The Jersey Mystery (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 31) Read online

  Jules Poiret was not in the mood for adventures. He had fallen ill with exhaustion, over-work, and when he began to recover, his friend Captain Harry Haven had taken him on a cruise from London to the island of Jersey in a small yacht with his friend Lord Gordon Kendrick, a young solicitor from the island of Jersey. But Poiret felt still rather weak. He was no happy sailor, and he made sure the others on the yacht heard his grumbles and break-downs. His spirits did not rise to include patience and civility. When the other two men praised the violet sunset or the ragged cliffs, he disagreed with them. When Haven pointed out a rock shaped like an eagle, he looked at it and thought it very much like a cat. When Kendrick more excitedly indicated a rock that was like a rabbit, he looked at it, and shook his head in disagreement. When Haven asked whether these two rocks in the twisted lagoon were not like the Pillars of Hercules, he said, “Non, not at all.” He heard the most important things and the most trivial with the same aggravated disposition and raised eyebrows. He heard that the coast was death to all but careful seamen. He also heard that the ship’s cat was asleep. He heard that Kendrick couldn’t find his cigar-holder anywhere. He also heard him say, “If both eyes are bright, she’s all right. If one eye winks, down the poor ship sinks.” He heard Haven say to Kendrick that no doubt this meant they must keep both eyes open. And he heard Kendrick say to Haven that, oddly enough, it didn’t mean that at all. It meant that while they saw two of the light towers, one near and the other distant, exactly side by side, they were on the right course to the harbor, but that if one light tower was hidden behind the other, they were sailing towards the rocks. He heard Kendrick add that the islands were full of such lovely fables. Their position near the coast of France made them the very home of romance and nostalgia. He even pitted Jersey against Liverpool, as a claimant to the crown of English seamanship. According to him there had been captains among these coves and cliffs compared with whom Lord Nelson was practically a farmer. He heard Haven laugh, and heard Kendrick say there was no need to be dismissive. Not only had captains from Jersey been heroes, but that they were heroes still. Near that very spot there was an old captain, now retired, who was scarred by thrilling voyages full of adventures, who had in his youth found the last three Caribbean Islands that were added to the chart of the world.

  Lord Gordon Kendrick was the kind of man, who commonly espoused such passionate but pleasing enthusiasm. He was a young man, light-haired, light-colored, with a soft profile. His boyish bravado contrasted with his almost womanish delicacy.

  All these trivialities Poiret, covered in a big coat, several mufflers and two blankets, heard and saw as a tired traveler heard a tune in the railway wheels, or a sick man saw animals in the pattern of his wallpaper. No one can know the changes of mood in convalescence, and Poiret’s depression must have had a great deal to do with his dislike of the sea. As the harbor came closer, and the lagoon became calmer and the air warmer, his spirits seemed to brighten. They had reached that phase of day just after sunset when air and lagoon both still looked bright, but earth looked almost black by comparison. For Poiret there was this particular evening something exceptional. It was one of those rare moments in which a mist seemed to have been removed from between him and the rest of the world, so that even dark colors on that evening looked more gorgeous than bright colors on cloudier days. The cliffs on the coast did not look drab but glowing umber, and the dark orchards astir in the breeze did not look, as usual, dim blue with mere depth of distance, but more like masses of vivid flowers. This magic clarity and intensity was further forced on Poiret’s reviving senses by something romantic and even secret in the very form of the islands.

  The lagoon was still well wide and deep enough for a yacht so small as theirs, but the curves of the cliffs suggested that it was closing in on both sides. Beyond this mere look of things there was little for Poiret’s lifting depression to feed on. He saw no human beings, except some students trailing along the beach, with nets, and one sight no longer unconventional, but in such remote parts still uncommon, a dark-haired young woman, bare-headed, and paddling her own boat. If Poiret ever attached any importance to either of these, he certainly forgot them at the next turn of the lagoon which brought in sight a strange view.

