The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 30

Miss Silver sat in a corner of the lounge, to all appearance quite taken up with her knitting. Not very far away from her Marian Thorpe-Ennington engaged in conversation with Mildred Taverner. Occasional words and phrases were sufficiently audible to make it clear that she was imparting another instalment of that fascinating serial, her life story. Such phrases as, “The very first time he saw me… swore, actually swore, that he would jump out of the aeroplane,” and, most surprising of all, “blood on the diamond wreath, and blood on the floor.”

Mildred Taverner was undoubtedly fascinated. Her Venetian beads clashed against her gold chain as she shuddered, her pale eyes remained fixed upon Lady Marian’s beautiful face, her pale lips parted upon a hardly intermittent “Oh!”

Miss Silver continued to knit in a very thoughtful manner. When the door was presently opened and Frank Abbott looked in she rose, picked up her knitting-bag, and advanced towards him.

“If you can spare the time, I should be glad of a few moments, Inspector.”

He held open the door into Castell’s office.

“I shall be delighted.”

When he had shut it behind them she went across to the window and stood there looking at the room. There did not appear to be very much to look at, and with what there was she must by this time have surely been familiar, yet she continued to gaze in a rather abstracted manner until Frank Abbott said,

“I ought to know by now when you’ve got something up your sleeve. What is it?”

“My dear Frank!”

He returned her reproving glance with a smile.

“Come-out with it!”

She shook her head very slightly, came over to the low chair which she had occupied before, turned it round to the fire, and having seated herself, took up her knitting, observing,

“There is really a good deal that I would like to say, and if you can spare the time I should like to say it now.”

He pulled up another chair and stretched out his feet to the comfortable blaze.

“ ‘Time spared is time saved,’ as the proverb says-and as you know, I am very much at your service.”

Miss Silver’s eyes dwelt upon him indulgently, her voice only mildly critical as she said,

“I do not recall any such proverb.”

“Perhaps not. It’s an impromptu contribution of my own. After all, they have to be started by someone. I dedicate it-without permission-to you.”

“My dear Frank, when will you learn not to talk so much nonsense?”

His hands were deep in his pockets. He looked at her lazily through his fair lashes.

“I don’t know. But I’m finished for now. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Her needles clicked briskly.

“Our own particular connection with this case, and to what extent it is linked with the murder of Luke White.”

“Interesting thesis. Go on.”

She gave a slight cough.

“We came down here to investigate certain vague rumours with regard to the Catherine-Wheel. These involved the possibility that it was being used as a place of call by smugglers, by persons engaged in the illicit drug trade, or by jewel thieves. Chief Inspector Lamb pointed out that this family reunion organized by Mr. Jacob Taverner might be intended to cover some special activity connected with one of these illegal pursuits. As you know, a murder took place during the night following our arrival. It is of course possible, in theory, that the murder has no connection with these illegal practices-in fact they have not yet been proved to exist. The whole matter has advanced very little from its original realm of suspicion and conjecture. In spite of which I must tell you that I am quite unable to dissociate the murder of Luke White from what I may perhaps term our case.”

Frank nodded.

“That means that you reject the case against John Higgins. His motive would be a strictly private one-jealousy over Eily Fogarty.”

She inclined her head.

“It was not John Higgins who murdered Luke White.”

The light eyebrows were raised.

“Sure as all that? All right, exit John. What about Florence Duke? Her motive would be a private one too-unless Crisp digs up evidence to connect her with the dope trade or any of these jewel thefts, in which case she might have fallen out with Luke over a division of the swag.”

Miss Silver gave a hortatory cough.

“My dear Frank, pray recall the undisputed evidence of the position of the body and the position of the wound. If Luke White was killed where he was found, the murderer was immediately behind him on the bottom step. No one has yet supplied any theory which makes this intelligible if Florence Duke is supposed to have committed the murder. On the other hand, if he was not killed where he was found, what possible motive could she have for dragging him there? It could not have been done by one person without making enough noise to run the risk of bringing someone down to investigate. We have been over all this before, and I do not see my way to supporting a case against Florence Duke.”

