The Benevent Treasure

Chapter Thirty-one

The morning came, and with it Anna in a flowered wrapper, her lips still swollen from yesterday’s weeping. She had slept uneasily and waked to a new and burdened day. She moved with weighted limbs, the tray she carried was heavy in her hand. She set it down, answered gravely when Miss Silver spoke to her, and went on her way. It took her to the room next door, where Candida should be sleeping, but when she knocked there was no answer. She had in one hand the cup of tea which she had taken from Miss Silver’s tray. With the other she knocked again, after which she turned the handle and went in.

With her first step across the threshold the cup tilted and fell. She stood there, holding the saucer in a rigid grip and staring, not at the broken cup and the pool of tea which spread from it, but at the empty ordered room. The bed was made, and it had not been slept in. As it was now, so it had been when her shaking hands had left it at some time during the dreadful hours of yesterday morning. She remembered that the counterpane had fallen a little crooked at the head, and that she had looked back at it from the doorway and thought, ‘What does it matter? Miss Cara is dead.’ She looked at it now, and saw it was as it had been then. Her eyes moved slowly from the bed to the window, to the bookcase, the hearth, the dressing-table. There was something there – a piece of paper with a line of writing on it. She crossed the room swiftly and set the saucer down. The hand that had held it lifted the paper. The writing was smudged and blotted – a mere scrawl. It ran:

‘Goodbye. I can’t go on.’

Anna continued to look at it until the words began to run into one another. Then she went back by the way that she had come.

This time she did not knock at Miss Silver’s door. She wrenched at the handle and pushed it like a blind woman feeling her way. Miss Silver saw her come. She set down her cup upon the tray and took the paper which was thrust at her.

Anna had begun to shake and to weep again.

‘She is gone! First the one, and then the other! Miss Cara first, and then Miss Candida! But why – oh, Dio mio, why!’

Miss Silver looked gravely at the paper with its shaky scrawl.

‘Is this Miss Sayle’s writing?’

Anna threw up her hands.

‘How do I know?’

‘But you must have seen it. Pray sit down and compose yourself. You must have seen Miss Sayle’s writing.’

‘How should I?’ sobbed Anna. ‘Miss Olivia writes to her – she writes back – it is one letter among all the letters that come! I do not look at them, I do not notice them, I do not know which is from Miss Candida! I only know that she was here, and that she is gone, and that God knows what has become of her, or what is to become of us all!’

Miss Silver was getting out of bed; reaching for the blue dressing-gown, putting on the black felt slippers. She came into Candida’s room with Anna following her, sobbing and talking all the time.

‘The bed! You see no one has slept there! It is the way I leave it! Last night Miss Candida says to me she will turn down your bed and hers and she will put in the hot water-bottles. “You have enough to do without that,” she says. And it is true what she says – there is enough for the one pair of hands! She is so good, Miss Candida – so kind! And Mr. Derek too! He comes out last night, and he says, “Let me help you with the washing-up.” I say, “No, no – Miss Olivia would not like it,” and he says, “Darling, she won’t know.” It is the way they have, these young people, to call everyone darling. It means nothing, but he says it as if he means it, and he stays until everything is finished. He and Miss Candida, they are kind. Why should these things happen?’

Miss Silver let the words go by her.

She went to the bed and turned back the eiderdown. There had been a hot water-bottle in her own bed last night. There was one in this bed now. Does a girl who is going to run away put a hot water-bottle in her bed? She went to and fro in the room. In the end she opened the wardrobe door and spoke.

‘Anna, come here. That is the dress she wore last night, is it not?’

The black dress trailed from its hanger, one shoulder slipping so that it hung askew. Anna caught her breath.

‘Yes – yes – that is what she wore – my poor Miss Candida!’

‘Then what is missing?’

‘The grey coat and skirt – the grey coat – that is what she would wear if she went out. And the little grey hat – it would be in the drawer… No, she has taken it! And the handbag – she has taken that too! And the outdoor shoes – see, here are the ones she wore last night – she would not go out in these! Dio mio! Where has she gone, and why?’

