He found himself with a surprised conviction that it would be extremely difficult to tell her a lie, and that if you did so it would be immediately stripped to its bones. Others had, of course, had this feeling before him, but he was not to know about that. He said,
‘And you found Miss Sayle sincere?’
‘That was the impression she made upon me.’
‘No evidence of a guilty conscience.’
‘No, Inspector.’
He was more impressed than he would have been by protestations. He continued,
‘How did Mr. Burdon strike you?’
‘He has a great deal of charm, and he has been accustomed to rely upon it. The Miss Benevents have been very indulgent, and I believe he did what he could to repay their kindness. He spoke of Miss Cara with affection, and of Miss Olivia with surprise and regret at her present attitude. He gave me the impression that he has an easy-going nature, a kind heart, and an indolent disposition.’
Since this agreed not only with what was said in the town but with his own judgment, Rock accepted it without comment.
‘And Mr. Eversley?’ he said.
Miss Silver said in her temperate way,
‘You are probably aware that he is related to my cousin, Miss Arnold. I suppose he may be considered a distant connection of my own. His uncle’s firm enjoys a high reputation, and I believe he does it no discredit. There is no reason to suppose him to be anything but a clever, intelligent young man with a good character and good prospects who is honestly and sincerely in love with Miss Sayle. You may be aware that some part at least of Miss Olivia Benevent’s anger proceeds from the fact that she hoped to make a match between her and Derek Burdon.’
The Inspector said, ‘Yes – ’ in rather an absent-minded tone. He was thinking that Miss Silver appeared to be very well informed. He went on,
‘And Anna Rossi – what do you think of her?’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘She is, of course, Italian by birth. I understand that she came to this country at an early age, and there is very little foreign accent. The foreign temperament is, however, present to a marked degree. She is excitable and emotional, and makes no attempt to restrain the expression of her feelings. I believe her attachment to Miss Cara Benevent to have been genuine, and I think she has become fond of Miss Sayle. She stands a good deal in awe of Miss Olivia and is very much afraid of provoking her anger.’
Rock found himself impressed not only by what she said, but by the manner in which she said it. Ladies, and especially elderly ladies, were often quick to observe, but he had found in the main that their judgment was apt to be swayed by personal feelings. In any case, they usually had too much to say about it. In Miss Silver he found a moderation, a restraint, and an economy of words quite outside his experience. Also, and above all, he was aware of an intelligence which stimulated his own. Miss Silver’s marked success in the schoolroom had been largely due to the fact that, whilst making knowledge seem desirable, she was able to awake in her pupils the consciousness of their ability to attain it. The timid found themselves becoming confident, the intelligent stimulated. All had found themselves capable of more than they supposed. As Frank Abbott once remarked, ‘She strikes sparks out of you.’ Inspector Rock was aware of this, though he could not, perhaps, have put it into words. What he did was to lean forward and say,
‘Miss Silver – what has happened to Miss Sayle?’
Her reply was grave.
‘I do not believe that she has run away.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘I believe her to be somewhere in this house.’
‘What do you mean?’
She told him what Candida had told her. Anna’s niece Nellie waking behind a locked door to hear something that went to and fro in the room and wept, taking refuge for a night with Anna, and going away next day. Candida Sayle waking to see light coming through a crack where bookshelves masked what seemed to be a solid wall and being aware of someone passing through her room with a torch held low. Anna brushing dust from Miss Cara’s slippers and a cobweb from the tassel of her dressing-gown.
‘I think you must see, Inspector, that these things point to the fact that there are concealed passages in this old house. There is a family story about a hidden treasure. It has not been considered lucky for anyone to interfere with it. Miss Sayle repeated a curious old rhyme which she and Derek Surdon had come across while going through some family papers:
‘ “Touch not nor try,
Sell not nor buy,
Give not nor take,
For dear life’s sake.” ’
‘They considered that it referred to the treasure, and she told me of two instances which appear to bear this out. Both occurred in the eighteenth century. In the first, a Benevent was found at his own front door. He had a severe head injury, and it was said that he had fallen or been thrown from has horse. In the second, his grandson was found dead or dying, also quite near to the house. He too had a head injury, and was said to have been set upon by footpads.’
