The Gazebo (25 page)

FRANK ABBOTT CAME to The Lodge in the evening and told Miss Silver all about it.

‘If you hadn’t managed to put the wind up me about Mrs Blount she’d have been dead by now. There we were just driving along peaceably through Rillington, when I saw her on the island and had a come-over. There she was, and there Blount was, and there was the traffic, and it up and hit me in the eye that if I was a crook and wanted to get rid of a woman who had a packet in the bank and who knew too much about me, I couldn’t possibly ask for a better opportunity. The next thing I knew I was out of the car and half way across the road. I should have felt all sorts of a fool if nothing had happened, but as you know something did. Blount and I were twin souls with but a single thought. The possibility of a jam on an island and a shove at the right moment had not escaped him. As a matter of fact the whole thing must have been very carefully planned. He had never taken his wife and the aunt to anything in Rillington before, and when they searched him at the police station he had one of those folding-up rulers in his pocket. Just the sort of thing to slip through the row between him and Mrs Blount. Opened to a foot length it would be quite long enough and strong enough to do the trick. She said he pushed her, you know, and she said her back hurt her, so the police surgeon had a look at it, and there was the mark where the ruler had bruised her. I told you Hubbard turned up just after it happened. Blount tried to carry the whole thing off with his wife being suicidal. Well, he’d planned for that too. Tucked away in his wallet there was a scrawled sheet in Mrs Blount’s writing which said, “I can’t go on with it. It’s no use. I don’t feel I can.” She says he was writing a letter in the kitchen. He pretended it was about a deal he had thought of going into, but he’d made up his mind not to go on with it on account of having heard something he didn’t like about the fellow. All of a sudden he said his thumb joint had slipped and he would have to get her to finish the letter for him. He dictated that “I can’t go on” stuff, and then snatched it away from her and said he couldn’t send anything so badly written and he’d have to ring the man up. She says he had made her so nervous beforehand that she could hardly hold the pen. And you know, if that wretched scrawl had been produced at an inquest any jury in the world would have brought in a verdict of suicide. As it is, he has been charged with the attempted murder of his wife, but as soon as the Harrisons’ statements have been gone into he will probably be brought here and charged with the murder of Mrs Graham. They’ve got some fingerprints off the metal rod he dropped when he tripped in the yard. If they are identical with his own, he’ll be for it all right.’

Miss Silver coughed gently.

‘Mrs Blount has indeed had a providential escape.’

‘I think she’s been afraid of him for a long time. I don’t think there’s much doubt that he contrived the deaths of his father and his first wife. That gave him the idea that he could get away with anything.; I should think Worple may be encouraged to come across and give some useful information. By the way, we’re all set to investigate the gazebo on Monday morning. Whether Mr Warren’s gold plate will be found there or not, I imagine that both Worple and Blount were convinced it was there for the finding, and that they meant to be the finders. For that they would have to be in lawful possession of the premises. I don’t know what an eighteenth-century service of gold plate would be worth in the market. It couldn’t very well be sold here for what it was, and it would be difficult to get the gold out of the country if it was melted down. Of course there are ways! Crooks are always thinking up new ones. But that seven thousand Blount was offering for the house – you know, that sticks in my throat. I can’t bring myself to believe that the money would ever have been paid over. Of course they would expect to get some of it back on a re-sale, but I shouldn’t have said that the market price of the house would be more than four thousand. And they couldn’t count on getting that.’

Miss Silver had begun a new piece of knitting. It was to be a cardigan for her niece Ethel Burkett for Christmas. She had started upon the back. Three inches of ribbing and two inches of the pattern appeared upon the needles. The wool was very soft and the colour a deep smoky violet. Ethel had put on a little lately and the shade would be becoming both to face and figure. She had lately bought herself a grey skirt with a purple line in it. Miss Silver had obtained a pattern of the stuff and intended to knit a twin set to go with it. She said now in a thoughtful voice,

‘The Reverend Thomas Jenkinson mentions jewellery as well as the gold plate – jewellery which had belonged to Mr Warren’s late wife. The term might cover a good deal, or very little. There would almost certainly be some valuable rings. There might even be a diamond necklace.’

