Chapter Nineteen

Blood pounded in Carne’s temples. He knew his breathing was too fast and shallow, but he couldn’t seem to slow it down. His palms were slick with sweat, so the pickaxe slipped in his grip. He stumbled over a rock in his path as he peered ahead into the coal-black darkness, barely illuminated by his headlamp and lantern. All he could see was more rock ahead, pressing in from all sides, closing off air and burying him alive. It was all he could do to grit his teeth and put one foot in front of the other, let alone look for any sort of clues to a godforsaken treasure. Bear left at a rock that looks like a face? What sort of signpost was that? All the bulges of stones and the crannies between them could represent eyes, nose, ears, and mouth if a man used his imagination.

Perhaps he should have mentioned to Phillip that he didn’t much care for small spaces before they started down here. But he hadn’t remembered how bad it was when he’d gone exploring here as a lad, or how anxious he’d feel at the thought of all the layers of earth and rock between him and freedom.

Phillip’s voice broke through his near panic to ask if anything was wrong, then he suggested they take a break from walking and pointed out an entry on the left. His hand rested comfortingly on Carne’s lower back, nudging him toward the opening.

Carne walked into a chamber where he could straighten his body. He felt space opening up around him and inhaled a tiny breath of fresher air, perhaps coming down some rocky fissure from the outside world. After all, they weren’t so very deep underground yet. It had merely felt that way to a man uncomfortable in narrow spaces.

Carne took a few deep breaths and held up his lantern to illuminate the chamber. He nearly lost his breath again at the sight in front of him. A treasure trove indeed, but not one from generations past. There were several small wooden crates and one much larger one lying in the center of the rough-hewn chamber. They weren’t dirt-covered or moldy. In fact, he could still smell the sea on them. These crates had been placed here recently. Someone was using this long-forgotten place for storage.

Phillip stumbled into the cavern, followed by Mitchell, and Carne’s hand tightened on the pick, ready to wield it if need be. “What is this, Mitchell?” he demanded. “Some sort of ambush? Are your father and Gwalather right behind us?”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” Mitchell stared at the cartons. “What’s this?”

“Crates,” Phillip answered easily. “But they don’t look old at all. I doubt this is the treasure the map referred…” He trailed off as if putting two and two together and coming up with smuggler’s booty. He looked from Mitchell to Carne and again at the mysterious crates.

“You think I have something to do with this?” Mitchell shouted. He strode to one of the smaller crates and started to pry it open with the tip of his shovel. The nails gave way with a screech, and the wooden top clattered open.

Mitchell dropped to his knees and began pawing through the straw that cradled the contents. A moment later, he held his hand high, brandishing a golden watch.

“That looks like a Cartier!” Phillip hurried over to examine it.

“A what?” Mitchell surprisingly surrendered the object to Phillip before starting to scrabble through the packing straw and paper again.

“A French jeweler. Some of his watches are valuable.”

Carne lowered the pick and approached the others. It was obvious Mitchell knew nothing about the contents as the man pulled out a couple of fancy silver dishes and squinted at them.

“Who’s been hoarding all this?” Mitchell sounded as if he were accusing them of being in collusion. “What is this stuff?”

“A chafing dish and a christening cup,” Phillip identified the silver pieces.

“Gwalather!” Mitchell bellowed. “That shite-eating, slimy, stinking arsehole. He’s had his own deal on the side.”

“Deal with who?” Carne used the tip of his pick to pry open the largest box. The lid popped, and he pulled it aside to reveal canvas-wrapped parcels and paintings He peeled back the corner of one to see a gold frame and the vibrant colors of an oil painting. Stolen from some rich man’s walls, no doubt.

“The bloody Frogs! Or one of them, anyway.” Mitchell withdrew a jewelry box and flung it open. Gold sparkled in the lantern light.

Carne had nearly forgotten all about his nerves. The thought of being trapped in a stone coffin had lost its power at this unexpected discovery. And now he had Mitchell on the verge of confessing everything he and his elders had been up to.

“How long have you been trading with the French?” he asked bluntly.

Mitchell didn’t try to deny it. “Gwalather come to me and Tas a few months past and asked if we wanted to earn more than we ever had with the Concern. All we had to do was move a few shipments up the coast to Penzance. He made an arrangement with a fellow but he needed partners to do the deal with him.” Mitchell snorted. “Partners! But he didn’t tell us about none o’ this.” He let a diamond necklace trickle between his fingers, then squeezed it tight, muttering under his breath.

“What goods?” Carne asked while Mitchell was in a confessional mood.

“We didn’t look inside. The contents weren’t our concern. But I cracked one open and nailed it right shut again. Rifles. At least in those crates. A heavy shipment to shift that was.”

“So Gwalather sidetracked a few of the boxes from the shipments,” Carne suggested.

