Sharyn McCrumb - Missing Susan

“I’ll never do it again,” Bernard assured him.

With steering maneuvers resembling acrobatics, he negotiated the twisting climb and emerged on the straightaway at the top, cheered on by the passengers.

“There’s nothing else today, is there, Rowan?” asked Bernard. “First you try to throw yourself off a cliff, then you nearly wreck the coach on a bloody ferry, and finally we have to bend the coach in half to get it up a corkscrew. There won’t be land mines up ahead, will there? Or bridges woven out of fraying jungle vines for us to cross?”

“No,” said Rowan, reddening a bit at this recital. “We’ll reach St. Ives within the hour.”

For once, he happened to be right.

Without further misadventure, Bernard navigated the narrow country lanes of Cornwall and drove into St. Ives, familiar to him from previous tours. Soon he was parking the coach beside the Tregenna Castle Hotel, a stately old building, perched atop the tallest hill in St. Ives, where it offered a commanding view of the bay and the city below.

“Is this old?” asked Kate Conway, gazing up at the ivy-covered castle with a tower at each corner and a row of battlements like jack-o’-lantern teeth.

“It is eighteenth century,” Rowan told her. “I suppose that in southern California that is practically prehistoric. Here we don’t make so much of it.” He turned to the rest of the group, engaged in claiming their luggage from the below-carriage compartment. “I’m going to see you checked in and then I shall go home for a few hours. I shall be in the bar at half past seven, if anyone would like to join me for a drink. Dinner is at eight tonight. I have arranged a special treat for you.” Like a bloody fool , he finished silently.

“Not another murder play?” sighed Martha Tabram.

“God forbid,” said Rowan. “No. I have asked three of my friends to dine with us. They are police officers here in Cornwall, I’m sure you’ll find it intriguing to talk to them about crime.” Especially , he thought, since there’s going to be one.

Kate Conway and Maud Marsh were just settling into their room when there was a knock at the door. It was Elizabeth MacPherson, whose room was in the passageway across the hall. They had discovered that the castle was a rabbit warren of short corridors, long passageways, and culs-de-sac, all carpeted with the most garish floor coverings imaginable, guaranteed to clash with any decor.

Elizabeth came in and spent a long moment gazing at their avocado-green bedspreads and the curtains of turquoise and orange. “You’d think that anyone who could afford a castle would have the taste to furnish it correctly.”

“They probably can’t afford to,” said Kate. “Imagine what it would cost to carpet this place! You wouldn’t want to pull it up every time you painted the walls.”

“How’s your room?” asked Maud.

“About the same,” said Elizabeth. “Except that mine has a door leading out to the roof, so I can walk the battlements tonight like the ghost of Hamlet’s father. I came to see you because I wanted to talk to everyone before we see Rowan tonight at dinner. Do you know what we’re scheduled to do tomorrow?”

Kate Conway nodded without enthusiasm. “Smugglers’ caves.”

Maud Marsh looked solemn. “Sounds risky. And after today’s performance, I think Rowan is in more danger than anyone. What do we do if he falls into a fifty-foot pit?”

“Exactly,” said Elizabeth. “Besides, we’ve been in England for six days-and I’ve only shopped for an hour!”

“So you think we ought to ask him to give us a free afternoon?” asked Kate. She drew the curtain aside and peered down at the white cluster of buildings encircling the bay. “We could visit St. Ives, I suppose.”

“It looks like a perfect place to shop,” Elizabeth agreed. “But we have to present a united front. I’ll go and present our scheme to the others. Then we’ll tell Rowan in the bar before dinner.”

Kate’s eyes widened. “He’s not going to like this one bit! You know what a stickler he is about our schedule and how much he hates shopping. He’ll think we’re frivolous. Who’s going to tell him?”

“I will,” said Elizabeth, laughing. “What can he do? Kill me?”

By half past seven the conspiracy was well-established. Elizabeth had talked to all the others and, while not everyone was keen on shopping, there was general agreement that they needed a day of peace and quiet. No one wanted to clamber through damp uncharted smugglers’ caves with a man who almost fell off a sixty-foot rock. Elizabeth was the unanimous choice to break this news to Rowan Rover. She found him in the bar, clutching a double Scotch and chatting amiably with three men in business suits: the police who came to dinner. By the time she went to the bar and got herself a half of cider, the other members of the tour had come in and were being introduced to the officers and she was able to have a private word with the guide.

“Listen,” she said, blinking a little bit from nervousness, “about the plans tomorrow…”

Rowan beamed in anticipation. “It’s going to be marvelous, isn’t it? I know some caves that no one ever goes to! There’s no telling what we might come upon. You’re lucky to have someone who really knows Cornwall to show you about, aren’t you?”

“Er-well…” Elizabeth blushed to the top of her ears. “That’s what I wanted to discuss. We all got to talking about the plans for tomorrow and we decided that, while it’s really terribly generous of you to want to show us the local sights…” She took a fortifying breath. “What we really want is a free day.”

Rowan Rover gaped in astonishment. “In St. Ives?” he screeched.

“Yes. We’re rather toured out, you know, and we thought it might be fun to potter around the village and… you know … shop.” To her acute discomfort, Rowan was staring at her in complete disbelief. “You want to shop?” he repeated. His expression suggested that he was casting about for some other, more suitable meaning for the word. “You want to pass up these historic, fascinating smugglers’ caves that only I can take you to, in order to go and buy ornamental shrimping nets in that great lowbrow jumble sale by the sea?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” said Elizabeth. “After all, it will give you a bit of time off here at home.”

“All of you, then?” he asked, steadying himself against a nearby table against the magnitude of this betrayal. “You all want to go shopping?”

“In the afternoon, then,” said Elizabeth, feeling that some sort of compromise was indicated. “Maud and Martha did mention that they’d like to see St. Michael’s Mount tomorrow morning. But no caves!”

Rowan, Samson in the hands of the Philistines, heaved a sigh of resignation. “All right, then. I suppose I can rearrange my plans.” Surreptitiously he patted the pocket of his jacket. The little vial he had brought from home was still there. Now he was forced to use it.

The party made two tables of five and one of six, with a guest policeman seated at each one. Elizabeth was sitting with Inspector George Burgess, at a table with Alice, Frances, and Martha Tabram. After duly admiring the spacious Trelawny Room (omitting any references to its carpeting), Alice leaned forward and whispered, “Did you tell him, Elizabeth?”

Before she answered, Elizabeth looked to see where Rowan Rover was sitting. She located him at the far table, sitting between Miriam Angel and Susan Cohen, who seemed to be talking nonstop across the table to the policeman dining with them. Emma Smith, who sat on Susan’s left, was eating her soup with the resignation of one who does not expect to get a word in edgewise. Reassured that she could not be overheard, Elizabeth recounted her conversation with the guide about the next day’s schedule.