The Red House Mystery
it was would have heard their voices, and would probably think it worth
while to listen to what they were saying. He might do this merely by
opening the door a little without showing himself, in which case Antony
would have found the entrance to the passage without any trouble to
himself. But when Bill turned his head and talked over the back of the
seat, it was probable that the listener would find it necessary to put
his head outside in order to hear, and then Antony would be able to
discover who it was. Moreover, if he should venture out of his
hiding-place altogether and peep at them over the top of the bank, the
fact that Bill was talking over the back of the seat would mislead the
watcher into thinking that Antony was still there, sitting on the
grass, no doubt, behind the seat, swinging his legs over the side of
the ditch.
He walked quickly but very silently along the half-length of the
bowling-green to the first corner, passed cautiously round, and then
went even more carefully along the width of it to the second corner. He
could hear Bill hard at it, arguing from his knowledge of Mark’s
character that this, that and the other must have happened, and he
smiled appreciatively to himself. Bill was a great conspirator worth a
hundred Watsons. As he approached the second corner he slowed down, and
did the last few yards on hands and knees. Then, lying at full length,
inch by inch his head went round the corner.
The shed was two or three yards to his left, on the opposite side of
the ditch. From where he lay he could see almost entirely inside it.
Everything seemed to be as they left it. The bowls-box, the lawn-mower,
the roller, the open croquet-box, the—
“By Jove!” said Antony to himself, “that’s neat.”
The lid of the other croquet-box was open, too. Bill was turning round
now; his voice became more difficult to hear. “You see what I mean,” he
was saying. “If Cayley—”
And out of the second croquet-box came Cayley’s black head.
Antony wanted to shout his applause. It was neat, devilish neat. For a
moment he gazed, fascinated, at that wonderful new kind of croquet-ball
which had appeared so dramatically out of the box, and then reluctantly
wriggled himself back. There was nothing to be gained by staying there,
and a good deal to be lost, for Bill showed signs of running down. As
quickly as he could Antony hurried round the ditch and took up his
place at the back of the seat. Then he stood up with a yawn, stretched
himself and said carelessly, “Well, don’t worry yourself about it,
Bill, old man. I daresay you’re right. You know Mark, and I don’t; and
that’s the difference. Shall we have a game or shall we go to bed?”
Bill looked at him for inspiration, and, receiving it, said, “Oh, just
let’s have one game, shall we?”
“Right you are,” said Antony.
But Bill was much too excited to take the game which followed very
seriously. Antony, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking of nothing
but bowls. He played with great deliberation for ten minutes, and then
announced that he was going to bed. Bill looked at him anxiously.
“It’s all right,” laughed Antony. “You can talk if you want to. Just
let’s put ’em away first, though.”
They made their way down to the shed, and while Bill was putting the
bowls away, Antony tried the lid of the closed croquet-box. As he
expected, it was locked.
“Now then,” said Bill, as they were walking back to the house again,
“I’m simply bursting to know. Who was it?”
“Cayley.”
“Good Lord! Where?”
“Inside one of the croquet-boxes.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“It’s quite true, Bill.” He told the other what he had seen.
“But aren’t we going to have a look at it?” asked Bill, in great
disappointment. “I’m longing to explore. Aren’t you?”
“To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow. We shall see Cayley coming
along this way directly. Besides, I want to get in from the other end,
if I can. I doubt very much if we can do it this end without giving
ourselves away. Look, there’s Cayley.”
They could see him coming along the drive towards them. When they were
a little closer, they waved to him and he waved back.
“I wondered where you were,” he said, as he got up to them. “I rather
thought you might be along this way. What about bed?”
“Bed it is,” said Antony.
“We’ve been playing bowls,” added Bill, “and talking, and—and playing
bowls. Ripping night, isn’t it?”
But he left the rest of the conversation, as they wandered back to the
house, to Antony. He wanted to think. There seemed to be no doubt now
that Cayley was a villain. Bill had never been familiar with a villain
before. It didn’t seem quite fair of Cayley, somehow; he was taking
rather a mean advantage of his friends. Lot of funny people there were
in the world—funny people with secrets. Look at Tony, that first time
he had met him in a tobacconist’s shop. Anybody would have thought he
was a tobacconist’s assistant. And Cayley. Anybody would have thought
that Cayley was an ordinary decent sort of person. And Mark. Dash it!
one could never be sure of anybody. Now, Robert was different.
Everybody had always said that Robert was a shady fellow.
But what on earth had Miss Norris got to do with it? What had Miss
Norris got to do with it? This was a question which Antony had already
asked himself that afternoon, and it seemed to him now that he had
found the answer. As he lay in bed that night he reassembled his ideas,
and looked at them in the new light which the events of the evening
threw upon the dark corners in his brain.
