Miss Columba stood by in silence until her guest turned away.
When Miss Silver spoke, it was of Mrs. Robbins.
“Thirty years is a long time to be in the same family. She looks ill-”
“It is just her look.”
“And unhappy-”
“She has looked like that for a long time.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“May I enquire since when?”
“They had trouble. It was before the war.”
“What kind of trouble? Pray do not think me intrusive.”
“It has nothing to do with what has happened since. They lost their daughter, a pretty, clever girl.”
“She died?”
Miss Columba was frowning.
“No-she got into trouble and ran away. They couldn’t trace her. They felt it very much.”
“Who was the man?”
“They never knew.”
Miss Columba led the way resolutely to the next floor, where she unlocked the door of what had been Roger’s room and displayed a great mass of fallen plaster.
The geography of the house was extremely confusing. Besides the main staircase there were three others, steep, narrow, and winding. By one of these they presently descended to a stone-floored passage which led back into the hall by a door beneath the stairs.
Miss Silver looked up at the massive stone chimney-breast.
Everywhere else the walls were panelled, but the great chimney stood out in bare grey stone. Across it, deeply carved, ran the lettering of the verse which Roger Pilgrim had repeated:
“If Pilgrim fare upon the Pilgrims’ Way,
And leave his Rest, he’ll find nor rest nor stay.
Stay Pilgrim in thy Rest, or thou shalt find
Ill luck before, Death but one pace behind.”
Miss Columba said gruffly,
“Superstitious stuff. Some people believe in it.”
Then, turning abruptly, she walked towards the entrance and threw open the door nearest to it on the right. It was the dining-room, the same gloomy apartment in which they took their meals-door masked by a heavy screen, furniture all in the heavy Victorian style, two windows with an excellent view of a dark shrubbery and the high wall which screened the street, and two more at the end of the room more or less blocked by creepers but affording an occasional glimpse of huge old cypresses. Not an inspiriting room, and certainly not of any historical interest. Such of the walls as were not obscured by the towering furniture had been covered by a wall-paper once dark red but now almost indistinguishable from the surrounding wood. Upon this background two large trophies of arms were displayed, comprising pistols, rapiers, and daggers in variety.
Miss Columba opened a door which lurked in the shadow of an immense mahogany sideboard. Here they were in a stone passage again. Miss Columba pursued it until she came to a locked door. Diving into the pocket of her slacks, she produced the key and opened it. As soon as she did so the smell of burnt wood came out to mingle with the smell of damp which had caused Miss Silver to reflect upon the unfortunate fact that old houses really were deplorably unhygienic.
“This is where the fire was,” said Miss Columba.
For once it really was not necessary for her to speak at all.
Of the wooden pigeonholes which had once covered the walls only some charred pieces remained, but the walls, of the same stone as the passage, stood firm. The floor had been swept, the furniture removed. The place stood empty except for the smell of fire.
Miss Silver permitted herself to say, “Dear me!” After which Miss Columba locked the door and turned back.
A cross passage ran off in the direction of the kitchen premises. Just beyond it she opened another door and said,
“The lift room.”
It was square and quite unfurnished-bare stone walls and a bare stone floor, except where an old-fashioned handworked lift bulged out from the left-hand side. There was no window.
Miss Columba explained.
“This is the oldest part of the house. There was a spiral staircase going up to the next floor and down to the cellars. My father had it removed and the lift put in after he broke his hip in the hunting-field. It comes up just beyond the bedroom you are in, and he had it made to go right down to the cellars because he had some very fine wine, and he liked to be able to go down and look at it.”
“You have extensive cellars?”
“Oh, yes. That’s what keeps the house so dry. They are very old.”
“This is not the only entrance, I suppose?”
“No-there is a stair in the kitchen wing.”
They proceeded there, returning by way of the dining-room to the hall, and leaving it again by yet another long stone passage.
The kitchen premises were as large and inconvenient as is usual in old houses. There were innumerable rooms, many of them not in use, or devoted to mere collections of lumber. The kitchen itself spoke of the time when hospitality meant endless courses. Ghosts of the enormous meals of other days presented themselves to the imagination-dinner-parties where two kinds of soup were followed by a practically endless procession of fish, entrée, roast, birds, two kinds of sweets, a savoury, an ice, and finally dessert. After more than four years of war the ghosts had a somewhat shamefaced air. Miss Silver gazed at the range, and thought how large and inconvenient it was, and what a lot of work all these stone floors must make.
They came out of the kitchen and branched into another passage. Miss Columba opened a door and switched on the light.
“This is the way to the cellars. Do you wish to see them?”
If she hoped that Miss Silver would say no, she was disappointed. With a slight deepening of gloom she led the way down what was evidently a very old stair, the treads worn down and hollowed by generations of Pilgrims and their butlers visiting and tending that centre of hospitality, the wine-cellar.
“My grandfather was said to have some of the finest Madeira in England,” said Miss Columba. “All these cellars on the left were full in his day, but now there is only the one with any stock in it. I believe there is still a bottle or two of the Napoleon brandy. Roger should really go through the cellar-book with Robbins-it has not been checked up since his father died. But I can’t get him to take an interest. He likes a whisky and soda, but he always says he doesn’t know one kind of wine from another. I am a teetotaller, but my father had a very fine palate.”
As this was by far the longest speech she had heard Miss Columba make, Miss Silver was able to assess the importance of the wine-cellar as established by family tradition.
She was presently shown where the lift came down, and the hand-trolley was pointed out by means of which the wine could be transported without being handled or disturbed.
“It can be wheeled into the lift. You see, old wine must never be shaken. My father had these rubber-tyred wheels substituted for the old hard ones.”
The cellars were certainly very extensive. They branched off right and left from a central hall, the roof supported by pillars. Before the days of electric light it must have been unpleasantly dark. Even now there were heavily shadowed corners and a passage or two that rambled away into gloom. The air was still and warm, and the whole place wonderfully dry. Farther in, several of the cellars appeared to be full of discarded furniture. Others were piled with trunks and packing-cases.
“We have all Jerome’s things here, and my other nephew’s too.”
“Mr. Clayton?”
There was a little silence before Miss Columba said, “Yes.” She continued without any pause. “And of course my nephew Jack’s things. He is Roger’s brother. We have had no news of him since he was taken prisoner at Singapore.” Voice and manner set Henry Clayton aside from questioning.