Cost Price by Dornford Yates Page A

coming on in this scene.”
    But, while Ferrers and Palin made for the gallery, Mansel and I passed upstairs and so to the head of the steps down which Diana had come some thirteen hours before.
    As we descended quietly, footfalls rang in the passage and then came Ferrers’ voice.
    “This is the place, I am told, at which the carpet was found.”
    No answer was made, and presently Ferrers went on.
    “You asked to see this spot, which Mr Palin tells me you’ve seen before. Now that you’ve seen it again, is there anything else you want?”
    “ I am investigating. I desire to be left alone.”
    “In a house such as this, no stranger is left alone.”
    “I am of the police.”
    “That is why you were admitted. What else do you wish to see?”
    “You would be obstructive!” spat the Boche.
    There was a little silence.
    Then—
    “I asked you,” said Ferrers, coldly, “what else you wished to see.”
    That he should ignore the German’s offensive charge was more than the latter could bear. At least, so it seemed to me, for the fellow burst out in a voice which was shaken with rage.
    “Show me the hidden treasure for which these bandits came. They left alone your silver. They never entered a bedroom, in search of jewels. Your private safe was untouched. Why was that, Englishman? Because you know, as I do, they came for none of those things. They came for something greater – something which lies down here. Why did they want that carpet?”
    “ If that is your theory,” said Ferrers, “you’d better ask them. I never heard of a treasure lying within these walls – and I don’t believe there is one. I can explain the carpet no more than anyone else. I’ve no idea why they moved it.”
    “Because they required a carpet, to bring them to what they sought.”
    “So you say,” said Ferrers. “You may be right. The position is simply this – that so far as I am concerned, there is nothing gone. The police were summoned, because a man was found dead – not because the house had been entered, for there had been no theft.”
    “Why are you so sure there was no theft? Is your treasure still safe?”
    I heard Ferrers expire.
    “I have told you,” he said, “that there is no treasure here. If the thieves believed that there was, they made a mistake.”
    “And I tell you that thieves make no such mistakes.” This was, of course, perfectly true: and I could not help feeling that the German had scored a point.
    “As you please,” said Ferrers. “Perhaps they found the treasure and took it away.”
    “Of that there was no indication.”
    “So far as I understand, what indications there were are so many signposts pointing to nowhere at all.”
    “That is because you are obstructive.”
    For the second time Ferrers expired.
    “You have,” he said, “been admitted – more than once: you have been allowed–”
    “Allowed?”
    “–allowed to visit the place you desired to see. I don’t call that obstruction.”
    “Yet you refuse to disclose what it was the thieves sought.”
    “I have told you,” said Ferrers, “I don’t know what they sought. I don’t know why they came, and I don’t know why they went. I don’t know why one was murdered. I don’t know anything.”
    “Yet you withstand assistance. I find that strange.”
    “You have offered me no assistance. All you can do is to say that there’s treasure here.”
    “Which happens to be the answer to all that you are pretending you do not know.” I heard the man suck in his breath. “The day will come, Englishman, when–”
    “I think,” said Ferrers, “that you had better withdraw. This is a private house in Austria – not a prison cell in Germany.”
    “You would insult an officer of the Reich!”
    “Not at all. I prefer your absence to your presence. I don’t put it higher than that.”
    There was another silence.
    Then—
    “I go,” said the German. “I go, but I do not forget. One day I shall come back – and you will