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INGOTS OF GOLD
“I do not know that the story that I am going to tell you is a fair one,” said
Raymond West, “because I can’t give you the solution of it. Yet the facts
were so interesting and so curious that I should like to propound it to you
as a problem. And perhaps between us we may arrive at some logical con-
clusion.
“The date of these happenings was two years ago, when I went down to
spend Whitsuntide with a man called John Newman, in Cornwall.”
“Cornwall?” said Joyce Lemprière sharply.
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing. Only it’s odd. My story is about a place in Cornwall, too—a
little fishing village called Rathole. Don’t tell me yours is the same?”
“No. My village is called Polperran. It is situated on the west coast of
Cornwall; a very wild and rocky spot. I had been introduced a few weeks
previously and had found him a most interesting companion. A man of in-
telligence and independent means, he was possessed of a romantic ima-
gination. As a result of his latest hobby he had taken the lease of Pol
House. He was an authority on Elizabethan times, and he described to me
in vivid and graphic language the rout of the Spanish Armada. So enthusi-
astic was he that one could almost imagine that he had been an eyewit-
ness at the scene. Is there anything in reincarnation? I wonder—I very
much wonder.”
“You are so romantic, Raymond dear,” said Miss Marple, looking benig-
nantly at him.
“Romantic is the last thing that I am,” said Raymond West, slightly an-
noyed. “But this fellow Newman was chock-full of it, and he interested me
for that reason as a curious survival of the past. It appears that a certain
ship belonging to the Armada, and known to contain a vast amount of
treasure in the form of gold from the Spanish Main, was wrecked off the
coast of Cornwall on the famous and treacherous Serpent Rocks. For some
years, so Newman told me, attempts had been made to salve the ship and
recover the treasure. I believe such stories are not uncommon, though the
number of mythical treasure ships is largely in excess of the genuine ones.
A company had been formed, but had gone bankrupt, and Newman had
been able to buy the rights of the thing—or whatever you call it—for a
mere song. He waxed very enthusiastic about it all. According to him it
was merely a question of the latest scientific, up-to-date machinery. The
gold was there, and he had no doubt whatever that it could be recovered.
“It occurred to me as I listened to him how often things happen that
way. A rich man such as Newman succeeds almost without effort, and yet
in all probability the actual value in money of his find would mean little to
him. I must say that his ardour infected me. I saw galleons drifting up the
coast, flying before the storm, beaten and broken on the black rocks. The
mere word galleon has a romantic sound. The phrase ‘Spanish Gold’ thrills
the schoolboy—and the grown-up man also. Moreover, I was working at
the time upon a novel, some scenes of which were laid in the sixteenth
century, and I saw the prospect of getting valuable local colour from my
host.
“I set off that Friday morning from Paddington in high spirits, and look-
ing forward to my trip. The carriage was empty except for one man, who
sat facing me in the opposite corner. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man,
and I could not rid myself of the impression that somewhere or other I
had seen him before. I cudgelled my brains for some time in vain; but at
last I had it. My travelling companion was Inspector Badgworth, and I had
run across him when I was doing a series of articles on the Everson disap-
pearance case.
“I recalled myself to his notice, and we were soon chatting pleasantly
enough. When I told him I was going to Polperran he remarked that that
was a rum coincidence, because he himself was also bound for that place.
I did not like to seem inquisitive, so was careful not to ask him what took
him there. Instead, I spoke of my own interest in the place, and mentioned
the wrecked Spanish galleon. To my surprise the Inspector seemed to
know all about it. ‘That will be the Juan Fernandez,’ he said. ‘Your friend
won’t be the first who has sunk money trying to get money out of her. It is
a romantic notion.’
“‘And probably the whole story is a myth,’ I said. ‘No ship was ever
wrecked there at all.’
“‘Oh, the ship was sunk there right enough,’ said the Inspector—‘along
with a good company of others. You would be surprised if you knew how
many wrecks there are on that part of the coast. As a matter of fact, that is
what takes me down there now. That is where the Otranto was wrecked
six months ago.’
“‘I remember reading about it,’ I said. ‘No lives were lost, I think?’
“No lives were lost,’ said the Inspector; ‘but something else was lost. It is
not generally known, but the Otranto was carrying bullion.’
