‘You’re not eating anything, my dear. Are you not feeling well?’
She was glad when they came out into the air, but when they had crossed the pavement and came to the kerb she hung back. The cinema stood at one corner of a four-crossway, and they were on another. There was a lot of traffic, and the noisy rush of it made her feel giddy again. When the lights changed Sid put his hand on her arm and guided her to the island in the middle of the road, and there they had to wait until they could cross to the other side. A lot of people were waiting too, the island was crowded.
Rillington is an old place with narrow streets and picturesque houses which motorists would like to see pulled down and antiquarians are prepared to battle for to the death. The struggle continues in the Press and in the local Council Chamber, but so far the antiquarians have held the position. The four wide roads which converge upon the town become four bottle-necks as they discharge their contents into what is known as the Square. It follows that cars and buses must of necessity pass very close to the islands. They stop when the lights are against them, but as soon as the green light goes on they go forward as fast as the local speed limit will allow, and sometimes a good deal faster. A bus-driver with the way clear before him and no policeman in sight is apt to chance his luck.
The police car which contained Detective Inspector Abbott and Sergeant Hubbard turned into Rillington High Street and approached the Square. Held up by the red light before they reached it, Frank Abbott noted the Arcadia on the right and thought briefly that a cup of tea would be agreeable but they had probably better not stop and anyhow there wouldn’t be anywhere to park. As his gaze travelled back across the street it rested upon the crowded island just ahead of them. It looked as if a lot of people had crossed from the side where the café stood and been caught up there. The red light ahead had changed to amber, and as his eye reached it the green came on. The whole line of traffic began to move and their own car with it.
It was at this moment that Frank saw and recognized the Blounts. Mrs Blount was on the very edge of the island. There was a woman next to her in a black coat and skirt and a black hat with a red ribbon round it. Mr Blount was not next to his wife nor immediately behind her. Frank opened the nearside door and got himself and his long legs out on to the pavement. He called out to the astonished Sergeant Hubbard, ‘Get her parked and come back!’ and proceeded across the traffic in the direction of the island in a highly dangerous and exasperating manner. So far his actions had been largely automatic. Looking back upon them, he was aware that they had been prompted by the simultaneous and vivid appearance in his mind of a number of pictures. There was Miss Silver saying earnestly, ‘I am deeply concerned about Mrs Blount.’ There was Mrs Blount herself on the edge of a stream of traffic which would presently be going very fast. There was the crowd on the island behind Mrs Blount. And there was Mr Blount, not so near his wife as to come under suspicion but near enough to exert pressure at a critical moment. And away in the mental background but still discernible, Mr Blount’s father who had broken his neck falling down the stairs in his own house, and the first Mrs Blount who had gone down under a train. Money in it for Mr Blount on both these occasions, and money to come to him if anything were to happen to the present Mrs Blount. Dead men tell no tales. If Mrs Blount had a tale that she might tell, she wouldn’t be able to tell it. Not if she was dead.
All these things were suddenly and menacingly present as he came up out of the traffic and stood in the lee of the island. There was no standing-room on the island itself. He didn’t want to attract Mr Blount’s attention, but he had got to be within reach of Mrs Blount. He began to edge along in front of the island. Two women looked at him angrily, and a man said, ‘Where are you shoving to!’ The cars that had been waiting for the lights to change had all got away now, and the oncoming traffic behind them had put on speed to get across the Square before they changed again. Everyone was watching them go by. Time was getting short – the lights would go again at any moment. A scarlet bus was speeding up to get across in time. It was going to pass so near the island that the people in the front row made an involuntary movement to step back. Only there wasn’t any room to step back. The people behind began shoving in order to keep their places. Somebody shoved Mrs Blount so hard that she lost her footing on the stone kerb and plunged forward just as the bus came roaring past. Lizzie Pardue screamed and made an ineffectual snatch at her coat sleeve. Mrs Blount herself didn’t scream. She felt a paralysing terror, a paralysing certainty that this was death. And then, quick and hard, the grasp of a hand upon her outflung arm. It was a man’s hand and it was strong. It held her back from where she would have fallen under the front wheels of the bus. It jerked her sideways past Lizzie Pardue and the bus went by. The scarlet paint on the side of it brushed her shoulder and left it sore and hot right through the stuff of her coat. When her mind began working again the lights had changed and the traffic had stopped. Room had been made for her on the island. The man who had saved her had his arm about her shoulders, holding her up. Lizzie Pardue was sobbing and crying, and Sid was standing looking at her and saying,
‘What happened, Milly – what happened?’
Milly Blount said, ‘You pushed me.’
FORTY-THREE
FRANK ABBOTT CAME to The Lodge in the evening and told Miss Silver all about it.
