American Lesley Farlan is a practical nurse who has been hired by American Curt VanCampen to care for his British wife, Cleo, who apparently considers herself a "semi-invalid" but seems to be more bored than anything. With her new employers Lesley is to embark on an adventure in a party that includes another American couple (who are so unimportant to the plot I wont need to mention them) and an engineer named Ron Calvert, another American. The party is headed to the Cornish coast of England where they are to embark on a treasure hunt.
The group takes a hired boat from France to England where they are dropped off right at their location, something which Lesley realized after is considered illegal entry. Their location is a lighthouse on a stoney cliff with a "house" built into a cave in the cliff, concealing it from the rough and turbulent waters which at the moment are becoming worse and worse. As the party reaches the shore in the night they are greeted by the sight of a dead man in the waters. The man is Baxter, another engineer that Curt had hired. He is dragged out of the water by McCabe, who runs the lighthouse. They also meet Mrs. Overtuft who is the housekeeper. There is another employee there but he is also unimportant to the plot and doesn't need to be mentioned which is good since I've forgotten his name.
The lighthouse is so isolated that it is impossible to call the police as the only road in is currently blocked and they have no boat. There is also no telephone or communication radio so they decide to bury Baxter at sea. Despite the consensus being that he drowned Ron insists on exampling the body where he finds a icepick-sized stab wound through the mans chest. The whole group is now on alert.
When they set Baxter into the water Cleo goes in with him and Ron has to dive in to save her. He later reveals to Lesley that someone had tied a thin wire from the body to the buttonhole of Cleo's cape, apparently while they all had their eyes closed for a moment of silence.
Curt soon explains the situation regarding the treasure hunt to everyone. During the war when occupied France was being looted by the Nazis one of them went rogue and stole a large fortune in treasure. He worked with the lighthouse keeper at the time to build tunnels with hidden rooms under the lighthouse to hide the treasure. This was accomplished but both the Nazi and the Lighthouse keeper did not live to reclaim it. With rumors of hidden treasure about Cleo's grandfather had purchased the land the lighthouse stood on making Cleo the rightful owner of the treasure, at least in the VanCampen's eyes.
The group heads down into the tunnels which go out under the sea. The tunnel walls are painted in wild and abstract patterns to camouflage any indication of hidden doors. As they explore them Lesley falls behind the others and leans against a wall which opens and she falls into it before it swiftly closes. Finding a light switch she sees there is nothing but a desk in the room and is able to reopen the door, as she does so an envelope falls from it which she stuffs into her dress so the others wont see it. An examination of the room by the others reveals nothing.
That night, as the storm picks up, Lesley falls asleep with her light on. When Mrs. Overtuft, who it is already heavily implied is the villain, sees it she comes to check on Lesley and sees the envelope hanging out of her dress. Quietly she takes it and reads it which sends her into a rage and she begins to yell "I'll kill him" over and over. Lesley wakes up and takes the letter back. It contains 3 pages, one in code, and the other two are torn out of a diary. They are from a man who worked for the old lighthouse keeper and was planning to come back, under a new identity, to work for Cleo's grandfather as the lighthouse keeper and look for the treasure. Clearly it's McCabe.
The next day Mrs. Overtuft plans to act on her threat to kill McCabe by feeding him, and the rest of the group, poisoned oatmeal. However her plan is ruined when McCabe feeds some to his pet marmot who almost instantly succumbs to it. Mrs. Overtuft denies the accusations it was poisoned and no one in the group knows what to believe although they are all on edge.
The story of Overtuft and McCabe is stupid and weird so I will tell it all here although it's not revealed until the end. The two were married and when McCabe went to work at the lighthouse originally he sent his wife away because, she believed, he was having an affair. After awhile she got word that he had passed and she remarried. After her second husband had passed she got word McCabe was still alive and working at the lighthouse so she got work there as the housekeeper. However with the passing of time and the two going under new identities they couldn't tell if the other was their former spouse and so they remained suspicious and hostile of each other.
The group goes back down into the tunnels to further examine the room they found. By turning a leg of the desk they open another room where the find the dead body of the other employee who apparently was looking for the treasure alone and succumbed to a poison gas booby trap. They find another hidden switch which opens yet another room where they find between 12-20 skeletons, presumably the Nazi's prisoners who had been used as forced labor to build the tunnels. Despite believing the treasure is probably one room away the group decides to quit searching for the time being.
Upstairs the storm rages and the group gathers together in the living room where Lesley falls asleep in Ron's arms. She awakes to a scream which is due to the power going out. The group is left in complete darkness as the storm of the century rages. Soon they hear crashing and feel water coming up around their feet which flows down into the tunnels, destroying any chance of finding the treasure. At Ron's orders they remain in place until the next morning when in the daylight they can see that a piece of the breakwater had broken off and been flung into the home. The house and light house are destroyed and McCabe and Mrs. Overtuft are found, dead and holding hands, having died while tending to their duties of the light.
With the light out a patrol soon arrives and the group leaves.
- So little happened in this book. It was a lot of worrying.
- Not finding the treasure was annoying. It made the whole story feel like a waste of time.
- Several characters were unnecessary, events were unnecessary, maybe the whole book was unnecessary.
- A married couple would for sure be able to recognize each other even if not by sight. They were living in the lighthouse together for years, there would be some small behavior or quirk that you would know belonged to your spouse.
Overall....bleh. I wouldn't recommend it except to someone who really liked books with storms or books on the Cornish coast or something. It's not something I think I would ever re-read.
