The Red House Mystery
the witness-box; not “_Sensation_” this time, but an eager and, as it
seemed to Antony, sympathetic interest. Now they were getting to grips
with the drama.
He gave his evidence carefully, unemotionally—the lies with the same
slow deliberation as the truth. Antony watched him intently, wondering
what it was about him which had this odd sort of attractiveness. For
Antony, who knew that he was lying, and lying (as he believed) not for
Mark’s sake but his own, yet could not help sharing some of that
general sympathy with him.
“Was Mark ever in possession of a revolver?” asked the Coroner.
“Not to my knowledge. I think I should have known if he had been.”
“You were alone with him all that morning. Did he talk about this visit
of Robert’s at all?”
“I didn’t see very much of him in the morning. I was at work in my
room, and outside, and so on. We lunched together and he talked of it
then a little.”
“In what terms?”
“Well—” he hesitated, and then went on. “I can’t think of a better word
than ‘peevishly.’ Occasionally he said, ‘What do you think he wants?’
or ‘Why couldn’t he have stayed where he was?’ or ‘I don’t like the
tone of his letter. Do you think he means trouble?’ He talked rather in
that kind of way.”
“Did he express his surprise that his brother should be in England?”
“I think he was always afraid that he would turn up one day.”
“Yes.... You didn’t hear any conversation between the brothers when
they were in the office together?”
“No. I happened to go into the library just after Mark had gone in, and
I was there all the time.”
“Was the library door open?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Did you see or hear the last witness at all?”
“No.”
“If anybody had come out of the office while you were in the library,
would you have heard it?”
“I think so. Unless they had come out very quietly on purpose.”
“Would you call Mark a hasty-tempered man?”
Cayley considered this carefully before answering.
“Hasty-tempered, yes,” he said. “But not violent-tempered.”
“Was he fairly athletic? Active and quick?”
“Active and quick, yes. Not particularly strong.”
“Yes.... One question more. Was Mark in the habit of carrying any
considerable sum of money about with him?”
“Yes. He always had one £100 note on him, and perhaps ten or twenty
pounds as well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cayley.”
Cayley went back heavily to his seat. “Damn it,” said Antony to
himself, “why do I like the fellow?”
“Antony Gillingham!”
Again the eager interest of the room could be felt. Who was this
stranger who had got mixed up in the business so mysteriously?
Antony smiled at Bill and stepped up to give his evidence.
He explained how he came to be staying at ‘The George’ at Woodham, how
he had heard that the Red House was in the neighbourhood, how he had
walked over to see his friend Beverley, and had arrived just after the
tragedy. Thinking it over afterwards he was fairly certain that he had
heard the shot, but it had not made any impression on him at the time.
He had come to the house from the Woodham end and consequently had seen
nothing of Robert Ablett, who had been a few minutes in front of him.
From this point his evidence coincided with Cayley’s.
“You and the last witness reached the French windows together and found
them shut?”
“Yes.”
“You pushed them in and came to the body. Of course you had no idea
whose body it was?”
“No.”
“Did Mr. Cayley say anything?”
“He turned the body over, just so as to see the face, and when he saw
it, he said, ‘Thank God.’”
Again the reporters wrote “_Sensation_.”
“Did you understand what he meant by that?”
“I asked him who it was, and he said that it was Robert Ablett. Then he
explained that he was afraid at first it was the cousin with whom he
lived—Mark.”
“Yes. Did he seem upset?”
“Very much so at first. Less when he found that it wasn’t Mark.”
There was a sudden snigger from a nervous gentleman in the crowd at the
back of the room, and the Coroner put on his glasses and stared sternly
in the direction from which it came. The nervous gentleman hastily
decided that the time had come to do up his bootlace. The Coroner put
down his glasses and continued.
“Did anybody come out of the house while you were coming up the drive?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gillingham.”
He was followed by Inspector Birch. The Inspector, realizing that this
was his afternoon, and that the eyes of the world were upon him,
produced a plan of the house and explained the situation of the
different rooms. The plan was then handed to the jury.
Inspector Birch, so he told the world, had arrived at the Red House at
4.42 p.m. on the afternoon in question. He had been received by Mr.
Matthew Cayley, who had made a short statement to him, and he had then
proceeded to examine the scene of the crime. The French windows had
been forced from outside. The door leading into the hall was locked; he
had searched the room thoroughly and had found no trace of a key. In
the bedroom leading out of the office he had found an open window.
There were no marks on the window, but it was a low one, and, as he
found from experiment, quite easy to step out of without touching it
with the boots. A few yards outside the window a shrubbery began. There
were no recent footmarks outside the window, but the ground was in a
very hard condition owing to the absence of rain. In the shrubbery,
however, he found several twigs on the ground, recently broken off,
together with other evidence that some body had been forcing its way
through. He had questioned everybody connected with the estate, and
none of them had been into the shrubbery recently. By forcing a way
through the shrubbery it was possible for a person to make a detour of
the house and get to the Stanton end of the park without ever being in
sight of the house itself.