Frank laughed.

‘And there might be no more than a twopenny-halfpenny brooch or two!’

She was knitting placidly.

‘I think it improbable that a couple of brooches would be dignified by the name of jewellery. I also think it probable that Mr Worple, and through him Mr Blount, possessed rather more information than we do. Mr Worple’s step-father, the elder Mr Martin, remembered his grandmother talking about the Riots. You will recall that she was the young woman who married into Yorkshire but returned to Grove Hill as a widow. She is quoted as having been present when Mr Warren died, and as being able to corroborate what took place during his last moments. She told Mr Jenkinson things which he did not consider it prudent to set down in print lest they should “excite the cupidity of unprincipled persons”. What she said to her Vicar she may very well have repeated to her grandson. We may not know exactly what it was, but I think we may fairly deduce that either by word of mouth or in writing it ultimately reached Mr Worple and was passed by him to Mr Blount. If anything should be found in or under the gazebo, can you tell me just what the legal position would be?’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘Is there really anything you don’t know? It’s not in my line, but I have an idea that it would rank as treasure trove. If a man conceals something in the ground or otherwise with the intention of recovering it at a more favourable moment, I believe his heirs can claim it even after a considerable lapse of time, but if he doesn’t dig it up himself and there are no heirs, it is treasure trove and in theory it belongs to the Crown. As a matter of modern practice, if the find is of any archaeological or historical value it is passed on to the appropriate museum. You may remember that is what happened to the find of Roman silver at Traprain in Scotland, which is now in the Edinburgh museum. But whereas there used to be only nominal compensation for the finder, which resulted in a great many valuable and interesting things being melted down for the bare value of the metal, it is now the practice to hand out what is considered to be the real value.’

Miss Silver inclined her head.

‘That agrees with my own impression.’

He said,

‘Two minds with but a single thought!’ and then went on hurriedly, ‘As regards Worple, from what I have heard about him I should think he will be prepared to cut his coat according to his cloth. In other words, I should say that he would come clean. From our point of view there really isn’t anything against him. There is nothing criminal in wanting to buy a house, even if you think there is something valuable buried in the garden. I don’t imagine for a moment that he would have mixed himself up in a murder. Shady financial transactions are his line, not physical violence, and he has generally managed to keep on the safe side of the law. They may want him as a witness, in which case I’ve no doubt he will be willing to oblige.’

Miss Silver dismissed Mr Worple in the fewest possible words.

‘A meretricious person.’

ON MONDAY MORNING a carpenter took up the floorboards of the gazebo – good solid oaken boards which had endured through successive, generations since they had been laid there somewhere about the year 1750 at the orders of the wealthy brewer, Mr Henry Warren. He could not at that time have foreseen a day some thirty years distant when, having been warned by a sure hand of violence planned against the Catholics, he would secretly and under cover of night be lifting the end board against the wall where the heavy oak bench was designed to stand, with the purpose of concealing beneath it a service of gold plate which he did not yet possess and the jewels and trinkets of his wife not yet deceased. Yet without such premonition, the octagonal shape of the gazebo and the space beneath its floor lent themselves to such a purpose. The last board against the wall was a short one. On that night of terror Martin Hickley had taken up that last short board under his direction. They had carried down the plate together and wadded it with its own baize covers. The plates and dishes were pushed as far under the boards as they would go. The two great salt cellars took some stowing away, but in the end all was disposed of and a hollow made to take the jewel-case. When the board was nailed down again and a little dust scattered over it there was nothing to show that it had ever been taken up.

The ephemeral violence of the Riots flared itself out and left a ruined house and two dead men behind it. Martin Hickley died when the roof of the hall fell in as he was carrying one of his master’s pictures to safety, Henry Warren being struck down at the same time by a fall of masonry in the portico before the front door, and surviving for no more than an hour or two. An old story and three parts forgotten, but reaching across the nineteenth century and into the twentieth to affect the lives of half a dozen people, and to bring two of them to their deaths.