‘If you hadn’t managed to put the wind up me about Mrs Blount she’d have been dead by now. There we were just driving along peaceably through Rillington, when I saw her on the island and had a come-over. There she was, and there Blount was, and there was the traffic, and it up and hit me in the eye that if I was a crook and wanted to get rid of a woman who had a packet in the bank and who knew too much about me, I couldn’t possibly ask for a better opportunity. The next thing I knew I was out of the car and half way across the road. I should have felt all sorts of a fool if nothing had happened, but as you know something did. Blount and I were twin souls with but a single thought. The possibility of a jam on an island and a shove at the right moment had not escaped him. As a matter of fact the whole thing must have been very carefully planned. He had never taken his wife and the aunt to anything in Rillington before, and when they searched him at the police station he had one of those folding-up rulers in his pocket. Just the sort of thing to slip through the row between him and Mrs Blount. Opened to a foot length it would be quite long enough and strong enough to do the trick. She said he pushed her, you know, and she said her back hurt her, so the police surgeon had a look at it, and there was the mark where the ruler had bruised her. I told you Hubbard turned up just after it happened. Blount tried to carry the whole thing off with his wife being suicidal. Well, he’d planned for that too. Tucked away in his wallet there was a scrawled sheet in Mrs Blount’s writing which said, “I can’t go on with it. It’s no use. I don’t feel I can.” She says he was writing a letter in the kitchen. He pretended it was about a deal he had thought of going into, but he’d made up his mind not to go on with it on account of having heard something he didn’t like about the fellow. All of a sudden he said his thumb joint had slipped and he would have to get her to finish the letter for him. He dictated that “I can’t go on” stuff, and then snatched it away from her and said he couldn’t send anything so badly written and he’d have to ring the man up. She says he had made her so nervous beforehand that she could hardly hold the pen. And you know, if that wretched scrawl had been produced at an inquest any jury in the world would have brought in a verdict of suicide. As it is, he has been charged with the attempted murder of his wife, but as soon as the Harrisons ’ statements have been gone into he will probably be brought here and charged with the murder of Mrs Graham. They’ve got some fingerprints off the metal rod he dropped when he tripped in the yard. If they are identical with his own, he’ll be for it all right.’
Miss Silver coughed gently.
‘Mrs Blount has indeed had a providential escape.’
‘I think she’s been afraid of him for
a long time. I don’t think there’s much doubt that he contrived the deaths of his father and his first wife. That gave him the idea that he could get away with anything.; I should think Worple may be encouraged to come across and give some useful information. By the way, we’re all set to investigate the gazebo on Monday morning. Whether Mr Warren’s gold plate will be found there or not, I imagine that both Worple and Blount were convinced it was there for the finding, and that they meant to be the finders. For that they would have to be in lawful possession of the premises. I don’t know what an eighteenth-century service of gold plate would be worth in the market. It couldn’t very well be sold here for what it was, and it would be difficult to get the gold out of the country if it was melted down. Of course there are ways! Crooks are always thinking up new ones. But that seven thousand Blount was offering for the house – you know, that sticks in my throat. I can’t bring myself to believe that the money would ever have been paid over. Of course they would expect to get some of it back on a re-sale, but I shouldn’t have said that the market price of the house would be more than four thousand. And they couldn’t count on getting that.’
Miss Silver had begun a new piece of knitting. It was to be a cardigan for her niece Ethel Burkett for Christmas. She had started upon the back. Three inches of ribbing and two inches of the pattern appeared upon the needles. The wool was very soft and the colour a deep smoky violet. Ethel had put on a little lately and the shade would be becoming both to face and figure. She had lately bought herself a grey skirt with a purple line in it. Miss Silver had obtained a pattern of the stuff and intended to knit a twin set to go with it. She said now in a thoughtful voice,
‘The Reverend Thomas Jenkinson mentions jewellery as well as the gold plate – jewellery which had belonged to Mr Warren’s late wife. The term might cover a good deal, or very little. There would almost certainly be some valuable rings. There might even be a diamond necklace.’
Frank laughed.
‘And there might be no more than a twopenny-halfpenny brooch or two!’
She was knitting placidly.
‘I think it improbable that a couple of brooches would be dignified by the name of jewellery. I also think it probable that Mr Worple, and through him Mr Blount, possessed rather more information than we do. Mr Worple’s step-father, the elder Mr Martin, remembered his grandmother talking about the Riots. You will recall that she was the young woman who married into Yorkshire but returned to Grove Hill as a widow. She is quoted as having been present when Mr Warren died, and as being able to corroborate what took place during his last moments. She told Mr Jenkinson things which he did not consider it prudent to set down in print lest they should “excite the cupidity of unprincipled persons”. What she said to her Vicar she may very well have repeated to her grandson. We may not know exactly what it was, but I think we may fairly deduce that either by word of mouth or in writing it ultimately reached Mr Worple and was passed by him to Mr Blount. If anything should be found in or under the gazebo, can you tell me just what the legal position would be?’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Is there really anything you don’t know? It’s not in my line, but I have an idea that it would rank as treasure trove. If a man conceals something in the ground or otherwise with the intention of recovering it at a more favourable moment, I believe his heirs can claim it even after a considerable lapse of time, but if he doesn’t dig it up himself and there are no heirs, it is treasure trove and in theory it belongs to the Crown. As a matter of modern practice, if the find is of any archaeological or historical value it is passed on to the appropriate museum. You may remember that is what happened to the find of Roman silver at Traprain in Scotland, which is now in the Edinburgh museum. But whereas there used to be only nominal compensation for the finder, which resulted in a great many valuable and interesting things being melted down for the bare value of the metal, it is now the practice to hand out what is considered to be the real value.’
