With one fear gone, another began to take its place. This was not a dead man. It was Luke, most dangerously alive. She pulled to get her hands away, but he held them fast.
“Now, now-what’s the good of that? I’ll marry you safe enough when we get over to France. Floss is dead, and it can all be quite proper and legal. They’re coming for me tonight. There’s no moon till two, and the tide’s high at eleven. All you’ve got to do is to be good and quiet till then. We’ll be in France before morning along with as sweet a cargo as we’ve ever run, and we’ll be married just as soon as I can fix it.”
She moved her head in a frantic gesture of denial. Her tongue pushed against the gag and tried to make words, but nothing came except small muffled sounds without meaning or any power to reach him-or anyone.
His teeth showed white against the dark face as he smiled.
“Save the love words,” he said-“they’ll keep.” He touched her lightly on the cheek again. “Best try and sleep-it’ll be some hours yet.” And with that he went past her and out of sight, and took the candle with him.
Time went by.
Inspector Crisp led the way up the stairs, but when they came to the landing he stood aside, and it was Miss Silver who turned to the left-hand passage. To left and right were the rooms occupied by Jacob and Geoffrey Taverner. Beyond Geoffrey a large housemaid’s cupboard, a bathroom, and the room occupied by the Castells. Beyond Jacob Taverner a back stair, the linen-room, a lavatory, and Eily’s room.
Miss Silver turned to John Higgins.
“Mr. Higgins, you are a carpenter. If there is a concealed room here, what would you take to be the most likely place?”
He looked at her, frowning and intent.
“Round about the chimney or the stair it would be.”
“The stair is an old one?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But the lavatory-that wouldn’t be so old. There must have been work done here when the plumbing was put in. The passage would be older than that. They wouldn’t have risked the secret by having work done too near the hidden place. It won’t be that side. But I have thought the linen-room would guard such an entrance very well. It would be quite natural to keep it locked. It seems to me that the entrance may very well be somewhere between the linen-room and the back stair. It might even be that the treads of the stair were utilized.”
Castell flung up his arms.
“But this is madness! Are you going to pull my house down over my head because Eily has taken a fright and run away?”
There was a delay over the key of the linen-cupboard.
“I tell you, Eily will have it! She is in charge of the linen. She has to change the sheet, the pillow-case, the towel. Do you think she comes running every time to me? Have I nothing else to do?”
Miss Silver turned to Annie Castell.
“There will be a duplicate key. I think you have it. Will you get it? Or must I ask Mr. Higgins to force the lock?”
Annie’s lips moved without sound. But before it was possible to know what she would do her husband stepped between.
“This is folly! You cannot break my doors!”
Miss Silver coughed quite gently.
“There will be no need to do so if you will give me the key, Mr. Castell.”
He flung out his hands.
“You insult me! But I have nothing to hide. If there is another key, you shall have it. You shall see that there is nothing.” He turned upon his wife with a gesture of command. “Annie!”
She went across the passage then, into their room. After a lagging minute she came back with a key in her hand. Castell took it from her, fitted it in the lock, flung the door open with a flourish, and stood aside.
“There-you can see for yourself! There are no girls shut up, no corpses-there is only the linen of the house! On the middle shelf there is a candle-take it, light it, and look for yourselves! And when you have found nothing except my sheets and my pillow-cases, perhaps you will apologize for this insult that you make me!”
The linen-room had no window, but in every other respect it really was a small room. Shelves ran from floor to ceiling. The candlelight played upon orderly piles of linen. There was a shelf devoted to pillows, another to the old-fashioned honeycomb bedspreads which are now hardly more than a memory. There was a smell of lavender and a just perceptible trace of something else.
Miss Silver went first into the room. She found the trace quite definite. As she struck a match and lighted the candle, it was for the moment overlaid by the smell of sulphur. But when the sulphur trace was gone the other was still there- a faint, light trail of cigarette smoke. None of the party was smoking, and there had been no hint of tobacco until Miss Silver stepped across the threshold of the linen-room and met it there.
