"I am very sorry," I said; "you must please excuse me. But I naturally thought ..."
"Of course you did!" he said, and a civil but ugly smile came on his clever, unpleasant face. "As a matter of fact, Trewh.e.l.la, the landlord, has just gone to the village for a few minutes. He asked me to keep house for him. He"s almost due back now."
Thanking him urbanely, I sat down, my mind working very quickly. He offered me some whisky, and though it was the last thing I wanted, I accepted after a show of reluctance. He was watching me out of the corners of his eyes the whole time.
"Can you tell me," I said, with great openness of manner, "if I can get rooms here, or in Zerran village?"
He became alert at once. "Rooms, to stay in, do you mean?"
"Yes. I am an Oxford tutor, and I have a young foreign gentleman in my charge whom I am coaching. I want a quiet place for three or four weeks, and this seems ideal for the purpose."
His face cleared. "I should imagine so," he replied. "I know Trewh.e.l.la does let sometimes."
"You live here?" I remarked, with polite indifference.
"I have been here for a year," he answered. "I am, as a matter of fact, a mining engineer--hence these clothes! I belong to a little private syndicate of friends who are opening up a disused tin-mine, on the moor not far away. Ah, here is the landlord! Trewh.e.l.la, this gentleman wishes to speak to you." And then to me: "Good-morning, sir. No doubt, if you come here, I and my friends will see something of you. We are mostly public-school and University men ourselves, and we often look in here of an evening after our day"s work."
He waved his hand and went out into the sunshine.
CHAPTER X
SIR JOHN CUSTANCE COMES UPON THE HOUSE OF HELZEPHRON
Mr. Trewh.e.l.la was an elderly Cornishman, with welcoming manners, the native shrewdness of his race, but without guile. We got on famously from the word "go." He had three bedrooms and a large sitting-room to let. His wife, who had driven into St. Ives, was, he a.s.serted, a good cook. As for Thumbwood, he could wait on us and live with the landlord and his wife. Finally, there was an empty barn which would hold our car very comfortably.
"And what would you be thinking of paying, zur?" asked Mr. Trewh.e.l.la.
"I shall leave that to you. I may tell you that the gentleman I am preparing for his Oxford examination is wealthy. He is a j.a.panese n.o.bleman, and as long as you make us comfortable ..."
This had the desired effect. The landlord became expansive in his slow way, and showed me all over the premises of his quaint and rambling dwelling. It was a wild and fantastic spot, an ancient haunt of smugglers and wreckers, I learnt. The back-yard opened straight into the short pneumatic turf above the cliffs, the brink of which was not more than two hundred yards away. Here the stream, which flowed past the inn, descended in a series of miniature cataracts to a tiny cove of deep-green water, almost enclosed by two towering precipices, crowned with jagged spires and pinnacles of rock. There was a little scimitar of golden sand far down at the water"s edge, and the scene was one of savage grandeur that I have rarely known surpa.s.sed in all my travels.
As he stood on the height and looked down, I saw something which seemed strangely out of place. A line of street rails, with wooden rollers at intervals between them, fell at a dizzy angle from a spot some ten yards away on the turf, ending abruptly on the level, and in front of a smallish hut of corrugated iron.
"What is the rail for?" I asked. "Surely you don"t haul the boats"--there were two of them lying on the beach--"right up to the top of the cliff! It must be two hundred and fifty feet!"
"Nigher three hundred, zur. No. Them rails belong to bring up machinery and stores for Tregeraint Mine by Carne Zerran. They do come by sea in a lil" steamboat. "Tes more convenient so. There be a lil" oil engine in that shed to haul "em up in trucks. I let the land, for "tes all mine down-along, and they do pay me ten pound a year."
We strolled back to the house, Mr. Trewh.e.l.la proposing a Cornish pasty and beer for lunch.
"Now you mention it, that gentleman who was keeping house for you just now said that he was a mining engineer."
The landlord"s big, weather-beaten face wrinkled like a stained window.
He began to heave and chuckle, finally exploding in a bellow of laughter.
"Mr. Vargus!" he spluttered, "Mr. Vargus! He _thinks_ he be a mining engineer, but a knows no more about it than my pig! He be a clever gentleman, sure "nuf. He do have some braave knowledge to machinery, I"ll allow. But mining, and tin-mining!"