Mitchell shook his head. “Naw. We took everything off the ship, and the count was the same when we delivered ’em. Nary a complaint from the man in Penzance about being short. These”—he gestured at the boxes—“are something else Gwalather’s been doing with the Frenchies. His own deal. He had no right. None at all. How’d he move these with that withered hand o’ his? That fat bastard Jacobs must’ve helped.” His voice grew even louder. Mitchell the younger had a terrible temper in the best of times. Now he stood up and began to pace in the small dark space.

“Why store them here? Why not move them as quickly as possible?” Phillip mused.

“He’s taking them to London.” It wasn’t even a question. Carne knew such collector’s items would be bound far beyond Penzance.

Mitchell wheeled and picked up the pickaxe Carne had just put down. “Probably waiting to take the trip until he has enough for a wagon load. Probably not planning to come back once he’s made the sale. Why would he?” He hefted the axe a couple of times and glanced the way they’d come. “I’m going to find answers.”

Carne was more than ready to breathe clean air again and wanted to get the hell out of the tunnels more suited to moles than men. But he also knew that a battle between Mitchell and Gwalather would spell deep trouble—and possibly hurt the entire village. He’d seen Mitchell angry more than once and knew him capable of striking out. Even in the dark, and standing behind Mitchell, he could tell the panting young idiot had blood on his mind.

“Naw, man. Don’t bother with that. We’ll show him up. We’ll, ah, go on and find the treasure from Professor Singleton’s map. Then we’ll have it all. The cartons here and the ones we find.” Carne distracted him from mayhem by dangling more riches before his eyes.

Muttering about what he’d do to filthy Gwalather, Mitchell stalked to another case and began smashing at the wood with the axe. The thumps and cracks filled the dark cavern.

Phillip drew near and muttered, “I hardly think we could find anything more valuable than this, Carne. I can tell you’re eager to be gone.”

Carne grunted, surprised and a bit dismayed that Phillip could still sense his fear in such poor light and when he thought he’d managed to tame it at last.

“Shouldn’t we just leave?” Phillip gave a ghost of a laugh. “With the discovery of those cases, the map is yesterday’s news.”

“Yes, soon. First I’ll let him smash away and burn off some of his anger.”

Mitchell had stepped up onto a ledge. A narrow crack in the rock wall led into another chamber. “Christ almighty,” he snarled. “I can see the edge of another box. They buried one here.” He began swinging hard, slamming the axe against the ground, but his wild swings hit the sides of the smaller cavern.

“You double-crossing gut worm of a coward,” he shouted as he swung the axe.

There was a crash of wood and then glass. The heady scent of liquor reached them. He’d apparently smashed through the wooden case and hit the contents, which must have been bottles.

“Brandy, I think,” Phillip said.

Carne heaved a sigh and crawled into the smaller space to examine what Mitchell had discovered. In the short tunnel between chambers, dirt or small rocks rained down on Carne’s head.

A rainbow variety of curses flowed from Mitchell, who continued to rant and slam things around.

“He was a nearly silent man yesterday,” Phillip remarked. His light bobbed as he ducked down behind Carne. “He’s grown quite loquacious in his fury, uttering some fine insults. If I had enough light, I’d copy some down for future use.”

That steady cheerful chatter behind him helped Carne cope with moving into darkness.

In the smaller chamber, they found Mitchell swinging and striking at the walls, the floor, and the time-blackened wood of a very old crate as if his life depended on it. Carne instinctively slid away from the frenzied man, and Phillip followed him, muttering something about the way anger or perhaps treasure brought on more inhuman strength than one would think possible.

The clunk of axe on rock seemed to grow louder and more frequent. Suddenly Carne understood Mitchell’s axe wasn’t responsible for all the noise echoing through the cavern. A groaning whine of wood was followed by a snap as an ancient support gave way. The grumble of rocks shifting against each another filled the small space.

“Hey.” Mitchell’s light bobbed up and down as he darted backward. A moment later, there came a clatter, a smash, and then a huge roar of sound.

“Cave-in!” Carne shouted, but the sound of his shout was swallowed by the cavern wall collapsing.

Choking grit filled his nose, mouth, and eyes. The rumble of tumbling stone deafened him. In the blackness, he grabbed hold of Phillip’s arm and sheltered him from the barrage of stones that slammed against his own back. In the dust and dark, he and Phillip cowered together at the far end of the chamber, against a granite wall that still held firm.

When the noise of the collapse diminished and the stone stopped pelting him, Carne was in utter darkness, the sort of deep black that almost had weight, it was so complete. He was completely blind, his lantern gone from his hand, the light on the bill of his cap extinguished.

“Phillip?” His hands traveled up the professor’s arms to find his face. Eyelashes brushed against his seeking palms, and his lips moved.

“Still alive. Are you all right?”

Carne grunted in reply, then went to work trying to reignite his headlamp. When he finally managed to get the flame to catch, Carne cast light on the pile of rubble where Mitchell had been smashing and cursing. The young man was gone. Several brandy bottles he’d laid out on the ground remained undamaged. In place of Mitchell was a very large boulder and the swirling motes of settling dust.