The Benevent Treasure

The evening passed as such evenings do. There was a meal prepared by A

Later Miss Silver had an opportunity of talking to A

Derek also obliged with every appearance of frankness. Talking had never presented any difficulties to him, and like so many other people he found Miss Maud Silver quite extraordinarily easy to talk to. She listened, she made sympathetic reply, she maintained an interested and encouraging ma

The opportunity for a conversation with Candida Sayle came when they went upstairs together at the end of the evening. To Candida it seemed as if the hours of that day had become lengthened out like shadows seen at sunset, until the time before she knew that Miss Cara was dead appeared to be indefinitely removed from this moment when she went with Miss Silver into her room and hoped that she had everything she wanted. Any hostess to any guest – But Miss Silver’s response was not quite that of any guest to any hostess. She laid a hand on Candida’s arm and said in her kindest voice,

‘Oh, yes, indeed. But I am just wondering whether you are too tired to give me the opportunity of talking to you for a little.’

Colour came into Candida’s face. She had a quick realisation that the pressure of her own thoughts was no longer to be endured. With Stephen gone, there was no one to whom she could unburden herself – unless it was to this stranger. She said,

‘No, no, of course not. It was so very good of you to come. I wouldn’t have asked you, but Stephen just did it. He said I couldn’t stay here alone – it would make talk. You see, none of us knew what Aunt Olivia was going to do until she had done it. At least Joseph and A

Miss Silver had seated herself. Candida took the chair on the other side of the fire and leaned forward.

‘Stephen says you know a good deal already – about my aunts, and Alan Thompson, and everything. It all seems to go a long way back.’

Miss Silver had taken up her knitting. A grey stocking depended from the needles. It was the last of the set, and it was nearly finished. She said,

‘It is always difficult to know where things begin. There are causes which lie a very long way back. There are jealousies, resentments, hatreds, which have their roots in the remote past.’

Something in Candida answered this. It was like the string of a musical instrument which trembles in response to a distant note. She said, ‘Yes,’ and found what so many had found, that it was easier to talk to Miss Silver than it was to hold things back. She told her about Barbara, about coming here to stay, about meeting Stephen again – ‘You know, he really did save my life once long ago.’ And so on, through the time of her visit down to the last few days.

Miss Silver sat there and knitted. Sometimes she asked a question, but for the most part she was silent. Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard, a devoted admirer, has said of her that ‘she knows people’. He has also observed that as far as she is concerned the human race is glass-fronted – ‘She sees right through them.’ But then it is, of course, notorious that he sometimes indulges himself in an extravagant way of speaking. Certainly it was not only Candida’s words which received attention, but every change in her expression, every inflection of her voice, every variation in the ma

The scene outside Miss Cara’s door after the return from the Deanery party was gone over with the closest interest. Candida spoke quite steadily.

‘A

Miss Silver had not been unaware of the slight remaining traces of that blow. She said, ‘Dear me!’

Candida went on.

‘She hates me, you know, but even so, I think she must be mad. She has told Inspector Rock that she struck me because I said Aunt Cara was old and would die soon anyhow. She must be mad to say a thing like that, even if she does hate me.’

‘Why should she hate you, my dear?’

‘Because of Underhill and the money. Aunt Cara told me about a dreadful thing she said when her sister Candida died -she was my grandmother, and I was called after her. She died about the same time as their father, and when the lawyer told Aunt Olivia that my grandmother’s children would have everything after Aunt Cara she said that Candida was dead and she hoped her children would die too, and then she would come into her own.’

‘That was a dreadful thing to say.’

‘Aunt Cara cried about it. You know, they looked so much alike, but they weren’t really. Aunt Cara was just a frightened little thing – she had been bullied all her life. But she was kind, and deep down inside her she wanted someone to be fond of. She was dreadfully unhappy about Alan Thompson. You know about him, don’t you?’

Miss Silver might have said a good deal upon this point, but she contented herself with a simple, ‘Yes.’

Candida went on telling her things – Nellie waking up with a cold hand touching her face and something that went crying through the room.

‘And she wouldn’t stay after that. She went in with A