The Red House Mystery
was to discover for himself directly, into a passage from which opened
two more rooms. Cayley stepped into the passage, and opened the door on
the right. The door from the office, through which he had gone,
remained open. The door, at the end of the short passage was shut.
Antony, kneeling by the body, followed Cayley with his eyes, and, after
he had disappeared, kept his eyes on the blank wall of the passage, but
he was not conscious of that at which he was looking, for his mind was
with the other man, sympathizing with him.
“Not that water is any use to a dead body,” he said to himself, “but
the feeling that you’re doing something, when there’s obviously nothing
to be done, is a great comfort.”
Cayley came into the room again. He had a sponge in one hand, a
handkerchief in the other. He looked at Antony. Antony nodded. Cayley
murmured something, and knelt down to bathe the dead man’s face. Then
he placed the handkerchief over it. A little sigh escaped Antony, a
sigh of relief.
They stood up and looked at each other.
“If I can be of any help to you,” said Antony, “please let me.”
“That’s very kind of you. There will be things to do. Police, doctors—I
don’t know. But you mustn’t let me trespass on your kindness. Indeed, I
should apologise for having trespassed so much already.”
“I came to see Beverley. He is an old friend of mine.”
“He’s out playing golf. He will be back directly.” Then, as if he had
only just realized it, “They will all be back directly.”
“I will stay if I can be of any help.”
“Please do. You see, there are women. It will be rather painful. If you
would—” He hesitated, and gave Antony a timid little smile, pathetic in
so big and self-reliant a man. “Just your moral support, you know. It
would be something.”
“Of course.” Antony smiled back at him, and said cheerfully, “Well,
then, I’ll begin by suggesting that you should ring up the police.”
“The police? Y-yes.” He looked doubtfully at the other. “I suppose—”
Antony spoke frankly.
“Now, look here, Mr.—er—”
“Cayley. I’m Mark Ablett’s cousin. I live with him.”
“My name’s Gillingham. I’m sorry, I ought to have told you before. Well
now, Mr. Cayley, we shan’t do any good by pretending. Here’s a man been
shot—well, somebody shot him.”
“He might have shot himself,” mumbled Cayley.
“Yes, he might have, but he didn’t. Or if he did, somebody was in the
room at the time, and that somebody isn’t here now. And that somebody
took a revolver away with him. Well, the police will want to say a word
about that, won’t they?”
Cayley was silent, looking on the ground.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, and believe me I do sympathize with
you, but we can’t be children about it. If your cousin Mark Ablett was
in the room with this”—he indicated the body—“this man, then—”
“Who said he was?” said Cayley, jerking his head up suddenly at Antony.
“You did.”
“I was in the library. Mark went in—he may have come out again—I know
nothing. Somebody else may have gone in—”
“Yes, yes,” said Antony patiently, as if to a little child. “You know
your cousin; I don’t. Let’s agree that he had nothing to do with it.
But somebody was in the room when this man was shot, and—well, the
police will have to know. Don’t you think—” He looked at the telephone.
“Or would you rather I did it?”
Cayley shrugged his shoulders and went to the telephone.
“May I—er—look round a bit?” Antony nodded towards the open door.
“Oh, do. Yes.” He sat down and drew the telephone towards him. “You
must make allowances for me, Mr. Gillingham. You see, I’ve known Mark
for a very long time. But, of course, you’re quite right, and I’m
merely being stupid.” He took off the receiver.
Let us suppose that, for the purpose of making a first acquaintance
with this “office,” we are coming into it from the hall, through the
door which is now locked, but which, for our special convenience, has
been magically unlocked for us. As we stand just inside the door, the
length of the room runs right and left; or, more accurately, to the
right only, for the left-hand wall is almost within our reach.
Immediately opposite to us, across the breadth of the room (some
fifteen feet), is that other door, by which Cayley went out and
returned a few minutes ago. In the right-hand wall, thirty feet away
from us, are the French windows. Crossing the room and going out by the
opposite door, we come into a passage, from which two rooms lead. The
one on the right, into which Cayley went, is less than half the length
of the office, a small, square room, which has evidently been used some
time or other as a bedroom. The bed is no longer there, but there is a
basin, with hot and cold taps, in a corner; chairs; a cupboard or two,
and a chest of drawers. The window faces the same way as the French
windows in the next room; but anybody looking out of the bedroom window
has his view on the immediate right shut off by the outer wall of the
office, which projects, by reason of its greater length, fifteen feet
further into the lawn.
The room on the other side of the bedroom is a bathroom. The three
rooms together, in fact, form a sort of private suite; used, perhaps,
during the occupation of the previous owner, by some invalid, who could
not manage the stairs, but allowed by Mark to fall into disuse, save
for the living-room. At any rate, he never slept downstairs.
Antony glanced at the bathroom, and then wandered into the bedroom, the
room into which Cayley had been. The window was open, and he looked out
at the well-kept grass beneath him, and the peaceful stretch of park
beyond; and he felt very sorry for the owner of it all, who was now
mixed up in so grim a business.
