The Benevent Treasure (20 page)

Candida opened her eyes upon an even darkness. A momentary consciousness of this darkness just touched her and was gone again. But next time it came it reached the point at which it became thought.

Darkness —

Then, after an undefined interval, the thought again, and with it a question.

It was quite, quite dark — why?

Time passed before she got any farther than that. Gradually the question began to impress itself, to demand an answer. There wasn’t any light at all — the darkness was absolute. Even in the deepest middle of the night there is some shading, some thinning of the blackness, where a window cuts the wall. Unless there are thick curtains tightly drawn. But she never drew her curtains or shut the windows at night. She should have been able to see two narrow oblongs hanging like pictures on the wall to her left.

She became aware that she was lying on her back. If she wanted to see the windows she must turn on to her left side. It wasn’t easy. Her body didn’t feel as if it belonged to her. She made it obey, but looking as far to the left as she could, there was still no break in the darkness, no window in that impenetrable wall. The question in her mind had become insistent. Feeling, sensation, consciousness flowed back, evenly now and without those dizzy intervals when they had seemed to ebb.

The bed was very hard. She had lost her pillow. She put out her hand and groped. It touched a cold, unyielding substance that was certainly not a bed. It was cold — it was hard — it was damp.

It was stone.

She tried to sit up, but her head swam. At the third attempt she was on her hands and knees. Her head ached, but it was steadier. Her hands pressed down upon a stone floor. She pushed herself into a half-sitting position, one hand still on the stone.

There had been a moment of awful fear, just there on the edge of thought. Now it was gone. There was space over her. She was not closed in. She wasn’t — buried. When she stretched her arm above her head there was nothing there. Only darkness, only air. Nothing to prevent her from getting to her feet.

She wasn’t quite ready for that. She stayed leaning on her hand. Presently she sat right up and tried to think. The last thing she remembered was drinking the glass of milk which Anna had put beside her bed. After that nothing — just nothing at all. She put up a hand to her throat and let it slide down again, touching, feeling. She had been wearing her black dress, but she wasn’t wearing it now. But she hadn’t undressed. What she was touching wasn’t a nightgown. There was a silk shirt, and the lapel of a coat. Someone had taken off her dress and put her into these clothes — her grey coat and skirt and the outdoor coat that went with them. She was even wearing her little grey felt hat.

She sat and thought about this. She was in her outdoor things, but she wasn’t out of doors. Why? It didn’t seem to make sense. She had on her outdoor shoes. Why had she put them on? The answer came with astonishing certainty, ‘I didn’t.’ Then, after a long strange pause, ‘Someone did.’

There really was no getting away from it. Someone had drugged the milk, and changed her clothes, and brought her here. But why? The answer forced its way — ‘To get rid of me.’

She put her head in her hands and tried to think. To have sight and to have no use for it — to batter against this wall of darkness and to feel it just flow back again like air, like water, like fear itself! She pressed her hands down close upon her eyelids and held them there. If you did that, even in a lighted room you would not expect to see.

She got herself steady again and began gradually and methodically to feel about her. She might be in a cellar, or in one of the passages. The air was heavy and the floor damp. She had got to find out where she was, and she had got to be careful. There might be some hole or some pit into which she could fall, as poor Aunt Cara had done. Quick and clear there came up the picture of Anna brushing away the dust from Miss Cara’s slippers, the cobweb from the tassel of her dressing-gown. If it was in such a place as this that she had come by the cobweb and the dust, then it was in such a place as this that she had come by her death. But how had she come to such a place at all? Of her own free will, or drugged as Candida had been drugged?

She began to move cautiously on her hands and knees, feeling before her. Almost at once she touched something smooth — first leather, and then a metal clasp. Her handbag — her own handbag.

Of course if she was to disappear, her handbag must go with her. She couldn’t be supposed to have run away in a thin black dress and indoor shoes. She must be dressed for a journey, and she must wear a hat and have a handbag with her. Was it poor sobbing Anna who had thought of all these things? She couldn’t believe it. Yet Anna had acted a part before now. She might have been pushed, threatened… She had no need to think who might have threatened her. A voice in her own mind said quick and clear, ‘She would never have hurt Aunt Cara.’ And like an echo another answered it, ‘How do you know what anyone will do?’

People have just so much resistance and no more. Not everyone can endure to the end. Anna had been conditioned by forty years of service — forty years of bondage during which she had been driven by another will than her own, a very hard and ruthless will.

These things did not come to Candida as logical, consecutive thoughts. They were there, as the pictures are there on the walls of a room into which you have strayed. You did not bring them into the room, but they are there, and if you look that way they are most plainly to be seen. The one she could see most plainly of all was the dark picture of Olivia Benevent’s hatred.

She had stopped moving, her hand on the bag. Now she sat back and opened it. The first things that she felt were a purse, a handkerchief. Her hand went beyond them. It touched something cold. There, at the bottom of the bag, fallen down by its own weight, was an electric torch.