She set down the lighted candle upon one of the shelves and came back to the doorway. She was looking for John Higgins, but when she saw him she waited for a moment before speaking his name. He stood back against the passage wall behind all those who had crowded forward to look into the linen-room. His hands were clenched at his sides, his eyes were closed, and his lips moved. There was sweat on his brow. The old-fashioned phrase, “wrestling in prayer,” came into Miss Silver’s mind. After a momentary hesitation she stepped forward, the others making way for her, and went to him.
“Mr. Higgins-”
As her touch fell on his arm, his eyes opened. They had a bewildered look, as if he had been a long way off and suddenly called back.
“Mr. Higgins, I think that you can help me. Will you come?”
He came after her then into the candlelight and the smell of lavender and that something else. As soon as they were there he said, speaking low so that only she could hear,
“I’d clean forgot, but the Lord has brought it to my mind- something my grandfather said, but I didn’t rightly know what he meant-not till now. It was some carpenter’s work he’d done up here, working with his father when he was a lad. That’s how he came to court my grandmother, Joanna Taverner.” He was down on his knees as he spoke, feeling along under the bottom shelf. “He rambled a bit when he was old, and talked about his courting days, and about the work he’d done at the Catherine-Wheel with his grandfather. ‘A handle made clever to look like a strut,’ that’s what he said. And he picked himself up and said, ‘And I took my Bible oath I’d never tell a living soul, so you take and forget it, my lad.’ And it went clean out of my head till the Lord brought it back. Just give me that candle, ma’am… I think I’ve got it. There’s a strut here where there’s no call for one to be.”
Miss Silver gave the candle into his hand and stepped to the door. Her eye met Frank Abbott’s. She noted with approval that he and Inspector Crisp stood side by side between the rest of the party and the back stair, and that Willis had cropped up again and was on the other side of the group. Mildred Taverner was sobbing audibly. Jane had her hand on Jeremy’s arm. Geoffrey Taverner was leaning forward to see what was happening inside the linen-room, his expression one of vexation and surprise.
The Castells stood side by side, he for the moment silent, she with her hands at her apron, pinching the stuff into pleats and letting it go-the same action mechanically repeated over and over again. There was no expression on her face, but the pale skin glistened with sweat.
As Miss Silver turned back to the linen-room, something very strange was happening. John Higgins had set the candle down upon the floor. He was using both his hands to move something under the left-hand bottom shelf, and as he pulled on it it did move, and the whole shelf with it, pivoting round so that one end of the shelf with a double pile of pillow-cases stuck out across the door and the other end went back and disappeared into the wall. There was left a gap some three feet wide and just over three feet high.
John Higgins reached for the candle and went forward through the gap. Miss Silver nodded to Jeremy Taverner and stood back to let him pass.
Outside in the passage Castell gave a roar like a bull and plunge
d for the stairs, to come down with a crash as Frank Abbott tripped him. During the ensuing struggle Annie Castell did not turn her head. She looked down at her apron and pleated it-four pleats and let it go, and four pleats and let it go again.
Mildred Taverner screamed when the shelf swung in. She said,
“Oh, that’s what he saw! Oh, no wonder it frightened him, poor little boy-the hole in the wall and the light coming out of it! Oh-”
Geoffrey said, “Be quiet!” He leaned forward and listened. The light was receding now. The sound of footsteps was receding, going down an unseen stair which followed the line of the one which they could see.
Castell was handcuffed. He lay cursing vociferously. Crisp left him, ran to the linen-room, and so down after the others.
When Frank Abbott was about to follow him Miss Silver shook her head.
