Miss Silver gave the candle into his hand and stepped to the door. Her eye met Frank Abbott’s. She noted with approval that he and Inspector Crisp stood side by side between the rest of the party and the back stair, and that Willis had cropped up again and was on the other side of the group. Mildred Taverner was sobbing audibly. Jane had her hand on Jeremy’s arm. Geoffrey Taverner was leaning forward to see what was happening inside the linen-room, his expression one of vexation and surprise.
The Castells stood side by side, he for the moment silent, she with her hands at her apron, pinching the stuff into pleats and letting it go-the same action mechanically repeated over and over again. There was no expression on her face, but the pale skin glistened with sweat.
As Miss Silver turned back to the linen-room, something very strange was happening. John Higgins had set the candle down upon the floor. He was using both his hands to move something under the left-hand bottom shelf, and as he pulled on it it did move, and the whole shelf with it, pivoting round so that one end of the shelf with a double pile of pillow-cases stuck out across the door and the other end went back and disappeared into the wall. There was left a gap some three feet wide and just over three feet high.
John Higgins reached for the candle and went forward through the gap. Miss Silver nodded to Jeremy Taverner and stood back to let him pass.
Outside in the passage Castell gave a roar like a bull and plunged for the stairs, to come down with a crash as Frank Abbott tripped him. During the ensuing struggle Annie Castell did not turn her head. She looked down at her apron and pleated it-four pleats and let it go, and four pleats and let it go again.
Mildred Taverner screamed when the shelf swung in. She said,
“Oh, that’s what he saw! Oh, no wonder it frightened him, poor little boy-the hole in the wall and the light coming out of it! Oh-”
Geoffrey said, “Be quiet!” He leaned forward and listened. The light was receding now. The sound of footsteps was receding, going down an unseen stair which followed the line of the one which they could see.
Castell was handcuffed. He lay cursing vociferously. Crisp left him, ran to the linen-room, and so down after the others.
When Frank Abbott was about to follow him Miss Silver shook her head.
At the sound of those feet upon the stair Eily opened her eyes again. She could see nothing except the rough plastered roof and walls of the place where she lay. And then Luke White came into view, bending to pick her up. She tried again, most horribly, to scream. The effort sent the blood against her ear-drums, deafening them. She felt that she was dropped, her head bruised against the floor. And then her hearing came back, and there were voices-Luke White’s-“Fight for her then!” and John’s, cursing him. At least it sounded like a curse, and even at that moment it surprised her a good deal. She heard them clash somewhere behind her just out of sight, and the sound of a fall, and more running steps and voices, and quite a lot more cursing, only this time it wasn’t John.
And then John was undoing the bandage and taking the gag out of her mouth, and her tongue was sore and bruised, and she began to cry.
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.