  With the rate at which they went, a huge house on the cliffs seemed to swim towards them like a ship. At the point nearest them stood an odd-looking building, unlike anything he or his friend Haven could connect with any purpose. It was not especially high, but it was too high for it to be called anything but a tower. Yet it appeared to have been built entirely of wood, and that in a most unusual way. Some of the planks and beams were of good, seasoned oak, cut recently. Some again were of white pinewood, and some of the wood was painted black with tar. These black beams were set crisscross at all kinds of angles, giving the whole a strange appearance. There were one or two windows, which appeared to be colored and leaded in an old-fashioned, and elaborate style. The men on the yacht looked at it with that paradoxical feeling they had, when something reminded them of something common, and yet they were certain it was something very different.

  Poiret, even when he was not sure about something, was clever in analyzing his own doubt. He found himself thinking that the oddness seemed to be the shape cut out in an incongruous material, as if one saw a dress made of dough, or an automobile cut out of wood. He was sure he had seen timbers of different colors arranged like that before, but never in such a structure. The next moment a glimpse through the dark trees of an orchard told him all he needed to know and he smiled, relieved. Through a gap there appeared one of those old wooden houses with huge black beams, which can still be found here and there in England. It was in view only long enough for the detective to see that, however old, it was a comfortable country-house, with flower-beds in front of it. It had none of the crazy look of the tower that seemed made out of its leftovers.

  “I say! What on earth’s that?” asked Haven, who was still staring at the tower.

  Kendrick’s eyes were shining, and he spoke triumphantly. “You’ve not seen a place quite like this before, I see. That’s why I’ve brought you here, my friend. Now you shall see whether I exaggerate about the sailors of Jersey. This place belongs to Captain Attenborough, whom we call Old Man Attenborough. If Captain Raleigh or Lord Nelson were to rise from the grave and come up this lagoon in a gilded barge, they would be received by Captain Attenborough in a house exactly such as they were accustomed to and they would find him still talking fiercely of empty lands to be found and foreign naval fleets to be vanquished.”

  “They’d also find a weird sort of tower in the garden,” said Haven, “which would not please their eye. The architecture is charming in its way, but it’s against the very nature of Englishness to break out into ivory towers.”

  “And yet,” answered Kendrick, “it’s the most English part of the estate. It was built by the Attenboroughs in the very days of the French wars, and though it’s needed patching and even rebuilding, it’s always been rebuilt in the same old way. The story goes that three hundred years ago the wife of Oliver Attenborough built it in this place and to this height, because from the top you can just see over the hills, where ships turn to safely sail into the harbor, and she wished to be the first to see her husband’s ship, as he sailed home from the Americas.”

  “In that case, Monsieur,” asked Poiret, “why has it been rebuilt more recently?”

  “Oh, there’s a strange story about that, too,” said the young solicitor with glee. “You are in a land of strange stories. The story goes that Oliver Attenborough, who I fear was somewhat of a pirate as well as a patriot, was
escorting three French noblemen to London. He was a man of fierce temper, though, and came to angry words with one of them. He caught him by the throat and flung him into the sea. The second Frenchman, who was the brother of the first, instantly drew his sword and sprang at Attenborough, and after a short but furious fight in which both received three wounds in as many minutes, Attenborough drove his blade through the other’s torso. As it happened the ship had already turned towards the harbor and was close to shallow waters. The third nobleman sprang over the side of the ship, swam for the shore, and was soon near enough to it to stand up to his waist. Turning to face the ship, and holding up both arms to Heaven like a Biblical prophet calling plagues upon our wicked island, he called out to Attenborough in a terrible voice, that he would live to haunt him forever, and that generation after generation the house of Attenborough would suffer his vengeance. With that he dived under the waves, and was never seen afterwards.”

  “There’s that young woman in the boat again,” said Haven distractedly. Good-looking women could call him off any topic. “She seems interested in the strange tower just as we are.”

