‘And there was?’

She nodded.

‘Their names and their ages behind each of them. And this is how they went. Caroline aged seven and a half – Candida aged six – Olivia aged five. So you see, Olivia is the youngest. You’d never think it, would you?’

‘No, you wouldn’t. I expect she got spoilt, and it made her bossy.’

‘I don’t think anything makes you bossy – you just are. And there’s only two and a half years between the three of them. By the time they were grown up that would hardly make any difference at all, and now when they are old you can wash it right out.’

They went on talking about a lot of different things. Stephen’s work -

‘Nothing very exciting to be done, with all these restrictions on materials. It’s not very inspiring to be having to think how you can get five pounds off the cost, or where you can cut out half a dozen bricks or a foot or two of timber. And when you look at some of these old houses and see how lavish they were, it fairly makes your mouth water. Underhill is an interesting bit of patchwork. Those back rooms have practically never been touched. Actually, it is time they were. I’ve got a horrid suspicion there’s some dry rot knocking about, to say nothing of death-watch beetle in some of those old beams. By the way, they are very cagey about the cellars. Miss Olivia didn’t consider it would be necessary for me to inspect them, and when I said I couldn’t report on the foundations unless I did, she went all grande dame and nearly froze me to death. I stuck to it, and she took me down herself, attended by Joseph with a candelabrum. No electric light, though why they didn’t have it put in down there whilst they were about it I don’t know, and I had a feeling that I had better not ask. Anyhow, all I got was a cursory glance by candle-light and the conviction that I’d only been allowed to see what Miss Olivia chose. Do you suppose there’s a secret passage, and that they are afraid of my stumbling on the Benevent Treasure?’

Candida looked up with a startled widening of her dark blue eyes.

‘The Benevent Treasure?’

‘Haven’t you heard about it? Everyone in Retley has. There was an ancestor who ran away from Italy with the family plate and jewels in the seventeenth century. He or his son built the house, and the Treasure is supposed to be hidden in it somewhere. My informant is an old cousin of mine who lives here – the sort of old pet who knows all the stories about everyone in the county and has them patched together and embroidered on to a quite incredible extent. There isn’t a dull moment, but you can’t bring yourself to believe that any of it is really true. Which is just as well, because most of the stories are pretty scandalous. Amazing, isn’t it, how old ladies who have never done anything wrong in their lives can believe and repeat the most awful things about their neighbours.’

‘Does your cousin know the great-aunts?’

‘She knows everyone. Her father was a Canon at the Cathedral, and his father was a Bishop. It’s a sort of aristocracy of the Church, and the Miss Benevents condescended to a visiting acquaintance. My cousin’s name is Louisa Arnold. At the moment she is entertaining a female sleuth who is a relation on the other side of the family. I am bidden to sup with them tonight. I met her in the street, and she asked me at point-blank range. Bye the bye, she wants to know whether the Miss Benevents have ever had any news of Alan Thompson. He was their secretary before Derek took it on.’

Candida said, ‘Oh!’ And then, ‘Yes, I know! He ran away with some money and a diamond brooch, and nobody is supposed to mention him.’

‘But they mentioned him to you?’

‘No, it was Anna. She let it out, and then she said I mustn’t ever speak about it, because they had been dreadfully upset.’

‘Well, Louisa wanted to know if they’d had any news of him, because her sleuth, whose name is Maud Silver, had met an old boy in the train who said he was Alan Thompson’s stepfather and he was a good deal worried about him.’ He broke off to laugh. ‘It sounds a bit like “The stick began to beat the dog, the dog began to bite the pig, the little pig jumped over the stile, and so the old woman got home that night,” doesn’t it?’

Candida laughed too.

‘Can you say it all through? I used to be able to.’

‘I don’t know – that bit just came into my head. It works up to a butcher killing an ox and water quenching fire, as far as I remember. Anyhow, to get back to Alan Thompson’s stepfather, there’s a good deal of hush-hush about it all, but he wants to know whether anyone has ever heard anything since what may be called the official disappearance.’

‘I shouldn’t think so from what Anna said.’

‘Well, if you get an opportunity you might ask her. It must be tolerably unpleasant to have a relation disappear into the blue with a suspicion of theft tacked on to him.’

Stephen duly supped with Louisa Arnold, and was introduced to ‘My cousin, Miss Maud Silver’. It turned out to be a very distant connection indeed, and he had to listen while Miss Arnold traced it out through her mother’s step-brother’s marriage to a Miss Emily Silver who was first cousin once removed to Miss Maud Silver’s father. As all this information was embellished and diversified by a considerable fund of anecdotage, it took the most of the way through supper. There was an alarming story of the ghost seen by an uncle of the step-brother in question, an apparition so horrifying that he was never able to describe it, and its exact nature had therefore to be left to the imagination of the family. There was the romantic story of the step-sister who met and married a shy and tongue-tied young man and discovered on her return from the honeymoon that he was the heir to a baronetcy and a fortune. There were other beguiling tales.

Miss Silver, contenting herself with an occasional sensible remark, enjoyed the excellent food provided by Louisa Arnold’s cook, an old retainer inherited from the Canon, well up in years but still able to invest the post-war ration with the glamour of the now almost mythical years before the war.

It was not until after supper, when they had moved to a drawing-room cluttered with furniture and gazed upon by generations of family portraits, that Stephen found himself invited to a place on the sofa beside Miss Silver. She was wearing the dark blue crêpe-de-chine bought at the instance of her niece Ethel during a visit to Clifton-on-Sea. The price had shocked her, but, as Ethel had insisted, both the material and the cut were of a very superior nature, and she had never found herself able to regret the purchase. She had filled in the ‘V’ at the neck with a net front and wore to fasten it a brooch in fine mosaic which depicted an oriental building against a background of bright sky-blue. A work-bag lay between them, and she was engaged with four steel needles and a boy’s grey woollen stocking. It did not appear to be necessary for her to watch her work, for when Stephen addressed her she looked at him in a very direct manner. They were for the moment alone, Miss Arnold having disclaimed all offers of assistance and retired to make the coffee.

Stephen said, ‘I hear that you are anxious for news of Alan Thompson, but I am afraid that I have none to give you.’

Miss Silver gave the slight cough which indicated that she had a correction to make.

‘It is his step-father who is anxious for news of him. He thought it possible that the Miss Benevents might have heard something.’

‘If they have they don’t speak of it.’

Miss Silver pulled on a ball of grey wool.

‘There was a song which was very old-fashioned even when I was a girl. It began:

‘ “Oh, no, we never mention her,

Her name is never heard.

Our lips are now forbid to speak

That once familiar word.”

‘It would seem to describe the situation?’

He nodded.