At the sound of those feet upon the stair Eily opened her eyes again. She could see nothing except the rough plastered roof and walls of the place where she lay. And then Luke White came into view, bending to pick her up. She tried again, most horribly, to scream. The effort sent the blood against her ear-drums, deafening them. She felt that she was dropped, her head bruised against the floor. And then her hearing came back, and there were voices-Luke White’s-“Fight for her then!” and John’s, cursing him. At least it sounded like a curse, and even at that moment it surprised her a good deal. She heard them clash somewhere behind her just out of sight, and the sound of a fall, and more running steps and voices, and quite a lot more cursing, only this time it wasn’t John.
And then John was undoing the bandage and taking the gag out of her mouth, and her tongue was sore and bruised, and she began to cry.
CHAPTER 41
Miss Silver stood waiting. The footsteps had gone away out of sound. She had heard them fall heavy on the secret stair and die away. An indeterminate sound came up, quite vague and indistinguishable. And then, what seemed a long time afterwards, there were footsteps again. She stood inside the linen-room. Someone had provided another candle and set it down upon one of the upper shelves. Beneath the bottom shelf the gap yawned wide to the secret stair. Outside in the passage everyone stood and listened, except Castell sitting handcuffed against the wall drawing long sobbing breaths, and his wife who took no notice of him. Or of anyone or anything. Mildred Taverner had stopped crying. She shook and trembled, her hand at her beads, her head poked forward, listening with the rest.
Then up through the gap in the linen-room wall came the voice of John Higgins:
“Can you manage it, Eily?”
It was only Miss Silver who could be sure of the faint murmur of assent. The sound was one of the most welcome she had ever heard.
The next moment Eily was crawling out of the gap and being helped to her feet. John followed her, to say briefly,
“They’ve got him. They’re bringing him up.”
And then he and Eily and Jane went to Eily’s room and shut the door.
There came out next Inspector Crisp, and then Luke White, propelled from behind by Jeremy. Miss Silver stepped into the passage to make way for them. Crisp put a whistle to his mouth and blew. As the sound of heavy feet fell on the stairs, he turned his head to say,
“Keep him beside there till we get the handcuffs on him, Captain Taverner.” Then, to Frank Abbott, “It’s Luke White all right. Higgins and the girl identified him. He can be charged with abduction, and as an accessory to the murder of Albert Miller.”
But behind him Luke White laughed.
“I never laid a finger on Al, and you can’t prove I did! Let them swing for him that did him in! Castell, you fat pig, get up on your feet and tell them I wasn’t anywhere near the place!”
Castell glared at him.
“You are drunk-you are mad! Hold your tongue! What do I know about Al Miller-what does anyone know? It is a conspiracy against me!” He went spluttering and cursing into the Marseilles patois of his youth.
Two police constables came up the stair. Frank Abbott looked across at Miss Silver and found her face intent. She was listening, and in a moment he heard what she was hearing. Someone was coming up the main stairway. In another moment Jacob Taverner was in view. He crossed the landing, walking slowly like a tired man. But when he came to the group in the passage beyond his room he straightened up. His voice was harsh as he said,
“What’s going on?”
From just inside the linen-room Luke White tipped him an impudent nod. There was enough drink in him to give him a kind of swaggering bravado.
“What’s going on? Why me, when I ought to be dead! Shakes you up a bit, doesn’t it? Here today and gone tomorrow and back again before anyone wants you!”
Castell erupted suddenly into English again.
“Why hadn’t you the sense to leave Eily alone? There are ten thousand girls-what does it matter which one you have?”
Jacob Taverner came into the group of people and looked from one to the other-at Castell on the floor jerking at his handcuffed wrists-at Annie Castell, at Mildred and Geoffrey Taverner-at Miss Silver, Frank Abbott, Luke White with Jeremy Taverner gripping his elbows from behind. He saw the open linen-room door, the candle burning on the shelf, the gap in the wall. He said in a curious quiet voice,
“So you’ve found it. That’s what I came down here to look for.” Then, on a rising tone, “Who knew about it? This man of course, and Castell-but they wouldn’t give it away. Who else?” His small bright eyes went from one to the other, came to rest upon Mildred and Geoffrey. “Was it one of you-or perhaps both? Matthew’s grandchildren. He came next to my father, and he was a builder too. I always thought he’d be the most likely to know. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have seen you didn’t lose by it. Why did you wait until you’d brought the police into it?”