Miss Silver said,

‘If she has gone, then one of the doors would be unlocked, or a window. Wake Mr. Derek and get him to come down with you and try them all whilst I dress.’

But when Anna was gone Miss Silver did not proceed to her own room immediately. She closed the door and then went over to the bookcase and examined it. Strictly speaking, it was not a bookcase at all but a set of shelves fitted into the recess between the fireplace and the wall which took the windows. The shelves ran from the floor to within a couple of feet from the ceiling. A strip of carved wood framed them on either side, and a simulated cornice decorated the top.

Miss Silver stood looking at the shelves. Taking out some of the books, she discovered that there was a wooden backing. Candida Sayle had spoken of waking in the night and seeing first a streak of light, and then the opening of a door in this recess. Shelves with a wooden backing could be contrived to mask a door. Candida might have dreamed of that opening door. She took these two possibilities with her to her own room.

Anna’s return with Derek Burdon found her fully dressed, her hair in neatly plaited coils behind and netted fringe in front. She wore the olive-green cashmere now relegated to morning use, and the warm fluffy scarf, so comfortable, so cosy, which had been her niece Ethel’s present to her at Christmas. Shading as it did from lilac to purple, she considered it not only very pleasing in itself but a delicate tribute to the fact that she was now in a house of mourning.

At the sound of approaching footsteps she made haste to open the door. Derek Burdon was in his dressing-gown, an ornate affair which emphasised his pallor. It appeared that the side door by which Miss Olivia had left was not only unlocked but was actually standing ajar. A handkerchief picked up in the courtyard just outside was soaked by the rain which had fallen during the night. Anna identified it as one of a set embroidered by Barbara Sayle during her long illness. It bore in one corner a finely worked capital ‘C.’

Invited to examine the note which had been found in Candida’s room, Derek stared at the uneven writing and said that, so far as he could tell, it would be hers.

Miss Silver looked at him with grave enquiry.

‘You were working with her upon the family papers. You must have seen her writing.’

‘Well, yes, I have – yes, of course – but not so very much of it. We were mostly sorting – we hadn’t really got to the writing stage. There never seemed to be a lot of time. I say, Miss Silver – you don’t really think – she has – gone away?’

She said, ‘It is too soon to make up our minds about that. What I must do at once is to ring up Mr. Eversley.’

Stephen picked up the receiver and heard her voice. He said, ‘Miss Silver – ’ And then she was saying,

‘Mr. Eversley, can you come out here at once?’

He said quickly, ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘There has been a development. I would like to see you.’

‘Is there anything wrong? Not Candida – ’

The primness of her tone was accentuated.

‘I would rather not say any more over the telephone. I would be glad to see you as soon as possible.’

She rang off. He was left in a state of mounting apprehension.

Miss Silver was half way to the door, when the bell rang again. About to lift the receiver, she changed her mind. She had spoken to Stephen from the study. It occurred to her that his second call might more suitably be answered by Anna. Proceeding to the door, she opened it, and at a glance there Anna was, at no distance at all, her hands clasped at her breast, her whole attitude that of one who strains to listen. With her usual calm, Miss Silver said,

‘Will you see who it is?’ and as Anna came forward, she turned and followed her into the room. Standing beside the instrument she could not only hear Anna’s shaky, ‘Who is there?’ but what was unmistakably Olivia Benevent’s voice in reply. It was quite clear and sharp, and it said,

‘Is that you, Anna?’

‘Yes – yes – ’

‘Why do you speak like that? Is anything the matter? You should really pull yourself together! I am ringing up to say that I find I have left a great many things behind me. Joseph will drive me over during the morning, and you had better be ready to come back with us. Have your own things packed by the time I come, and then you can see about mine. I do not wish to see either Mr. Derek or Miss Sayle – you will tell them so! They must respect my wish to be alone whilst I am preparing to leave Underhill. It has been my home during the whole of my life, and – ’ The hard voice checked for a moment and then went on again. ‘I do not suppose that I shall ever see it again. You will make them understand that I am not to be intruded upon!’

The voice ceased. The audience was over. A little click upon the line announced that the connection had been broken. Anna’s hands were shaking so much that the receiver slipped from them and fell.