‘This is very unwise. I have to tell you that there is a search-warrant. Major Warrender does not wish to use it. As Miss Sayle’s nearest relative you must be deeply interested in her being found. I would urge you in the strongest terms – ’
She looked up then, scanned him briefly, and said,
‘I do not know what more you want. I have told you my opinion. Major Warrender will do as he pleases. Miss Sayle’s whereabouts do not interest me.’ She went back to her embroidery again.
Joseph was waiting in the hall, the quiet decorous manservant, resentful of an affront to the house he served, but concealing it deftly. To have the police back again when it was to be hoped they had seen the last of them, and with the police Mr. Eversley who had been forbidden the house, and that Miss Silver who had come as it were out of nowhere! He had expressed himself with a good deal of freedom on the subject of Miss Maud Silver. One had only to see her for five minutes to tell what sort she was. He had a good deal to say about it to his wife Anna.
‘If there is one grain of dust in a room, she will see it! If anyone whispers a word in the middle of the night, she will hear it! I had only to set my eyes on her and I knew!’
He was asked to produce his wife, and did so. She had been crying again. Upstairs in the room that had been Candida Sayle’s she was questioned, and went on crying. She didn’t know about a passage that opened here. She didn’t know about any passage at all. If there were such a thing, it would be secret. She would not know about it – she would not want to know. Such places were horrible – they had been made for some bad purpose. Nothing would make her enter one. In a place like that, who could know what there might be? Mice, or even rats! Or some pit into which you might fall and never be heard of again! She called God to witness that nothing would make her set foot in such a place.
Rock said, ‘She knows something.’ To which Miss Silver replied,
‘I do not think she knows, but I think she is afraid.’
‘What is she afraid of?’
She said gravely,
‘Of Miss Olivia – of what has happened to Miss Cara – of what may be happening to Miss Sayle.’
‘You don’t think-’
She dropped her voice to its lowest tone.
‘Inspector, I too am very much afraid.’
Stephen Eversley had not spoken at all. He went straight from the door to the recess between the chimney-breast and the side wall of the house. Shelves filled with books from the floor almost to the ceiling, a carved border to simulate a bookcase. He began to take the books out of the shelves. Presently the other two men joined him.
It is astonishing how much room books can take up. Even the smallest book-case when emptied appears to have given up double the number of books which it could have been supposed to contain. The piles upon the floor grew high. Sometimes they overbalanced and fell. The books had to be carried farther back into the room. There was no dust. The empty shelves were clean. The first thing Stephen discovered was that they were not fastened to the wall. There were wooden side-pieces and a wooden back. There was, in fact, what amounted to the shell of a book-case fastened into the recess, but by what means it did not appear.
There could be a door here, and if there was, there must be some means of opening it. He did not believe that Candida had been dreaming when she saw someone come from the recess and pass through the room with a torch held low. His mind became concentrated on the task of finding the opening.
The other two men stood back and watched him. He had the skill and the incentive which were beyond anything they could supply. Anna’s breath still came unevenly, but she no longer sobbed aloud, and her tears had ceased to flow. When Miss Silver touched her on the arm she rose and followed her to the room next door. Bidden to sit down, she said in a distressed voice,
‘Miss Olivia will not like it. I must go back to her.’
She was overborne by a manner of calm authority.
‘Not just yet, Anna. I want to talk to you – about Miss Candida. You have served the Benevents for a long time, have you not?’
‘For forty years.’ There was pride in her tone.
‘And you loved Miss Cara?’
‘God knows I loved her!’
‘Miss Candida is also of the family, and I think Miss Cara loved her.’
‘Yes, yes, she loved her – my poor Miss Cara!’
‘Then will you think what she would have wished you to do? You do not believe that Miss Candida has run away, do you? You do not believe that she had anything to do with Miss Cara’s death. You know very well that she had not anything to do with Miss Cara’s death. You know very well that she had no reason to run away. If there is anything else that you know, you must tell it before it is too late. Do you want for all the rest of your life to have to think, “I could have saved her, but I would not speak”?’
Anna’s hands twisted in her lap. She said in a tone of agony,
‘What can I do?’
‘You can tell me what you know.’
‘Dio mio, there is nothing – they would kill me!’
‘You will be protected. Where did Miss Cara get the blow that killed her?’
The twisting hands came up in a gesture of despair.
‘How do I know? I will tell you, and you shall judge. There are secret places – that is all I know. It is not my business – I do not look, I do not speak. I have seen dust on my poor Miss Cara’s slippers. I think sometimes that she walks in her sleep, but I do not ask. There is a night I miss her from her room and I come looking for her. I think perhaps she has gone to Mr. Alan’s room to grieve for him. So I come this way, and she comes out of his room, walking in her dream. She comes by me and she is talking to herself. “I can’t find him,” she says, “I can’t find him!” And, “They have taken him away!” She goes back to her room, and she is crying all the way. I help her out of her dressing-gown, and there is dust on it and cobwebs, so I think she has been in the secret places and I am very much afraid.’
‘Why were you afraid?’
Anna drew in her breath sharply.
‘Because of what old Mr. Benevent told me.’
‘What did he tell you?’
Anna’s voice dropped to what could only just be heard.
‘He was very old,’ she said. ‘He would talk to himself, and he would talk to me. He tells me about the Treasure – how it is quite safe in a secret place. “Quite safe,” he says, and laughs to himself. “A man may walk over it and not know it is there. He may go up, and he may go down, and he will not know. And if he knew, and if he went, it would never do him any good.” And then he would take hold of me by my hand hard – hard, and he would say, “Yes, it is safe – quite safe.” But not to go near it, never go near it – not for anything in the world. Not to give and not to take – there was something about that in a rhyme.’
Miss Silver quoted it gravely:
‘ “Touch not nor try,
Sell not nor buy,
Give not nor take,
For dear life’s sake.” ’
Anna stared from her reddened eyes.
‘Who told you that?’
Her look was held.
‘It was Miss Candida. Anna – where is Miss Candida?’
Anna put her hands up and covered her face.
‘O Dio mio – I think she is dead!’
Chapter Thirty-eight
Candida did not know how much time had gone by. Perhaps the effect of the drug had not quite worn off, perhaps the heavy air of this small confined space had dulled her senses, but after she had come upon the door which had no handle everything seemed to stand still. She couldn’t move the door, she couldn’t go on, and there was no strength in her to go back. She wasn’t afraid any longer – everything was too hazy for that. But she remembered that she must save the battery of the torch, and she switched it off. She didn’t remember anything after that for quite a long time.