There were some such thoughts in Miss Silver’s mind as she watched the workman at his task. Frank Abbott, passing near her, took a moment to stand beside her and look down with a quizzical gleam in his eye. He said in a voice pitched for her ear alone,

‘I feel that this demands a quotation. Don’t tell me that Tennyson is mute.’

A slight cough reproved the impertinence. She said sedately,

‘I can give you a most apposite one, but you will have heard it before.’

‘What is it?’

She said, ‘The lust of gain in the spirit of Cain.’ And with that the board came creaking up and he left her and went forward.

Nicholas and Althea were watching too. They stood together, her hand just slipped inside his arm. It was a bright morning. The carpenter’s voice said,

‘There’s something there, and pretty heavy too.’

Inspector Sharp said, ‘Better take up a couple more of those boards.’

In the end Henry Warren’s gold plate came up out of the dark place where he had thrust it in 1780. Its appearance would certainly have shocked him very much. The green baize in which it was wrapped had rotted away to a murky slime. Gold being gold, it would return to its primitive lustre, but for the moment it certainly did not look as if it could be worth a man’s honesty or a woman’s life. Mrs Warren’s jewel-case had practically ceased to exist. Wood and leather had cracked and disintegrated. Drought had reduced it to powder, and periods of rain to slush, but somewhere in the resulting mess was the jewellery which it had contained. A little man of the name of Benchley who had been brought in as an expert pronounced the plate to be gold – a full service for twenty people. He refused to commit himself as to its value.

Just how Henry Warren came to be possessed of so extravagant an appointment was later explained when it appeared that it had been deposited with him by the eccentric and notorious Mr Wavenham when he fled from his creditors in the latter part of 1779. Since Mr Wavenham was killed a year later in a duel in Italy and left no heir, the disappearance of the plate had never been explained. Mr Warren’s concern to preserve the trust committed to him by his friend certainly redounds to his honour. But a good deal of patient research would be necessary before these particulars could be established. At the moment the gold plates were piled one upon the other and Mrs Warren’s jewellery was laid out upon the oak table.

Mr Benchley made lists of everything. He asked for a cloth and a bowl of soap and water, and stabbed at the stones in a necklace, bracelets, rings.

‘Necklace. Diamonds. Fine stone. Centre one about five carats.’

‘Pendant in the form of a cross. Diamonds and rubies. Probably French.’

‘Five rings…’

The catalogue went on, very dry and precise like Mr Benchley himself. And when it was all done and the floor boards put back again, the police went away and took the plate and the jewellery with them. There would have to be an inquest to decide whether the find was treasure trove or not. Whether it was or whether it wasn’t, it would certainly be a very long time before the matter was finally settled.

Frank Abbott remarked irreverently that you couldn’t hope to hurry a government department, and that when you got a museum mixed up in it at the other end it might quite likely be 1980 before anything got settled, which would make it a round two hundred years since the stuff was buried.

They were in the drawing-room, and he was taking his leave. Nicholas Carey put an arm round Althea.

‘Well, I hope you’re not counting on wearing the diamond necklace, Allie,’ he said.

He was startled to see how pale she turned.

‘Oh, I couldn’t!’ she said with a shudder.

He shook her a little, lightly.

‘Darling you won’t get a chance.’

Frank Abbott had a sardonic gleam in his eye.

‘Well, I suppose you two will be getting married.’

‘If I’m not being haled to prison. Can I take it that the arrest is definitely off?’