Mr. Trewh.e.l.la could find no further words to express his contempt for the mining attainments of my friend with the refined and evil face.
"You see," the landlord continued, as we ate our pasties, "I"m an old mine-captain myself, bred and born to it. "Tedn"t likely as I could be deceived. When I heered that a gentleman had come into Tregeraint Manor and the old mine, and proposed to work it, I laughed, I did. I know every inch of Wheal Tregeraint, and fifty years ago it was a fine property. To-day them amatoors up along"ll never get enough tin out to oxidize, let alone smelt."
"Who are they, then, Mr. Trewh.e.l.la?"
"That"s what lots of folk asked when they first come here in twos and threes. They"re gentlemen, zur, like yourself, that"s what they are.
Never was such a thing known in these parts, though folk are used to "em now. There"s Mr. Helzephron, a Cornishman himself, and should know better, Mr. Vargus, you seed, Mr. Gascoigne, a mad young devil if you like, and near a dozen more. They all live together in the great house on the cliff and work the mine theyselves. Never no one else allowed.
They cooks and does for themselves, just as if they was in a mining camp in California."
"No women, servants or anything?"
"Never an ap.r.o.n. My missus belong to say they lives like Popish monks, which she see when travelling with a lady among the Eyetalians. "Not so, my tender dear," says I. "I never heered that Popish monks spent most of their evenings in the village inn with a bottle of Scotch whisky afore each man, and precious little left by closing time!""
"A hard-drinking lot then?"
"Wonderful at their liquor. I tell you, zur, it"s good for me! Now I"ve got used to them and their funny ways, I wish they"d stay for ever.
Speaking from a strictly business point of view, that is. But soon they"ll find out they"ve lost their money and they"ll jack it up. "Tes not in reason as they can go on, though they do seem so full of hope and certainty, as you mind to up! But I _know_."
He was obviously pleased with my interest in his talk. I wondered what he would have said if he had known who I was and why I was there? Under a calm exterior, a professor munching potato pasty! I was filled with a furious excitement. The man"s gossip was worth a sovereign a word. Here was, moment by moment, what looked like complete confirmation of our suspicions. And yet, even as I realized this, I realized also how infernally clever the scheme was. Without the clue which Danjuro and myself alone possessed, there was nothing in the world to connect Helzephron and Tregeraint with the business that was ruffling the calm of two continents.
It was not my game to ask more direct questions than I could help. It was better to let the racy stream flow on, with a word of comment now and then. I ventured a calculated one now.
"Fools and their money are soon parted," said I.
"You may say that, zur! And they"ve poured out money like water.
Electric light, oal sorts o" cases full of new-fangled machinery, and that mystery made about the silly old mine you"d think it was a seam of diamonds."
"It"s an ill wind that blows n.o.body any good, Mr. Trewh.e.l.la!" I rose from the table as I spoke. "But what you say about a dozen or more gentlemen drinking nearly a bottle of whisky each rather surprises me.
I"m no foe to honest enjoyment, but ..."
I put on a slight primness of manner, as became the character I sustained.
The landlord nodded vigorously. ""Tes so!" he agreed, "and most onusual.
They be gentlefolk, sure "nuff, but shall I tell "ee what I think?"
"What"s that?"
"I think as most of "em"s dropped out, so to speak. I shouldn"t be frightened if as their families didn"t have anything to say to "em, and they"ve nowhere much else to go. Mr. Helzephron knows what he"s about, he do. I judge by a kind o" reckless way they have, "specially the younger gentlemen. They don"t seem to mind about ordinary things same as most. Well, I suppose this fool tin-mining keeps "em out of mischief."
I wondered.
When I set out upon the return journey I took another route. I found from the landlord that by skirting the coast for a mile in the direction of St. Ives I could come upon a moorland path that would take me to the little railway-station of St. Erth. I could then catch a train for Penzance. My ostensible reason was to vary my walk, my real one that by this change of plan I should pa.s.s by and have a view of Tregeraint Mine and the Manor House.
"Not that you"ll see much or get close," said Mr. Trewh.e.l.la.
"How is that?" I asked.