The Benevent Treasure

Chapter Thirty-nine

The back of the bookcase swung in. Stephen stepped back with the chisel in his hand and said, ‘There!’

Major Warrender said, ‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,’ his tone a doubting one, because it had been necessary to force an opening and he couldn’t help seeing that some damage had been done. Of course it would have been a good deal worse if the damage had been done and no opening found. He turned for reassurance to Mr. Tampling and surprised an unexpected gleam in his eye. For the moment the streak of romance had got the upper hand of him. Candida Sayle had said that there was a secret passage, and there was one. The wooden back of the recess was a door, and it stood open.

Miss Silver had returned to the room. She looked gravely at the dark entry which the open door disclosed. She looked at Stephen Eversley’s face. He took the powerful electric lamp with which he had provided himself and passed into the gap. There was a small platform and steps that led from it. He went down, the light withdrawn as he did so and leaving only a reflected glow. When he got to the bottom he called back.

‘There are ten steps. Someone ought to stay behind to see we don’t get shut in.’

There was a delay whilst Rock went to fetch the constable who had been told to wait in the car. On his return they climbed down after Stephen. There was an old worn handrail stapled to the wall, and they were glad of it. The steps were high and irregular.

When they had come to the bottom there was a short length of passage. It was dark, and narrow, and dusty. Miss Silver reflected upon the probable presence of spiders. If Miss Cara had wandered here, there might very easily have been dust upon her slippers and a cobweb on the tassel of her gown. But she wondered, very deeply she wondered, whether she could have come this way or climbed that steep, irregular stair in a dream. There might, of course, be other and easier ways into the passages.

There were certainly other ways. They came to a place where this one divided. There were steps that went up and steps that went down. Stephen left them standing in the dark and climbed, taking the light with him. It dwindled and was gone. They stood close together, feeling the heaviness of the air and the weight of the dark. Only to Mr. Tampling was the experience other than an anxious and sinister one. Not all his concern for Candida – and he was truly concerned for her – could deny him the thrill of adventure. Buried memories of stories in the Boy’s Own Paper read surreptitiously by candlelight when he ought to have been enjoying his lawful slumbers woke up and magicked him. The passage under the castle moat – secret ways that led to the smuggler’s cave – the skeleton… Well, thank goodness there could be no skeleton here. They stood together, touching one another, and did not move. After a long time, the light glimmered and returned. Stephen came back. He said briefly,

‘There is a way out into several of the rooms. All quite easy to open from this side. We are at ground-floor level here. Those other steps will take us to the cellar level. I’ve always thought that if there was a hiding-place, there would be an entrance to it from those cellars. Miss Olivia wouldn’t let me examine them, you know.’

He went on before them with the light. The steps were easier here. They led by way of a short passage into a small brick-lined chamber. But this did not lead to anywhere at all. It was empty. The air was heavy. The beam of the torch travelled over all the walls in turn. They showed an unbroken surface.

Miss Silver gave her slight hortatory cough.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that a review of some of the facts would be beneficial. This is an old house. It was old when Ugo di Benevento bought it and built on to it. I think we may assume that these passages were part of the original building. But would he have considered them a sufficiently safe hiding-place for the Benevento Treasure? I believe not. He could have no certainty that their existence was not known. I believe that he would have constructed a hiding-place which was known only to himself.’

Major Warrender said,

‘To make sure of that he would have had to do all the work himself.’

‘He may have done so, or he may have taken means to ensure that whoever did the work would never speak of it.’

With a thrill that was only partly horror Mr. Tampling recalled that dead men tell no tales.

Miss Silver continued.

‘We have not found any place where Miss Cara could have met with a fatal accident. It seems likely that she had been in these passages, but I think we must conclude that she died, or was murdered, elsewhere. I do not think it possible that her body could have been taken to where it was found by way of the steep steps and narrow passages which we have traversed. There would have been a great deal more than a little dust upon her clothing if that had been the case. She may have walked through one of the passages, but I think her body must have been brought back by some easier way.’

Thoughts which Stephen had been holding by main force thrust past his desperate guard. By what way had Candida gone – by what way had she been taken? And if they found her, what was it they would find – herself, or only the body she had worn? He had no answer to these things. He said harshly, ‘Miss Silver is right. If there was such a thing as the Benevento Treasure, it wouldn’t have been hidden where anyone who knew the house might stumble on it. And if Miss Cara came by her death whilst she was looking for it, she must certainly have been taken back into the house by some easier way than the one by which we have come. Only as to where she was murdered – if she really was murdered – there simply isn’t any evidence. And what does it matter? What we have to do is to find this other hiding-place – if it exists.’

He had started out to say, ‘What we have to do is to find Candida,’ but he couldn’t say it. He turned abruptly and went back along the passage leading to the steps. There was something – passed over at the time but coming back as one of those impressions which come, and go, and come again. It was something to do with the passage. The light had been focussed ahead of him as they came through it, the cellar door had been in view. Now it was the passage itself which had his whole attention – rough brick walls, propped by wooden posts and crossed between every two posts by a wooden lateral. Old cottages had half-timbering like that, but what was it doing in an underground passage?

The answer came with the question. One of these squares could be a door.

The light ran up and down, and there was the latch, fitted smoothly against one of the wooden uprights. A turn of the hand and the door swung outwards. He stooped, and came up again. The lifted lamp showed him where he was – in the main cellar of Underhill.