“‘Yes?’ I said, much interested.
“Naturally we have had divers at work on salvage operations, but—the
gold has gone, Mr. West.’
“‘Gone!’ I said, staring at him. ‘How can it have gone?’
“‘That is the question,’ said the Inspector. ‘The rocks tore a gaping hole
in her strongroom. It was easy enough for the divers to get in that way,
but they found the strongroom empty. The question is, was the gold stolen
before the wreck or afterwards? Was it ever in the strongroom at all?’
“‘It seems a curious case,’ I said.
“‘It is a very curious case, when you consider what bullion is. Not a dia-
mond necklace that you could put into your pocket. When you think how
cumbersome it is and how bulky—well, the whole thing seems absolutely
impossible. There may have been some hocus- pocus before the ship
sailed; but if not, it must have been removed within the last six months—
and I am going down to look into the matter.’
“I found Newman waiting to meet me at the station. He apologized for
the absence of his car, which had gone to Truro for some necessary re-
pairs. Instead, he met me with a farm lorry belonging to the property.
“I swung myself up beside him, and we wound carefully in and out of
the narrow streets of the fishing village. We went up a steep ascent, with a
gradient, I should say, of one in five, ran a little distance along a winding
lane, and turned in at the granite-pillared gates of Pol House.
“The place was a charming one; it was situated high up the cliffs, with a
good view out to sea. Part of it was some three or four hundred years old,
and a modern wing had been added. Behind it farming land of about
seven or eight acres ran inland.
“‘Welcome to Pol House,’ said Newman. ‘And to the Sign of the Golden
Galleon.’ And he pointed to where, over the front door, hung a perfect re-
production of a Spanish galleon with all sails set.
“My first evening was a most charming and instructive one. My host
showed me the old manuscripts relating to the Juan Fernandez. He un-
rolled charts for me and indicated positions on them with dotted lines,
and he produced plans of diving apparatus, which, I may say, mystified
me utterly and completely.
“I told him of my meeting with Inspector Badgworth, in which he was
much interested.
“‘They are a queer people round this coast,’ he said reflectively. ‘Smug-
gling and wrecking is in their blood. When a ship goes down on their coast
they cannot help regarding it as lawful plunder meant for their pockets.
There is a fellow here I should like you to see. He is an interesting sur-
vival.’
“Next day dawned bright and clear. I was taken down into Polperran
and there introduced to Newman’s diver, a man called Higgins. He was a
wooden-faced individual, extremely taciturn, and his contributions to the
conversation were mostly monosyllables. After a discussion between them
on highly technical matters, we adjourned to the Three Anchors. A tank-
ard of beer somewhat loosened the worthy fellow’s tongue.
“‘Detective gentleman from London has come down,’ he grunted. ‘They
do say that that ship that went down there last November was carrying a
mortal lot of gold. Well, she wasn’t the first to go down, and she won’t be
the last.’
“‘Hear, hear,’ chimed in the landlord of the Three Anchors. ‘That is a
true word you say there, Bill Higgins.’
“‘I reckon it is, Mr. Kelvin,’ said Higgins.
“I looked with some curiosity at the landlord. He was a remarkable-
looking man, dark and swarthy, with curiously broad shoulders. His eyes
were bloodshot, and he had a curiously furtive way of avoiding one’s
glance. I suspected that this was the man of whom Newman had spoken,
saying he was an interesting survival.
“‘We don’t want interfering foreigners on this coast,’ he said, somewhat
truculently.
“‘Meaning the police?’ asked Newman, smiling.
“‘Meaning the police—and others,’ said Kelvin significantly. ‘And don’t
you forget it, mister.’
“‘Do you know, Newman, that sounded to me very like a threat,’ I said as
we climbed the hill homewards.
“My friend laughed.
“‘Nonsense; I don’t do the folk down here any harm.’
“I shook my head doubtfully. There was something sinister and uncivil-
ized about Kelvin. I felt that his mind might run in strange, unrecognized
channels.
“I think I date the beginning of my uneasiness from that moment. I had
slept well enough that first night, but the next night my sleep was troubled
and broken. Sunday dawned, dark and sullen, with an overcast sky and
the threatenings of thunder in the air. I am always a bad hand at hiding
my feelings, and Newman noticed the change in me.
