Malice in Cornwall Read Online Free PDF Page B

report with his paper, hehad promised to recycle any subsequent installments for the wire services on her behalf, under her own byline, assuming of course that the story turned out to be more than just a one-day wonder. For old times' sake, as he had put it. Fancying herself quite the starving artist, she had swallowed her pride and leapt at the chance to make a few quid. It would get her mind off the novel, and at least she would be writing.
    As a news item, the Riddle had so far remained a minor curiosity relegated to the back pages, but even so, she had managed to sell a few lines. A reporter from the local paper in St. Ives had put in a brief appearance but soon lost interest, so she more or less had the field to herself. It was almost certainly a hoax of some kind (which she was determined to get to the bottom of) but a fortuitous and welcome diversion nonetheless. And one never knew, she might be onto something that would eventually rival the Beast of Bodmin Moor in notoriety. Jane Goode, freelance journalist, informing the curious masses. It seemed rather romantic, and it was all grist for the mill. Perhaps she could work the idea into her novel somehow.
    She pulled on a pair of jeans and then selected a particularly shapeless jersey to frustrate Mr. Polfrock. She smiled grimly. She was looking forward to having a word with the Dragon Lady about the so-called amenities of the Wrecker's Rest.
All mod cons
, like hell!
    After lunch Powell set out along the Sands toward Towey Head, leaving Sergeant Black behind to explore Penrick. He strolled along the beach, familiarizing himself with the territory and mulling over his initial suspicionsabout the strange sightings on the Penrick Sands. He had already concluded that there was something decidedly fishy about the entire business.
    The tide was well out and the sky was a hazy gray dome speckled with screaming gulls. A gusty wind was whipping up white horses on the blue curve of sea, which sat like a meniscus atop a yellow band of sand. What nautical instincts he retained from his university sailing days told him a change of weather was in the offing. A few hardy souls were on the beach, clinging to deck chairs or huddled behind colorful nylon windbreaks that flapped wildly like kites straining to take off.
    To his left was an area of wasteland, the towans, a mixture of sand and sea rush heaped high by the wind into a chaotic jumble of dunes. The effect was a bit eerie, a half-mile wall of sand, up to twenty feet high and several hundred yards wide, that effectively isolated the beach from the base of the low cliffs beyond. In the distant past, hurricanes of sand had inundated stretches of the northern Cornish coast, and in places whole farmsteads (and even a lost city, it is purported) had been overwhelmed and now lie buried, preserved like villas in Pompeii. One could only marvel at the caprice of nature.
    “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
    Powell smiled thinly. Sergeant Black would no doubt appreciate Shelley's sentiment.
    The Sands gradually petered out and the beach becamerockier in character where the cliffs pinched in toward the sea before soaring to the summit of Towey Head. Beneath the promontory, a seashore clutter of bungalows lined the little cove that formed the southwest corner of Penrick Bay. Most were still boarded up for the season.
    An elderly man pottered about with an outboard engine near a small shed beside one of the cottages. It was better kept than its neighbors—its fenced-off garden bright with sea pinks and lavender.
    He had gray hair slicked back and bushy eyebrows. In his early seventies, Powell guessed. “Good afternoon,” he called out.
    The man looked up from his work, then wiped his hands on a greasy rag. He eyed Powell's tweed jacket critically. “It's going to rain, you know,” he rejoined