“Well, what do you support?”

Her needles clicked.

“I have come to certain conclusions. They are these. The murder greatly deepens the suspicions attaching to the inn. Mr. Jacob Taverner’s party, and the circumstances leading up to it also deepen those suspicions. We will come back to this later. I believe that those suspicions are justified, and that the death of Luke White is linked with the circumstances which gave rise to them. It is my opinion that at least two people were engaged in the murder, and that it certainly did not take place in the hall.”

He looked at her keenly.

“Two people?”

“It would have required two people to carry the body to the place where it was found, if this was to be accomplished without risk.”

Frank was regarding her with a slightly quizzical air.

“Is that all?”

“I have reached no definite conclusions beyond these. But I have some observations to offer on the subject of Mr. Jacob Taverner and his party.”

“What are they?”

“These, Frank. I have had opportunities of conversing with several of the Taverner cousins. All of them have been extremely communicative. They are, Captain Jeremy Taverner and Miss Jane Heron-friendly likeable young people-Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington, and Miss Mildred Taverner. Lady Marian has the habit of talking about herself and can easily be induced to do so. Miss Taverner is nervously apprehensive. She has led a very narrow life, and the murder has alarmed her very much. Her brother represses her. She is frightened of being alone, and has been glad of my company. From these four people I have learned that Mr. Jacob Taverner has made a point of pressing each of them as to what they may have heard about the Catherine-Wheel from their grandparents, with whom there was in each case a rather particularly close association. Looked at in the light of what has since happened, those questions would seem to refer to the existence of some concealed passage from the house to the shore. Miss Taverner gave me the best information on this point. Jane Heron really knew nothing. Captain Taverner said his grandfather had mentioned such a passage, but he had no idea where it was, and so he had told Mr. Jacob. Lady Marian talked a great deal, but I really did not discover that she knew anything. Florence Duke denied any knowledge, but admitted to having been questioned by Mr. Jacob Taverner. She has not been inclined for conversation, but when I put the question to her directly she answered me. I am, however, very strongly of the opinion that she was holding something back. I did not question Mr. Geoffrey Taverner. His manner to me has been discourteous, and I did not think I should gain anything by doing so.”

Frank Abbott drew up his legs, leaned forward, and put a log upon the fire. He knew his Miss Silver tolerably well, and it wasn’t like her to flog a dead horse. He said,

“But Jacob Taverner knew all about the passage to the shore. He took the whole party through it on the Saturday night as soon as they had finished dinner. He showed it to us without any hesitation, and we’ve been through it with the proverbial toothcomb. No contraband, no corpses. Not the least, farthest smell of a clue.”

The fire blazed up. Miss Silver’s needles caught the glow and flashed it back. She said very composedly,

“I refer, of course, to the other passage.”

There was a brief electric silence. Frank Abbott got to his feet gracefully and without hurry. Standing against the mantelpiece and looking down at her, he said with some accentuation of his usual manner,

“Would you mind saying that again?”

“My dear Frank, you heard me perfectly.”

“It was the mind that boggled, not the ear.”

“Pray bring your mind to bear upon the evidence. Since Jacob Taverner was already aware of the passage leading from the cellars to the shore, his questions cannot be taken as referring to it. But he did, either directly or by implication, question four or five of the Taverner cousins as to their knowledge of a secret passage. I believe he questioned them all, but there is no evidence in the cases of Mr. Geoffrey Taverner, John Higgins, or Albert Miller. These questions cannot be taken to apply to the passage leading out of the cellars.”

“He might have wanted to find out if they knew about it.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I believe not. The impression left upon my mind after hearing what these people have to say, and especially after listening to Miss Mildred Taverner, is that the entrance to this second passage is somewhere upstairs. Miss Taverner’s grandfather-he was Matthew, the second son of old Jeremiah Taverner-told her that when he was a very little boy he woke up frightened because he heard a noise. He went to see what it was, and he saw a light coming out of a hole in the wall. He was dreadfully frightened, and he ran away back to his bed and pulled the blankets over his head.”