Rock said, ‘What have you got in your mind?’
She continued as if he had not spoken.
‘Both these men were believed to have interfered with the Benevent Treasure. Both were found quite near the house with fatal injuries to the head.’
Rock repeated his question,
‘What have you got in your mind?’
She replied with a question of her own.
‘What have you got in yours, Inspector?’ Then, after a pause during which he remained silent, she continued.
‘There is said to be a hidden treasure. There is some evidence that there are hidden passages. My cousin Miss Arnold informs me that this house was an old one when the founder of the Benevent family bought it and added on to it in the seventeenth century. He was said to have brought the treasure with him from Italy. So old a house might very well have afforded him a secret hiding-place. It is not unknown, especially in Italy, for such hiding-places to be contrived so as to be difficult or even dangerous of approach. Does it not strike you as a strange coincidence that these eighteenth-century Benevents, associated with an attempt to withdraw the treasure, should both have received head injuries from which they died, and that Miss Cara should now have met with a similar accident? In your own opinion that was not due to a fall at the place where she was found. Miss Sayle should have informed you that there was dust upon Miss Cara’s felt slippers and a cobweb on the tassel of her dressing-gown. She saw Anna brush them away. I may say that this was under the first shock of finding her mistress dead. She thought Anna acted instinctively, and it was only much later that she began to think what these traces might imply. Underhill is a very well kept house. I have been into every room, and there is no place where dust or a cobweb could have been picked up. But they are what one might expect in a secret passage. If Miss Cara came by her injury in such a place, the same thing may have happened to James Benevent and his grandson in the eighteenth century. If the secret of the house was to be preserved, the bodies must be moved and some story produced that would explain the injuries. There seems to be no doubt that Miss Cara’s body was moved. The eighteenth-century cases may have suggested this course of action.’
He was more impressed than he cared to admit. The particles of rust found in the wound came to his mind. Rust – dust – and cobweb. None of these three things were to be found in a well kept house. He had been over every part of it himself, and they had no place there. He said abruptly,
‘If these passages exist, what should take Miss Cara into them, and in the middle of the night?’
He got a sober look, a sober response.
‘She was a most unhappy woman. I think she could not rest. May I ask whether you are aware of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Mr. Alan Thompson about three years ago?’
If he was startled he did not allow himself to show it
‘I heard the talk that was going round. The matter was never brought to the police officially.’<
br />
‘I believe not. It was put about, was it not, that he had taken money and a diamond brooch belonging to Miss Cara?’
‘That was the talk.’
‘Should you have thought that a likely story if you had known that Miss Cara was within a few days of marrying him, and that had she done so she could have left him a life-interest in the whole of her property?’
He was surprised into a sudden movement.
‘Who told you that?’
The sage-green dress had a pocket. She produced a card and proffered it. He read in neat inconspicuous type,
Miss Maud Silver
15 Montague Mansions
Leaham Street
There was a telephone number, and in the bottom left-hand corner the words, ‘Private Enquiries’. He was less surprised than he would have been half an hour ago.
