed not all that demanding, was at home, and so was his wife Diane. They received her in their sunlit sitting room over tea and biscuits.

  “Well, and how is your detective work progressing?” Nancy thought she caught a sarcastic undertone to her bearded host’s remark.

  “In a way that’s why I’m here,” she replied. “To ask you a question about the tin mine.”

  “My dear Miss Drew, fire away!”

  “The underground workings were quite extensive, I suppose?”

  He frowned, obviously intrigued by her question. “Indeed they were! But why do you ask?”

  “Is it possible one of the tunnels might have extended as far as the castle headland?”

  Ivor Roscoe looked startled. “No . . . no, I hardly think so. I’d have to check the company blueprints to be sure, but most of the workings ran northward under the moor.”

  Nancy had hoped to find Mrs. Roscoe alone and in a mood to explain her cryptic remark the night of the dinner party. Since there was no chance of that, she soon made an excuse to leave.

  Ambling through the steep, cobbled streets of the village, Nancy pondered the puzzle of the seacliff grotto. Why had the nocturnal boatman gone there? A connecting tunnel to the mine might have provided an answer, but now it seemed the—

  “Nancy, luv!”

  The titian-haired teen came out of her pensive trance to find herself face to face with Alan Trevor. “Alan!” she gasped, then burst out laughing. “I was so wrapped up in my thoughts I never even saw you coming.”

  “So I gathered from that frown on your face.”

  Together they strolled toward Polpenny Harbor.

  “Alan,” Nancy said, “does much smuggling still go on around here nowadays?”

  The reporter shrugged. “Some. Dope from the Caribbean, for example, and there’s always the odd case of French wine or brandy being sneaked in across the Channel.”

  “Brandy!” Nancy stopped abruptly as a wild thought flashed through her mind. “Alan, are you game to take me out to that sea cavern again?”

  “Love to. Just say when.”

  “I’ll have to go back first and change into something more practical. Make it after lunch—say, 2:00!”

  At the castle, Nancy had just finished chatting with Hugh and Lisa and was about to rise from the lunch table, when the butler summoned her to the phone. The London barrister, Mr. Dawlish, was calling to report what he had learned about a sailing ship called Undine.

  “My friend at Lloyd’s says the brig Undine sailed from Boston in 1702, bound for Bristol. But it stopped at Cork, Ireland, to pick up an archeological treasure—”

  “What sort of treasure?” Nancy put in tensely.

  “A recently unearthed figurine. It was being sent to Cambridge University for study. Unfortunately Undine never reached Bristol. She was believed to have foundered in a storm, somewhere off the western coast of England.”

  “Then both crew and cargo were lost?” Despite her excitement, Nancy tried to keep her voice even.

  “Yes, but a passenger survived—a young American girl named Phoebe Harwood.”

  Phoebe! . . . Phoebe Harwood! Nancy’s heart was thumping. “That’s a tremendous help, Mr. Dawlish! Thank you ever so much!”

  Nancy could hardly wait to get back to the cavern. Alan was waiting on the dock, and their dinghy was soon gliding seaward. They moored the boat to the rocks as before, then clambered into the cliffside grotto. Both had brought flashlights.

  “Are you going to tell me now about this sudden brilliant inspiration you had?” said Alan.

  Nancy shone her beam at the snouty pig face on the wall. “Liquids like brandy or rum used to be shipped in large casks, right?”

  He nodded. “So?”

  “Do you know what those casks were called?”

  “Sure, Hogsh—” Alan broke off as his jaw dropped open. “Hogsheads!”

  “Correct. So let’s check on those hogsheads right over there.”

  “We already did when we came here before. They’re empty.”

  “Then let’s find out what’s underneath them.”

  The casks were standing on an old tarpaulin. When both were cleared away, a narrow crevice was revealed in the rocky floor of the cave. It appeared to slope downward at an angle.

  “I’ll go first,” said Alan. He tied some of the ancient rope around his waist and Nancy let it out as he squirmed down through the hole.

  Presently he shouted back up. “Come on, it’s safe! I’ll catch you!”

  Nancy slid out of the narrow passageway into his arms. When he set her down, she saw that they wer
e standing on the narrow bank of an underground stream which flowed off into darkness.

  “Let’s explore it, Alan!”

  He shook his head. “Not now. Wouldn’t be safe. The tide’s starting to come in. We might be trapped without scuba gear.”

  “When’s the next low tide?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  Nancy grinned. “Meet you at 9:00 sharp then, on the dock!”

  17

  Secret Altar

  Nancy spent the rest of the afternoon in a fever of impatience. Lisa sensed her overcharged mood.

  “You haven’t made up with your rock-star boyfriend by any chance?” she probed.

  Nancy smiled. “No, and you mustn’t draw any conclusions from the fact that I attended the Crowned Heads concert last night, either.”

  “Then what goes on, Nan? Or shouldn’t I pry?”

  “It’s no secret. I’ve a date to go scuba diving tomorrow morning with Alan Trevor—and something tells me it could be very exciting!”

  Lady Penvellyn stretched luxuriously and stifled a yawn. “The most exciting thing around here will be a tour group that’s coming to the castle before noon. I’ll have to try and coax Hugh out of working so hard on his book!”

  Her friend was looking better, Nancy thought happily. Lisa’s color had improved and her long blond hair was brushed to a glossy sheen. Suddenly Nancy slapped her forehead. “What an idiot! If I’m going diving, I’ll have to rent some scuba gear before all the shops close. Where would be the best place to go, Lisa?”

  “Penzance probably. Take the car.”

  Scuba diving is a popular sport along the Cornish coast, and Nancy had no difficulty in outfitting herself with equipment. She was loading everything into Hugh’s vintage roadster when she looked up to meet the curious gaze of Mrs. Roscoe.

  “Why, hello, Diane! Imagine meeting you here!”

  “It is a surprise, but what a pleasant one! Are you planning some underwater sightseeing?”

  “You could call it that, I guess.” Nancy had an odd feeling that the other woman might not have spoken at all if she hadn’t been caught staring. “Can I offer you a lift back to Polpenny?”