‘I think so. You’ll be wanted to give evidence when Blount comes up before the magistrates – both of you. And again at the trial. So don’t take a honeymoon in Timbuctoo or the Gobi desert. I don’t think we want to risk Blount being let loose on society again. The other things won’t be brought up against him at his trial, but between ourselves and strictly off the record, I haven’t the slightest doubt that he contrived the accidents which removed his father and his first wife. And as you know, the attempt upon his present wife came within an ace of succeeding. He used a footrule to push her with, one of those folding ones, and he probably employed the same technique in the first wife’s case. She fell under a train, and he was supposed to be somewhere else at the time so he got away with it. But this time I think we’ve got him. Of course you never can tell with juries. But I can’t see twelve ordinary people having any reasonable doubt that Mrs Graham disturbed him when he was going over the ground with his divining rod. She took him for Carey, which was natural enough, and called out using Carey’s name. He tried to stop her and – succeeded. When Mrs Harrison came on the scene looking for Worple I think she had the world’s narrowest escape. However by that time I expect Blount’s nerve wasn’t so good. He must have heard Mrs Traill run down to the corner. She was frightened when she heard Mrs Graham call out. And she ran for the bus, but he wasn’t to know that. He wasn’t to know how much she had heard, or whether she wouldn’t start to scream and give the alarm. Then he heard the bus and waited to let it go by. And when Mrs Harrison came along all he wanted was to get away, so he blundered past her, knocking her over. Then he tripped at the step coming down into the back yard and lost his divining rod. Definitely his luck was out. And on the top of all that he talks in his sleep and his wife hears what he says. It must have been a bit of a jolt. He has probably been thinking of getting rid of her for some time. Now it’s a case of needs must and the sooner the better. He takes her down to Cleat, ropes in his respectable aunt who can’t say enough about his kindness to his wife, and prepares for another fatal accident. This time there would have been a perfectly good suicide motive. He must have thought the plan completely watertight. But I don’t think he is going to get the chance of murdering anyone else.’

He shook hands all round and departed with Detective Inspector Sharp. Miss Silver following them out of the room, he had a word with her at the door.

‘You will be giving the bride away?’

A look reproved him.

‘It will naturally be an extremely quiet wedding.’

There was a sparkle in the cool blue eyes.

‘ “The bride wore crape and a mourning wreath”?’

Miss Silver said composedly,

‘No one has worn crape for at least the last forty years.’

‘My dear ma’am, you know everything! I withdraw the crape. I like Carey, but I don’t suppose we shall ever come across each other again. I shouldn’t have cared to have had to arrest him, but you know it very nearly happened. When do you go back to Montague Mansions?’

‘Althea would like me to stay and see her married. I do not feel that she should be here alone.’

‘Will you be back by Sunday? And if you are, may I come to tea?’

Miss Silver smiled indulgently.

‘Hannah tells me we have had a delightful gift of honey in the comb from Mrs Rafe Jerningham. She will make you some of her special scones to eat it with.’

Althea and Nicholas stood together in the drawing-room. Both his arms were round her as he said,

‘When are we going to get married, Allie?’

She answered him in a soft, trembling voice.

‘I don’t know. I think we ought to wait.’

He said grimly,

‘Another five years? You had better think again. I want to take you away and look after you.’

She said,

‘Away?’

He nodded.

‘Somewhere where nobody has ever heard of Grove Hill. Spain if you don’t mind trains and buses that don’t arrive, and plumbing that doesn’t work.’

‘I’m not passionate about them. Did you think I would be?’

He laughed.

‘I thought perhaps a plunge into the Middle Ages would be a complete change. But I tell you what, we can start off in the South of France and just wander. If you know the ropes it can be done very agreeably. And we needn’t make any plans. When we’ve had enough of one place we can go to another. Now that I’m not going to be arrested, I’ll get a car. A chap I know is selling an Austin which has only done four or five thousand miles. He’s going to America, and I can have it any time I like. So what about getting married on Thursday?’

Althea looked up at him. There was something she was going to say, but it didn’t get said. It came over her in a rush of feeling that yesterday was gone – that all the yesterdays of the last five years were gone, and that nothing and nobody could bring them back again. They had been dreary and endless in the living. They had dragged upon their way and halted on their going, and at the end they had gone out in tragedy and terror. There had been enough of them and to spare. They were done, they were over, they were gone, and she and Nicky were free. They were together and they were free. She looked up at him, and she said, ‘Yes – yes – yes.’

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