  Indeed, the black-haired young lady was letting her boat float slowly and silently past the strange structure, and was looking intently up at it, with a strong glow of curiosity on her pretty face.

  “Never mind women,” said Kendrick impatiently. “There are plenty of them in the world, but not many things like the Attenborough Tower. As you may easily suppose, plenty of superstitions have followed in the track of the Frenchman’s curse, and no doubt, any accident impacting this family is blamed on it by the island’s population. The tower itself has been burnt down two or three times in recent memory, and the family can be called cursed, because two, I think, of Old Man Attenborough’s relatives have perished by shipwreck, and one, at least to my knowledge, on the same spot where Oliver Attenborough threw the French nobleman overboard.”

  “What a pity!” exclaimed Haven, with a disappointed look on his glowing face, as the young woman in the boat paddled off, without showing the least intention of extending her interest from the tower to the yacht, which Kendrick had by then anchored alongside the cliffs. “She’s leaving.”

  “Monsieur Kendrick, when did your friend the captain tell to you his family history?” asked Poiret.

  “A good many years ago,” replied Kendrick. “He hasn’t been to sea for years, though he’s as keen on it as ever. I believe there’s a family agreement or something. Well, here’s the landing stage, let’s go ashore and see the old boy.”

  They followed him onto shore, just under the tower, and Poiret, whether from the mere touch of dry land, or the interest of something on the other side of the lagoon, which he stared at very hard for some time, seemed singularly improved in briskness. They climbed up the path towards the structure. A small path led from the tower to the wooden house. On both sides were dark trees tossed to and fro like feathers on a dowager’s hat. The tower, as they left it behind, looked all the more unusual, because entrances are commonly flanked by two towers, and this one looked lopsided. The path curved left and right, making the garden look much larger than it could really be. Poiret, a little fanciful in his fatigue, almost thought the whole place growing larger, as things do in a nightmare. The length of the path was not the only strange character of their walk. Kendrick suddenly stopped, and pointed to something sticking out through the grey bushes, something that looked at first rather like the horn of a goat. Closer observation showed that it was a blade of metal that shone faintly in the fading light.

  Haven, who had spent many years on the frontlines, bent over it and said in a startled voice, “Hullo! It’s a saber! I know the sort. It’s shorter than the cavalry has. This one they used to have in artillery.”

  As he spoke the blade went up and came down again with a fierce slash, splitting the bushes to the bottom without a noise. Then it was pulled out again, flashed above the bushes some feet further along, and again split it halfway down with one stroke. After waggling a little to extricate it, accompanied with stifled curses in the darkness, split it down to the ground with a second. Then devilish energy sent the whole loosened square of bushes flying into the pathway, and a gap appeared.

  Kendrick peered into the dark opening and uttered an exclamation of astonishment. “My dear Captain Attenborough,” he exclaimed, “do you, uh, generally cut out a new path whenever you want to go for a walk?”

  The voice in the gloom swore again, and then broke into a laugh. “No,” it said, “I’ve really got to cut down these bushes somehow. They are diseased and may spoil the pear trees. I’ll only carve another bit off, and then I’ll be ready to welcome you.”

  And sure enough, he heaved up his weapon once more, and, hacking twice, brought down another and similar strip, making the opening about ten feet wide in all. Then through this larger gateway he came out onto the path.

  For a moment he fulfilled all Kendrick’s stories of the old piratical Attenborough family. Closer scrutiny, though, seemed to alter the impression they had conceived of the old man completely. For instance, he wore a broad-brimmed hat. The front flap was turned up straight to the sky, and the two corners pulled down lower than the ears, so that it fell across his head in a triangle like the old tricorne hat worn by the Duke of Wellington. He wore a dark-blue jacket, with golden buttons. The combination of it with white linen trousers made him look like a sailor. He was tall and athletic, and walked with a sort of swagger, which was not a sailor’s, and yet somehow suggested it. In his hand he held a short saber. His face was not only clean-shaven, but also without eyebrows. His eyes were blue and piercing. His color was curiously attractive, while vaguely reminding one of an orange. That is, while it was ruddy, there was a gold in it that was in no way sickly, but seemed rather to glow.