Miss Silver coughed. She looked at Geoffrey and said,
“Yes, why, Mr. Taverner?”
The words were clear and emphatic. If they had been stones thrown in Luke White’s face they could not have had a more startling effect. He gave a kind of shout in which the only word distinguishable was Geoffrey Taverner’s name.
“Him-him!” Now the words came pouring out. “You, Mr. blank Geoffrey Taverner! Give us away, would you-call in the police on us and save your skin? But you’ll not get away with it-not while I’ve a tongue in my head! If anyone’s turning King’s evidence, it’s going to be me, not you, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it! And if anyone’s going to swing for Al Miller, it’s going to be you, not me-do you hear? I never laid a finger on him, and no one can prove I did!”
Geoffrey Taverner stood his ground with some courage.
“The man’s mad,” he said. “1 don’t know what he’s talking about.”
With a sudden wrench Luke White had twisted free. He came at Geoffrey with a spring and took him by the throat. The two went down together, with Mildred Taverner screaming and the police rushing in.
Pulled off and handcuffed, with Geoffrey getting up greenish pale and holding his throat, Luke White was aware of two voices coming through the buzz of talk about him. Castell was cursing him for a fool, and Mildred Taverner was weeping on a high, shrill note and saying over and over again,
“But it wasn’t Geoffrey who told them-he never told them anything! You didn’t, did you, Geoffrey? It was Miss Silver- Miss Silver-Miss Silver!”
Luke White fell to cursing too.
CHAPTER 42
Much later that evening Frank Abbott came into the lounge and found Miss Silver alone there. Castell and Luke White had been removed under arrest. Geoffrey Taverner had been taken to Ledlington police station for questioning. Mildred had gone to bed with a hot-water bottle, and when last visited had been found to be sleeping. Mrs. Bridling was with Annie Castell, and John Higgins with Eily. Jacob Taverner had made a statement to the police and had retired to his room. Jeremy and Jane were no doubt somewhere together. There were two stalwart police constables on the premises. There really seemed to be no further groun
ds for anxiety.
Frank took a chair and stretched himself out comfortably.
“Well, I suppose you want to know all about everything?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Undoubtedly.”
His smile had a spice of malice.
“If there’s anything you don’t already know!”
“My dear Frank!”
She sat there very alert and composed, knitting briskly. Little Josephine’s knickers were approaching completion.
“Well, we’ve done our job all right. The Chief will be pleased, and I shall get some of his best Advice to Rising Police Officers on the Importance of not getting Wind in the Head.”
He received a benignant smile.
“It will not do you any harm.”
He laughed.
“I suppose not. Now, for your information. The stair runs down beside the open one and comes into the shore passage not a dozen feet from the other cellar entrance. It’s all very ingenious. They used a dummy chimney-flue for part of the way, and just before you go through into the shore passage there’s a concealed cellar full of stuff. That’s where Luke White had Eily, and that’s where they stored their contraband. There’s a lot of stuff that looks like heroin and other assorted drugs which have been smuggled in and not distributed. And, all ready to go over, there was as pretty a collection of jewelry as anyone could wish for. They’ve identified the Laleham stuff and the haul from the smash and grab raid in Bond Street, but there’s still a lot to go through. There’s no doubt this has been a main clearing-house, and I don’t mind betting my boots that Geoffrey Taverner was in it up to his neck. A commercial traveller’s job could be a very convenient screen.”
Miss Silver gazed at him enquiringly.
“Geoffrey Taverner was in it?” she said, repeating his words with some additional emphasis.
He nodded.
“You’re too quick. He had cyanide on him-he was dead before we got him to the station.”
Miss Silver sighed.
The Catherine Wheel Page 26