She said sedately,
‘The young man’s stepfather commissioned me to make some enquiries. In the course of them the daily help who was working here at the time of Mr. Thompson’s disappearance told me that Miss Cara had given him a coin which she believed to be a lucky charm. She said he wore it always about his neck on a chain. At some time subsequent to his disappearance she was doing Miss Olivia’s room, when she noticed Miss Olivia’s bunch of keys depending from the keyhole of a drawer which had always been kept locked. She said that the drawer was open, but I do not credit this. I think the key was in the lock, and that she could not resist gratifying her curiosity. Be that as it may, she was very much startled to find that the drawer contained not only the coin which Mr. Thompson had so constantly worn, but also the missing diamond brooch. I may say that I went to see her because I was told she had declared that Alan Thompson had never left Underhill. I got no more out of her than I have told you. She was, in fact, very reluctant to speak of the matter at all. As far as she did speak, I believe her to have been telling the truth. If Alan Thompson did not take the brooch which he was accused of taking, he may not have taken the money either. He really had very little reason to do so. Miss Cara was on the eve of marrying him – ’
He interrupted her sharply.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Colonel Gatling of Hilton St. John spoke of it to Stephen Eversley. His brother, the Reverend Cyril Gatling, had agreed to marry them. He was a good deal exercised about the matter, and wrote down his misgivings in a diary which came into Colonel Gatling’s possession after his death. He had, of course, no right to repeat what he had learned from so private a source.’
Rock said, ‘If she was going to marry him – ’ He left it at that.
‘Precisely. He had no inducement to disappear.’
‘He may have felt he couldn’t face the marriage.’
Miss Silver gave a slight disapproving cough.
‘From what my enquiries have brought to light, I do not fancy that he would have scrupled at what was so evidently to his advantage. By all accounts Miss Cara would have given him anything he wanted. I cannot believe that he would have turned his back upon such a favourable prospect. Even if the story stood alone, I should find it difficult to believe. Taken in conjunction with the two eighteenth-century cases and with recent events, it appears to me to tax credulity too far.’
‘You suggest – ’
She said gravely,
‘Mr. Thompson disappeared. Miss Sayle has disappeared. In both these cases there was a threat to Miss Olivia Benevent. If her sister married, she lost everything except a very moderate life-interest. When her sister died she was in a similar position. She reacted by accusing Miss Sayle of being responsible for the death. She has forbidden Mr. Eversley the house, and she is dismissing Mr. Burdon and myself. I am quite unable to believe that Miss Sayle has disappeared voluntarily. I am afraid that she may have been tricked or enticed into the passages, or even taken there by force. That they are dangerous is certain. I feel that a search-warrant should be produced without delay, and that there should be a thorough investigation. Mr. Eversley, as an architect, would be in a position to give the most valuable assistance. Miss Benevent is in a hurry to get rid of him. As you can see, the matter is extremely urgent. We do not know what has happened already, but I am sure there is no time to be lost.’
Chapter Thirty-five
After a short but decisive encounter with Miss Olivia Benevent Inspector Rock retired upon his Chief Constable. It was all very well to be told to use tact and to handle her with kid gloves. You couldn’t use tact with a tank, or handle an atomic bomb with kid gloves. He would not have dreamed of allowing these or similar exaggerated expressions to escape into speech, but they thronged his mind and set up quite a disturbance there.
Major Warrender heard him with sympathy.
‘Formidable person,’ he said. ‘But look here – this search-warrant – what’s your idea about it? It’s an awkward position to my way of thinking. She has made no objection to your searching the house?’
‘No, sir.’
‘To be sure, it wasn’t for her to say one way or another, except as a matter of courtesy – not with Miss Sayle there.’
‘That’s just it, sir, Miss Sayle isn’t there now, and Miss Olivia has got the bit between her teeth. When I asked her about hidden passages she just said there weren’t any. When I told her that her sister’s body had certainly been moved, and that Anna Rossi had been seen to brush dust from her slippers and remove a cobweb from the tassel of her dressing-gown, she sent for Anna and put it to her that she hadn’t done any such thing.’
‘Oh, come, Rock, you shouldn’t have let her do that!’
‘How was I going to stop her, sir? She just said, “You had better ask Anna about that,” and she rang the bell. And then before the woman was well inside the door she was putting it to her – “The Inspector says you brushed some dust from Miss Cara’s slippers and a cobweb from her dressing-gown. I have assured him it’s all nonsense, but you had better tell him so yourself.” ’
‘And what did Anna say?’
