I suppose I was looking a little dazed, for she caught my hand, and said, 'You'd better come up to the house and get dry. You're wet through.'
'Yes,' I said.
She left me and went into the store shed. I just stood there, gazing at the moonlight. When she came out she had discarded her overalls. She had the skirt and jumper on that she'd been wearing that morning and her hair blew free about her face. 'How come you know your way around the mine?' I asked as we started up the slope to the house.
She laughed. 'I've lived here nearly all my life. You don't expect a young girl not to go exploring. And then, when my stepfather found I liked going down the mine, he used to take me with him. I was the only person he'd got to show his property to.'
'Why didn't you get away from the place?' I asked. I was thinking of this girl alone in the house with old Manack, alone with him except for the woman.
'I don't know,' she said softly. 'I've only been to Penzance once. That was to give evidence about — " She stopped then and added quickly, 'I didn't enjoy that visit. And then my stepfather was alone except for old Mrs Brynd and there was the war. Somebody had to look after the bit of a farm we've got.'
The thought of old Manack had brought the strength pouring back into me in a flood of anger. I'd have it out with him when I got up to the house. There was something more to it than just a desire not to have the sea let into the Mermaid. He was scared of something — scared of me. I'd seen it in his eyes down there in the Mermaid when he'd learned that I was Ruth Nearne's son. My hands clenched and I strode up that slope with the great sense of power that anger brings.
The girl understood my mood, for she said, 'You won't do anything hasty. Just dry your clothes and go back to the mine. You'll be clear in your mind about what's happened when you've slept on it.'
'I'm clear enough in my mind about it now,' I answered, and went on in silence.
A thought was gnawing at my brain. A man who'd commit murder like that, the way he'd tried to kill me — a man who'd do that must have a streak of madness in him. I remembered how his eyes had glittered down there in the Mermaid gallery. That was it, the man was mad. The sight of that rich lode had driven him crazy. And he'd seen that lode as a kid. He'd only had one idea after that — to own the mine and work that lode himself. That I