The Red House Mystery
from Australia. I give you warning, so that you will be able to conceal
your surprise but not I hope your pleasure. Expect him at three or
thereabouts.”_
“No date mentioned, you see,” said Antony. “Just to-morrow.”
“But he got this on Tuesday.”
“Did he?”
“Well, he read it out to us on Tuesday.”
“Oh, yes! he read it out to you.”
Bill read the letter again, and then turned it over and looked at the
back of it. The back of it had nothing to say to him.
“What about the postmark?” he asked.
“We haven’t got the envelope, unfortunately.”
“And you think that he got this letter on Monday.”
“I’m inclined to think so, Bill. Anyhow, I think—I feel almost
certain—that he knew on Monday that his brother was coming.”
“Is that going to help us much?”
“No. It makes it more difficult. There’s something rather uncanny about
it all. I don’t understand it.” He was silent for a little, and then
added, “I wonder if the inquest is going to help us.
“What about last night? I’m longing to hear what you make of that. Have
you been thinking it out at all?”
“Last night,” said Antony thoughtfully to himself. “Yes, last night
wants some explaining.”
Bill waited hopefully for him to explain. What, for instance, had
Antony been looking for in the cupboard?
“I think,” began Antony slowly, “that after last night we must give up
the idea that Mark has been killed; killed, I mean, by Cayley. I don’t
believe anybody would go to so much trouble to hide a suit of clothes
when he had a body on his hands. The body would seem so much more
important. I think we may take it now that the clothes are all that
Cayley had to hide.”
“But why not have kept them in the passage?”
“He was frightened of the passage. Miss Norris knew about it.”
“Well, then, in his own bedroom, or even, in Mark’s. For all you or I
or anybody knew, Mark might have had two brown suits. He probably had,
I should think.”
“Probably. But I doubt if that would reassure Cayley. The brown suit
hid a secret, and therefore the brown suit had to be hidden. We all
know that in theory the safest hiding-place is the most obvious, but in
practice very few people have the nerve to risk it.”
Bill looked rather disappointed.
“Then we just come back to where we were,” he complained. “Mark killed
his brother, and Cayley helped him to escape through the passage;
either in order to compromise him, or because there was no other way
out of it. And he helped him by telling a lie about his brown suit.”
Antony smiled at him in genuine amusement.
“Bad luck, Bill,” he said sympathetically. “There’s only one murder,
after all. I’m awfully sorry about it. It was my fault for—”
“Shut up, you ass. You know I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, you seemed awfully disappointed.”
Bill said nothing for a little, and then with a sudden laugh confessed.
“It was so exciting yesterday,” he said apologetically, “and we seemed
to be just getting there, and discovering the most wonderful things,
and now—”
“And now?”
“Well, it’s so much more ordinary.”
Antony gave a shout of laughter.
“Ordinary!” he cried. “Ordinary! Well, I’m dashed! Ordinary! If only
_one_ thing would happen in an ordinary way, we might do something, but
_everything_ is ridiculous.”
Bill brightened up again.
“Ridiculous? How?”
“Every way. Take those ridiculous clothes we found last night. You can
explain the brown suit, but why the under clothes. You can explain the
underclothes in some absurd way, if you like—you can say that Mark
always changed his underclothes whenever he interviewed anybody from
Australia—but why, in that case, my dear Watson, _why_ didn’t he change
his collar?”
“His collar?” said Bill in amazement.
“His collar, Watson.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And it’s all so ordinary,” scoffed Antony.
“Sorry, Tony, I didn’t mean that. Tell me about the collar.”
“Well, that’s all. There was no collar in the bag last night. Shirt,
socks, tie—everything except a collar. Why?”
“Was that what you were looking for in the cupboard?” said Bill
eagerly.
“Of course. ‘Why no collar?’ I said. For some reason Cayley considered
it necessary to hide all Mark’s clothes; not just the suit, but
everything which he was wearing, or supposed to be wearing, at the time
of the murder. But he hadn’t hidden the collar. Why? Had he left it out
by mistake? So I looked in the cupboard. It wasn’t there. Had he left
it out on purpose? If so, why?—and where was it? Naturally I began to
say to myself, ‘Where have I seen a collar lately? A collar all by
itself?’ And I remembered—what, Bill?”
Bill frowned heavily to himself, and shook his head.
“Don’t ask me, Tony. I can’t—By Jove!” He threw up his head, “In the
basket in the office bedroom!”
“Exactly.”
“But is that the one?”
“The one that goes with the rest of the clothes? I don’t know. Where
else can it be? But if so, why send the collar quite casually to the
wash in the ordinary way, and take immense trouble to hide everything
else? Why, why, why?”
Bill bit hard at his pipe, but could think of nothing to say.
“Anyhow,” said Antony, getting up restlessly, “I’m certain of one
thing. Mark knew on the Monday that Robert was coming here.”
CHAPTER XIX.