“Cayley thinks he did it,” said Antony to himself. “That’s obvious. It
explains why he wasted so much time banging on the door. Why should he
try to break a lock when it’s so much easier to break a window? Of
course he might just have lost his head; on the other hand, he
might—well, he might have wanted to give his cousin a chance of getting
away. The same about the police, and—oh, lots of things. Why, for
instance, did we run all the way round the house in order to get to the
windows? Surely there’s a back way out through the hall. I must have a
look later on.”
Antony, it will be observed, had by no means lost _his_ head.
There was a step in the passage outside, and he turned round, to see
Cayley in the doorway. He remained looking at him for a moment, asking
himself a question. It was rather a curious question. He was asking
himself why the door was open.
Well, not exactly why the door was open; that could be explained easily
enough. But why had he expected the door to be shut? He did not
remember shutting it, but somehow he was surprised to see it open now,
to see Cayley through the doorway, just coming into the room. Something
working sub-consciously in his brain had told him that it was
surprising. Why?
He tucked the matter away in a corner of his mind for the moment; the
answer would come to him later on. He had a wonderfully retentive mind.
Everything which he saw or heard seemed to make its corresponding
impression somewhere in his brain; often without his being conscious of
it; and these photographic impressions were always there ready for him
when he wished to develop them.
Cayley joined him at the window.
“I’ve telephoned,” he said. “They’re sending an inspector or some one
from Middleston, and the local police and doctor from Stanton.” He
shrugged his shoulders. “We’re in for it now.”
“How far away is Middleston?” It was the town for which Antony had
taken a ticket that morning—only six hours ago. How absurd it seemed.
“About twenty miles. These people will be coming back soon.”
“Beverley, and the others?”
“Yes. I expect they’ll want to go away at once.”
“Much better that they should.”
“Yes.” Cayley was silent for a little. Then he said, “You’re staying
near here?”
“I’m at ‘The George,’ at Woodham.”
“If you’re by yourself, I wish you’d put up here. You see,” he went on
awkwardly, “you’ll have to _be_ here—for the—the inquest and—and so on.
If I may offer you my cousin’s hospitality in his—I mean if he
doesn’t—if he really has—”
Antony broke in hastily with his thanks and acceptance.
“That’s good. Perhaps Beverley will stay on, if he’s a friend of yours.
He’s a good fellow.”
Antony felt quite sure, from what Cayley had said and had hesitated to
say, that Mark had been the last to see his brother alive. It didn’t
follow that Mark Ablett was a murderer. Revolvers go off accidentally;
and when they have gone off, people lose their heads and run away,
fearing that their story will not be believed. Nevertheless, when
people run away, whether innocently or guiltily, one can’t help
wondering which way they went.
“I suppose this way,” said Antony aloud, looking out of the window.
“Who?” said Cayley stubbornly.
“Well, whoever it was,” said Antony, smiling to himself. “The murderer.
Or, let us say, the man who locked the door after Robert Ablett was
killed.”
“I wonder.”
“Well, how else could he have got away? He didn’t go by the windows in
the next room, because they were shut.”
“Isn’t that rather odd?”
“Well, I thought so at first, but—” He pointed to the wall jutting out
on the right. “You see, you’re protected from the rest of the house if
you get out here, and you’re quite close to the shrubbery. If you go
out at the French windows, I imagine you’re much more visible. All that
part of the house—” he waved his right hand—“the west, well, north-west
almost, where the kitchen parts are—you see, you’re hidden from them
here. Oh, yes! he knew the house, whoever it was, and he was quite
right to come out of this window. He’d be into the shrubbery at once.”
Cayley looked at him thoughtfully.
“It seems to me, Mr. Gillingham, that _you_ know the house pretty well,
considering that this is the first time you’ve been to it.”
Antony laughed.
“Oh, well, I notice things, you know. I was born noticing. But I’m
right, aren’t I, about why he went out this way?”
“Yes, I think you are.” Cayley looked away—towards the shrubbery. “Do
you want to go noticing in _there_ now?” He nodded at it.
“I think we might leave that to the police,” said Antony gently.
“It’s—well, there’s no hurry.”
Cayley gave a little sigh, as if he had been holding his breath for the
answer, and could now breathe again.
“Thank you, Mr. Gillingham,” he said.
CHAPTER IV.
The Brother from Australia
Guests at the Red House were allowed to do what they liked within
reason—the reasonableness or otherwise of it being decided by Mark. But
when once they (or Mark) had made up their minds as to what they wanted
to do, the plan had to be kept. Mrs. Calladine, who knew this little
weakness of their host’s, resisted, therefore, the suggestion of Bill
that they should have a second round in the afternoon, and drive home
comfortably after tea. The other golfers were willing enough, but Mrs.
Calladine, without actually saying that Mr. Ablett wouldn’t like it,
was firm on the point that, having arranged to be back by four, they
should be back by four.
“I really don’t think Mark wants us, you know,” said the Major. Having
played badly in the morning, he wanted to prove to himself in the
afternoon that he was really better than that. “With this brother of
his coming, he’ll be only too glad to have us out of the way.”
“Of course he will, Major.” This from Bill. “You’d like to play,
wouldn’t you, Miss Norris?”
Miss Norris looked doubtfully at the hostess.
“Of course, if you want to get back, dear, we mustn’t keep you here.
Besides, it’s so dull for you, not playing.”
“Just nine holes, mother,” pleaded Betty.