Of course it was natural that Cayley should want to get rid of his
guests as soon as the tragedy was discovered. He would want this for
their own sake as well as for his. But he had been a little too quick
about suggesting it, and about seeing the suggestion carried out. They
had been bustled off as soon as they could be packed. The suggestion
that they were in his hands, to go or stay as he wished, could have
been left safely to them. As it was, they had been given no
alternative, and Miss Norris, who had proposed to catch an after-dinner
train at the junction, in the obvious hope that she might have in this
way a dramatic cross-examination at the hands of some keen-eyed
detective, was encouraged tactfully, but quite firmly, to travel by the
earlier train with the others. Antony had felt that Cayley, in the
tragedy which had suddenly befallen the house, ought to have been
equally indifferent to her presence or absence. But he was not; and
Antony assumed from this that Cayley was very much alive to the
necessity for her absence.
Why?
Well, that question was not to be answered off-hand. But the fact that
it was so had made Antony interested in her; and it was for this reason
that he had followed up so alertly Bill’s casual mention of her in
connection with the dressing-up business. He felt that he wanted to
know a little more about Miss Norris and the part she had played in the
Red House circle. By sheer luck, as it seemed to him, he had stumbled
on the answer to his question.
Miss Norris was hurried away because she knew about the secret passage.
The passage, then, had something to do with the mystery of Robert’s
death. Miss Norris had used it in order to bring off her dramatic
appearance as the ghost. Possibly she had discovered it for herself;
possibly Mark had revealed it to her secretly one day, never guessing
that she would make so unkind a use of it later on; possibly Cayley,
having been let into the joke of the dressing-up, had shown her how she
could make her appearance on the bowling-green even more mysterious and
supernatural. One way or another, she knew about the secret passage. So
she must be hurried away.
Why? Because if she stayed and talked, she might make some innocent
mention of it. And Cayley did not want any mention of it.
Why, again? Obviously because the passage, or even the mere knowledge
of its existence, might provide a clue.
“I wonder if Mark’s hiding there,” thought Antony; and he went to
sleep.
CHAPTER X.
Mr. Gillingham Talks Nonsense
Antony came down in a very good humour to breakfast next morning, and
found that his host was before him. Cayley looked up from his letters
and nodded.
“Any word of Mr. Ablett—of Mark?” said Antony, as he poured out his
coffee.
“No. The inspector wants to drag the lake this afternoon.”
“Oh! Is there a lake?”
There was just the flicker of a smile on Cayley’s face, but it
disappeared as quickly as it came.
“Well, it’s really a pond,” he said, “but it was called ‘the lake.’”
“By Mark,” thought Antony. Aloud he said, “What do they expect to
find?”
“They think that Mark—” He broke off and shrugged his shoulders.
“May have drowned himself, knowing that he couldn’t get away? And
knowing that he had compromised himself by trying to get away at all?”
“Yes; I suppose so,” said Cayley slowly.
“I should have thought he would have given himself more of a run for
his money. After all, he had a revolver. If he was determined not to be
taken alive, he could always have prevented that. Couldn’t he have
caught a train to London before the police knew anything about it?”
“He might just have managed it. There _was_ a train. They would have
noticed him at Woodham, of course, but he might have managed it at
Stanton. He’s not so well-known there, naturally. The inspector has
been inquiring. Nobody seems to have seen him.”
“There are sure to be people who will say they did, later on. There was
never a missing man yet but a dozen people come forward who swear to
have seen him at a dozen different places at the same time.”
Cayley smiled.
“Yes. That’s true. Anyhow, he wants to drag the pond first.” He added
dryly, “From what I’ve read of detective stories, inspectors always do
want to drag the pond first.”
“Is it deep?”
“Quite deep enough,” said Cayley as he got up. On his way to the door
he stopped, and looked at Antony. “I’m so sorry that we’re keeping you
here like this, but it will only be until to-morrow. The inquest is
to-morrow afternoon. Do amuse yourself how you like till then. Beverley
will look after you.”
“Thanks very much. I shall really be quite all right.”
Antony went on with his breakfast. Perhaps it was true that inspectors
liked dragging ponds, but the question was, did Cayleys like having
them dragged? Was Cayley anxious about it, or quite indifferent? He
certainly did not seem to be anxious, but he could hide his feelings
very easily beneath that heavy, solid face, and it was not often that
the real Cayley peeped out. Just a little too eager once or twice,
perhaps, but there was nothing to be learnt from it this morning.
Perhaps he knew that the pond had no secrets to give up. After all,
inspectors were always dragging ponds.
Bill came in noisily.
Bill’s face was an open book. Excitement was written all over it.
“Well,” he said eagerly, as he sat down to the business of the meal,
“what are we going to do this morning?”
“Not talk so loudly, for one thing,” said Antony. Bill looked about him
apprehensively. Was Cayley under the table, for example? After last
night one never knew.
“Is—er——” He raised his eyebrows.
“No. But one doesn’t want to shout. One should modulate the voice, my
dear William, while breathing gently from the hips. Thus one avoids
those chest-notes which have betrayed many a secret. In other words,
pass the toast.”
“You seem bright this morning.”
“I am. Very bright. Cayley noticed it. Cayley said, ‘Were it not that I
have other business, I would come gathering nuts and may with thee.
Fain would I gyrate round the mulberry-bush and hop upon the little
hills. But the waters of Jordan encompass me and Inspector Birch
tarries outside with his shrimping-net. My friend William Beverley will