The Inquest
The Coroner, having made a few commonplace remarks as to the terrible
nature of the tragedy which they had come to investigate that
afternoon, proceeded to outline the case to the jury. Witnesses would
be called to identify the deceased as Robert Ablett, the brother of the
owner of the Red House, Mark Ablett. It would be shown that he was
something of a ne’er-do-well, who had spent most of his life in
Australia, and that he had announced, in what might almost be called a
threatening letter, his intention of visiting his brother that
afternoon. There would be evidence of his arrival, of his being shown
into the scene of the tragedy—a room in the Red House, commonly called
“the office”—and of his brother’s entrance into that room. The jury
would have to form their own opinion as to what happened there. But
whatever happened, happened almost instantaneously. Within two minutes
of Mark Ablett’s entrance, as would be shown in the evidence, a shot
was heard, and when—perhaps five minutes later—the room was forced
open, the dead body of Robert Ablett was found stretched upon the
floor. As regards Mark Ablett, nobody had seen him from the moment of
his going into the room, but evidence would be called to show that he
had enough money on him at the time to take him to any other part of
the country, and that a man answering to his description had been
observed on the platform of Stanton station, apparently waiting to
catch the 3.55 up train to London. As the jury would realize, such
evidence of identity was not always reliable. Missing men had a way of
being seen in a dozen different places at once. In any case, there was
no doubt that for the moment Mark Ablett had disappeared.
“Seems a sound man,” whispered Antony to Bill. “Doesn’t talk too much.”
Antony did not expect to learn much from the evidence—he knew the facts
of the case so well by now—but he wondered if Inspector Birch had
developed any new theories. If so, they would appear in the Coroner’s
examination, for the Coroner would certainly have been coached by the
police as to the important facts to be extracted from each witness.
Bill was the first to be put through it.
“Now, about this letter, Mr. Beverley?” he was asked when his chief
evidence was over. “Did you see it at all?”
“I didn’t see the actual writing. I saw the back of it. Mark was
holding it up when he told us about his brother.”
“You don’t know what was in it, then?”
Bill had a sudden shock. He had read the letter only that morning. He
knew quite well what was in it. But it wouldn’t do to admit this. And
then, just as he was about to perjure himself, he remembered: Antony
had heard Cayley telling the Inspector.
“I knew afterwards. I was told. But Mark didn’t read it out at
breakfast.”
“You gathered, however, that it was an unwelcome letter?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Would you say that Mark was frightened by it?”
“Not frightened. Sort of bitter—and resigned. Sort of ‘Oh, Lord, here
we are again!’”
There was a titter here and there. The Coroner smiled, and tried to
pretend that he hadn’t.
“Thank you, Mr. Beverley.”
The next witness was summoned by the name of Andrew Amos, and Antony
looked up with interest, wondering who he was.
“He lives at the inner lodge,” whispered Bill to him.
All that Amos had to say was that a stranger had passed by his lodge at
a little before three that afternoon, and had spoken to him. He had
seen the body and recognized it as the man.
“What did he say?”
“‘Is this right for the Red House?’ or something like that, sir.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘This is the Red House. Who do you want to see?’ He was a bit
rough-looking, you know, sir, and I didn’t know what he was doing
there.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, he said, ‘Is Mister Mark Ablett at home?’ It doesn’t sound
much put like that, sir, but I didn’t care about the way he said it. So
I got in front of him like, and said, ‘What do you want, eh?’ and he
gave a sort of chuckle and said, ‘I want to see my dear brother Mark.’
Well, then I took a closer look at him, and I see that p’raps he might
be his brother, so I said, ‘If you’ll follow the drive, sir, you’ll
come to the house. Of course I can’t say if Mr. Ablett’s at home.’ And
he gave a sort of nasty laugh again, and said, ‘Fine place Mister Mark
Ablett’s got here. Plenty of money to spend, eh?’ Well, then I had
another look at him, sir, because gentlemen don’t talk like that, and
if he was Mr. Ablett’s brother—but before I could make up my mind, he
laughed and went on. That’s all I can tell you, sir.”
Andrew Amos stepped down and moved away to the back of the room, nor
did Antony take his eyes off him until he was assured that Amos
intended to remain there until the inquest was over.
“Who’s Amos talking to now?” he whispered to Bill.
“Parsons. One of the gardeners. He’s at the outside lodge on the
Stanton road. They’re all here to-day. Sort of holiday for ’em.”
“I wonder if he’s giving evidence too,” thought Antony. He was. He
followed Amos. He had been at work on the lawn in front of the house,
and had seen Robert Ablett arrive. He didn’t hear the shot—not to
notice. He was a little hard of hearing. He had seen a gentleman arrive
about five minutes after Mr. Robert.
“Can you see him in court now?” asked the Coroner. Parsons looked round
slowly. Antony caught his eye and smiled.
“That’s him,” said Parsons, pointing.
Everybody looked at Antony.
“That was about five minutes afterwards?”
“About that, sir.”
“Did anybody come out of the house before this gentleman’s arrival?”
“No, sir. That is to say I didn’t see ’em.”
Stevens followed. She gave her evidence much as she had given it to the
Inspector. Nothing new was brought out by her examination. Then came
Elsie. As the reporters scribbled down what she had overheard, they
added in brackets “_Sensation_” for the first time that afternoon.
“How soon after you had heard this did the shot come?” asked the
Coroner.
“Almost at once, sir.”
“A minute?”
“I couldn’t really say, sir. It was so quick.”
“Were you still in the hall?”
“Oh, no, sir. I was just outside Mrs. Stevens’ room. The housekeeper,
sir.”
“You didn’t think of going back to the hall to see what had happened?”
“Oh, no, sir. I just went in to Mrs. Stevens, and she said, ‘Oh, what
was that?’ frightened-like. And I said, ‘That was in the house, Mrs.
Stevens, that was.’ Just like something going off, it was.”
“Thank you,” said the Coroner.
There was another emotional disturbance in the room as Cayley went into