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This old house had its secrets – and kept them. What was it that Cara Benevent went looking for, and by what hidden ways? And what was it that she had found? Death certainly. But death by accident – or by some sudden blow in the dark? And whose hands had lifted and carried her to where she was found at the foot of the stairs?
Miss Silver knitted steadily. As she turned the heel of Joh
Joseph Rossi and A
Derek Burdon. A pleasant, likeable young man – but pleasant, likeable young men have faced a capital charge before now. She recalled what she knew about him. He had succeeded Alan Thompson as the Miss Benevents’ protege – an easy life – almost nominal duties – money in his pocket. And then a sudden break. He had been quite frank about it himself. The Miss Benevents wanted him to marry Candida, and it didn’t suit either of them. She was engaged to Stephen Eversley, and he was engaged to Je
Miss Silver had looked at him in a very direct ma
She went on to the next name on her list – Olivia Benevent. The sister who had dominated Miss Cara since they were children. Louisa Arnold had talked about her a good deal. What Louisa said about people was not as a rule unkind, but she had had very little that was kind to say about Miss Obvia. She emerged as a ruthless and vindictive woman imposing her will upon the delicate elder sister, upon her father when he fell into ill health – in fact upon anyone who would allow himself to be dominated. ‘You know,’ Louisa had said, ‘I think that was partly why Cara was so foolish about Alan Thompson. He was someone she could talk to, if you know what I mean. He couldn’t take her part openly – he would have been afraid to do that – but from something she said to me once I think he used to back her up in private, and that it even got as far as her complaining to him about Olivia. It would be such a relief, you know. Why, sometimes she came very near doing it to me, so it shows she had got it on her mind.’
Miss Silver went back to these words and thought about them gravely. Had there come a moment when the delicate down-trodden sister had revolted and provoked some frightful loss of control? There were some grounds for supposing that a scene of this nature might have taken place. Miss Cara’s heart had been set upon Alan Thompson, and she had lost him. Just how he had been induced or forced to disappear was a mystery that had never been cleared up. That he should have risked a paltry theft when a few more days would have put him in a position to control Miss Cara’s entire fortune was difficult to believe. He might at the eleventh hour have recoiled from the prospect of an u
What had happened after that? No one knew except the woman who had shut and locked the door. Alan Thompson gone, Derek Burdon going, and Candida Sayle locked out. Had there been a scene between the sisters? There might have been, and it might have ended suddenly, terribly, with some act of violence. It was true that Olivia Benevent had everything to lose by her sister’s death, but the woman who had struck her young niece in the face, and had been so far carried beyond normal control as to accuse her of murder, might have been betrayed into some dreadful passionate act. The proverb which declares anger to be a brief madness presented itself. There were still darker possibilities. She regarded them steadily.
The last name to be considered was that of Candida Sayle.
She gave it the same scrupulously fair attention that she had given to the others.
Chapter Thirty
When she had said good night to Candida, Miss Silver went on sitting by the fire for some time. As she passed in review all the circumstances of the case, one point continually presented itself. However often she attempted to relegate it to a position of very little importance, she found that it persistently forced itself upon her attention. She would be considering the question of who among the household at Underhill could have lifted and carried Miss Cara to the place where she was found, when, pushing in upon her thought, would come this apparently irrelevant point. It cost her quite an effort to dismiss it and continue her train of thought. Joseph or A