  When Kendrick had introduced his two friends to their host he pointed at the wreckage the sabre had caused to the bushes. Old Man Attenborough pooh-poohed it at first as a piece of necessary garden work, but soon the ring of energy came back into his laughter, and he said with a mixture of impatience and good humor, “Well, perhaps I do feel a kind of pleasure in smashing things. So would you, if your only pleasure in life was sailing, and you were obliged to stay on this muddy little rock in the middle of the sea. I remember how I used to sail thousands of miles through waves as high as mountains and rain as thick as a jungle, and now here I am, chained by a confounded old last will and testament scribbled in the family Bible.”

  He swung up the heavy steel again, and this time split the wall of bushes from top to bottom at one stroke.

  “I’m angry,” he said with a smile, but furiously flinging the sword down the path. “Let’s go up to the house. You must have some dinner.”

  The lawn in front of the house was divided into three circular garden beds, one of red tulips, a second of yellow tulips, and the third of some white blossoms, which of the visitors, only Poiret recognized. A rotund, hairy and rather sulky-looking gardener was hanging up a big coil of garden hose. The expiring sunset, which seemed to cling to the corners of the house gave glimpses of a treeless space on one side of the house opening on the lagoon. There stood a tall brass tripod on which was a big brass telescope. Just outside the steps of the porch stood a little green garden table with a teapot and two cups on their saucers, as if someone had just had tea there. The entrance was guarded by two lumps of stone with holes for eyes that were said to be Caribbean Sea idols, and on the oak beam above the doorway were carvings that looked almost as being of the same heathen origin.

  As the others walked indoors, the little detective suddenly held Haven’s arm for support and climbed on top of a chair by the green table, and standing on it, he took his gold-rimmed glasses and peered at the strange symbols carved in the oak. Old Man Attenborough looked on astonished, though not particularly annoyed, while Lord Kendrick was so amused with what looked like a performing monkey on his little stand, that he could not control his laughter. Poiret, however, did not notice ei
ther the laughter or the raised eyebrows.

  He looked at the three carved symbols, which, though worn by weather and time, seemed still to convey some meaning to him. The first seemed to be the outline of a tower with a crown on top. The second was clearer. It was an old ship with simply drawn waves beneath it, but interrupted in the middle by a curious looking rock, which seemed like a fault in the wood. The third represented the upper half of a human being, the torso ending in lines, representing waves. The face was featureless, both arms were held up in the air.

  “Tres interessant,” muttered Poiret, smiling contently. “Here is the legend of the French lord. It is plain to see. Here he is holding up the arms in the sea and cursing. Here are the two curses, the wrecking of the ship and the burning of Attenborough Tower.”

  Attenborough shook his head with a kind of indulgent amusement. “And how many other things might it not be?” he said. “Don’t you know that any of those symbols have a thousand and one meaning in heraldry?”

  “But it seems rather odd,” said Haven, “that it should exactly confirm the legend.”

  “Ah,” replied the old sailor, “but you don’t know how much of the old fable may have been made up from the figures. Who knows which came first, the symbols or the story? Besides, it isn’t the only legend. Kendrick, here, who is rather fond of such things, will tell you there are other versions of the tale, some quite horrible ones. One story credits my poor ancestor with having had the aristocrat cut in two, and that would fit the picture just as easily. Another rather snidely credits our family with the possession of a tower full of snakes and explains those little, rays on top that way. Another theory supposes that the crooked line on the ship is a thunderbolt, but that alone shows what nonsense it is to attribute meaning to them.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Haven, pulling a magnifying glass from his coat pocket, and, pushing Poiret to the side, carefully examining the symbols.