The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 41

Miss Silver stood waiting. The footsteps had gone away out of sound. She had heard them fall heavy on the secret stair and die away. An indeterminate sound came up, quite vague and indistinguishable. And then, what seemed a long time afterwards, there were footsteps again. She stood inside the linen-room. Someone had provided another candle and set it down upon one of the upper shelves. Beneath the bottom shelf the gap yawned wide to the secret stair. Outside in the passage everyone stood and listened, except Castell sitting handcuffed against the wall drawing long sobbing breaths, and his wife who took no notice of him. Or of anyone or anything. Mildred Taverner had stopped crying. She shook and trembled, her hand at her beads, her head poked forward, listening with the rest.

Then up through the gap in the linen-room wall came the voice of John Higgins:

“Can you manage it, Eily?”

It was only Miss Silver who could be sure of the faint murmur of assent. The sound was one of the most welcome she had ever heard.

The next moment Eily was crawling out of the gap and being helped to her feet. John followed her, to say briefly,

“They’ve got him. They’re bringing him up.”

And then he and Eily and Jane went to Eily’s room and shut the door.

There came out next Inspector Crisp, and then Luke White, propelled from behind by Jeremy. Miss Silver stepped into the passage to make way for them. Crisp put a whistle to his mouth and blew. As the sound of heavy feet fell on the stairs, he turned his head to say,

“Keep him beside there till we get the handcuffs on him, Captain Taverner.” Then, to Frank Abbott, “It’s Luke White all right. Higgins and the girl identified him. He can be charged with abduction, and as an accessory to the murder of Albert Miller.”

But behind him Luke White laughed.

“I never laid a finger on Al, and you can’t prove I did! Let them swing for him that did him in! Castell, you fat pig, get up on your feet and tell them I wasn’t anywhere near the place!”

Castell glared at him.

“You are drunk-you are mad! Hold your tongue! What do I know about Al Miller-what does anyone know? It is a conspiracy against me!” He went spluttering and cursing into the Marseilles patois of his youth.

Two police constables came up the stair. Frank Abbott looked across at Miss Silver and found her face intent. She was listening, and in a moment he heard what she was hearing. Someone was coming up the main stairway. In another moment Jacob Taverner was in view. He crossed the landing, walking slowly like a tired man. But when he came to the group in the passage beyond his room he straightened up. His voice was harsh as he said,

“What’s going on?”

From just inside the linen-room Luke White tipped him an impudent nod. There was enough drink in him to give him a kind of swaggering bravado.

“What’s going on? Why me, when I ought to be dead! Shakes you up a bit, doesn’t it? Here today and gone tomorrow and back again before anyone wants you!”

Castell erupted suddenly into English again.

“Why hadn’t you the sense to leave Eily alone? There are ten thousand girls-what does it matter which one you have?”

Jacob Taverner came into the group of people and looked from one to the other-at Castell on the floor jerking at his handcuffed wrists-at Annie Castell, at Mildred and Geoffrey Taverner-at Miss Silver, Frank Abbott, Luke White with Jeremy Taverner gripping his elbows from behind. He saw the open linen-room door, the candle burning on the shelf, the gap in the wall. He said in a curious quiet voice,

“So you’ve found it. That’s what I came down here to look for.” Then, on a rising tone, “Who knew about it? This man of course, and Castell-but they wouldn’t give it away. Who else?” His small bright eyes went from one to the other, came to rest upon Mildred and Geoffrey. “Was it one of you-or perhaps both? Matthew’s grandchildren. He came next to my father, and he was a builder too. I always thought he’d be the most likely to know. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have seen you didn’t lose by it. Why did you wait until you’d brought the police into it?”

Miss Silver coughed. She looked at Geoffrey and said,

“Yes, why, Mr. Taverner?”

The words were clear and emphatic. If they had been stones thrown in Luke White’s face they could not have had a more startling effect. He gave a kind of shout in which the only word distinguishable was Geoffrey Taverner’s name.

“Him-him!” Now the words came pouring out. “You, Mr. blank Geoffrey Taverner! Give us away, would you-call in the police on us and save your skin? But you’ll not get away with it-not while I’ve a tongue in my head! If anyone’s turning King’s evidence, it’s going to be me, not you, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it! And if anyone’s going to swing for Al Miller, it’s going to be you, not me-do you hear? I never laid a finger on him, and no one can prove I did!”

Geoffrey Taverner stood his ground with some courage.

“The man’s mad,” he said. “1 don’t know what he’s talking about.”

With a sudden wrench Luke White had twisted free. He came at Geoffrey with a spring and took him by the throat. The two went down together, with Mildred Taverner screaming and the police rushing in.

Pulled off and handcuffed, with Geoffrey getting up greenish pale and holding his throat, Luke White was aware of two voices coming through the buzz of talk about him. Castell was cursing him for a fool, and Mildred Taverner was weeping on a high, shrill note and saying over and over again,

“But it wasn’t Geoffrey who told them-he never told them anything! You didn’t, did you, Geoffrey? It was Miss Silver- Miss Silver-Miss Silver!”

Luke White fell to cursing too.