'He left on Monday,' she said. 'And this is Wednesday. He can't possibly be back till tomorrow. Might even be Friday. It depends on what the weather's like.'
'I'll come back this evening,' I told her.
'It won't be any use,' she said. 'He can't be back till tomorrow.'
'I'll come back this evening,' I repeated. 'What's the name of his boat?'
'No good coming this evening. He won't be here. Come tomorrow.' She gave me a bright, uncertain smile and closed the door on me.
I lunched on fish and chips and then went down to the South Pier to make a few inquiries. From an old salt I learned that David Jones was skipper of the Isle of Mull, a fifty-five ton ketch used for fishing. He confirmed that the Isle of Mull was unlikely to be back for at least another day. But when I asked him where the Isle of Mull did her fishing, his blue eyes regarded me curiously and I had that same sense of withdrawal, almost of suspicion, that I had had when talking to the girl at Harbour Terrace. 'Over to Brettagny mebbe, or out to the Scillies,' he told me. 'T'edn't like 'erring, 'ee knaw. 'Tis mackerel and pilchard 'e be after, an' it depends where 'e do find'n.' And he stared at me out of his amazingly blue eyes as though daring me to ask any more questions.
After that I went back into the town. It was just after three. The sun had gone out of the sky and the mist was coming down in a light drizzle. Penzance looked wet and withdrawn. Until shortly before eight o'clock, when I walked back through the gathering dusk to Harbour Terrace, I was still free to make my own decision. For the space of a few hours I could have broken that thread of destiny and with luck I'd have eventually got passage in a ship to Canada, and so would never have discovered what happened to my mother.
But fear and loneliness combined is a thing few men can fight. Tanner was the only soul I knew in a strange country. He was my one contact with the future. What did it matter if he were mixed up in some shady business? I was a deserter. And since that put me outside the law so long as I remained at liberty, it was outside the law that I should have to earn my living. To that extent I faced up to the reality of my situation. What I could not face up to was the uncertainty and difficulties of the unknown if I tried to fend for myself. I took the easy way, comforting myself that if I didn't like Tanner's proposition, I could decide against it later.
And so as a clock down by the harbour struck eight I turned up by the gas works into Harbour Terrace. The single street light showed the rain dancing on the roadway and water swirling down the gutters of the steep little street. It was an older woman who answered the door this time. 'Is Mr David Jones back yet?' I asked her.
Her face paled and she glanced quickly over her shoulder at the stairs which ascended in a rigid line to the unlighted interior of the house. 'Sylvia! Sylvia!' she called out in a hoarse, agitated voice.