‘Stood and looked at her like a dog that thinks it’s going to be beaten. And when I put it to her the way it ought to have been put, she flared up and said how could there be any dust or cobwebs the way the house was kept? And I said, “I’m not talking about the parts of the house I’ve seen, but you’ve got some secret passages here, haven’t you?” And all she could do was to stare at me and say she had never heard of any such thing. And then she began to cry and go on about her poor Miss Cara.’
‘You ought to have seen her alone,’ said Major Warrender.
Inspector Rock considered that the Chief Constable was being wise after the event.
The question of a search-warrant hung uneasily between them. Just what Major Warrender would have done if he had been left to himself, it is difficult to say. As it turned out, he was not to be left to himself. The arrival of Stephen Eversley and Miss Maud Silver precipitated a decision. Stephen was grey and grim, Miss Silver decorously determined. Both were insistent that Candida Sayle could have no possible reason to run away, and that in fact she had not done so.
Major Warrender tapped on his writing-table.
‘And you suggest – ’
‘That she has not left Underhill,’ said Stephen Eversley.
Miss Silver took up the tale.
‘Miss Sayle informed me of her belief that the house contained a secret passage or passages. Someone had come through her room in the night.’ She described Candida’s experience and went on to repeat her description of having seen dust and a cobweb on Miss Cara, and Anna brushing them away. Her manner was calm and persuasive. She concluded, ‘If such passages exist, as indeed they do in so many old houses, what we fear is that Miss Sayle found the entrance to one of them, probably the one which opened on her own room, and that she may have been induced to explore it. We fear that she may have met with an accident.’
Major Warrender tapped again.
‘Is there any evidence as to the existence of these passages?’
She had only g
ot as far as ‘Miss Sayle – ’ when he interrupted her.
‘Well, you see, that’s just it, it’s all Miss Sayle. There’s no evidence except hers, and quite frankly, what does it amount to? She could quite easily have been dreaming. Miss Benevent denies that any such passages exist.’
Stephen said,
‘And isn’t that what she would do if they were a family secret? Look here, sir, if those passages don’t exist, why won’t she let me satisfy myself that they don’t? She had me there because she had got fussed about cracks in the oldest part of the house, but she wouldn’t let me make a proper examination, and when I said I must have more light in the cellars and wanted to bring in a powerful electric lamp, she wouldn’t hear of it – put me off and wrote to say they wouldn’t require my services. Even from what I was allowed to see I can tell you there’s plenty of room where those passages could run. It’s the front of the house that’s been built on to. The older part was old in the sixteenth century, and the walls there are thick enough for anything.’
‘And that’s true, sir,’ said Inspector Rock.
Miss Silver coughed in the manner in which she had been accustomed to call a class to attention. Her eyes rested upon Major Warrender with an expression of mild authority.
‘There really appears to be no reason why Miss Benevent should adopt an obstructive attitude. May I point out that she has no right either to give or to withhold permission for a thorough search of the house? Underhill was the property of Miss Cara Benevent, and she is dead. It has now passed to Miss Candida Sayle. You may confirm this by ringing up Mr. Tampling, who is the family solicitor. He is also my cousin Miss Arnold’s legal adviser, and the reason for my presence in Retley being to help her in a matter of family business, I have some slight acquaintance with him myself. He should, I think, be told that Miss Sayle has disappeared. As her representative, his presence would seem to be highly desirable if a search is to be made.’
Major Warrender experienced some relief. He would not, it appeared, be obliged to face Miss Olivia Benevent without support, if indeed he had to face her at all. He looked at Miss Silver with gratitude, for of course what she said was perfectly true. Olivia Benevent had really no legal status. It was not she but Candida Sayle who was Cara Benevent’s heir. He reached for the telephone and rang up Mr. Tampling.
The Benevent Treasure Page 21
