The Benevent Treasure (Miss Silver Mystery) [Paperback]

This case, however, experiments with a different formula: the obvious candidate for the part of Intended Victim is the female romantic lead, Candida Sayle, and the story opens with her first meeting with Stephen Eversley under circumstances ensuring that the two will get to know each other very well, very quickly. Candida, having been misled by two fellow guests about the time high tide is due during a visit to the seaside, is trapped halfway up a cliff. Stephen, hearing her cry for help and seeing that she can't hang on long enough to bring in a rescue party, helps her onto a safer ledge, although they'll be trapped there until daylight makes it possible to finish the climb to safety. The unusually mature 15-year-old and the young architect talk of many things, and become firm friends, although they aren't to see each other again for several years. Among other things, Stephen learns of the two old ladies who, meeting Candida while signing the hotel register, told her that high tide was two hours later than it really was. While she doesn't then learn their identities, he does, although they don't pool their information until their next meeting. After all, it must have been carelessness rather than malice - why would two strangers want to endanger a 15-year-old girl?

Five years later, Candida's guardian - her father's sister - dies after a long illness, leaving Candida without savings and without proper training for a job, so a letter from Candida's great-aunt Olivia Benevent offering the hospitality of Underhill, the family home, is a windfall, as well as an end to an old family quarrel. Candida's grandmother and namesake was the second of three sisters, and the only one to defy her father with an "unsuitable" marriage - or any marriage, come to that. The others, Cara and Olivia, remained under the tyrant's thumb, and to this day subscribe to his old standards. Cara can't stand up for herself at all after so many years of oppression, while Olivia has herself become a tinpot dictator. When Candida learns that Stephen by chance is the architect engaged to check over Underhill for problems and reopens their relationship as a meeting between equals, it doesn't suit Olivia's plans at all: Stephen is "in trade", and more importantly, the Benevents' easygoing secretary Derek would be under Olivia's thumb if *he* caught Candida's eye.

For under the terms of their grandfather's will, the Benevent estate, including the mysterious treasure Ugo di Benevento brought with him when establishing the family's fortunes in England centuries ago, is entailed, and *Cara*, not Olivia, is the eldest. If she dies, Candida is her heir. Olivia controls the estate through her dominance of Cara, but Cara has no power to make over any of the capital; at most, she could appoint a life interest to a husband, but not to a sister. Indeed, Cara loved Derek's predecessor Alan enough to consider taking that step despite the difference in their ages, until Alan - and some valuable jewelry - vanished three years ago.

Maud Silver enters the story because Alan's stepfather has heard a rumor that Alan may have been innocent of the crime that broke his mother's heart, and he regrets that they accepted the Benevents' accusation without giving Alan a hearing. Encountering Maud on a train, bound for the Underhill area on family business, he persuades her to look into the matter.

The story is beautifully constructed, in more ways than just Wentworth's excellent character development. When the ancient house proves to contain secret passages, only an architect could be expected to uncover them - and Stephen's profession was established when his character was first introduced. We not only learn a lot of Benevent family history through Olivia's exposition, but see a light thrown on her character: that of a domineering woman who talks on and on to a girl who's been sleepless at a deathbed and its aftermath for weeks, and has just made a long journey. Although the pacing suffers somewhat when the various exposition passages appear, they can be justified by various story elements - for instance, Derek's job is to help prepare a history for the family-proud Benevents. Derek is realistically drawn - he's already got a girl, and while he's willing to mislead the Benevents about where his interests lie, he's not going to marry on their say-so, whatever Olivia thinks. The Benevent servants are a variation on a recurring pattern: a workingman who married his wife for her money. However, they're unique; in this case, he's morally suspect but not weak, and she manipulates her own relatives with the promise of inheritance.