“‘What is the matter with you, West? You are a bundle of nerves this
morning.’
“‘I don’t know,’ I confessed, ‘but I have got a horrible feeling of forebod-
ing.’
“‘It’s the weather.’
“‘Yes, perhaps.’
“I said no more. In the afternoon we went out in Newman’s motor boat,
but the rain came on with such vigour that we were glad to return to
shore and change into dry clothing.
“And that evening my uneasiness increased. Outside the storm howled
and roared. Towards ten o’clock the tempest calmed down. Newman
looked out of the window.
“‘It is clearing,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if it was a perfectly fine
night in another half hour. If so, I shall go out for a stroll.’
“I yawned. ‘I am frightfully sleepy,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last
night. I think that tonight I shall turn in early.’
“This I did. On the previous night I had slept little. Tonight I slept heav-
ily. Yet my slumbers were not restful. I was still oppressed with an awful
foreboding of evil. I had terrible dreams. I dreamt of dreadful abysses and
vast chasms, amongst which I was wandering, knowing that a slip of the
foot meant death. I waked to find the hands of my clock pointing to eight
o’clock. My head was aching badly, and the terror of my night’s dreams
was still upon me.
“So strongly was this so that when I went to the window and drew it up I
started back with a fresh feeling of terror, for the first thing I saw, or
thought I saw—was a man digging an open grave.
“It took me a minute or two to pull myself together; then I realized that
the gravedigger was Newman’s gardener, and the ‘grave’ was destined to
accommodate three new rose trees which were lying on the turf waiting
for the moment they should be securely planted in the earth.
“The gardener looked up and saw me and touched his hat.
“‘Good morning, sir. Nice morning, sir.’
“‘I suppose it is,’ I said doubtfully, still unable to shake off completely
the depression of my spirits.
“However, as the gardener had said, it was certainly a nice morning.
The sun was shining and the sky a clear pale blue that promised fine
weather for the day. I went down to breakfast whistling a tune. Newman
had no maids living in the house. Two middle-aged sisters, who lived in a
farmhouse nearby, came daily to attend to his simple wants. One of them
was placing the coffeepot on the table as I entered the room.
“‘Good morning, Elizabeth,’ I said. ‘Mr. Newman not down yet?’
“‘He must have been out very early, sir,’ she replied. ‘He wasn’t in the
house when we arrived.’
“Instantly my uneasiness returned. On the two previous mornings New-
man had come down to breakfast somewhat late; and I didn’t fancy that at
any time he was an early riser. Moved by those forebodings, I ran up to
his bedroom. It was empty, and, moreover, his bed had not been slept in.
A brief examination of his room showed me two other things. If Newman
had gone out for a stroll he must have gone out in his evening clothes, for
they were missing.
“I was sure now that my premonition of evil was justified. Newman had
gone, as he had said he would do, for an evening stroll. For some reason
or other he had not returned. Why? Had he met with an accident? Fallen
over the cliffs? A search must be made at once.
“In a few hours I had collected a large band of helpers, and together we
hunted in every direction along the cliffs and on the rocks below. But
there was no sign of Newman.
“In the end, in despair, I sought out Inspector Badgworth. His face grew
very grave.
“‘It looks to me as if there has been foul play,’ he said. ‘There are some
not over-scrupulous customers in these parts. Have you seen Kelvin, the
landlord of the Three Anchors?’
“I said that I had seen him.
“‘Did you know he did a turn in gaol four years ago? Assault and bat-
tery.’
“‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ I said.
“‘The general opinion in this place seems to be that your friend is a bit
too fond of nosing his way into things that do not concern him. I hope he
has come to no serious harm.’
“The search was continued with redoubled vigour. It was not until late
that afternoon that our efforts were rewarded. We discovered Newman in
a deep ditch in a corner of his own property. His hands and feet were se-
curely fastened with rope, and a handkerchief had been thrust into his
mouth and secured there so as to prevent him crying out.
“He was terribly exhausted and in great pain; but after some frictioning
of his wrists and ankles, and a long draught from a whisky flask, he was
able to give his account of what had occurred.