“Is that all?”

“That is all she could tell me.”

“He may have dreamed the whole thing.”

“It is, of course, possible, but I do not think so. It is the kind of thing that a child would remember.”

Frank looked down meditatively into the fire.

“Interesting theory,” he said. “Not of any immediate practical value perhaps.” He bent down and carefully added another log. Then, as he straightened up again, “And what, after all this, are your views on Jacob Taverner?”

She stopped knitting for a moment and looked at him very seriously indeed.

“I am unable to make up my mind. There are, of course, two possibilities. His father was old Jeremiah Taverner’s eldest son, a second Jeremiah. After his father’s death he came in for the whole of the family property, but he is said almost immediately to have severed his connection with the Catherine-Wheel. I gather there was an impression that a sale had taken place. But this was not the case. The inn was leased.”

“Yes-March handed that on. There were two generations of Smiths, father and son, and when the last one died the place reverted to Jacob Taverner. Castell was already manager and he kept him on. The question of course is, had the Taverner connection with the Catherine-Wheel ever really ceased-did the smuggling trade still go on, with part of the profits going to Jeremiah the second, and afterwards to his son Jacob-have they continued during the last five years-and is Jacob an active partner? That’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it?”

Miss Silver was knitting again. She said,

“Precisely.”

“Well, that brings us back to what do you think of Jacob Taverner?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I have seen very little of him. Yesterday, as you know, he kept to his room. Today he came down to lunch. He complains of the cold, and is said to be suffering from a chill. He appears to me to have had a shock, but so have we all. He may be implicated in the smuggling, but not in the murder.”

“You think that?”

“No. I have not enough information to draw any conclusions. It is merely a hypothesis which would account for the known facts. If he were implicated in the smuggling, it would explain his desire to find out whether his Taverner cousins were in a position to give away any secrets. If there were two passages, one of which was very much more important than the other, he might consider it well worth while to sacrifice one of them by making it public property, and thus protect the secrecy of the other. He would hope that any stories or rumours, whether current locally or preserved by the family, would thus be laid to rest. This would account for his getting the family together and making a feature of displaying the passage from the cellars and the shore. It will, of course, occur to you that Luke White may have been murdered in order to preserve the secret of the other passage. If he knew of it, and was using his knowledge to blackmail his associates, there would be no need to look any farther for a motive. I may say that I consider this far more likely than the motive of jealousy insisted on by Inspector Crisp.”

“It might be.”

“It is not possible at present to say whether Mr. Jacob Taverner is implicated or not. He may be merely what he appears to be, an elderly man with a great deal of money, no ties, and the desire to promote a family reunion, perhaps with the intention of deciding upon the terms of his will. He might have a financial interest in the Catherine-Wheel, without any knowledge of its smuggling activities, if indeed these exist. There is, of course, no proof that they do, only a good deal of suspicion, and the suggestion that where there is smoke one would expect to discover a fire.”

Frank stood up straight.

“In fact Jacob may be innocent, and so may the Catherine-Wheel. We’ve got nasty suspicious minds, and we are apt to see what we are looking for-as per my esteemed colleague Crisp. Well, we shall see.”

Miss Silver was folding up her knitting and putting it away. She now rose to her feet.

“Just one moment, Frank. I would like you to have this carpet washed.”

“My dear Miss Silver!”

“Very carefully, of course. I should not, perhaps, have said washed. I should like it to be examined very carefully, with a view to ascertaining whether there are any bloodstains.”

“Bloodstains?”

“Recent ones, of course. The colour of the carpet and its dirty condition would conceal them.”

He gazed at the floor. The square of carpet which covered it to within a foot of the walls must originally have been of a deep brownish red with a small all-over pattern now almost entirely lost in the general gloom. He said slowly,

“Just what do you expect to find?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Evidence that Luke White was killed in this room,” she said.