The Benevent Treasure

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 got 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.