“The weather having cleared, he had gone out for a stroll about eleven
o’clock. His way had taken him some distance along the cliffs to a spot
commonly known as Smugglers’ Cove, owing to the large number of caves
to be found there. Here he had noticed some men landing something from
a small boat, and had strolled down to see what was going on. Whatever
the stuff was it seemed to be a great weight, and it was being carried into
one of the farthermost caves.
“With no real suspicion of anything being amiss, nevertheless Newman
had wondered. He had drawn quite near them without being observed.
Suddenly there was a cry of alarm, and immediately two powerful seafar-
ing men had set upon him and rendered him unconscious. When next he
came to himself he found himself lying on a motor vehicle of some kind,
which was proceeding, with many bumps and bangs, as far as he could
guess, up the lane which led from the coast to the village. To his great sur-
prise, the lorry turned in at the gate of his own house. There, after a
whispered conversation between the men, they at length drew him forth
and flung him into a ditch at a spot where the depth of it rendered discov-
ery unlikely for some time. Then the lorry drove on, and, he thought,
passed out through another gate some quarter of a mile nearer the village.
He could give no description of his assailants except that they were cer-
tainly seafaring men and, by their speech, Cornishmen.
“Inspector Badgworth was very interested.
“‘Depend upon it that is where the stuff has been hidden,’ he cried.
‘Somehow or other it has been salvaged from the wreck and has been
stored in some lonely cave somewhere. It is known that we have searched
all the caves in Smugglers’ Cove, and that we are now going farther afield,
and they have evidently been moving the stuff at night to a cave that has
been already searched and is not likely to be searched again. Unfortu-
nately they have had at least eighteen hours to dispose of the stuff. If they
got Mr. Newman last night I doubt if we will find any of it there by now.’
“The Inspector hurried off to make a search. He found definite evidence
that the bullion had been stored as supposed, but the gold had been once
more removed, and there was no clue as to its fresh hiding place.
“One clue there was, however, and the Inspector himself pointed it out
to me the following morning.
“‘That lane is very little used by motor vehicles,’ he said, ‘and in one or
two places we get the traces of the tyres very clearly. There is a three-
cornered piece out of one tyre, leaving a mark which is quite unmistak-
able. It shows going into the gate; here and there is a faint mark of it going
out of the other gate, so there is not much doubt that it is the right vehicle
we are after. Now, why did they take it out through the farther gate? It
seems quite clear to me that the lorry came from the village. Now, there
aren’t many people who own a lorry in the village—not more than two or
three at most. Kelvin, the landlord of the Three Anchors, has one.’
“‘What was Kelvin’s original profession?’ asked Newman.
“‘It is curious that you should ask me that, Mr. Newman. In his young
days Kelvin was a professional diver.’
“Newman and I looked at each other. The puzzle seemed to be fitting it-
self together piece by piece.
“‘You didn’t recognize Kelvin as one of the men on the beach?’ asked the
Inspector.
“Newman shook his head.
“‘I am afraid I can’t say anything as to that,’ he said regretfully. ‘I really
hadn’t time to see anything.’
“The Inspector very kindly allowed me to accompany him to the Three
Anchors. The garage was up a side street. The big doors were closed, but
by going up a little alley at the side we found a small door that led into it,
and the door was open. A very brief examination of the tyres sufficed for
the Inspector. ‘We have got him, by Jove!’ he exclaimed. ‘Here is the mark
as large as life on the rear left wheel. Now, Mr. Kelvin, I don’t think you
will be clever enough to wriggle out of this.’”
Raymond West came to a halt.
“Well?” said Joyce. “So far I don’t see anything to make a problem about
—unless they never found the gold.”
“They never found the gold certainly,” said Raymond. “And they never
got Kelvin either. I expect he was too clever for them, but I don’t quite see
how he worked it. He was duly arrested — on the evidence of the tyre
mark. But an extraordinary hitch arose. Just opposite the big doors of the
garage was a cottage rented for the summer by a lady artist.”
“Oh, these lady artists!” said Joyce, laughing.
“As you say, ‘Oh, these lady artists!’ This particular one had been ill for
some weeks, and, in consequence, had two hospital nurses attending her.
The nurse who was on night duty had pulled her armchair up to the win-
dow, where the blind was up. She declared that the motor lorry could not
have left the garage opposite without her seeing it, and she swore that in
actual fact it never left the garage that night.”