Inspector rock sat looking at Miss Silver. As he was to remark to the Chief Constable later, everything did seem to be piling up. The post-mortem had proved that the injury which had caused Miss Cara Benevent’s death was the result of a blow from a piece of rusty iron. The rust had scaled off and there were unmistakable traces of it in the wound. There could be no question at all but that it was murder. A couple of men were going through the house room by room in search of anything which could have been used as the weapon. The Superintendent would have been here if he had not gone down with a sudden attack of influenza. He himself was to report direct to the Chief Constable, and meanwhile he was to exercise all possible vigilance, resource, and tact. A short interview with Miss Olivia Benevent had left him with no illusions as to the difficulty of combining these qualities. Old ladies were tricky at the best of times, and single old ladies who hadn’t had anyone to cross them for donkey’s years were the trickiest of the lot. In his own family there had been a cousin of his mother’s, old Miss Emily Wick, who was a caution. Said to have money in the bank, and a proper Hitler in petticoats with all the relations saying, ‘Yes, Cousin Emily’ when she said yes, and ‘No, Cousin Emily,’ when she said no. A trial, that’s what she was, and a bee in her bonnet about the woman who looked after her wanting to poison her for her money — ‘But she won’t get a penny.’ And as it turned out, nobody did, because she was living on an annuity and there wasn’t even enough of it left to bury her. When Miss Olivia Benevent sat there and went on about her niece having murdered Miss Cara she put him strongly in mind of old Cousin Emily Wick. And now here was Miss Candida Sayle gone off into the blue, and everyone saying they hadn’t a notion how, or why, or where. All except Miss Olivia, who stood there as if she had swallowed the poker and stuck to it that the girl had run away because her conscience wouldn’t let her stay. He sat and looked at Miss Silver, who up to now had been just an elderly lady in the background. He gathered that she was a relative of Miss Arnold’s, and that she had come over on the previous evening to keep Candida Sayle company at Mr. Stephen Eversley’s request. Miss Arnold was the daughter of old Canon Arnold, and as such beyond social criticism. In fact the whole set-up was not only respectable but in the highest degree select. His experienced glance found in Miss Silver a type with which life in a cathedral town had made him familiar — elderly ladies who sat on committees, took stalls in church bazaars, and engaged in a hundred and one ecclesiastical activities. She was, it is true, of a slightly earlier pattern, her manner more formal and her dress more out of date.

Their interview, however, had not proceeded very far before he became aware of a welcome difference. Where most of these ladies were apt to be diffuse and flustered in making anything that resembled a statement, Miss Maud Silver was both cool and succinct. She presented him with the clearest possible picture of the previous evening and what had passed between herself and Miss Sayle. He had left her to the last, and what she said tallied perfectly with the statements made by Derek Burdon, Stephen Eversley, and the maid Anna. When she had finished speaking he regarded her with respect. She had stuck to the point, she had avoided personal comment, and she had given him a strong impression of verbal and factual accuracy. He found himself asking for what had been withheld.

‘You came into the house last night without knowing any of these people?’

She sat there very composedly in her olive-green cashmere and the shaded woollen wrap, her hands folded in her lap, her feet placed neatly side-by-side upon the study carpet. In the interests of accuracy she made a slight correction.

‘I have some acquaintance with Mr. Eversley. Mr. Burdon and Miss Sayle were introduced to me during a musical evening at the Deanery. I had no more than a few formal words with either of them.’

‘And the Miss Benevents?’

‘I met them on the same occasion. My cousin Miss Arnold has known them all her life.’

‘Was Miss Olivia Benevent here when you arrived last night.’

‘No. She had already left when Mr. Eversley rang me up.’

‘You knew that he and Miss Sayle were engaged?’

She gave a small discreet cough.

‘He came round to see myself and Miss Arnold, and I think I may say that it was understood. Miss Arnold at once offered the hospitality of her house.’

‘It was refused?’

‘In the absence of Miss Olivia Benevent Miss Sayle considered herself responsible for the household at Underhill.’

‘And you came out here at once?’

‘As soon as I had packed a suit-case.’

‘Miss Silver, I am going to ask you what impression the household made upon you. None of these people were really known to you — I should like to hear how they struck you.’

As she returned his rather direct look he became aware that he really did want to know what she thought about Candida Sayle, about Derek Burdon, about Stephen Eversley, about Anna Rossi. He wondered whether she was going to tell him. And then she was doing so.

‘I found Miss Sayle very frank and simple. Miss Cara’s death had obviously been a great shock, and so had Miss Olivia’s accusation.’

‘Enough of a shock to frighten her into running away?’

‘I should not have said so. The first impact of the shock was wearing off. She spoke naturally and simply of Miss Cara, who she said had been very kind to her, and for whom she had, I thought, a good deal of affection.’

He said, ‘That sort of thing can be put on, you know.’

She coughed again, this time on a note of reproof.

‘I was for some years engaged in the scholastic profession. I am accustomed to young people. If one has experience, insincerity is not difficult to detect.’

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.’

‘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?’