To Perish in Penzance by Jeanne M. Dams Read Free Book Online Page B

exorcised. I had no intention of allowing my husband to go on stewing about a crime long past. If, as I hoped, an expedition to the caves would give him a chance to open that murky corner of his mind and spirit and let daylight in, I’d clamber till I dropped. I pulled my only pair of blue jeans out of the drawer, added a sturdy shirt, a lightweight, waterproof jacket, and a pair of clunky running shoes. With a pull-on denim hat, I was ready to go.
    â€œWe might as well do the most famous ones first,” said Alan when we got to the car. “The three little inlets that make up Prussia Cove.”
    Where the dead girl was found, I remembered. I didn’t mention it. “Oh, yes, you talked about some brothers who plied their trade there.”
    â€œA trade it was, too. Almost, by the standards of the day, an honorable one. The brothers were the Carters, three of them: Harry, John, and Charles. It was John, in fact, who named the place Prussia Cove and called himself the king of Prussia.”
    Alan negotiated a tight curve. “He
was
something of a king, I suppose, or he and his brothers were, between them. They were born somewhere around the mid-seventeen hundreds, and by the 1770s they were famous throughout Cornwall. Not only as smugglers, mind you. They were staunch Methodists, and Harry, the leader of the bunch, had quite a name as a fiery preacher. He wouldn’t let his crew swear, I seem to remember from the old stories. Oh, and once when one of their shipments was seized and locked up in the customs house, John organized a raid and got it back. There were other goods in there as well, but John wouldn’t let his men touch them. He didn’t consider that honest.”
    I giggled. “I suppose even the devil has a conscience.”
    â€œOh, the Carters weren’t devils. They provided a service, according to their lights. I must say they had something of a point. The duties on tobacco, brandy, sugar, and tea were iniquitous, often running to several hundred percent. Men like the Carters reckoned that if they could buy a pound of tea for two shillings in France and sell it in Cornwall for five, they made a reasonable profit for their trouble and risk and at the same time acted as public benefactors, because the duty alone ran something like six shillings.”
    â€œYes, I see. All the same …”
    â€œYes, all the same, it was a dangerous game, and not only for the smugglers who died when ships were wrecked on the rocks or revenue officers put a musket ball through their heads. Society in general suffered, because widespread defiance of even a bad law leads to disrespect for law in general. Eventually, ’round about 1850, parliament saw the wisdom of that argument and reduced the duties to reasonable levels, which took away the smugglers’ profits and put them out of business. Amazing, really, how long it took the government to grasp the fact that collecting a small duty all the time would net them more income than never collecting a large one. Not to mention paying good money to customs agents into the bargain.”
    â€œWell, it’s a good, full-blooded story, anyway. I can just see them, sailing into the cove on a moonlit night—”
    My loving husband snorted. “Not if they knew what they were about, they didn’t. You’re thinking of those romantic old pictures. Sensible smugglers landed when there was no moon, and preferably clouds to veil even the starlight. And in most of Mount’s Bay,
this
was the coastline they had to contend with on those pitch-dark nights.”
    We were driving along the top of a cliff, the sea visible from time to time through trees and brush. Alan pulled the car into a turnout, a place where there was a break in the undergrowth, and stopped. “Get out and take a look at Piskie’s Cove, the first inlet of Prussia Cove.”
    â€œI thought you said it was Mount’s Bay.”
    â€œThat’s the