“I don’t think that is much of a problem,” said Joyce. “The nurse went to
sleep, of course. They always do.”
“That has—er—been known to happen,” said Mr. Petherick, judiciously;
“but it seems to me that we are accepting facts without sufficient examina-
tion. Before accepting the testimony of the hospital nurse, we should in-
quire very closely into her bona fides. The alibi coming with such suspi-
cious promptness is inclined to raise doubts in one’s mind.”
“There is also the lady artist’s testimony,” said Raymond. “She declared
that she was in pain, and awake most of the night, and that she would cer-
tainly have heard the lorry, it being an unusual noise, and the night being
very quiet after the storm.”
“H’m,” said the clergyman, “that is certainly an additional fact. Had
Kelvin himself any alibi?”
“He declared that he was at home and in bed from ten o’clock onwards,
but he could produce no witnesses in support of that statement.”
“The nurse went to sleep,” said Joyce, “and so did the patient. Ill people
always think they have never slept a wink all night.”
Raymond West looked inquiringly at Dr. Pender.
“Do you know, I feel very sorry for that man Kelvin. It seems to me very
much a case of ‘Give a dog a bad name.’ Kelvin had been in prison. Apart
from the tyre mark, which certainly seems too remarkable to be coincid-
ence, there doesn’t seem to be much against him except his unfortunate
record.”
“You, Sir Henry?”
Sir Henry shook his head.
“As it happens,” he said, smiling, “I know something about this case. So
clearly I mustn’t speak.”
“Well, go on, Aunt Jane; haven’t you got anything to say?”
“In a minute, dear,” said Miss Marple. “I am afraid I have counted
wrong. Two purl, three plain, slip one, two purl—yes, that’s right. What
did you say, dear?”
“What is your opinion?”
“You wouldn’t like my opinion, dear. Young people never do, I notice. It
is better to say nothing.”
“Nonsense, Aunt Jane; out with it.”
“Well, dear Raymond,” said Miss Marple, laying down her knitting and
looking across at her nephew. “I do think you should be more careful how
you choose your friends. You are so credulous, dear, so easily gulled. I sup-
pose it is being a writer and having so much imagination. All that story
about a Spanish galleon! If you were older and had more experience of
life you would have been on your guard at once. A man you had known
only a few weeks, too!”
Sir Henry suddenly gave vent to a great roar of laughter and slapped his
knee.
“Got you this time, Raymond,” he said. “Miss Marple, you are wonderful.
Your friend Newman, my boy, has another name—several other names in
fact. At the present moment he is not in Cornwall but in Devonshire—
Dartmoor, to be exact—a convict in Princetown prison. We didn’t catch
him over the stolen bullion business, but over the rifling of the stron-
groom of one of the London banks. Then we looked up his past record and
we found a good portion of the gold stolen buried in the garden at Pol
House. It was rather a neat idea. All along that Cornish coast there are
stories of wrecked galleons full of gold. It accounted for the diver and it
would account later for the gold. But a scapegoat was needed, and Kelvin
was ideal for the purpose. Newman played his little comedy very well, and
our friend Raymond, with his celebrity as a writer, made an unimpeach-
able witness.”
“But the tyre mark?” objected Joyce.
“Oh, I saw that at once, dear, although I know nothing about motors,”
said Miss Marple. “People change a wheel, you know—I have often seen
them doing it—and, of course, they could take a wheel off Kelvin’s lorry
and take it out through the small door into the alley and put it on to Mr.
Newman’s lorry and take the lorry out of one gate down to the beach, fill it
up with the gold and bring it up through the other gate, and then they
must have taken the wheel back and put it back on Mr. Kelvin’s lorry
while, I suppose, someone else was tying up Mr. Newman in a ditch. Very
uncomfortable for him and probably longer before he was found than he
expected. I suppose the man who called himself the gardener attended to
that side of the business.”
“Why do you say, ‘called himself the gardener,’ Aunt Jane?” asked Ray-
mond curiously.
“Well, he can’t have been a real gardener, can he?” said Miss Marple.
“Gardeners don’t work on Whit Monday. Everybody knows that.”
She smiled and folded up her knitting.
“It was really that little fact that put me on the right scent,” she said. She
looked across at Raymond.
“When you are a householder, dear, and have a garden of your own,
you will know these little things.”
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