He had made inquiries about the deceased. Deceased had left for
Australia some fifteen years ago, owing to some financial trouble at
home. Deceased was not well spoken of in the village from which he and
his brother had come. Deceased and his brother had never been on good
terms, and the fact that Mark Ablett had come into money had been a
cause of great bitterness between them. It was shortly after this that
Robert had left for Australia.
He had made inquiries at Stanton station. It had been market-day at
Stanton and the station had been more full of arrivals than usual.
Nobody had particularly noticed the arrival of Robert Ablett; there had
been a good many passengers by the 2.10 train that afternoon, the train
by which Robert had undoubtedly come from London. A witness, however,
would state that he noticed a man resembling Mark Ablett at the station
at 3.53 p.m. that afternoon, and this man caught the 3.55 up train to
town.
There was a pond in the grounds of the Red House. He had dragged this,
but without result....
Antony listened to him carelessly, thinking his own thoughts all the
time. Medical evidence followed, but there was nothing to be got from
that. He felt so close to the truth; at any moment something might give
his brain the one little hint which it wanted. Inspector Birch was just
pursuing the ordinary. Whatever else this case was, it was not
ordinary. There was something uncanny about it.
John Borden was giving evidence. He was on the up platform seeing a
friend off by the 3.55 on Tuesday afternoon. He had noticed a man on
the platform with coat collar turned up and a scarf round his chin. He
had wondered why the man should do this on such a hot day. The man
seemed to be trying to escape observation. Directly the train came in,
he hurried into a carriage. And so on.
“There’s always a John Borden at every murder case,” said Antony to
himself.
“Have you ever seen Mark Ablett?”
“Once or twice, sir.”
“Was it he?”
“I never really got a good look at him, sir, what with his collar
turned up and the scarf and all. But directly I heard of the sad
affair, and that Mr. Ablett was missing, I said to Mrs. Borden, ‘Now I
wonder if that was Mr. Ablett I saw at the station?’ So then we talked
it over and decided that I ought to come and tell Inspector Birch. It
was just Mr. Ablett’s height, sir.”
Antony went on with his thoughts....
The Coroner was summing up. The jury, he said, had now heard all the
evidence and would have to decide what had happened in that room
between the two brothers. How had the deceased met his death? The
medical evidence would probably satisfy them that Robert Ablett had
died from the effects of a bullet-wound in the head. Who had fired that
bullet? If Robert Ablett had fired it himself, no doubt they would
bring in a verdict of suicide, but if this had been so, where was the
revolver which had fired it, and what had become of Mark Ablett? If
they disbelieved in this possibility of suicide, what remained?
Accidental death, justifiable homicide, and murder. Could the deceased
have been killed accidentally? It was possible, but then would Mark
Ablett have run away? The evidence that he had run away from the scene
of the crime was strong. His cousin had seen him go into the room, the
servant Elsie Wood had heard him quarrelling with his brother in the
room, the door had been locked from the inside, and there were signs
that outside the open window some one had pushed his way very recently
through the shrubbery. Who, if not Mark? They would have then to
consider whether he would have run away if he had been guiltless of his
brother’s death. No doubt innocent people lost their heads sometimes.
It was possible that if it were proved afterwards that Mark Ablett had
shot his brother, it might also be proved that he was justified in so
doing, and that when he ran away from his brother’s corpse he had
really nothing to fear at the hands of the Law. In this connection he
need hardly remind the jury that they were not the final tribunal, and
that if they found Mark Ablett guilty of murder it would not prejudice
his trial in any way if and when he was apprehended.... The jury could
consider their verdict.
They considered it. They announced that the deceased had died as the
result of a bullet-wound, and that the bullet had been fired by his
brother Mark Ablett.
Bill turned round to Antony at his side. But Antony was gone. Across
the room he saw Andrew Amos and Parsons going out of the door together,
and Antony was between them.
CHAPTER XX.
Mr. Beverley is Tactful
The inquest had been held at the “Lamb” at Stanton; at Stanton Robert
Ablett was to be buried next day. Bill waited about outside for his
friend, wondering where he had gone. Then, realizing that Cayley would
be coming out to his car directly, and that a farewell talk with Cayley
would be a little embarrassing, he wandered round to the yard at the
back of the inn, lit a cigarette, and stood surveying a torn and
weather-beaten poster on the stable wall. “GRAND THEATRICAL ENTER” it
announced, to take place on “Wednesday, Decem.” Bill smiled to himself
as he looked at it, for the part of Joe, a loquacious postman, had been
played by “William B. Beverl,” as the remnants of the poster still
maintained, and he had been much less loquacious than the author had
intended, having forgotten his words completely, but it had all been
great fun. And then he stopped smiling, for there would be no more fun
now at the Red House.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said the voice of Antony behind him. “My
old friends Amos and Parsons insisted on giving me a drink.”
He slipped his hand into the crook of Bill’s arm, and smiled happily at
him.
“Why were you so keen about them?” asked Bill a little resentfully. “I
couldn’t think where on earth you had got to.”
Antony didn’t say anything. He was staring at the poster.
“When did this happen?” he asked.
“What?”