Miss Silver inclined her head.
‘That agrees with my own impression.’
He said,
‘Two minds with but a single thought!’ and then went on hurriedly, ‘As regards Worple, from what I have heard about him I should think he will be prepared to cut his coat according to his cloth. In other words, I should say that he would come clean. From our point of view there really isn’t anything against him. There is nothing criminal in wanting to buy a house, even if you think there is something valuable buried in the garden. I don’t imagine for a moment that he would have mixed himself up in a murder. Shady financial transactions are his line, not physical violence, and he has generally managed to keep on the safe side of the law. They may want him as a witness, in which case I’ve no doubt he will be willing to oblige.’
Miss Silver dismissed Mr Worple in the fewest possible words.
‘A meretricious person.’
FORTY-FOUR
ON MONDAY MORNING a carpenter took up the floorboards of the gazebo – good solid oaken boards which had endured through successive, generations since they had been laid there somewhere about the year 1750 at the orders of the wealthy brewer, Mr Henry Warren. He could not at that time have foreseen a day some thirty years distant when, having been warned by a sure hand of violence planned against the Catholics, he would secretly and under cover of night be lifting the end board against the wall where the heavy oak bench was designed to stand, with the purpose of concealing beneath it a service of gold plate which he did not yet possess and the jewels and trinkets of his wife not yet deceased. Yet without such premonition, the octagonal shape of the gazebo and the space beneath its floor lent themselves to such a purpose. The last board against the wall was a short one. On that night of terror Martin Hickley had taken up that last short board under his direction. They had carried down the plate together and wadded it with its own baize covers. The plates and dishes were pushed as far under the boards as they would go. The two great salt cellars took some stowing away, but in the end all was disposed of and a hollow made to take the jewel-case. When the board was nailed down again and a little dust scattered over it there was nothing to show that it had ever been taken up.
The ephemeral violence of the Riots flared itself out and left a ruined house and two dead men behind it. Martin Hickley died when the roof of the hall fell in as he was carrying one of his master’s pictures to safety, Henry Warren being struck down at the same time by a fall of masonry in the portico before the front door, and surviving for no more than an hour or two. An old story and three parts forgotten, but reaching across the nineteenth century and into the twentieth to affect the lives of half a dozen people, and to bring two of them to their deaths.
There were some such thoughts in Miss Silver’s mind as she watched the workman at his task. Frank Abbott, passing near her, took a moment to stand beside her and look down with a quizzical gleam in his eye. He said in a voice pitched for her ear alone,
‘I feel that this demands a quotation. Don’t tell me that Tennyson is mute.’
A slight cough reproved the impertinence. She said sedately,
‘I can give you a most apposite one, but you will have heard it before.’
‘What is it?’
She said, ‘The lust of gain in the spirit of Cain.’ And with that the board came creaking up and he left her and went forward.
Nicholas and Althea were watching too. They stood together, her hand just slipped inside his arm. It was a bright morning. The carpenter’s voice said,
‘There’s something there, and pretty heavy too.’
Inspector Sharp said, ‘Better take up a couple more of those boards.’
In the end Henry Warren’s gold plate came up out of the dark place where he had thrust it in 1780. Its appearance would certainly have shocked him very much. The green baize in which it was wrapped had rotted away to a murky slime. Gold being gold, it would return to its primitive lustre, but for the moment it certainly did not look as if it could be worth a man
’s honesty or a woman’s life. Mrs Warren’s jewel-case had practically ceased to exist. Wood and leather had cracked and disintegrated. Drought had reduced it to powder, and periods of rain to slush, but somewhere in the resulting mess was the jewellery which it had contained. A little man of the name of Benchley who had been brought in as an expert pronounced the plate to be gold – a full service for twenty people. He refused to commit himself as to its value.
Just how Henry Warren came to be possessed of so extravagant an appointment was later explained when it appeared that it had been deposited with him by the eccentric and notorious Mr Wavenham when he fled from his creditors in the latter part of 1779. Since Mr Wavenham was killed a year later in a duel in Italy and left no heir, the disappearance of the plate had never been explained. Mr Warren’s concern to preserve the trust committed to him by his friend certainly redounds to his honour. But a good deal of patient research would be necessary before these particulars could be established. At the moment the gold plates were piled one upon the other and Mrs Warren’s jewellery was laid out upon the oak table.
Mr Benchley made lists of everything. He asked for a cloth and a bowl of soap and water, and stabbed at the stones in a necklace, bracelets, rings.
The Gazebo Page 26
